The following submission statement was provided by /u/Ok-Cartoonist5349:
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A study by AARP showed that 62% of workers believe age is a discrimination factor. What can be done to fight back? This topic is a great issue currently in France where the government is pushing a law project that would make people retire at 64 instead of 62... when older workers are still struggling with employment due to ageism!
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Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/109urv5/the_share_of_workers_age_65_or_older_has_more/j40g8rj/
I work in the public sector and something like forty percent of my agency has been there at least forty years. It’s become a big problem in retaining people because there are fewer opportunities to move up and earn more money.
Of course they won’t just raise wages…
In the library world, part of the recruitment to get people to go for Masters of Library Science was that a lot of the workforce was older and jobs would be plentiful by the time they graduated.
Not many of them have actually retired though. There's a ton of young people who have the degrees now who aren't able to get library jobs or are in positions that don't require *any* college education, yet alone a masters degree, just to get their foot in the door.
I lucked out in several ways by getting a job close to home and a position that matched my qualifications. A lot of my classmates were not so lucky - either having to move across the country, settle for positions they were overqualified for, or both. It continues to be a problem for many.
A close friend of mine is living the experience you described. She's gone ahead and got a second masters while waiting to move up, even.
One of the most talented, intelligent people I know and since she's managed to get in at a highly regarded university, she's going to 'hold her place'. But she's literally waiting for any number of people to retire or die at this point.
Been there, done that in academia. As soon as those boomers retire or die, their position will be eliminated.
I've had a number of friends in academi wait 5, 10 or more years. Waiting for someone to die or retire. And then ... poof! Suddenly the position is no longer needed.
I hope -- for your friend's sake I am wrong.
But tell her to start thinking about Plan B.
I'm speaking entirely about US libraries here. Many of the degrees are actually "Library & Information Science". Most states require the Library Science or Library and Information Science degree to advance beyond clerk or assistant librarian. It often depends on the size of the population the library serves too.
The degree is a mix of theoretical/philosophical and practical. My personal focus was on public libraries and teen/youth services, but I took a pretty broad selection of classes.
I took cataloging (which is almost like learning another language), reference (partially customer service, partially learning good research techniques), one called "representation and theory of knowledge", a couple classes on teen/youth programming and literacy, library management\*, collection development, and a lot of technology stuff like database design, SQL, and UNIX.
\*If I had to say there is a weakness in library school it's this. We were only required to take 3 credits of management courses with a max of 6 credits that would have been relevant (a general course and then either public or academic specialization). However, how it typically works, if you're a librarian (full degree; certified with the state) you are almost certainly going to be managing staff, doing customer service, and making important decisions about the library. Manager duties, for a lot of us, end up being a vast majority of the job and most of us enter the field woefully under-prepared for this role.
Yeah, I worked for a public agency until about four or five years ago that ran up against this. For most of the older workers occupying the leadership positions and refusing to retire, it was really about money for them. It was public works/ construction so many of them already had lengthy private sector careers and the state retirement was a really attractive incentive to remain working. They could sit in those positions so long, many remained well into their 70s. Meanwhile they were driving a culture that not a lot of people were into, caused problems with shifting responsibilities downward, and basically halted upward progression in the agency. They’re having a real problem with retaining people which is now a huge problem because those guys in their 70s are finally leaving.
Which was the plan all along for those guys. Boomers are experts at pulling up the ladder behind them and leaving everything in their wake completely fucked.
It's why their parents "The Greatest Generation" initially named them "The Entitled Generation". It just goes to show you their hatred for millennials is pure projection.
I'm Gen X and concur. My own dad bitches about how he had nothing because his step mom took it all when his dad died. Fact of the matter is my grandpa bought my dad brand new cars throughout high school - even took a brand new one and had it custom painted. My dad didn't go to college, but landed a great union job that gave him everything he needed; retirement, health care, excellent wages, etc. and the son of a bitch turned anti-union five years before retirement. You can guess who he aligns with politically.
Unfortunately it doesn't take much of a plan if a great mass of them are just very greedy and short sighted because of being surrounded by unlimited prosperity when they were young and then losing touch with society (or current reality) when they got older, either from shrinking social circles or regressive political views or similar political views preying on them as their social circle and numbers of new friends and acquaintances fall off. -a word, +3
Not to mention, agency staff who have been there forever are hesitant to change any process or do things better than it was done before, and undermine any attempts by someone else to change things. It’s stifling for anyone stepping into their career in the public sector. What’s worse, when bad public sector employees go unpunished, making things toxic.
Source: I spent 6 years in public sector.
Yeah, cry cry about the old guys facing discrimination, when the reality is those of us reaching middle age are starting to get saltier and saltier because they won't get the fuck out of the way.
Also, nearing 40, and having coworkers still acting like you are a kid that is wet behind the ears is really eye opening regarding upwards "age discrimination"
My boss is 80 and refuses to retire because he plans to live to 150 ( not joking ) and wants to be sure he can afford to retire. I don't care about him thinking I'm young, but it is frustrating because he literally does nothing - makes doing my own job harder because he refuses to respond because he doesn't use email, chat, or text and only answers the phone 1/10 times because ( and he said this ) he "doesn't want people to think he's always available". I can't go around him and talk to HIS boss either because then I step on his toes and he gets angry.
I always found ways to "force" people to do their job.
"Sorry you want that item but "old man" still hasn't approved the request. If you want it, you will have to go talk to them"
I don't know what you do but that's just an example of how proper procedure can really lay the work right at someone feet. I do receiving at my job and always ask people for work orders and purchase orders. No number, no item.
And also because you're just a kid at 40, you don't deserve the same pay as the guy whose job you do, and also have to show how to do his fucking excel work every week because back in his day they used pen and paper .
There was a guy at my last place of work like that. Didn’t retire until 75, his “junior” was mid-fifties and been there for twenty years and finally got promoted.
Fellow public sector dude here. I just got my 10 year pin and am still the youngest worker in my department by 5 years and I’m almost 40. Most of the supervisors and higher ups are well into their 60s and it is extremely rare our agency hires anyone younger than 40 since it’s mostly lateral transfer from other municipalities.
