'I've been expecting to retire for years,' said Old Father Time today. 'But the government keeps putting the retirement age back, making my retirement looking less and less likely.' Old Father Time insists enough 'stamps' have been paid', but doesn't seem likely to be able to hang the scythe up anytime soon.
'To be honest it looked grim with the Y2K bug period, when my contract looked likely to be reset to 1900 - a hundred years' work down the drain - but this constant creep on retirement age is simply unfair, especially as there has been little to no consultation,' Old Father Time said.
A government spokesman pointed out that Old Father Time has a particular skillset in short supply, showing the old year out and ushering in the new. 'It would take a generation to train a new Old Father Time. We don't even know what a generation looks like with OFT,' he said, using the acronym that has been bandied about Whitehall for years.
'And the claim to have paid into the system is moot - OFT works one, arguably two days a year, short days at that. Technically the job's part of the gig economy, so almost certainly hasn't got enough qualifying years on record depending one when you start counting - alleged birth of a foreign national approximately two thousand years ago, a Biblical counting of five to six thousand years. If you're taking the whole of human existence as being three hundred thousand then even at one day a year, I guess OFT might have a point,' conceded the spokesman.
Another government spokesman blamed the complications around 'alleged DEI hires', agreeing they were protected under the Equalities Act but concerned if a replacement was disabled, female or not exactly white then a future Reform government might fire the replacement OFT, leaving the change of year process hanging on a thread. 'Reform haven't got a good track record of thinking these things through,' the spokesman noted.
'What do you mean "disabled, female or not exactly white"'? asked Old Father Time, shaking her afro hair in disbelief, using the scythe as a crutch. 'Is it because they've traditionally used a misogynistic title? At least nobody mentioned ageism,' she said.
