A little advice, people? [Pensions]

So I have the contract and the paperwork from the university, at which (for those not playing along) I have a few hours' employment this semester. And I do mean a few.

One of the changes since last I did this, apparently part-time hourly-paid teachers now qualify for the pension scheme. And have to opt out, or will be opted in.

Do I want to opt out?

Technically, I have just these few hours, just this semester. That may be it. On the other hand, they may come back to me next semester, and the one after, and... If I did this for ten years, I might accumulate enough hours to qualify for an actual pension. Which would be minimal, but still.

Or if I just did it for a couple of years, I could shift any accumulated pot into my equally-minimal personal pension, maybe. I dunno how that works, if it works.

Or I could just opt out, and not pay 6% of my earnings.

This is of course the first time I've been confronted by a pension scheme with employer contributions, and I Do Not Know What To Do.

Halp?

Time for another question, then

Is co-conspirator purely tautological, or does it actually mean something identifiably different from conspirator?

(Oh, and a related happy fact, just as a reminder, as it came up in the pub t'other day: when a species' generic name is the same as its specific - rattus rattus, eg* - that's called a tautonym. I learned that from LJ.)

*Barry Basilica doesn't actually count. Even if he is starting to resemble one.

One cat. For sale. No, free. Free to good home...

...Actually, you don't even have to be that good to him. I wash my hands of the little beast.

I came home to find that, in order to avail himself of crumpets, Mac had pushed the entire bread-crock off the table. (The bread-crock, I should note, is large and heavy earthenware. He's a slim cat. It will have taken effort.)

In a moment of blessed irony, it landed on a cat-bed, so didn't break. But even so. I am entirely fed-up. And crumpetless.

And yes, since you ask: I do reject any notion of Barry as co-conspirator* in this. Making things fall from a height in order to break them open is Mac's trick entirely. He was probably a lammergeier in a previous life. Or perhaps he has ambitions for the next. Which he may come to, sooner than he expects...

*Oh, and? In my previous, I meant in usages like The co-conspirators stood together in the dock, which I have seen often enough recently that I nearly used it myself this morning. Whereas I think The conspirators stood together covers the situation perfectly well, or should do.