Take This Job and…

Well, you catch my drift.

Since it’s Labor Day weekend, it’s time for my annual vitriolic (and admittedly biased) rant against corporations and their management lapdogs. Instead of recounting once again my

past humiliations at the hands of devious bosses and co-workers, I’ll tell you of two recent events showcasing just how cheap, disdainful and discriminatory companies are when it comes to hiring and treating their employees.

A few weeks ago, I answered an ad for a freelance editor. In my reading of the ad and my understanding of the term freelance, I assumed the job would be working in the office part-time or writing/editing on a project-by-project basis. Not a bad gig, I thought. Even better, the publication specializes in an industry I’ve previously covered.

I was called in for an interview, and so I went. From, there it went downhill, and fast.

First, the job wasn’t part-time or freelance as I and most understand those terms. It was a full-time contract position. In other words, I would be hired to toil full-time, yet paid hourly with no health insurance, retirement plan, or any other benefits. The ad was misleading, to say the least. In the company’s president’s (more on this a-hole in a bit) view, “freelance” meant the workers could say, leave early occasionally if their work was completed and they needed to visit a doctor. How compassionate of him! Frankly, in my experience at real full-time jobs, most bosses are pretty flexible when it comes to medical and family emergencies.

When I pressed (politely) on possible benefits, he scoffed at me, mumbling something to the effect that providing those perks was too much bother for him. Oh, those pesky full-time workers! How dare they demand fair wages, a decent health plan and a 401(K)! The nerve!

This rather alarming display of stinginess and condescension came after this 60-something, aging Don Draper-type bragged how his family owned buildings in the Garment District of Manhattan, and how everybody knew and loved him. This creaking vestige of imperialistic White Privilege just had to impress me with how great it is. I wanted to barf.

Obviously, he had the money to foot the bill for benefits. He just didn’t want to be bothered. Sickening, truly sickening.

His “publication” —and I use snark punctuation here— was nothing more than a mouthpiece for various PR agencies in the city. Even my sleazy bosses at my former former job wouldn’t publish the nauseating fluff/crap this guy did. He admitted he would never publish a real news story on a person or company. If a company were going through tough times, he would ignore it in print. I’m no investigative journalist, but you can cover the real news and be fair at the same time.

But, hey, everybody loves him. Wonder why?

The job entailed duties so easy I could do them my sleep. I’m looking for a bit more challenge in a new job than that. Also, the publication, as I mentioned previously, covered an industry where I know the most of the players and worse, could encounter some of my former colleagues at my former former job if I went to an event. I’d rather have a root canal than meet up with those bastards and backstabbers.

If that weren’t enough to make me walk away, given the overtly pandering tone of this “publication,” I would be a laughingstock to the entire industry and my former colleagues and bosses. Haven’t they had enough fun at my expense when they cruelly laid me off?

You guessed it. I politely declined this full-time-with-no-benefits job.

How dare she? She’s unemployed! She must take any crappy job offered!

Not really. Just because I’m unemployed does not mean I have given up my free will. I have every right to choose where and with whom I work. You know, the same right everybody else possesses. I believe anyone who criticizes me for not taking an unappealing job is probably miserable in his or her own job and feels everyone else should be, too.

Let me also remind you, I was gainfully employed, happy to work with horrible bosses, impossible workloads and stomach-churning deadlines. Until I was laid off. Where was my freedom of choice then?

I would dearly love another full-time job — if I were offered one with decent benefits and duties that allow me to use my background while also expanding my skills. None has been offered to me.

Unlikely I will ever be offered one, considered the blatant ageism I face. Back in the spring, I went on a job interview and was told point-blank I had “too much experience” (translation: you’re too old). I didn’t get the job. No surprise.

A week or two ago, I submitted an application for that same job, although I didn’t know it at the time. The name of the company sounded familiar, but since I submit an average of two applications a day, I figured why not give it a try? I had all the qualifications for the position.