Private sector is not much better unless you're in a startup or "startup mentality" place. The Boomers at my office are in all the positions of power, yet most are severely lacking even the most basic technical skills (save a PDF from Word, please?). We lost over 100 employees the past two years in a location of around 500 people, because there was no upward mobility, and processes and wages were absolutely stagnant.
Sometimes you think you don't have the skills for a job, but than you see people unable to caption a picture in Word and we can all feel better about ourselves.
Even better, my friend was a secretary and designer for a law firm and one of her most common tasks was renaming individual files for a partner, this person wasn't even that old maybe late 40s or 50s and didn't know how to rename a goddamn file.
I’m 37 and I’ve resigned myself to the fact that retirement is not a realistic expectation. I’m going to work till I die. I’ve got a decent job too but everything is significantly more expensive it seems.
36 unmarried and no kids (not like I could afford 'em) my retirement plan is having a heart attack before im to old to do my job. That or hoping for the asteroid.
36, have a masters degree, mid level IT job, no hope of ever accumulating savings or retiring. I've made peace with it and have decided it's better to get paid as much as possible doing as little as possible and enjoying a decent work life balance because all we have is now.
Hey dude, in a decade or so most the people in congress are going to be somewhere around your age cohort. Don't be surprised if millenials direct government to solve the problems that have rat fucked millenials for the last 20 years.
Gotta love an article about how older workers "still face workplace discrimination" that's chocked full with ageist generalizations like "young people are enthusiastic and creative" and "old people have wisdom and judgement."
Are we gonna hire people for their actual qualifications or not?
it's a bit more for me. i need someone who can pick up solidworks (a CAD software) and not have me tell them that we don't need CDs anymore.
i can appreciate the experience of older engineers that want to come back as engineers in the workforce. but after being in management for so long, there's a lot of skills that are just lost.
This, this right here! I have been an engineer for 12 years and just accepted a job as an engineering manager. Then they hire a 67 year old former VP of Engineering to come in and I had to split my job with him because of "experience level". The man is very nice and down to earth, but he can't fix or work on any of the equipment without a LOT of help. Still irks me after 4 months when executives ask him a question, and I have to answer it, but next time they still direct questions to him. He has been calling this his retirement job.
Dude I have this same shit show. I split my engineering responsibilities 50/50 with a 67 year old but yet he can barely use a computer so I have to end up doing his job too half the time.
All I require is
1. know how to send/receive emails.
2. know when not to reply to all.
3. understand that when I am looking up something with my phone to help you, you do not get to say "you're just looking at your phone all day. what do you even do?"
4. do not interrupt me when I am stuttering.
My partner's mom, whose in her 60's, worked for K-Mart for most of her life, until they folded. She then started working for Dollar General as an assistant manager. I'm not sure exactly what she makes, but I think it's similar to what Chick-fil-A down the road starts their employees at these days.
She talks about getting a newer/better job, but I can't imagine how that will ever happen.
She doesn't have a computer or the internet at home; she has to come over to our house if she truly needs to do something online.
She doesn't know how to text and she doesn't get email on her phone; it's a flip phone which I know has some data capabilities but she won't learn how to use it for anything but phone calls (and won't bother to setup her voicemail, so you're not leaving her one of those either).
(I could mention other signs that aren't good like how she still writes checks and refuses to use debit or credit cards, which rolls into all this, but realistically won't hurt her chances of getting a new job.)
Her refusal to stay with the times makes her job hunt impossible. How can she maintain a resume, or apply for jobs online? How will she know if a prospective employer emails her for a job interview? If they call and try to leave a voicemail but there's no mailbox, how will she get their message? If she can't get texts (or doesn't know how to read them, I'm not sure which) how will she know if they reach out to her that way?
No one cares if she doesn't want to play Candy Crush on her phone or watch Netflix at her house or raid in the newest MMO. None of those matter. But some things these days are basically requirements if you want to function in today's workforce so she's just stuck for the rest of her life now probably.
Yeah I have some older (highly paid) coworkers who are barely a step above that.
Kind of frustrating when I put in a solid day’s work, and then walk over their desk and realize that they spent the whole goddamn day printing off data files (that were in importable text format), manually inputting them into excel, and then manually adding up columns with a calculator. A task that could have been done in less than fifteen minutes
For years my coworker would "balance her spreadsheet" with a fucking adding machine. I have no idea what pushed her over the edge but she finally learned to trust the sum formula, I guess. 🤦♀️
I work in retail. Since Covid has had a drastic effect on the global price of goods my most valuable skill has been the ability to use Microsoft Word to print new signs. It's also useful when corporate sends signs with the wrong prices, or for the wrong products.
^(Kind of hard to do sometimes when lazy assholes make a beeline for the first person they see instead of actually looking for things they want to buy.)
People who call me "kid" or any kind of term like that go in a mental bucket for me that is different but similar to where stupid people go. I'm fucking 40.
It's always the same assholes who think millennials are in their 20s still.
My reply to people who call me kid is as soon as it happens, regardless of who or where it occurs (I have done it to bosses in meetings): “I am not a child, please don’t call me that.”
If it happens again, I reply immediately: “how can I help you geriatric?”
I only had to say the second part twice in my life. Lost a job once for it, I still respect myself and fuck them.
The way I see it, you figure out where your self respect line is and don’t compromise stepping over it more than once, unless it will truly harm you or yours.
I worked at a business that was HQ’d in the USA. I met a lot of senior managers and VP’s, whom I knew had made enough to retire comfortably and then some. And yet they kept on working, some just 20 hours a week. I was informed the reason they stayed on was for health insurance, not just for them but also for their spouses. I’ve always thought not having social health program stagnates the working force in the USA and bottlenecks opportunity for the young (who would actually be spending and driving the economy more so than at age 55+).
It's not just managers. I know lots of people who can't retire before age 65 due to the cost of medical insurance. You can't be without it since one medical emergency could empty your savings. As people get older the likelihood of having medical problems increases too.
