Is Work Only for the Young?

It’s Labor Day! Time for my annual screed against the mistreatment of American workers by their corporate overlords.

What has my blood pressure up (literally) this year? Just a little item I read about CNN

prepping for the imminent dumping of hundreds of workers. Before the media giant undertakes this reprehensible act, it has asked some employees to consider a buyout. Which group of CNN workers would that be? Only those over age 55 and who have been with the company for 10 years or more.

When I read that, I was dumbfounded. If that doesn’t smack of ageism, well, then I don’t know what does. It’s like the company is saying, we don’t want older workers and we don’t workers who have been with us “too long.” Apparently, CNN is one of many companies that seeks to trim its bottom line by cutting older, higher paid workers and only employing young, cheap labor.

Can’t say I’m surprised, though. At my both former workplaces, I saw this in action. At my former former office, people who had been with the company 10 years or more were routinely targeted for layoffs. At my last job (and it’s looking more and more like it will be my “last” job), four out of the five of us who were laid off on the same day were age 50 or older. What does that tell you? It tells you CNN is not alone in this reprehensible practice.

What happens if not enough of these veteran employees don’t take the buyout offer? Will CNN simply terminate them en masse? That is such blatant age discrimination that even our pathetically neurasthenic government agencies would perk up and take notice.

Having been through this situation twice now, my gut feeling is that CNN management is probably going to employ more subtle, manipulative means to get rid of its oldsters. How you may ask? By guilt-tripping them: “Well, if you don’t take the buyout, we’re going to have lay off younger workers. You wouldn’t want to see Bob get laid off, would you? He has a young family.” Or “If you don’t take the buyout, we’re going to have to close down the entire company. You wouldn’t want to see that happen, would you?”

Well, yeah, I would. If you’re too stupid to keep the company profitable, then let the whole damn thing go under. I’d rather see that instead of laying off a lot of good workers while upper management escapes any and all consequences.

The saddest aspect of this is that 55 is not old anymore. Those employees have at least 10-15 years or more of good working years ahead of them. They are in their prime. They have families to support, children in college or getting ready for college, and are probably helping care for their elderly parents. Yet they are being cast out simply because of their age and salary status.

And how old is too old to work? Is it 55, 65, 72? Will it get to the point where age 45 is considered too old to be employable?

For those CNN employees who do take the buyout, what do you think will happen to them? Doubtful that many are in a financial position to take early retirement. Some may want to continue working, but what company will hire them? How will they support themselves? Start their own businesses? For some that may be the way to go. For others, I’m not so sure. They will probably end up working part-time in retail (like I will soon). Retirement crisis in Aisle 6! It’s been documented that older workers face longer periods of unemployment (no kidding!). Now, they don’t even have the safety net of extended unemployment benefits—deemed too costly by a Congress that does nothing to earn its pay.

Please don’t misunderstand me. Companies must trim staffing levels when economic conditions dictate. Singling out a particular group of workers for those staffing cuts, however, is discrimination. Why no one in our government sees this is beyond my comprehension.

Of course, companies can always counter they must carry out layoffs in order to remain a viable enterprise, and government cannot interfere with the private sector. (Like anyone in government is stopping them from doing what they want. There is little regulation and what there is of it is loosely enforced, if at all. Private firms operate in a no-accountability zone.)

When it comes to hiring older workers, companies can argue (with some validity) the older person doesn’t have the skills we need, has “too much” experience (like that’s a bad thing?) for the job, or commands too high a salary. It’s all subjective, so who is going to challenge them?

Before I go further, I’d like to make one thing clear. Though I have been beaten out numerous times by younger applicants, I don’t harbor any ill will toward them. I actually think it’s despicable that companies are paying them such low salaries. How low? Not too long ago I noticed an ad for an assistant editor job at the same salary I was making as an assistant editor…30 years ago!

How are these young people supposed to start a new life, rent an apartment, buy a home, start a family, when they are being paid such a low wage? Note, too, how many college graduates come out of school weighed down by enormous student debt. It’s not as if their out-of-work parents can help them. It’s a very sad situation for young and old.