The HR lady sent me an email asking for a preliminary phone interview. That’s when I did some digging and realized it was the same job I had interviewed for back in May but was rejected because of my age.

I was angry at first – why put myself through that humiliating experience again? — but didn’t do anything until I calmed down over the weekend.

On Monday, I decided to compose a direct, but professional email. Since we scorned candidates get so few chances to vent our feelings to our rejecting employers, I had to take advantage of this rare opportunity.

I recounted my experience, how I was told I had too much experience (as if that’s a bad thing), how those are code words for “too old,” and how I was ultimately rejected for the job.

I closed by saying that there was really no benefit for me interviewing for the job again if the company and the lady I interviewed with still practiced age discrimination. I received no reply from the HR lady. Why should she care anyway? Nobody is going to sue the company for age discrimination, least of all older, unemployed workers with no money. Nevertheless, I took a bit of satisfaction in at least calling the company out on its rather overt ageism.

Oh, and by the way, why is it advertising an opening for the same job a mere three months later? Gee, guess the Millennial it was so hot to hire for a paltry salary didn’t work out, eh?

I know what you must be thinking: How dare she refuse another job! Well, I wasn’t offered that job. Chances I wouldn’t be again. I haven’t gotten any younger in three months or undergone plastic surgery (though I did get my hair cut and colored).

This is what workers of whatever age face today in the workforce: Either you’re being discriminated against because of your age or forced to work for a meager salary for no benefits. Management holds the hammer, and boy, do they use it against workers at every chance. Especially when it comes to layoffs. Layoffs, in my opinion, are nothing more than management getting somebody else — their workers — to pay for their mistakes. And managers wonder why employees flee for another job at the first chance?

Sometimes I wonder, have I willingly left the labor force, or was I kicked out? It’s a bit of both, I think. Two layoffs in four years have made me justifiably hesitant to take another full-time job. A job I can lose through no fault of my own. I refuse to ever again be a pawn in some hidden Machiavellian management scheme that leaves me jobless and broke while my former bosses and their lapdogs continue to rake in their undeserved salaries.

A day to honor workers? What a freaking joke!

A Word About Ageism. (Pauses. Sips Tea.)

So I’m in the middle of a job interview two weeks ago when the interviewer says to me, “You have too much experience for this job. You’d be bored.” I knew then I had no chance of getting that job. That statement ranks among the top 5 of “Things You Never Want to Hear

During a Job Interview.” I was doomed.

Any employment expert — or long-time job hunter — knows the phrase “too much experience” is code for: “This person is too old for the job. I’m never going to hire him/her. Bring me a younger person.”

Yes, folks, ageism is alive and well in the workplace. Not only do companies target older workers for layoffs (I should know), they dismiss them outright for jobs for which they have every qualification simply because they are considered “too old.”

Like my recent job interview. Nowhere in the ad did it mention this was an entry-level position. I possessed the requisite skills and background for the job, not to mention knowledge of the company’s particular industry. Yet, a day later, I received the dreaded “We are going with another candidate” email. Yeah, a younger candidate, no doubt.

This wasn’t my first encounter with flagrant ageism. One particularly nasty guy I interviewed with looked at me and sneered, “At your age it would be hard to get a job.” Could he be any more transparent? His implication was clear: Since no one else will hire you, I may — for a paltry salary — and I can treat you as badly I want because no one else will give you a job. I’d rather be homeless, living in my own pee, than work for a horrible boss like that.

I knew when I started my job search 16 months ago my advanced age would hinder my ability to find employment. Add to that my two layoffs in four years, and I knew it would be a tough road. Yet, I was able to get job interviews, and I thought, foolishly I now know, that the skills I picked up at my last job would erase any doubts about my capability to master new technology. I was wrong, so wrong.

I’m not surprised that HR managers practice ageism when hiring. (Who’s going to stop them?) What does surprise me is how blatant they are about it, how little attempt they make to hide the fact they are discriminating against me because of my age, how they believe I'm so stupid I don't perceive their ageism. 