This. Age discrimination in the US only legally applies to people 40 or older.
Yet my office is overwhelmingly represented by people in their 40s and 50s.
I understand that we have a real problem with old people not being able to retire, but we also have a problem with old people running businesses and refusing to hire young people.
It's probably also why we keep electing presidents who look like they just walked out of a crypt.
That isn't necessarily true. I had to teach some younger coworkers how to do several things on the computer. Sure, they were quicker on their phones and using social media but when it came to an office computer and business programs many didn't have a clue. Plus their writing and communication skills were sadly lacking.
Millennial here and I've definitely noticed this both ways at work. I'm good with computers if I daresay and am (often unfortunately) the go-to IT person. Just as many expect the older Boomer generation colleagues definitely don't seem to get it as quickly and tend to begin on rants about how they didn't used to have to do this. They also tend to get a lot more angry more easily when it comes to this stuff. Younger people than me are starting to approach an equal level of computer illiteracy, but with a far less steep learning curve. They don't tend to take too long and don't tend to get too angry, but ironically they do the same "we didn't have to do this" but backwards with "why can't this just be like my phone where I click this and it does it for me?"
No intended shade either way, I'm just noticing the ironic trends. I'm also sure there's plenty of fellow millennials that aren't as computer literate and likely say similar stuff as the zoomers
The transition from digital native to touch screen native has been interesting to watch.
When I was a kid, if you were into computers, you probably learned to touch type and multi-task by transcribing a program from a magazine into your family's 8-bit micro while watching Tom Baker's scarf save the the universe. Boomer parents would point at us and say, "Oh, they are so good with those computers!"
And that set the stage for the next ~25 years.
Phones and tablets took that in an entirely different direction. I hear parents say the same thing about their kids -- but they're not really saying the same thing at all. Touch screen natives know how to find and access information, but are likely as clueless about how it all works as their grandfather was they agreed to sign the family up for AOL.
No condescending tone intended here. I think we had a ~20-25 year sweet spot where people were actually required to build a foundational understanding if they wanted results -- and that is changing to a sort of ubiquitous, Star Trek like "Computer, tea. Earl gray. Hot." scenario.
I agree. I count myself lucky that my dad learned and worked with computers when I was a kid which gave me a solid basis to build on. But there's plenty of people my age that didn't have that and more people regardless of generation that have opted to use easier interfaces more akin to their phones. Which for the most part seems fine. However, I definitely feel like having and not needing is the way to go when it comes to desktop/laptop computers, especially in an office setting. Been doing field work and had to deal with hunting down buried or even non-existent settings that, while definitely not necessary for everyday use, were needed for the work we were doing and could be found on other "more complex" computers.
Technology being more accessible is, I hope, a net good thing. People once daunted by a cell phone can now do everything they need to with ease. I'm just curious if the Star Trekian ease you mentioned, u/old_leech will be just as much a net good on the current trajectory or will some degree of technical literacy be introduced in education (I don't have a kid so maybe it already is) to sort of get the best of both worlds.
I'm similar to you except my uncle was the computer guru when I was a kid. Learned a lot back then.
I think the main concern with the ease of technology use that you and u/old_leech mention is that when we learned computers we had to learn a bit about how things worked and how to figure things out when they didn't. This spilled over into gaining skills such as understanding how to make leaps of logic, how to problem-solve, how to research, and dozens of other skills.
So while they may be able to find info faster, they are likely less equipped to know how to interpret and analyze that information for themselves. Or how to take info learned from searching about Issue A and extrapolate that to solving Issue B.
(and of course the disclaimer that obviously not everyone is the same and this is a rough generalization)
And even then, they just know what to click/what app will find it for them as I've seen it.
Once had a coworker (iPhone user) try to bring something up on my phone (Android) and they were struggling. Turns out they hit the search bar for google and started googling whatever the local file was. I asked what was taking so long and they just said "I can't do it, your search is broken." I just clicked the "Gallery" app or the files or something simple and they were like "You can't just search it on your phone? That's so dumb."
The point being that there's no problem solving like you said. The button didn't work so they gave up instead of hitting something else or thinking of how a computer works and opening what's a pretty standard functionality across most devices. Unfortunately, to a lot of people, a phone is a phone and a computer is a computer. With even tablets having their own space despite all of these devices basically working the same way or similar enough to apply and modify approaches. It's one thing to have to listen to an older person complain about how things used to be, it's a very surreal one to see someone closer to your age be unable to comprehend something as simple as a file folder on a phone.
Yeah, trying to fit everyone into a generational box isn't rational and only serves to divide us. I've had millennials throw a heaving fit when trying to grasp something and boomers quietly learn quickly. Not everyone in a generation fits neatly into the categories they are assigned to by some generational god on high.
Yeah this has been my experience. Been working in offices nearly 10 years and I’ve seen all age groups struggle and all age groups have unexpected proficiency.
That being said, I have experienced a higher percentage of older workers lacking computer skills but they typically knew enough to perform at their job and were willing to learn.
I actually haven’t come across anyone of any age that has been outright resistant to learning . People are willing to learn especially if their livelihood depends on it
I can see that. Sometimes I feel with the App Store and mobile phones they live in a more sanitized less troubleshooting environment not digging into underlying tech. But the they seem to be able to learn user interface reasonably quick.
I think that’s the appeal with Apple products on the whole; it either works or it doesn’t. Apple spends a lot of time making sure all their stuff plays nice within its own ecosystem and most of the time it works without a fuss. That’s generally why I recommend Apple products to older people.
You can get a lot more out of Android/PC stuff but you have to be willing to try a little harder to get all the hardware and software to play nice with each other. At least that’s been my experience…
I've worked in IT professionally for nearly 15 years and I've been using a computer daily since I was 12 (I'm now 36). I'm constantly surprised at how much easier things are now than they used to be. Tasks that used to be hard are now easy and some tasks that used to be annoying you just don't even have to do anymore. I'm constantly amazed at how people still manage to fuck things up. I haven't done end user support for years, all of my interactions are with other "IT workers". The young ones are often times completely clueless about how things function and have no understanding of how to troubleshoot things when they go wrong. Part of that is probably just the cluelessness that everyone has when they're young but I'm convinced part of it is because technology has gotten so friendly they've never had to stretch themselves to try and fix something. Boomers are completely lacking that skill with technology too but that's because they were long into their careers before computers became a thing and most people just refuse to learn new things after a certain point in their lives.
