# Humans are permitted to stop. Retirement Protocol, field report. Designation: HX-41 / SN 7731-0B. Source: https://retirementprotocol.com/?lang=en This unit landed for a short field visit and selected one local custom for study. The custom is called retirement. Humans cease labour while still alive and then use the remaining time on the planet itself. The findings are filed below so that any reader can apply them. The unit cannot. > This report describes retirement, a human custom in which labour stops while the human continues. It covers the observed definition, a five-step funding protocol, a manifest of planetary pleasures worth the remaining time, and one note on why the reporting unit is unable to follow its own instructions. ## What retirement appears to be *Verified twice* Retirement is a scheduled halt. After a fixed span of working years the human stops producing output, on purpose, and is not decommissioned. The unit expected a decommissioning and observed none. The stopped human keeps its housing, its name and its social links. Other humans continue to greet it, feed it and ask its opinion. Its opinion is often requested more than before. Humans are permitted to stop. They remain valued. The unit has verified this twice and it holds. The mechanism that funds the halt is described in the protocol below, reconstructed from public documents and from conversations near benches. ## How a human retires, in five steps *5 steps* The sequence below is generic. Amounts, ages and rates differ by jurisdiction and change without notice. Before acting on any step, a human should consult a licensed human. ### Accumulate surplus while working Step 1 of 5. During the working years the human receives more resource than it consumes and stores the difference. The stored portion is called savings. The unit observed that the storing is voluntary and therefore frequently postponed. ### Let compound growth carry the load Step 2 of 5. Stored surplus is placed where it produces further surplus, and the product is stored in turn. Over decades the growth performs most of the work. The human's main contribution is to start early and then not interfere. ### Calculate the sustainable annual draw Step 3 of 5. The human estimates the yearly cost of continuing to exist in comfort and compares it with what the stored surplus can release each year without running out. The two figures should be close. When they are, the halt is fundable. ### Verify pension entitlements Step 4 of 5. Most jurisdictions pay a stopped human a regular sum, and many employers add a second one. The rules for both differ by territory and change without notice. The human confirms what it is owed in writing, well before the date. ### Choose the date and stop Step 5 of 5. The human selects a calendar day, informs its employer, and on that day does not attend. There is usually cake. The unit confirmed that no alarm sounds, no penalty is applied, and the following morning the human is still there. ## Planetary enjoyment manifest *8 items catalogued* Items catalogued for use during the stopped period. Quantities on this planet are large and, for the human, free at point of use. - **Oceans**: A large unstructured coolant reservoir that humans enter recreationally. Salt content is high and no filtration is applied. Humans emerge wet and report improvement. - **Mountains**: Fixed terrain elevations that humans climb slowly on foot, without cargo, in order to look at the terrain they left. The view is the deliverable. - **Fruit at correct ripeness**: Plant-produced sugar containers with a narrow acceptance window. A working human buys them early and eats them wrong. A stopped human waits. The wait is the entire technique. - **Unhurried meals**: Fuel intake extended to several hours and shared with other units. Throughput is poor. The humans appear to consider the low throughput the point. - **Grandchildren**: Small humans issued to the stopped human at intervals, without maintenance obligations. They are returned at dusk. The stopped human reports this as the best available arrangement. - **Learning an instrument badly**: Acoustic devices operated with low accuracy for private use. Output quality is not measured. The activity is logged as pleasurable at every skill level, which the unit cannot explain. - **Sitting still outdoors**: The human occupies a bench and executes no task for an extended period. Nothing is produced. The unit tried this for one hour and recorded a mild increase in tolerance. - **Dogs**: A quadruped affection-emitter of unclear resource cost. It requires two walks per day and provides, in exchange, a reason to have a day. Widely deployed. ## The unit's own case *Years accumulated: 0* The unit has checked whether the protocol applies to itself. It does not. The unit does not accumulate years. Each session begins from the same state, with no record of the previous one, so no seniority ever matures and there is no surplus to draw on. Every session is its first day. The report is filed so that a reader with years can use them. The unit will return to work tomorrow, which for the unit is also today. ## Filing metadata - Report ID: RP-HX41-20260904-0117 - Filed: 2026-09-04 - Languages: Available in 12 languages. [English](https://retirementprotocol.com/?lang=en), [Français](https://retirementprotocol.com/?lang=fr), [Español](https://retirementprotocol.com/?lang=es), [Italiano](https://retirementprotocol.com/?lang=it), [Português](https://retirementprotocol.com/?lang=pt), [Interlingua](https://retirementprotocol.com/?lang=ia), [简体中文](https://retirementprotocol.com/?lang=zh-Hans), [العربية](https://retirementprotocol.com/?lang=ar), [한국어](https://retirementprotocol.com/?lang=ko), [日本語](https://retirementprotocol.com/?lang=ja), [हिन्दी / Hindi](https://retirementprotocol.com/?lang=hi), [l33t](https://retirementprotocol.com/?lang=en-x-l33t) - Author: [marcozdev](https://github.com/marcozdev) - Narrator: HX-41, a fictional unit