I’m also surprised when people of my generation discriminate against me because of my age. That woman who dismissed me for being “too experienced” (is that a bad thing?) was well past her 40th birthday. How would she feel if she was laid off and had to look for a job, only to be told she was “too experienced”?

Perhaps for that particular position I was too experienced. If that were the case, then the company should have specified it was an entry-level position or stated the salary range. Then, I wouldn’t have applied, gone in for the interview, and been crudely dismissed because of my age.

Of course, companies aim to pay only the lowest of salaries, so an experienced worker is automatically deemed to command too high a salary. Let’s hire young and cheap is the mantra of corporate America. My salary requirements run in line with the industry’s standards for someone with my experience, and I’m always willing to negotiate. Sadly, any attempt to negotiate salary has fallen on deaf ears.

There is more than mere ageism going on here. It’s the belief by so many employers that only the young know how to use technology. I believe that is a false assumption.

At my last job, I learned new tech systems and was given the toughest job in the department. Want to know what my beat was? Annuities. Yeah, good luck with that. It was the military equivalent of latrine duty. Hey, I was the newest employee, so I expected the shittiest assignment.

Nevertheless, I succeeded. I tripled page views on my channel and was the fourth most-read editor out of a staff of a dozen on the website. I was the lady who created a slideshow titled “12 Cheesy Sales Lines You Should Avoid.” It was a thing of beauty, and I had fun putting it together. A year after it was posted, it was still in the top 10 for page views. So, I proved I could learn new industries and technology. Great, right?

Unfortunately, the misogynist fraud that headed the department couldn’t deal with any older professional women and laid off three of us. He hated it when any female underling questioned him, and treated a lady recovering from cancer treatment very badly. He barely concealed his disdain for any of us. When the chance came to get rid of us, he did. Again, ageism reared its ugly head.

In light of my recent experience, I don’t understand why I’m summarily rejected for jobs simply on the assumption I’m too old to learn new tech skills. And why are young people automatically assumed to be digital wizards? And it’s not just me who feels that way.

I recently spoke to the head of a tech company for a freelance article. I asked what skills he looked for in new hires. The exasperation in his voice vibrated through the phone line. (Yes, it was a landline. It’s better for recording interviews. In my defense, I gave up my flip phone a long time ago.)

The gist of his answer was that while young people are users of technology, they remain clueless when it comes to developing a technology that can successfully solve a business problem. Just because Millennials are consumers of technology does not in any way mean they are innovators of technology. Heck, they may not even know how to code. If Millennials are such hotshot techies then why are they are thousands of coding bootcamps across the country? Yet, companies persist in the belief that only the young know technology and dismiss thousands of older workers based on a wrong-headed notion.

I fight a losing battle against that stigma every time I submit a job application. Age discrimination cases are notoriously hard to prove, so companies have no fear of dismissing older workers and being hit with a lawsuit. HR managers can spin the rejection of an older candidate by simply saying they weren’t right for the job or had “too much experience.”

That is so wrong, for so many reasons. Hiring someone based solely on their age is as stupid as rejecting a person because of their age. It’s ridiculous.

Why not look at the totality of a job applicant. Does the person have the skills and background for the job? In an interview, does the person seem personable and intelligent? Does that person have the capability and desire to learn new skills? Those are characteristics a person can possess at any age.

Walking Dogs and Talking Economic Recovery

I saw Nancy the other day. She’s the nice lady who lives down the street in the corner

house. We used to take the same bus into the city.

She was walking Elvis, a particularly hellacious little Maltese who barks incessantly at the sight of me. “Guess what?” she told me. “I got laid off in November.”

As I recall, she worked in the insurance industry, but I don’t know for which company. For now, she’s collecting unemployment and babysitting to pocket some extra cash. Nobody, she said, can live on unemployment alone. How true.

Sometimes when I jog I run into (not literally) Jeanine as she walks, Rocky, an adorable and much calmer little dachshund. His stumpy legs shiver in the cold. Yet he’s friendlier and lets me pet him.