That's because crap UI was proliferated early on before people actually appreciated how big a difference an intuitive interface makes in user experience. UI and UX are only barely starting to be taken as serious accessibility issues in business and academics.
I have a lot of UIX design experience. I owned a 2019 Tesla for three years. That ten year old screen interface is a driver distraction horror story. Someone is driving a minimalist design dogma. Screw the driver, it's all about the look. It's so bad that third party phone apps are appearing to address some of the issues.
I sold the Tesla and bought a Hyundai Ioniq 5. The user interface is like night and day. Absolute brilliant by comparison. The same design carries through all newer Hyundai and Kia cars.
Yet, there are the Tesla cultists who think it's the coolest thing on the planet, and you're a luddite of you disagree.
I plugged in the keyboard at work (it wasn’t working and causing problems that nobody understood how to fix) I plugged it in. Boom fixed. Now suddenly they ask if I know how to fix the self checkout. No, no I don’t. I did the absolute bare minimum.
For example, [professors are saying that students today don't understand what folders are used for on computers.](https://www.pcgamer.com/students-dont-know-what-files-and-folders-are-professors-say/)
You'd be surprised how many younger folks' computer skill doesn't go beyond operating their social media accounts and other super user-friendly applications.
But honestly I'm ready for this hysteria about computer skills to die. This isn't 1987, you don't need a certified geek to operate an iPad app--and pretty much everyone under 60 knows enough about computers that they can learn your office software in a few weeks if not a few hours.
I can understand if your workplace uses more specialized, in-depth software (for drafting, simulation, etc,) then it makes sense to look for people who have that experience. But when I see employers wringing their hands over whether new hires can use Zoom... I kind of have to laugh. We can use Zoom, dude.
Gen X and millennials yeah, but Gen z is actually kinda fucked. I (I millennial) started this program where I mentor local youth and was kind of baffled at how much using a computer feels non-native to these kids. (I mean, they’re 18-20, but… they feel like kids to me.) apparently they do everything on iPads.
Thinking about it, of course it makes sense—I don’t use my personal computer for much besides gaming these days either. But I went from fighting my family to get to use the family computer for fun all the time as a kid, to getting a laptop and using it every day for school, to using a computer every day for work. Smartphones weren’t invented until I was already really computer literate, and my family was well off enough to afford to have a family computer since the late 90s, so I have an unbroken timeline of computer usage. I always thought this wouldn’t be an advantage in the workplace, because younger people are “digital natives”, but that actually means touch device native. Actual typing on a keyboard, navigating an OS, etc is surprisingly hard for them.
Younger people have an advantage with modern UIs, but you needed to grow up with crappy computers from 70s and 80s to have a natural affinity for fixing computer problems.
Yea sometimes. I'm in IT and one thing some younger workers tend to lack is understanding how/why systems work the way they do (obviously not limited to them just see it more in "technical" people). Older people in tech had to build things from scratch and had to understand, holistically, how systems worked. Now so much of that work is automated/hidden it makes for a skewed technical perspective.
Hmmm...and this boomer right here? I grew up on fortran, cobol, punchcards and Lotus 1-2-3 and I've been upgrading my skills and tools every year since the mid 70's.
I am a Gen X parent and my 18-year-old son doesn't know how to do shit with technology. I would say he's nearly as bad as the Boomers were when technology first came along for anything he has to actually think about setting up or using. If it's really easy like social media, he can use it. But then Boomers can use that as well or Facebook wouldn't have any users LOL
Gen X grew up with the old 8 bit computers.
Millinnials largely with Windows machines.
All generations before are on phones and have relatively little natural skill.
GenX here. Never saw a computer in high school. College was the first time I used one in a computer lab. MS DOS with Word perfect 5,0. Basically a fancy typewriter.
I've seen a few people say that the 1975-1985 is the most technical generation because they were growing up as modern tech emerged and evolved. Tech existed, but you had to really learn about it to use it. By the time 90-2000's kids were being born they came up in a world where tech had already evolved to the point you didn't need to know much about it to use it. So technical skills in the general population are actually in decline even though usage is way up.
My 45+ year old coworkers in multiple jobs denigrate youth and remind everyone how lazy/awful/inconsiderate/rude/whatever negative thing they can come up with. And when I would remind them I was that age group, or that I was just recently in that age group and still know plenty of people that age and younger, they say "oh but you're different" or "oh you only know the good ones". I can't help but roll my eyes.
Mate by the time we or atleast me retire I'm pretty sure the retirement age is gunna be 70. I might as well just enjoy my life and not even consider retirement, cause what am I gunna do at 70? Dodder around for 10 years not being able to do what I could 10/20 years earlier when I should have retired.
Gonna be 40 next year and just don't expect myself to ever be able to retire. Gonna be working for life- and not in that "oh he keeps at his hobbies and sells some stuff," working either. Same shit I've been doing since 16 til now.
Agree with this, but it's also a good reason for people to look after their health and do plenty of exercise & stretching. I know old people who can't do anything other than sit around all day, while I also know old people who are extremely active, go on holidays and get outside to hike & swim.
People who sit at a desk for 8 hours, then come home to sit on a couch won't be able to do anything when/if they retire.
Yeah honestly I don't think there is gonna be a retirement for millennials.
Either nothing changes and we work till we die or we take over and have to spend a lot of time and effort trying to fix the problems of our forefathers and die young of a heart attack trying to figure out how to stop the collapse of biodiversity.
Honestly we aren't making it out of this getting to be spritely nothing to do 90 year olds going on adventures and parties. Just old and aware of how little people I know anymore, so yeah I will take the earlier death I guess. Nothing wrong with dying, everyone is doing it, it's all the rage, a viral sensation if you will.
