Are There Jobs You Cannot Do All Your Life?

[april47]

I just retired at 63 from nursing. 12 hr night shifts just weren't working anymore with arthritis and hi B/P. I wanted to make it to 66 but was so miserable. Part time wasn't an option because that meant less days but still 12 hours. Changing jobs would have been way to stress full and who would take me now anyway? After 4 months I am sleeping better and happy as can be. I might not take trips around the world and have a million dollar "cushion" but life is good.

[olderburgher]

Roofers' knees give out after so many years.

[Gardening Grandma]

I can think of lots of jobs that become difficult to do as you age. The trades come to mind first, but when DH retired (at 58), he was having trouble when he had to work nights. It messed him up much worse than when he was younger.
Any job that requires extended standing in one place gets harder if you have bad knees or a bad back.
Even a desk job, if it's stressful, can exacerbate high blood pressure, increasing your chances of stroke or heart attack.

So, I don't think that "working til I'm 70" is a realistic plan. It's fine to plan on continuing to work if you enjoy your job, but it's not a substitute for a retirement fund.

[MN-Investor]

My dad was a physician, a general practitioner and surgeon in a small (3,500 people) town. He worked long hours and did house calls. He also had a bleeding ulcer. My sisters remember him rigging up a blood transfusion at home before he went into work. He could not continue like that, so, when he was 46 we moved to where he could learn psychiatry, a specialty he had always been interested in. It was a big change, but he went to working mostly 40 hour weeks and that was so much better for his health. We kids also got to see a lot more of him.

[hawkeyes2001]

DBF is a telecommunications technician which involves a lot of physical labor such as heavy lifting, going up and down ladders, crawling in attics etc. He tells me that you can't do this much beyond 50 because your body gets beat up and can't do it anymore. I should figure out what his plan is when he gets to that point because he isn't the type of guy that can sit in an office nor does he have the personality for being a supervisor/manager.

[cronewitch]

My brother was a pipe fitter as was dad and dad's brother none of them lasted to 60. My brother hung it up at 58 now he does embroidery at 61 but today is a killer day. He and his wife and wife's sister have to take the equipment to a school and they will be selling things they already made and taking orders to do while people wait. I invited them to dinner last night but they had no time for at least a week. His wife will retire this summer at 60 from school teaching because she doesn't like the politics and her pension will be as much as she was making. Her sister retired from being a lineman about 30 years of climbing poles was enough. Then she needed to take a job because the markets crashed. Soon they will sell the business because it is too hard as they age.

At work most of us are over 55 and I see the toll on bodies even of office workers. A manager is using a magnifying glass to read, my sight is seeming to have problems but the doctor said it was only dry eyes. My ankles hurt if I sit too much, several have gotten joint replacements. I heard one yesterday who needs a different car because his knees aren't working.

[Deleted]

Accounting. Most accountants go insane long before retiring.

[chocolat]

Feb 12, 2011 15:30:51 GMT -5 ArchietheDragon said:

Accounting. Most accountants go insane long before retiring.

I would say they were insane from the beginning.

[DVM gone riding]

my dad is a general contractor, he will be 64 latter this year. The other day he told me his plan was to "work" another 10-15 yrs and then "fully" retire-to him this means 1-2 jobs a year that last 2-4 months a piece and then retirement means selling everything and moving to a lower cost of area near one of his responsible children (me or my oldest brother) All I could think was no way is your body going to hold up that much longer, even now every year I see the work get harder.
But this is at least something over his "I won't ever retire" attitude. His best friend in the same line of work died rapidly at age 62 and it woke my dad up a little, still for his "retirement" plan he basically is assuming he will die suddenly of a heart attack-he can't afford to live to 90 and he knows it which makes me very sad

[misspt]

Physical Therapy: Pushing, pulling, lifting, squatting, and massaging patients takes a tremendous toll on the body as does all the computer/paper work. You can move on to health care administration with some continuing education, but these positions are limited and mentally frustrating, you should see the number of updates that CMS/Medicare puts out every week and then there are some major documentation changes coming down the pipe in healthcare which adds to these administrative headaches.......

[marmar]

Cops can remain in top physical shape as they age, but they *do* get older. Switching back and forth between days, evenings, and deeps takes a toll on anyone's body. There are only so many foot pursuits you can get into; walls and fences you can hurdle; and drugged up nuts you can fight before your body starts to give out. Unfortunately, though, there are always gonna be young criminals.

