Men at Work

Unemployment is a great concern these days, and for the older man a career is a precarious thing.  Gone are the days of the gold watch and the retirement speech, but few things hold a man so firmly to terra firma as a job.

The manopause male has, however, seen his share of dirt and has some clearly defined notions of what work is and what it means.  In essence, he's convinced that work is not his means, but a means to other ends.

One of my friends, a guy who has enjoyed a long career as an accountant and who has balanced his share of funds in both corporate and personal accounts, at last came to the resolution after thirty years of labor that he could find fulfilment in just about any work . . . so long as he could work long enough or hard enough to provide for his wife and children (who are now, by the way, independent and vacated of the house).  They way he sees it, he could dig ditches and make a go of it as long as his back held out.

I feel much the same.

Fortunately I've worked enough of a variety of jobs and settings early in life to know that I'm as much at home with a chain saw as I am a sermon; I could clean bathrooms and floors, I could paint houses, I could mow yards or work in stockrooms or cook donuts in a tepid back room of a greasy-spoon diner and find enough fulfilment in the paycheck and in coming home to write stories and smooch the wife. Life is in the perspective and in the satisfaction of a job well-done.  Pay is nice (and who doesn't appreciate it?), but old men have the advantage of knowing that life is a vanity.

When a man comes to this realization he's either in his prime or past it.  He might even decide that he doesn't have a life and should have a little fun before he packs his bags for the last time.

There is, of course, much work to be done.  And the guy in full-blown manopause doesn't have enough time to do it all.  Working for his wife is enough.  She is, after all, his real boss.