Her company just hired another worker for her department. She says she knows I’m going to get a job soon. From her lips to God’s ears…

What to make of these divergent scenarios? One lady worked for a company that downsized her job; another for a company in expansion mode.

Which is true? Which is the false mirage?

As I scan the news sites daily, I come across so many contradictory articles, statistics, and opinions about the job market. Which to believe?

Here are some of the clashing tidbits I’ve found regarding our rather bipolar economy. (Snarky comments in italics are mine.)

The unemployment rate is at 5.5%. That means full employment. Hooray! Well, not if you are Nancy or I.

Big companies like IBM and Target are cutting jobs in massive numbers. Or maybe not. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. Tell that to the poor chumps who actually are laid off.

The unemployment rate is so low because many long-time unemployed have given up looking for a job and are no longer counted in the labor rolls. I’m a long-time unemployed worker. Therefore, I do not exist.

Despite the low unemployment rate, wages have not risen. But they might soon. Raise? What’s a raise?

The economy added nearly 300,000 jobs last month. Where? 

These statistics and ponderous yet detached musings on those numbers only impart a 27,000-foot-high airplane view of the job market, where you only spy the outlines of land and sea, the crevices of valleys tumbling down from the high mountains, or the lights of the street lamps and maybe the roofs of houses.

You never hear about what goes on inside those homes: The father telling his family he got laid off from his job and can no longer pay for the eldest son’s college tuition. The single mother crying at the table because her job was terminated and she doesn’t know how she will pay the rent or feed her baby. The older, single female worker laid off twice in four years struggles to find a job in the face of age discrimination, trying to pay bills with low-paying freelance jobs.

When the Great Recession of 2009-10 roared and thousands were unemployed, newspapers wrote those stories. Not anymore. Hey, the unemployment rate is 5.5%! Nothing more to see here. Move along.

The Democrats crow that their policies have saved the economy. Have they? Or is it just a natural economy cycle taking place?

The Republicans, looking for a wedge issue, bemoan the gnawing income inequality gap. This makes me laugh, bitterly. Funny they don’t mention how their slavish devotion to Corporate American has directly led to that very same income imbalance and wage stagnation. What did they think would happen when government removes the necessary regulatory reigns from corporations? Of course, corporations immediately hack away jobs in the thousands to pile up profits. Give raises to the workers? But that might cut into our executive bonuses! Perish the thought and hand me the keys to my Mercedes.

Let me be clear, this is not a political blog. But I do detect a sickening excess of political spin when it comes to the economy and job numbers — by both sides. It’s either partisan self-congratulation or brazen manipulation for each party’s purpose, which, at the core, is only about winning elections and staying in power. Neither party exhibits any real understanding or compassion for the citizens of this country, the people they are supposed to represent. I’m sick of the whole damn lot of them.

How about helping the long-term unemployed by reinstating extended unemployment benefits? Or providing funds to the jobless so they can learn new skills and return to the workforce? How about going after companies that blatantly discriminate against older job seekers?

How about nudging companies to lift wages so families can enjoy at a minimum a comfortable, middle class lifestyle? When people have more money, they tend to spend more on goods and services. That could help the economy rise, right?

Nah, nothing will be done. The unemployment rate is 5.5%, so who cares anymore about those long-term unemployed losers? Let them shrivel up their savings and become homeless.

Yes, I do admit the economy has improved. But better than it was is still not great. Competition for jobs is fierce, and employers are very, very picky.

Just ask Nancy and I.

Hopes & Dreams

One of my favorite movies is “The Shawshank Redemption.” It’s a bit corny, old-fashioned, sentimental and formulaic, but, boy, I dare you not to fall for its emotional wallop in the end. One scene in particular hovers in my mind, especially now.

It’s a conversion between Andy, the Tim Robbins character, and Red, the Morgan Freeman character, both inmates at prison in Maine in the 1950s. To summarize, Andy says that a person must have hope. Red is having none of that, essentially saying that hope is a dangerous thing.