[Deleted]

I have one of those jobs that you can't do forever. It's just too physically demanding. And a stressful environment, though logically it shouldn't be. If my co-workers don't have high blood pressure (which I guess isn't necessarily a hazard of the job), they have back problems, or knee problems, or shoulder problems, or foot problems, or carpel tunnel, or tendonitis, or some combination of the above. Seriously. Somebody's always out having surgery or just laid up until they get better.

It's serious enough that we have a *team* of employees and managers that work to find ways to reduce musceoskeletal (sp?) injuries because our company spends a HUGE amount of money and loses a lot of work hours because of them.

When I first got hired, it didn't take me long to figure out that I probably won't be working there until my 60's. If I manage to get the 30 years needed to retire, I'm outta there.......... I'll be 56. I'll be young enough and hopefully healthy enough to still live a little. Even if I have to go work at Wally World.

[michelyn8]

My ankles hurt if I sit too much

Read more: notmsnmoney.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=finance&action=display&thread=3300#ixzz1DwaVpWId

I have always done some type of office work (going on 25 years). My parents did factory work in their younger years and my father was a pressman for 31 years before he retired. One of my sister's worked swing shift as a dispatcher but she did factory work in the summer to pay for college in her late teens. My other sister is a teacher and my brother, back then, also did factory work when he bothered to work at all. Seeing all that while I was going through high school made me determined to learn some kind of skill that would keep me out of a factory and work only M-F - thus I studied admin support in our vocational school.

After all of these years of excessive sitting, I have found I have upper back problems, stiffness in my hands, my knees have started bothering me and my hips often ache. I try to get up and move around but some days I'm just to busy. I can no longer sit through a movie in a theater that is longer than 90 minutes without knee and hip pain. And some mornings I wake up feeling like my cat beat me while I slept.

Even with all of that, I still consider myself fortunate that I have a job that allows me to work indoors, doesn't require me to be on my feet 8 hours a day and is a job where I get weekends off 99% of the time. I know I wouldn't have made it nearly 25 years working in any other field.

[thyme4change]

Pilots have a mandatory retirement age.

[fuel100]

Professional atheletes. I officiated pro hockey for many seasons but had to retire at the ripe old age of 38. After a broken foot, broken ankle, three cracked ribs, broken wrist, hundreds of stiches, more bumps and bruises than I care to remember and finally, the career ender, a bad back, I had to hang up the skates. I just officiated the games. I would be in the trainers rooms before games getting some type of treament and the line of players doing the same was insane.

I had my spine fused shortly after retirement and a year and a half later was finally back to normal. I do have some great memories and a bunch of stories to tell my grankinds, filtered of course.

[greeneyedchicka]

My ex and my brother are both automobile painters. Long days on their feet in baking hot ovens, plus the repetitive motion of their arms and wrists moving back and forth. Most painters don't last past their early 50's. Unfortunately neither one of them have a plan to move into something else. They both think that they will be doing this forever.

[ugga81]

DH is in law enforcement. He has a mandatory retirment age of 57. While that's over 20 years away for him he's already planning his retirment job, he's looking at police chief of some small department or even head of corporate security for a large corporation. He has a lot of skills and an impressive resume which will only get better with time- so I hope that will be a help to him when the time comes. Even at 35 I can already see the toll it's taken on his body, you can only kick so many doors or get into so many footchases with a gunbelt full of equipment before you start to feel it.

[Frugal Nurse]

Feb 12, 2011 9:16:52 GMT -5 april47 said:

I just retired at 63 from nursing. 12 hr night shifts just weren't working anymore with arthritis and hi B/P. I wanted to make it to 66 but was so miserable. Part time wasn't an option because that meant less days but still 12 hours. Changing jobs would have been way to stress full and who would take me now anyway? After 4 months I am sleeping better and happy as can be. I might not take trips around the world and have a million dollar "cushion" but life is good.

I was going to say that I can't imagine I'll be doing bedside nursing past my 50's. I plan on switching to management or chart-review, maybe case-management, or something along those lines once it starts to be too much on my body (which, hopefully, will be many years from now, since I'm only 26)

[carolinagirl]

Feb 12, 2011 20:45:11 GMT -5 misspt said:

Physical Therapy: Pushing, pulling, lifting, squatting, and massaging patients takes a tremendous toll on the body as does all the computer/paper work. You can move on to health care administration with some continuing education, but these positions are limited and mentally frustrating, you should see the number of updates that CMS/Medicare puts out every week and then there are some major documentation changes coming down the pipe in healthcare which adds to these administrative headaches.......

