Stationary and Retirement

Evidently supplies don’t last very long here. Someone told me to start paying attention to stuff like paper, or toiletries, or pens and pencils, because you will notice that they never put out more than what’s necessary. The reason, people take it and sell it. Now I know why I always felt the need to take pens and pencils from the office, it’s in my blood. But really, they take the stuff because this stuff is a luxury expense outside of the office. It’s sort of like the Robin Hood principle, take from the rich, give to the poor. By the way, I believe that Robin Hood really was from the hood. I always connected with his principles and I think that it is the closest thing that black folks have to a fairy tale.

At dinner the other day with a fairly seasoned Nigerian guy, he dropped a fact I found most interesting. The mandatory age for retirement in Nigeria is 55 years old. He went on to explain that mandatory was more like “mandatory” but that you have strong incentives to getting out by then. Mostly your pension quickly erodes the longer you stay after 55, which was another interesting concept. He explained that you basically have a pot of money that is dealt out to you after retirement, and that the pot is biggest at the age of 55. After that, not only does the pot shrink, but whatever you make as salary comes out of that pot. The idea is, the money is there to support you when you are not working, not when you are employed. So were they discouraging people from working? No, the reason was quite simple. There are a lot of young, highly educated people in Nigeria who are waiting in the wings for that good job to open up. The government realizes this and incentives the older folks to leave so that the new generation can have their chance. What seemed backwards at first ended up making sense after all.