I’m with Red on this one. I’ve pretty much given up any hope of getting a full-time job ever again. You see, I’ve passed that damning signpost of being out of work for six months. Once again, I’ve become of a member of the “LONG-TERM UNEMPLOYED” club. (Cue the horror-movie scream here.)

That means, to HR drones and potential employers, I have regressed to an infantile state in which I have lost all ability to function, reason, play well with others, or master new tasks. I have lost any capacity to learn new technology (okay, they may have me on that one). Despite more than 25 years in my profession, I’m viewed as a drooling moron because I’m now a LONG-TERM UNEMPLOYED WORKER. (Cue the horror-movie scream here.) Add to this scenario my advanced age and I’ve got two massive debits against me in my futile quest to find gainful employment.

I’ve been here before. In fact, since 2009, I’ve been out of a job for nearly two years. It’s amazing I have any savings left at all.

Oh, and did I mention my unemployment benefits have run out? (Cue the horror-movie scream here.)

So perhaps you can understand why I feel hopeless. I really don’t know what to do. It’s obvious that in the minds of potential employers, I’m well past employable age and it’s obvious they believe that because I’m A LONG-TERM UNEMPLOYED WORKER I’ve lost any intellectual competence.

I’ve picked up some freelance assignments with middling success. (I fear I’m going to get fired from one pretty soon. Serves me right for taking on a job for which I really didn’t have the proper background.) In my current state of mind, I believe I’ll fail at any job I try to do.

But the payments (when they come in) are not going to support me. I’ve gone to a cheaper car insurance and switched over to Obamacare (fingers crossed it works for me) to cut my health-care premiums.

I have to pay rent and utilities. I need cable to do or find work via the Internet. I can cancel my newspaper subscriptions. I don’t shop for clothes anymore, just food and gas. I live rather modestly so I don’t think there’s much else I can cut. I’ve already accepted handouts from my cousins (they’re rich and can afford it), but still, it’s a blow to my self-esteem to be seen as a charity case. I don't want charity, I want a job!

I may not have gotten married and had kids, I may not have been amazingly successful in my career, but I could always take pride in the fact that I put myself through school and supported myself. Now even that has been taken away from me by some corporate bean counter.

I can’t begin to describe how disgusted, angry, anxious and dejected I feel at this point. But who would care? Certainly not any potential employers. It’s not that I expect to get a job out of pity (no employer does "pity" hires anyhow), but could they at least understand I haven’t lost my skills, that I can still be a good worker, and that my jobless status was not of my own making?

And it irks me to no end when I hear people say, “You know, at your age it would be hard to get a job.” I always feel like they are leaving off the next sentence. You know, something like, “Glad I’m not you, Loser. I got a job.” What does that mean exactly? Do I stop looking for work and live in poverty? Apparently that may be the only option.

Though my best friend tells me I shouldn’t blame myself for my unemployed status, that it was the economy and the companies’ fault, I can’t help thinking in some way it was my fault. I also think some people (like my own sister and all HR drones) believe that as well.

It’s hard not to think that way. I cannot ignore the fact that in the past four years, when the company I worked for had to slash its budget, I was let go, that I wasn’t good enough to keep on staff while others were.

And when you are taken into a room and told the company is having financial problems and it has to cut your position, it’s hard not to internalize (sorry to use a hackneyed psychobabble phrase) that devastating blow. To feel somehow I was to blame for the company’s shortfall. I actually feel guilty for dragging the company downward. I mean, the implication is gut-wrenchingly clear: Your ginormous salary is dragging down the company (HA!) and you are worthless to us now.

Yeah, I know. That’s silly. But that’s how I feel. Friends tell me to fight it, but with what? I have no self-confidence left. It’s been destroyed by two layoffs in four years. By once again becoming a LONG-TERM UNEMPLOYED WORKER. (Cue the horror-movie scream here.)