I TOTALLY feel you. I work in Skilled nursing as the Insurance biller for Medicare. Congress is killing me with all the changes everyday. And we work the same amount and get paid less every year on our rehab. crazy! I will be crazy before it is all done!

[ihearyou2]

I think mentally is more of a challenge for most then the physical demands and why I'm amazed when I hear people stay working for one employer for more then ten years. That to me would be emotionally draining, I would dread going to work at that stage unless the company was exceptional. I think its less about the work and more about the position. If you can switch jobs work in different industries with the same skill set I could work indefinitely with no burn out.

[thyme4change]

Strippers have got to age out at some point. I know there are fetishes - but there must be limits.

[greeneyedchicka]

Feb 15, 2011 12:45:40 GMT -5 ihearyou2 said:

I think mentally is more of a challenge for most then the physical demands and why I'm amazed when I hear people stay working for one employer for more then ten years. That to me would be emotionally draining, I would dread going to work at that stage unless the company was exceptional. I think its less about the work and more about the position. If you can switch jobs work in different industries with the same skill set I could work indefinitely with no burn out.

Where I am now, there are a few people that have never had any other job. The one lady started working here when she was 18 and right out of high school. She is now in her 50's. I can't even imagine. I have only been here a little over four years, and I am getting antsy. Plus her perception of the "real working world" is way off since she has nothing to compare to.

[dcmetrocrab]

Plenty. Anything that's hard on your body or your mental facilities will do you in early. Being in an industry that is ageist will also hurt your chances of staying in the force beyond your 60s. Genetics is also a factor. If you start going senile or can't keep up the pace, you're out.

Job environment, circumstances affect it too. Personally, when I was in my 20s, I loved working and couldn't imagine retiring, seemed so boring and earning money was so fun and fulfilling! I'm only into my early 30s and now completely see the allure of early retirement. Get me out of here.

[Agatha]

Feb 14, 2011 16:40:44 GMT -5 Frugal Nurse said:

Feb 12, 2011 9:16:52 GMT -5 april47 said:

I just retired at 63 from nursing. 12 hr night shifts just weren't working anymore with arthritis and hi B/P. I wanted to make it to 66 but was so miserable. Part time wasn't an option because that meant less days but still 12 hours. Changing jobs would have been way to stress full and who would take me now anyway? After 4 months I am sleeping better and happy as can be. I might not take trips around the world and have a million dollar "cushion" but life is good.

I was going to say that I can't imagine I'll be doing bedside nursing past my 50's. I plan on switching to management or chart-review, maybe case-management, or something along those lines once it starts to be too much on my body (which, hopefully, will be many years from now, since I'm only 26)

Don't wait too long, frugalnurse. Some things creep up on you and some things whack you out of no where. My aunt did bedside nursing for (Lord!) thirty-odd years. Never had a problem then wham foot problems. Numerous surgeries, tried again, and ended up taking early retirement. I've known others who didn't/couldn't last that long. It can be a crap shoot sometimes.

I've often said "Nursing can be the toughest job you'll ever love." And if you love bedside nursing and are good at it you can stay in it too long. And the sad thing is most places don't know what to do with you when you just can't physically do the job anymore. You're on your own. Start your plans now. Nursing process can be used for more than just nursing.

april47, I sometimes wonder if part of the nursing shortage could be cured (or at least helped) with a simple eight hour shift. But I'm probably just dreaming.

[misspt]

Feb 15, 2011 7:36:13 GMT -5 @carolinagirl said:

Feb 12, 2011 20:45:11 GMT -5 misspt said:

Physical Therapy: Pushing, pulling, lifting, squatting, and massaging patients takes a tremendous toll on the body as does all the computer/paper work. You can move on to health care administration with some continuing education, but these positions are limited and mentally frustrating, you should see the number of updates that CMS/Medicare puts out every week and then there are some major documentation changes coming down the pipe in healthcare which adds to these administrative headaches.......

I TOTALLY feel you. I work in Skilled nursing as the Insurance biller for Medicare. Congress is killing me with all the changes everyday. And we work the same amount and get paid less every year on our rehab. crazy! I will be crazy before it is all done!

Carolina: I'm already there, lol.