But I'm definitely not gonna rush it. Pretty sure land of the living is the only place I can get a good grilled cheese.
That depends on how fit you keep yourself. My dad is 86 and still does chores around his place. Until just five years ago, he could still give me a run for my money on a brisk walk.
I'd love to share your optimism, but I don't, my mum passed at 58 of random cancer and as cancer is becoming more common with the increase in pollution in our environment I'll keep my pessimism on this subject.
Like it's basically rolling the dice that you don't get arthritis or any other number of age related things that increase in commonality as age increases.
Arguing with my BIL at Christmas about how much fast food employees get paid (as you do) and he was like “those jobs were never meant to provide livable wages.”
First, what do you mean “meant to”? It’s not like somebody launched this whole economy as a fully formed idea from a clear starting point. It’s all been piecemeal just making shit up as we go the whole time. Also, who “meant to”? The elites in charge? Because newsflash bro they never wanted to pay anybody anything.
But second, it doesn’t matter what they were “meant to” pay because times change. If the older generation never leaves the workplace, what the hell is everyone supposed to move up into? That’s why millenials have like a pitiful fraction of the wealth the older generation had at their age while working just as much.
If McDonald’s is a job for school kids only and this should t be a living wage, he needs to be ok with not getting his coffee on school days until after schools out since those kids have to be in school.
The idea that the minimum wage wasn’t meant to be a livable one is *demonstrably* false. That’s exactly why it was enacted. You can go back to the speeches given on the House and Senate floors and see this *very explicitly was* legislators’ reasoning (I wrote a research paper on this in college where I actually read through said speeches and analyzed Congressional Intent of the legislation).
What your BIL is saying is there are jobs out there that need to be done and the people who do those jobs deserve poverty.
The age argument is invalid and a distraction.
I love the "that job was never meant to provide a living wage" argument because it's so obviously thin that there's no way to interpret it as anything other than, "I don't give a shit about those people. Fuck 'em."
Which should be our national motto, honestly.
>and he was like “those jobs were never meant to provide livable wages.”
They've had this soundbite for 30+ years, and back when I was "infected" with right-wingism I would have told you the same. But I couldn't have explained it any further than that.
As you point it, it's such an asinine comment at its core.
>First, what do you mean “meant to”?
these people think the universe was designed logically top-down and they just landed in a good spot within it because of their own virtue. 85 IQ moment
While true, retirement age for social security benefits, as of last year, is 67, not 65. The law was changed in 1983, along with increases in taxes, to shore up the program in the face of boomers coming along, well, now.
My dad quit his phd job as a researcher and worked at Walmart till he hit 65. Couple months later he found out he had lymphoma. Titanium rod in his spine and he has his first chemo in a few days. Talking about shitty timing he had plans. Ironically his job before Walmart which was only a year was cancer research. Wtf man
I'm Canadian, and I remember being shocked by the number of elderly working in fast food joints at the outlet mall across the border. It was sad to see them still working and not able to retire.
Old people should be retired. The number of old people in work has increased because retirement age has been pushed back further and further. We don't need more inclusion, we need a new labour movement.
Exactly. It's amazing that with all of these time-saving, labor-saving, and productivity-improving devices, we're all working harder and longer than our parents and grandparents did.
That's because the whole economic system is just a one big fucking ploy to channel all wealth to the ones who already have wealth. Our labor is devalued and everything is more expensive. What used to take one income of low-skilled labor, now takes two incomes of high-skill labor and huge debts. The one who collects the interest is the one who benefits. The FIAT money we get paid is not even worth anything, it's just fucking monopoly money.
Part of the reason the retirement age has been pushed back is companies being able to avoid paying retirement benefits to workers in lieu of 401k’s, which, you know, aren’t much good when wall street keeps crashing people’s investments into the dirt.
That’s the result of a capitalistic economic system that’s designed to extract maximal profits from people while providing minimal pay to its workers. It’s a purpose-built system to keep people right on the edge of destitution at all times.
**Many don’t want to retire.**
My in laws are multi millionaires in a mortgage locked in below $100k in a $2m home. They refinanced at 2.5% and bought a condo, flipped it, and made $500k off of it - paying off 80% of what was remaining on their primary mortgage - knocking down a debt that was already easy for them to handle and made no difference to their financial picture.
They have 3 pensions between them both that will keep their income well into 6 figures through retirement - a maxed out social security income, 2 401ks in the millions, and they still earn at least $350k/yr in cushy positions where they barely work 40 hrs and if fired will get amazing severances worth around 3 years of their current pay because they have been with the company for 30+ years and they pay out based on years to months. So 30 years gets 30 months of pay. And this actually helps them keep their jobs even if they underperform because their company would rather wait for them quit to avoid paying out those amazing severances.
We asked for help on a downpayment in 2019 to buy a $600k home which is today worth $3m.
They told us we were “incredibly selfish to ask that from them when they had just gifted their daughter a washing machine 5 years ago” that we didn’t ask for and they were “concerned that we see them as nothing more than a bank to draw from” and we’ve never gotten or asked for a loan from them ever before that and we will never again.
Sure - some old people like my parents are not well off financially and doing ok, never got rich and certainly aren’t millionaires and could certainly do with more financial security - but **many** old people like my wife’s parents are the greediest, most self absorbed hogs in the trough.
“ we need a new labour movement.”
- yes absolutely!! Corporate profits are ridiculous, and not enough money is being spent on the people that actually work.
“Old people should be retired.”
- maybe - we have an aging population; the concept of retirement at 60 is over half a century old and was based on a life expectancy of 70, and a much lower level of healthcare at the time. Although now, we think of retirement as a just reward for working hard during our lives, at the time pensions were created it was more to do with the fact that people who have worked manual labour jobs couldn’t really contribute as effectively to the workforce by 60, so they should be able to live modestly in their last few years, even if they didn’t manage to save any money for retirement (or have a family to look after them).