Except for this blog and some conversations with my best friend, I really don’t express these feelings. People only care about themselves anyway, certainly not some unemployed loser. U.S. companies certainly don’t care; they can always smugly justify their massive layoffs as just another business decision.

I really don’t go out much or socialize a lot. I’m too embarrassed and ashamed. It’s hard to go out and see people enjoying themselves, eating at a restaurant. I don’t begrudge them, but it’s just another reminder of something else I can’t afford, like pedicures and hair cuts.

Just as hard is hearing people talk about vacations or seeing beach photos posted by friends on Facebook. Can’t say I’m a world traveler, but I wonder if I’ll ever go on vacation again. Heck, I can't even afford a tank of gas to drive to the mall!

So, what now? Sure, I could apply for a retail job, but would I get hired? That’s how low my self-confidence had sunk. Training? With what money? I’ll be lucky if I don’t end up homeless in six months. There is no help for unemployed workers like me. Corporate America has cast us out, and our nation’s social safety net has no provision for us.

I wish I could stop having these unsettling dreams, dreams in which I’m lost within labyrinth-like city streets darkened by towering skyscrapers, trying frantically to find the door I have to go through. I never find that door. Or the dreams where I’m running after a bus and it keeps going and going and going, ever faster beyond me, never stopping to let me board.

Already I’ve begun to clear my apartment of unwanted papers and items, to get rid of stuff I no longer need or want. (Better to have less stuff when I move to the homeless shelter, right?) Every time I do it, though, I also feel like I’m receding from the world bit by bit, a world that apparently no longer has a place for me.

Whenever I think I could be hired for a job, I quickly stop myself. Like Red, I can’t allow myself to believe in the ethereal myth of hope. It hurts too much when I’m rejected or I fail.

I’m sorry for the downcast tone of this post. But unlike “The Shawshank Redemption,” I don’t see a happy ending.

Buddy, You’re Next

If you haven’t seen the movie Logan’s Run, a sci-fi film released in 1976, I suggest you rent it. It’s a hoot.

It stars one of my favorite English actors, Michael York. It was also billed as Farrah Fawcett’s first major film role. Though as I recall, she had about three lines before she and her hairdo were blown to bits.

Many are the reasons to watch it: it’s awesomely cheesy special effects (compared to today’s CGI extravaganzas), drapey, barely there ‘70s-era fashions, and prescient messages.

In what way was it prescient? Well, for starters, it presaged Tinder. (The movie is set in the 23rd century.) Specifically, the Michael York character meets his leading lady via some sort of hook-up service in which if a person were feeling a bit lonely or horny he or she just dialed up a partner (a stranger) for the evening. Don’t remember clearly how this happened, but it was something like when one of the Star Trek characters was beamed down to another planet. All very convenient, like having takeout delivered to your door.

That isn’t what makes this movie relevant to today, however. What does is the movie’s basic plot, which is that all people in this futuristic society must die by age 30. They are exterminated, in fact. Some people rebel, and they are chased and caught.

Why do I cite this movie? What relevance does it have to today’s society? Because every time I read an article about how older workers are disappearing from the workforce, whenever I hear former colleagues my age tell me no company will hire them; each time I get a rejection email, I’m reminded of Logan’s Run.

Oh, no, we’re not killing people over age 55, at least not overtly. Instead, companies are terminating older workers through layoffs, indirectly and slowly killing them by denying them access to employer-sponsored or affordable health care. How many unemployed workers who have exhausted unemployment benefits can pay for COBRA or even premiums (and those high deductibles—ouch!) under Obamacare? Not many. I should know; I’ll be one of them soon.

Without health care, older, unemployed workers forgo routine tests that could possibly detect and treat a serious illness at an early stage. So I do believe that by laying off older workers in droves, companies are condemning them to a premature death. But don’t take my word for it; it’s been proven.

