I was lucky - I have a wife with a rock-solid job, she was only too happy to return to it full time, and even though I personally took a roughly 50% income cut it was more than absorbed by her increased salary, me paying significantly less tax (one of the few things I can thank the Liberal Democrats for) and no longer having to pay out four-figure annual sums apiece for commuting and childcare. So it evened out more or less perfectly.david hare wrote:I am afraid I come from an age group, and culture that expected reliability in the workplace and some semblance of a social/democrat conscience free of the prevailing neocon capitalist opportunistic tyranny of slavery. In other words I simply don't understand how and why people lose jobs, and indeed jobs themselves disappear. In fact I loathe the modern world. What a time to be naturally paranoid. (And a depressive!)
But I'm glad I had the opportunity to volunteer - based on precedent, I anticipated a voluntary redundancy offer as soon as the Tory-led coalition got elected in May 2010, so we had several months to work out financial and other logistics before having to take the plunge, which is a luxury that most people being made redundant don't get. In fact, with regard to what you said earlier, I'd argue that 30 and 40somethings have a harder time than younger people in these situations, as they're more likely to have kids and a mortgage.
Anyway, back to Billy Wilder...