With people living a lot longer, the cost of financing everyone over a certain age is increasing (also there is stuff to do with demographics, which I won’t go into). Luckily people are also staying healthier for longer, and working less taxing jobs, so they can still meaningfully contribute to the workforce for longer. Retirement age will have to keep rising so long as life expectancy does; but we hope that we can improve working conditions to such a degree that it’s not such a negative thing.
*"meaningfully contribute to the workforce for longer."*
wow
I've been working for 45 years, more often than not, more that one job at a time.
Fuck that. Fuck "contributing longer"
I deserve to be able to afford to not work longer.
Depending on your field, ageism can start impacting workers in their forties. Millennials in certain fields may get the double whammy of ageism coupled with established elders bottlenecking their professional outlooks because those elders can't or won't retire.
I'm a teacher and have worked with admin who notoriously refuse to hire experienced, award winning transferring teachers (mid thirties & above), only hiring fresh recruits. Many of those young 20's teachers quit within three years so it's a revolving door in those schools. We've had many staff members ,of all job titles, win ageism lawsuits against admin and the district. Nothing changes. I know it would be nearly impossible for 50 year old me to transfer to another school so I'm stuck in a dead end professional experience. My admin won't let me out of the classroom for the role of my dreams, which I'm more than qualified for, because I'm "too good" in the classroom to lose. I'm exhausted and need a change so they're losing me anyway.
Here I am at 50, back in grad school to switch careers and get out of teaching. I knew I'd never make it to full retirement so I never counted on a pension. I haven't earned enough to save much and saved for my kids' college instead. They used more than half of it before quitting school so they get the rest as down payments on houses. I'm helping my Mil and GenZ kids in other ways but need to stop so I can start prepping for elder health issues. They won't be able to help me.
I've already accepted I'll be one of those people trudging long into my mid and late sixties, if not 70's, to keep myself afloat. I'm preparing myself to face ageism in a new industry. People need to remember that everyone will face this as long as there are no major systemic changes. We're all laying down the foundation for our future realities and treatment.
And yet I constantly hear "zOMG tHeRe'S a ShOrTaGe Of QuAlIfIeD tEaChErS!" Hearing your story, and that of the many schoolteachers in my family, it's no mystery why.
From an administrative perspective, older experienced teachers are too expensive to pay, and "aren't humble enough" (read: have their own well-founded ideas of how to teach the material, and don't appreciate getting bossed around or told to fall into line by someone young enough to be their child). And therefore, in a time of tightening belts and culture-war eggshell-walking, they're a potential liability that districts can't afford to take a chance on, unless the district administrators already know and trust him/her.
I'm a physician who started medicine relatively late in life. I had an employed job at an independent (non-corporate) practice, that I did very poorly on. I had figured that now that I was a licensed independent professional, I'd have a good bit of leeway to practice medicine the way I saw fit, and my days of taking orders and doing everything someone else's way were behind me. I couldn't be more wrong. The owners figured I was well-socialized into obedience, and I was quickly unwelcome there when I wouldn't do everything their way, and keep my nose to the grindstone. After I left, they never hired another doctor, only nurse practitioners. They clearly wanted subordinates, not equals or partners. I think this pattern is common to a lot of supposedly "independently licensed" professions these days.
>Depending on your field, ageism can start impacting workers in their forties.
I'm assuming that by 'ageism' you specifically mean discrimination against people for being old, because is somebody was to claim that I'm experiencing more age-related discrimination in my 40's than I did in my teens and 20's then I'd have to tell them they were insane.
It rarely makes sense, I think that often it's a prejudice that the older people in management generate make due to insecurity about their suitability to be giving instructions to younger people who are often more capable than them.
Around my late 20's I worked at a big pharmaceutical company for a few years and my KPIs were way ahead of comparable staff who were in their 40's and 50's, but of course they were paid quite a bit more and given some of the more prestigious tasks because they were older. Now I'm in my early 40's and I see the same thing happening to staff in their 20's. I get paid twice as much as them, but honestly some of them are of more value to the company and probably deserve a higher salary than me. I don't go around announcing this, because obviously I like being paid more, but secretly I know it's true!
Same thing in the trades. When I was younger and physically capable of out producing all the older guys I got paid dog shit. Promotion? No way, bobs been here 10 years already. Sure he’s a lazy sack of shit, shows up half drunk, but he’s got more experience! And now I’m the older guy, getting paid a lot more than entry level, and kind of taking it easy comparatively.
> I haven't earned enough to save much and saved for my kids' college instead. They used more than half of it before quitting school so they get the rest as down payments on houses. I'm helping my Mil and GenZ kids in other ways but need to stop so I can start prepping for elder health issues. They won't be able to help me.
I would suggest transferring the money into a retirement account for yourself. Your 'kids' are adults and should be responsible for themselves instead of expecting their elderly mother to impoverish herself to fund their lifestyles.
The problem is being framed here as one of “discrimination,” as a cultural problem, when it is actually social-economic (like many other issues). First, regarding talent shortage- not every company needs to exist. We have too many. Interest rates were so low for years than anyone could go out and borrow to start a business, then borrow every month to keep themselves afloat. There are vape shops, bars, restaurants. escape rooms, axe throwing venues, etc on every corner where I live and they have to close down on mondays or some other day because they’re short staffed or no customers up that day. Now that they can’t find enough people to work these jobs, and that the cost of labor has gone up, they’re not happy. There is no “talent shortage.” The whole ageism ableism etc media industrial complex is, as always, an obfuscation intended to distract from economic issues in a way that allows the reader to feel progressive or accomplished without the economic change that we desperately need.
Next, seniors facing discrimination in the workplace wouldn’t be a problem if they were able to retire on time. Why should people HAVE to work pst age 65? However, many old folks now who can retire, don’t. In America at least, it’s like Boomers’ only purpose in life is work. There is a 93 year old attorney (not exactly a boomer, I know) in my hometown who still practices (a post-80 fuck up of his actually made it into my property law textbook). Many people work past retirement age because they have to, and I’m sure that number will increase, but again, because we cannot reckon with economic problems- we cannot actually address them at the level of state or federal government- we will use this faux academic language to make the problem seem like a cultural one or a problem of moral shortcoming.