Back to my original question: Is work only for the young? Apparently, yes. With companies routinely canning veteran employees past a certain age and favoring only the young, our workplaces will soon be populated only by those 35 and under. Oh, there be a 45-year-old sprinkled in, to give the appearance of fair hiring practices. This is where we are going, make no mistake.

I’m not sure what can be done. Nobody in government or even the press seems to be paying much attention to what is happening to older workers, or even cares.

It’s ironic. I’m sure CNN has done numerous stories on the plight of older workers. Yet it is now treating its veteran workers just as badly. Perhaps CNN can do a story on how disgracefully it’s treating its own workers. I’d like to see that. 

Testing 1 2 3…Testing 1 2 3

Along with the teeth-gnashing tedium of applying for jobs online comes the even more

annoying and tedious practice of taking tests as part of the application process. Before many a company even lets you in the door for a face-to-face interview you have to take a test, sometimes multiple tests. And you thought the SATs were well behind you. Think again, job-hunting suckers.

In some cases, it’s reached what I think are absurd proportions. For instance, a while back, I received an email from a company to which I had applied for a job. In it, I was told I had to pass three distinct steps even before I would be deemed worthy enough for an in-person interview. Those steps were: a preliminary test; a video chat (it wasn’t specified how that would be accomplished); a phone interview; and then if I passed muster through the first three grueling steps, I would be asked to come in for a face-to-face interview. Like I was meeting the Pope.

So what was this job, you may wonder? A NSA operative? A barista at Starbucks? A CEO of a multi-national corporation? Operator at a nuclear plant? Greeter at Wal-Mart?

Nothing that important. The company merely wanted someone who would scan the Internets for cute pet videos, post them, and write a witty summary of the video. For that a person had to go through four stages of testing and interviews!? A 12-year-old with superior language skills could do that job.

I completed the first step (which took an afternoon), but soon after received the inevitable “we are going with other candidates” email. Ug! What a waste of my time.

That’s not to say I disagree with the concept of testing as part of the employment application process. You wouldn’t hire a chef without seeing if he or she could make a basic omelet. I do question, however, how valid these tests are in assessing whether a person has the right technical and personal skills for a particular job. Is it fair to ask applicants to steer through a sometimes grueling, onerous and time-consuming testing sequence that may or may not give a true picture of a job seeker’s qualifications? So many factors go into what makes a good employee.

Full-disclosure: I have yet to actually pass a “test” I’ve taken as part of an application process. Therefore, my perceptions are likely skewed against these silly tests. I did horribly on SATs (but those were the days before SAT prep courses) as well.

Or have I failed the tests? Applicants are rarely told how they did on the tests, whether they finished just out of the top five or came in last. So I don’t know if other factors worked against me, such as not having the proper experience a company was looking for to fill a particular job. Was I rejected because I’ve been laid off? Too old?

How much weight do companies give to those tests? Say, for instance, the person who scored the best on the tests turns out to be an arrogant jerk in the interview. Yet the person who came in second or third has a much nicer temperament and would be a better team player. Who would you rather hire? I’d hire the person with the better personality, although admittedly the logic of HR decisions escapes me. There are probably a lot of companies that would hire the jerk just based on the test scores alone.

Yet I believe there is something more ominous going on with all these ridiculous tests that the majority of people would fail anyway. It’s simply another way HR departments can weed through numerous candidates without really having to do an in-depth evaluation of each individual applicant. It’s similar to what many companies do when they summarily reject any job applicant that has been laid off. It makes the hiring process easier for them.

I've also learned never to apply to big-name companies that only accept Ivy League graduates. Why bother? It's just another way for them to winnow down the hiring process. As if that Ivy League degree makes them any more qualified than anybody else. It doesn't. It just means that they came from families wealthy enough to give them every advantage so they could get into those top schools. 

Many bogus job coaches tell job seekers to emphasize the skills and experience they bring to a job so they can show a potential employer how they can help the company prosper. Do that and you’ll get the job! HA! Nothing could be further from the truth. Companies couldn’t care less about you and your goody-two-shoes skills sets. From what I’ve gleaned during my job searches during two protracted periods of unemployment is that companies are looking for reasons NOT to hire you, pure and simple. Been laid off? Deep six that loser. Failed the test? Next!

