The responses to my retirement post are a real eye opener.

[Farmer-Rick]

58. When I got out of the military after 20+ years,

I was shocked to see that civilian jobs were so much like the military.

In the military you know you are available 24/7. It's the nature of the job. War and conflicts can come up at any time. So, you were kind of on call all the time.

But you got paid for it for the most part. You got great retirement benefits, 100% medical coverage even after retiring, and for your family. Plus there were housing allowances, isolation pay, hazardous pay and uniform allowances, 30 day paid leave, that all added to your paycheck. You also got medals and awards for doing a good job in a difficult situation. And they still fed you and housed you when you went on deployment.

But civilian jobs for the most part provided none of these things except for some lousy medical plans. But the bosses still acted as if they owned you 24/7. They give you a boring job with bad pay and no benefits and expect you to come in all hours with no pay increases or bonuses to cover your costs.

They make you travel with little or no reimbursement. And claim your not a team player when you refuse to work off the clock.

They constantly worked at lowering your pay and seemed more interested in bullying you then in getting the job done.

I had three jobs after getting out of the military. But they were so horrible, I quit and went into farming the property I had just boughten.

I just don't understand why anyone puts up with the crap from civilian bosses. It's not like they are in the military. No one will die and a ship won't sink if you take 2 hours instead of 1 to finish the report.

The civilian jobs out there are awful. Years ago, when I first came to DU, someone told me there was no such thing as a crappy job. That you are lucky to have a job and get paid at all. Let me tell you, all you have now a days is crappy jobs.

If you can, work for yourself, join a workers co-op or start a union. That's the only way to survive this capitalist hell.