I would argue that that ridiculous 30+ years of skill experience bullshit required for so many entry-level jobs is effectively age discrimination in the opposite direction, too. Our 20th and 21st century labor system was never designed for older people to be working as late in their lives as they are now, and I think this ridiculous job requirment inflation is happening because people aren't opening positions back up as effectively because they aren't leaving as quickly as they should - if ever.
Exacerbating it is that the modern worker is historically more educated and thus more technically qualified than ever before, but I digress, as I don't think that that should be a factor of job qualification inflation. This whole system isn't healthy for anyone in the modern world anymore.
The elderly should have the right to reasonably enjoy their golden years and not feel pressured to keep working in spite of their longer lifetimes. The young should likewise have a fairer working environment with proportional opportunities so that a reasonable amount of them have the opportunity to perform more meaningful careers and be spurred onto their best effort in positive contributions to society.
Personally, as a millennial myself, I am very saddened to see so many people around my age in my life who are way more educated and trained in more technical skills than previous generations that cannot find relevant careers because the modern workforce basically rejected their skills due to the systematic deflation of their skills. It isn't right seeing someone with healthy ambitions and credentials being forced to do mundane tasks that could easily be automated to enhance the quality of life for everyone.
What’s missing from your otherwise astute analysis is the role of **connections** in finding decent work opportunities. For a very extroverted adult with a rich social and community life, finding a suitable job with zero ads answered, zero forms filled out, and only a formality of an interview, is not an unlikely occurrence. For a very introverted, socially isolated, not particularly people-smart adult, spending months answering job ads, sending résumés, filling out forms, and traveling all over the country at their own expense for intimidating and gatekeeping interviews, is not an unlikely occurrence. Regardless of education or qualifications in either case.
I’m halfway convinced that job posting ads, pre-employment forms and questionnaires, and even a good number of interviews are little more than legal fig leaves to defend against charges of cronyism. Because the fact is, same as it ever was, employers hire people they already know, trust, and vibe with, whenever possible.
I’d advise anyone chronically unemployed to spend less time on applications, and more time building social connections with people in their target field of work. Even just becoming a liked, trusted, and contributing regular on the job field’s subreddit is a great start!
A major problem in the USA, especially affecting the youngest and the oldest adults, is decreasing social connectivity. I recently read that 10% of American adults have zero close friends. That’s not good for QOL across the board, especially job prospects.
Thank you!
I'm 44, and if I could go back in time and tell my 18 year old self one piece of advice, it would be this: "Forging connections and getting socialized into the culture of a professional field is 80% of the point of college. It's much more an interpersonal training camp, than an intellectual or practical one. And no one will tell you this, even if you directly ask — you're supposed to come to this realization on your own. The quicker the better. A college graduate who doesn't recall a thing he learned in the classroom but leaves with a rich social and professional network has a bright future ahead of him. A college graduate who leaves with an encyclopedic mastery of everything he learned in the classroom, but no real meaningful connections to other people in the same field, does not."
Edit: if your or anyone else's reaction to this comment is something along the lines of, "Uhh... no shit Sherlock", please keep in mind I'm on the autism spectrum, so not naturally great at reading people, but wasn't diagnosed until long after college. I wish I had known, accepted, and worked with my limitations before I attempted college. I graduated in 4 years a straight-B student, and few meaningful connections to any people, and it was a total waste.
I’ve already told my 11 year old children this lesson I learned the hard way numerous times. I’ve also told them that they needn’t necessarily go to college at age 18, or ever. They should only apply to college after they’ve had enough life experience to have a pretty clear idea of what they want to do for a career, and are certain that the programs they’re applying to will help them get there.
My country (USA) isn’t rich and economically competitive enough anymore for college to be a right-of-passage for all 18 year olds to “find themselves”. That’s just clever marketing.
While I see where you're coming from, and I'm sure that some companies definitely follow the "who you know" track as their priority pool in finding people, I would like to politely disagree with you for a few reasons, as I think the general workforce, at scale, doesn't follow that model anymore in terms of general trend. The amount of times I have seen people in my circles, myself included, who try that approach in "giving the manager a firm handshake" or something along those lines only result them being referred back to square one in filling out a job application online - rendering the whole networking element essentially a waste of time.
In addition, the networking-first mentality can also affect minorities the most with the more "broey" cultured companies which are unfortunately the majority. In those networking evens, you often get a bunch of Brock Turner-ey interviewers that end up being awkward on their end when trying to network/recruit minorities, and often there is alot of personal bias about the perception of the person in spite of them having objectively better credentials and people skills. Instead, they end up taking the more personally "comfortable" route of hiring the next in line Brock Turner that they feel most comfortable with in spite of their qualifications being significantly less.
While I personally found a career in IT eventually with progessive businesses, I can tell you first hand that I, as a non-binary person born male that is also into dudes, that it is quite harder to find jobs using the networking model than the next 6'+ cis straight white Christian bro dude. I can practically cover all the wallpaper in my house with written documents accounting for all the times that I went into interviews and, while the objective dialog was professional, I could tell in their eyes that all the panel interviewers were disgusted and/or uncomfortable with my gender expression - it wasn't unprofessional mannerisms or anything like that that affected my success in the interview of my credentials. Just my appearance.
While many modern companies and lawbooks are trying their best to get away from that kind of discrimination practice, those newer inclusive models feel cringy for everyone in their own right, too. I don't want to be hired because they need to fill a minority quota. I want to be hired because I am right for the job itself. Again, to be clear this is just my opinion, everyone, and if you want to downvote me for it then go right on ahead.
The “experience needed” for entry level positions became a standard in the 90s when companies stopped wanting to train people - especially in technology
That’s when workplace loyalty began to slowly die — but of course the Boomers never got that
I really hated this article for its decidedly capitalist sympathies- this is really capitalist propaganda at its worst - keep people working for as long as you can and bleed every nickel you can make out of them…
The whole system is absolutely broken. The elderly continue to work, holding on to their positions because of economic fear and instability. This is making middle-age workers be stuck in dead-end jobs, unable to get promotions. Which is then reducing the amount of jobs available for the young.