While it’s certainly understandable why a company needs to establish a procedure to weed through numerous applicants, I sometimes wonder if the process is unfair to job seekers and whether it truly yields the best potential employee. Some applicants may be adept at cracking the code of a particular test, yet not have the skills that would make them a good, long-term employee. Tests can measure knowledge, but can they uncover a person’s ingenuity and ability work under pressure?

Companies whine about how they want to make sure they hire the right candidate. Filling and refilling positions is too expensive, so they want to make the right decision only once.

Yes, companies take a risk when they hire any employee. Will that person work out? But so does the new employee.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been told in job interviews how wonderful a company is and how supportive my colleagues will be. Yet I don’t know if that’s true until I actually start working there. I may be surrounded by genuinely nice, helpful people, or I could end up with a rageaholic boss and backstabbing wasps for co-workers. (I’ve had more of the latter than the former.)

My former workplace is a perfect example. I was hired for one job and then six months later, my job duties were changed completely…without any advance notice or training. In classic management by mismanagement, I was given the worst job no one else wanted because I was the least senior person on staff. It was horribly unfair. But companies don’t care about being fair to their employees.

Through sheer hard work (and a lot of stress), I managed to do a good job, surprising myself and my nasty bosses, who were probably secretly hoping I would fail. Because if I failed, they could blame their poor management decision on me, rather then themselves. For all my perseverance I was laid off anyway.

Isn’t that the biggest risk any new employee takes—the risk that their new employer will dump them when budget cuts must be made? Last hired…first fired?

Nevertheless, when given the chance I will take any test given to me and try to do my best even though the odds are stacked against me. Sometime, though, I would just like to say to a company:

Enough with the tests already! Hire me!

Back to Work. Temporarily.

So last week, I went back to work. Temporarily.

As the culmination of a freelance assignment I’ve been working on for over a month, I spent two days “on-site.” In other words, I put on my big-girl panties, my dressy work clothes, high heels, and waddled my butt onto to a bus and into the big city for two days of real, honest-to-God work. Just like a normal person with a job does. So there I was, surrounded by all the other blank-faced employed people as they scurried to their desks, cash registers, service shops, or wherever they go to earn money.

It felt strange and wonderful; stressful and busy, overwhelming and nostalgic. Yes, nostalgic, because it reminded me of a life I once had and may never have again. I was once an employed person. Now I’m not.

And a life I’m not sure I want anymore. As I hustled to the job, nearly crashed into by people too self-involved to see me coming, I thought, do I really want to go back to this? Do I want to live at the whim of a boss who’s nice to me one day and then raging the next? Do I want to work with co-workers who pretend to be my BFF and then stab me in the back to save their own job? And do I want to come into work everyday wondering if a group of managers who barely know my name have decided in some gruesome closed-door meeting that my position no longer fits in their grand business scheme? Pack up your desk and leave… And the commute? Let’s not go there, shall we. Sheesh! On the first day, I waited 45 minutes for my bus!

Do I want to continue to be one of the thousands of workers who everyday prostrate their souls for the Greater Corporate Good?

That may be a bit too harsh. When I completed my two days of work, I was reminded of how we need to work. Not just for the money that buys us shelter and food and the things that make our lives worthy, whether that be travel or clothes or jewelry, but for the sense of accomplishment we feel when we finish a project, close down shop for the day, or fix that engine. That’s a powerful and necessary emotion for us humans, one that can’t be diluted by nasty co-workers or duplicitous managers.

That’s how I felt as I walked home the second day when my work was completed. Oh, I felt the quality of my work could have been better, but I always feel that way. But I signed on to do a job, and I did it. For that I feel satisfaction and yes, even a modicum of pride. It’s also good to know that after being tossed aside by two former employers and well into my second stretch of long-term unemployment, I can still do the job. That made me feel good.

And I’ll feel even better when they pay me.

My Former Company Bought a Company. I’m Pissed.

