Retirement
Forty years is a long time to commit to anything. Most people spend more waking hours at work than they do anywhere else and when that finally comes to an end you deserve better than a card and some chocolates from the office jar. We built Redemption because retirement feels like one of those occasions that sound easy to shop for but actually aren’t. Far too many gifts aimed at retirement are impersonal jokes or quietly patronising.
Is that what decades of someone’s life adds up to? Sliding backwards into retirement like some parody of your parents on the televison? We don’t think so. The people we’re buying for over here have earned something that’s actually worthwhile. Something that considers who they are.
Not a novelty mug that says ‘world’s best grandpa catch ya fishing’. Not an engraved clock that’s been fed through some machine by someone who’s engraved a thousand others that week.
If you know us well you’ll know we’re quite enthusiastic about gifts. So when we started looking for retirement gifts it was with that same mentality. What we wanted were gifts that respected the occasion without taking themselves too seriously. Things that celebrate what’s been and give the next chapter a gentle push to begin.
We also considered who retirement is for these days, because it’s not just one specific demographic. It’s the person spending their mornings curled up in bed with fresh newspapers and coffee. It’s the person itching to tick countries off a list. And it’s the person who’s going to spend what seems like years quietly asking ‘is it Friday yet?’.
Across all of those people we tried to curate gifts that would feel as thoughtfully chosen as possible. Everything here we picked ourselves. If we wondered ‘would they open this and think “wow, someone understands”’ and the answer was no then it didn’t make the cut. We didn’t want you scrolling through page after page of ultimately forgettable products.
We also considered friends and families. Because letting someone know you’ve put some thought into the end of their working lives is just as important at home as it is in the office. But family probably aren’t whipping out their phones and browsing Amazon at their loved-ones farewell party. So we also tried to think about gifts that work whether you’re a company pulling together a group gift or someone who desperately wants to get it right on a budget.
When it comes to retirement someone’s spent 40 years earning the gift they’re about to receive. Let’s make it something worth opening.