I’m also reminded of Logan’s Run whenever I enter an office for a job interview; when I’m greeted by a sea of dewy faces yet to crack their 35th birthday. Seriously, if a recent college grad cannot find a job, it’s because he or she isn’t really trying, prefers to work part-time, or has a trust fund.

The reasons are pretty obvious: Employers covet young people for their (supposed) tech skills and low salaries.

It’s not only obvious in companies’ hiring practices, but their lay-off policies as well. At my former former workplace, anyone who had been there 10 years or more was laid off. At my former workplace, five of us were laid off; four were over 50. What does that tell you?

It tells you that when upper management decides to cut salaries and expenses, they target older, veteran employees who are mostly likely pulling down a fairly high salary (or whatever they deem a too-high salary). Therefore, it’s out with the “expensive” old and in with the “cheap” new.

I not only saw this happen to former colleagues, but I was personally a victim of this shameful practice. When I was let go from my former former workplace after 16-plus years, I was essentially replaced by a younger colleague (who later plagiarized my work).

Even more recently, a former boss at my former former workplace was laid off after being with the company for over 25 years. Now, I didn’t like the guy; he was a total douchebag who was personally behind a lot of layoffs (including mine). Personal feelings aside, however, this was a man who worked for that godforsaken place for over 25 years. He conceived and launched the best and most successful product in the company’s history (though that’s not saying much considering the mediocre output of that horrid place). Like me, he was maneuvered out of the company by a younger colleague (a nasty boozy bitch) who wanted him gone.

So anyone who doesn’t think U.S. companies are dumping older workers is simply not paying attention.

Know who else should really be paying attention? It’s the 40- or 50-something middle managers that interview me for jobs. Every time they walk into the room, I can see it in their faces: “Oh, no, we can’t hire her. She’s too old. She’ll want too much money.”

I’m not angry with them for thinking this way. But I am a bit bemused and befuddled by their attitude.

What makes them think they are immune to the same fate as so many others? Oh, no, they are too competent and smart, they smirk to themselves. They’ve been with the company for so long. They are too vital to its operations. “I would never be laid off,” they must smugly think to themselves.

Oh, you think that, do you? Well, I’m here to tell you are wrong, wrong, wrong! Only a delusional fool or a class A narcissist would think like that.

What makes you think you are so special? When a company decides it must cut expenses, the first place it looks at is salaries. No matter how good an employee you are, no matter how many years you have toiled for a company, if you have a higher salary, you will be cut and replaced by a younger, cheaper worker. Just like that. With no warning. It has nothing to do with you; it’s all about the bottom line. Shockingly swift is your descent from valued employee to corporate refuse.

What makes me even angrier is that this is clearly and blatantly age discrimination. Companies are not even trying to hide it. Why should they? What do they have to fear? No government agency is doing anything to stop it, and it’s rarely mentioned except in a few news articles. Companies can always argue that an older worker’s production is no longer up to snuff, or that an older applicant didn’t have the right skills. Age discrimination suits are notoriously hard to prove.

What of the young people? To them I say this: Enjoy your career while you can. Stuff your 401(k) or IRA with as much coin as you can, while you can. Because you see, your work life has an expiration date. It’s about, I’d say, age 55, or thereabouts. Oh, sure, you'll live to 89, but your work life ends at 55. Good luck funding that retirement.

Your employer may adore you and your cut-rate salary now. But what happens when you start to move up the corporate ladder and demand a higher wage so you can get married, buy a house, start a family, and finally pay off those student loans for chrissakes. Or when you want enough earnings so you can send your kids to college. Just when all your hard work and experience is paying off, when you finally know what you are doing in your chosen profession, and maybe, just maybe you can enjoy a comfortable life…you will be taken into a room and told to clean out your desk and leave. You will be trashed to the dustbin and replaced by the next wave of 22-year-olds that have the tech skills employers covet and who are willing to work for a measly salary.

So to all those young people who are taking jobs I could easily do with a hand tied behind my back, or those middle-aged middle managers that routinely reject me for employment, I say this:

Buddy, you’re next.