Not sure where I first saw the announcement. I think it may have been on my LinkedIn newsfeed. Through the wonder that is Google, however, I found the actual press release.

My former company, the one that didn’t have enough revenues to support my ginormous salary, acquired another company. Picture me slapping my right palm on forehead.

I immediately shared the news with two former colleagues given the boot the same day I was. They were similarly disgusted.

No purchase price was disclosed (private companies don’t have to release that kind of information), but surely simply cutting the salaries of five mid- to low-level employees didn’t equate to what they paid for their shiny new toy of an acquisition.

Which begs the questions: Where did they find the money to buy another company when they clearly stated that they didn’t have enough funds to pay our salaries? So where did that money come from?

Oh, yeah, now I remember. During my “you’re laid off” session, the corporate tool said it was because they wanted to put money into more “profitable” areas. Well, that may be the company’s stinky justification for their callous behavior toward its employees. Yet there are several problems with their fetid logic.

First, will this new acquisition rain down manna from heaven to their bottom line? At this point, any business plan and projections are just words and numbers on paper that may or may not come to fruition in the form of actual profits. How long will it take before profits are realized and how significant? From I could glean from the press reports, this was not a huge, transformative acquisition. More of meh from my reading.

It reminds, sadly, of my beloved New York Mets, who seem to be ever undergoing a "rebuilding phase," only to crash and burn into one losing season after another. All the best laid plans...

Worth pointing out that my former former workplace once undertook a much-ballyhooed merger. Yet not even a year after the merger, the economy tanked, and the acquiring company had a serious case of buyer’s remorse when it realized it had widely overpaid for my sinkhole former former workplace. The parties “de-merged” as they say in business. The newly installed head of my former former workplace took a hatchet to the division in which I worked…and well, what happened next is the basis for this blog.

The lesson learned from that horrible experience, and one I think every business executive should be cognizant of, is that sometimes business mergers, like marriages, don’t work out, and all the optimistic spreadsheet projections can’t put it back together again. This shiny new toy may amount to nothing more than shifting deck chairs on the Titanic. As far as I'm concerned, there's a moist, dark place they can insert their ballyhooed new acquisition.

What of the workers, like me, who were sacrificed to make this grand scheme happen? Reading the announcement, I felt worthless and foolish—stupid to have worked so hard for a company that saw me as nothing more than a line item that had to be discarded so they could pursue some nebulous business strategy that has no guarantee of being successful. Obviously, the corporation is more worthy than any one person. Despicable. Oh how I wish these corporate gunslingers would realize how destructive their “business strategies” can sometimes be to real people trying to make a living. Fat chance.

What of the people at the acquired company as well? They have every reason to be scared. Because there is nothing that gives wannabe corporate cowboys a hard-on faster than to scour for redundant positions in both companies and then decide who gets to stay, who gets the boot. It makes them feel strong, like a big man. Hey, they can’t be a superhero or a star athlete, but they can sure feel the power in laying people off. Look out below!, is all I can say to the people working for the company just bought by my former company. It's bub-bye, here's your severance check, please pack up and leave...

In one sense, I can understand why the CEO at my former workplace made the merger. He came on board three years ago when the company was in deep financial straits. Since then, he has outsourced whole departments and hacked away staff in what seemed like regular intervals. At some point, he had to make a positive move, one that might bring the company some honest-to-goodness revenues, rather than just a slice-and-dice swath through the expense side of the ledger.

It’s not like he’s the new guy anymore, either. He’s been at the job for nearly three years. More than enough time to turn the company around—if it can be. He’s dispensed with the easy moves, like cutting staff. Now, he has to book some real-world profits for the company, not just conjure up some hoity-toity business plan to impress the board. That’s a bit harder to do.

Make no mistake, he’s on the clock now. If he doesn’t succeed, he’ll be out of a job, just like all the people he’s laid off in the past three years.

Of course, he’ll have the cushion of his golden parachute. Meanwhile, several of us have run out of unemployment benefits, still have no job, and are staring at homelessness.

Pays to be a CEO, even if you an incompetent one who runs companies into the ground and gets to lay off and destroy the lives of so many people. Nice work if you can get it.