Requiem for a Hard Drive

It died yesterday, the hard drive in my Mac Book.

For six years, during spans of employment and unemployment, it chugged along until it could no longer.

It was old, I knew that. So when I turned it on yesterday and it took longer than usual to boot up and I heard ominous clicking sounds from the innards of the computer, I panicked but was not surprised. I really should have seen this coming. In fact, I knew the day of reckoning was near. So much so that I recently took money from a retirement account, ostensibly to pay bills, but I knew a big chunk of that coin would someday soon pay for a new model when the inevitable day came when my old computer died.

I called Apple, but the nice lady could do nothing for me except make an afternoon appointment at the nearby Apple store.  

I lugged the heavy, now-dead computer there, and told the young techie what the problem was. He took it into the back room to do more tests. (As a cancer survivor, more tests means bad news.) Sure enough, he confirmed the worst: The hard drive had died and all my files were lost. (Please spare me the I told you so’s about backing up my files. I didn’t. I’m no

techie. And how many people in this age of the Cloud and google docs backs up their files anyway?)

The choice was this: Keep the old computer with a new hard drive inserted in it, take the now-dead hard drive to a data recovery service in the hopes of resurrection (which may or may not be possible and would cost at $300), or buy a new computer.

Merely replacing the old hard drive with a new one would have been the cheapest option, but one that would have left me without a computer for days. With no computer, I can’t work, and if I don’t work I don’t make money. I need money.

And like everyone else, I like shiny and new. So I bought a new MacBook Air (the cheapest one I could reasonably afford while still buying one useful for work), and will contact a data recovery service to see if anything can be salvaged from my old hard drive.

The irony isn’t lost. Me, the person who rails about employers who only want to hire young people ditched without hesitation my faithful old computer whose only crime was that it aged. The hard drive may have died, but what remained could have worked again. Yep, folks, I laid off my old computer. Just like that.

Apparently, I’m like every potential employer: I want shiny and new and easy. So much easier to hire a young person, right? So much easier to train on new tech systems. So much easier to justify the lower salary, even if they don’t have the experience or qualifications for the job. They come with no baggage, unlike my old hard drive with its decades-old files and photos. Who wants old?

Is this what out society has come to? It’s one thing to discard a computer for a newer model, but a person? Just like that old hard drive, perhaps our knowledge and life experience can be saved and put to use once again. Here’s hoping ... for me and the old hard drive.

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.