Do the Mere Mortals Shrug Also?

I am creeping ever closer to retirement, or is it racing to retirement? There are a number of factors accelerating my rush to the finish line. There is the increase in the amount of work as we increase the number of schools and classrooms and as they get older and need more repair without adding coworkers to keep the load as it was, nor increase wages to even stay consistent. Then there is the ever worsening behavior of both the students, and the faculty and administrators.

But I realized the other day that I was looking at the straw that would break the camel's back. This was the point at which I would shrug my off yoke and quit. I mentioned this to one of the [decent] administrators on Friday thinking of it as just my own observation. He pointed out that my feelings were expressed by others, especially in the lower level employees, bus drivers, and kitchen help. I said that when the medical insurance became public, and the taxes increased I was going to turn it all in. He said that many of the bus drivers and kitchen staff work as little as four hours a day and at very low wages. They work instead for the health insurance since their husbands (these short hour employees being almost exclusively women) did not have insurance at their jobs. They, also, will have no reason to keep on working without that particular benefit. The pitiful mere wages are not enough reason to put up with the job..

That will be stage five of the Kübler-Ross model - better known as the five stages of grief. As it stands now, Democrats are at stage one, denial. Conservatives are at stage two, anger. Politicians are at stage three, bargaining. Me, I am at stage four, depression. Will I ever make it to stage five, acceptance? At that point, there will be no point in going to work just to give the government a bigger share of my life than I get to keep.