Going going gong

Good news exchequerside! The most financially savvy of my friends-and-relations sent a message from the UK to every Irish Government employee whom she knew: "Irish Corporation Tax unexpectedly bouyant. If your employer is soaking Megaorp to the tune of €10 billion, then you guys should expect a pay hike".

That was timely because a couple of days earlier I went back to work after the Christmas break and was asked if it was true that I intended to retire at the end of the academic year. The questioner has many more years of service under his belt if not quite so many calendar years and he was also on the last stretch. "I'll be jacking it in on the 2nd October, so I will", he said. It was such a peculiar date that I mis-heard him to say 32nd September which in itself was a bit odd because the academic year hereabouts starts at the beginning of September not the end. In the IT sector we get these head-wrecking Summer holidays between the end of exams in early June and 31st August so most retirees take the government shilling for July and August and then stop working to start their Lunch in Longford free travel years.

I would have done the same but we are promised an end of austerity increment of 2% from the 1st October 2020. That will affect the lump-sum (based on your final salary) and the ongoing pension entitlements to the tune of hundreds of €€€ a year, so who wouldn't work for a month? I'll have some of that too and I've informed the correct people of my  intentions. Nobody except me seems to care that this action / choice is really disruptive for the students; and the incoming teachers who are going to replace this year's crop of silver-backs. It's hard enough starting a new teaching job even if you have a few weeks to prepare your script for each class and find out how the photocopier works. If you have to start halfway through the term picking up where some dithery old chap (who doesn't believe in powerpoint) left off then it's unnecessarily difficult.  Of course The Management could see this as an opportunity not a threat and have a month of overlap between the old and the new incumbent. That that isn't going to happen because it would cost money.