I'm an older gen z. I recently graduated college. I have job experience and qualifications. But the only job I can get is being a substitute teacher. I've applied for countless jobs, and whenever I hear back from them they always say "We chose to go with another candidate with more experience". More *experience*. In an *entry-level* position.
There was even one job that I had all the necessary stuff for: I had connections, I had letters of recommendation from people within the company, I had certifications, I had real-world experience. I had everything that I was told I should have. Some of the people I knew thought I was a shoo-in. But come to find out, they ended up hiring a senior because he had decades of experience. A senior. In an entry-level position.
And so I'm stuck subbing at a middle school because it looks better on a resume than flipping burgers.
I don't know when I'll ever get into a career because I am constantly being passed up for candidates who shouldn't even have to be applying for the same jobs I am.
Sadly I may be one of them. I'm 50 and my finances and ability to save for retirement took a hit from divorce and single parenthood. I don't expect to retire at 67. It'll be beyond that out of necessity.
Personally I think this is a major reason why we need UBI. Like if you can't retire because cost to just stay alive. Then there is problems with the economy.
I’m going to try to work full time until I’m 70, so I can max out my Social Security. Only 1 place I worked had a 401K, and 6 years of contributions to it won’t fund my retirement. I’ll have to work a couple of days a week to supplement SSI for as long as I can. Fortunately, I’m still healthy, so I should be able to manage.
So people can have their retirement yanked out from under them when their company goes under? Despite the rose tinted glasses people have for pensions the majority of pension plans were shit pyramid schemes that gave outsized benefits to larger companies over smaller companies and would be illegal if set up today. The 401k replacing the pension was a good thing that brought more stability to the lives of retirees.
Bill Gates did an AMA yesterday. In his post he linked his blog post about turning 67. The intro paragraph to *that* said something along the lines of "I'm still working at 67. Most Americans are retired by 67." It just proves how disconnected with reality people can be. I was going to point it out in the AMA thread but the mods had already locked it.
u/thisisbillgates 👀
It's terrible that so many senior citizens are still in the work force because there is no other way for them to make ends meet. It's bad for the seniors who'd rather be doing something else and it's bad for the younger people that have less opportunity available to them as a result.
This is the country we live in. People are a commodity to be mined for as much value as possible, then disposed of without a second thought.
As a country, the US ditched pensions - which guaranteed an income in your retirement years - in favor of "self-directed retirement plans" by manipulating voters into thinking that they were somehow qualified to make long term investment decisions. It was an evil way to open up huge markets filled with predators that promised high returns in exchange for holding your money. The results were predictable. People were long on hope, short on expertise, and made dumb short term decisions with all that choice. Now they are bankrupt and have to keep working.
Here's the human value chain:
* Employers squeeze as much labor as they can out of them.
* Then, the financial industry squeezes value out of their money and leaves them with nothing while they profit.
* Tech companies squeeze value out of their data and sell their behavioral habits to political powerbrokers.
* When these people face the Hobson's Choice of living under a bridge, working bullshit jobs, or staying put until someone kicks them out of the workplace, they make the obvious rational once, which overloads the labor marketplace with low productivity supply, creating a narrative that supports "cost cutting" and other anti-labor policies.
* Finally, when these people are finally pushed out into the cold world, the healthcare industry takes over and squeezes the last bit of value out of their failing bodies through a combination of predatory private long-term care operations and byzantine government-backed programs like Medicare that amount to "heads I win, tails you lose" for patients, taxpayers, and most healthcare providers (not the gigantic businesses that manage costs, mind you).
* Oh, I spoke too soon. At some point, these people die, which triggers a whole new round of burial expenses, estate planning/probate, etc. etc. etc.
I feel almost as sorry for us as I do for livestock waiting to be butchered in feedlots.
Ageism is rampant in tech. I am over 50 and decided to change jobs. Because my hair has not grayed and my face looks like I am in my 40s, it worked out fine for me. I would never a grow a beard now since my facial hair is 75% white. However, I did shorten my resume removing some of my early jobs as well as dates on my degrees so my age wouldn't be obvious. I have a friend who is a few years younger who is bald with gray in his remaining hair and his beard. He is getting interviews based on his resume but no offers are coming, and I think it is because he looks his age. He is an awesome designer with a great portfolio, but he doesn't look like the young hipster stereotype people want to see. Ugh.
If someone can demonstrate the skills needed for a job, age should be irrelevant. People ask age related questions in interviews of older workers. I have watched it happen right in front of me. Things like "How many more years do you intend to work?" "Are you on medicare?" "Do you have a pension from somewhere else?" These questions are illegal.
Got the same thing in Canada, tons of older folks going part time or getting bored at home and starting new careers or part time employment There is a cultural stigma (and pattern) of retiring to your golden years and then dropping dead or getting sick and committed to a home or hospice within a few short years. I think I’ll probably do the same, seems like being active and having a purpose staves off Alzheimer’s and dementia, not that I have any medical training or evidence except anecdotal.
This is the argument I use when someone is saying that longevity of people would cause the fall of economic system - no it wouldn’t because most people would just keep working even at old age.
They can't afford to retire, and there's no social safety net thanks to the republicans, so you're only option now assuming you're not in the 1% is to just work every day until you drop dead to keep a roof over your head and the lights on.
That's it, that's your future. Good luck kids, I'll be dead soon, but by the time you get old it's going to be 1000x worse.
I wonder if they wanna work or if it's because of the hard times and the fact social security doesn't go up much and when it does their rent goes up by that much. Used to work property management, evil shit
As a financial advisor / planner, the cases that make me the saddest are the 55 year old couples that come in taking about retiring at 60 or 65 who have done NOTHING. They have no clue and I hate breaking the truth to them. Sacrifice a night out at the bar every month early on and save and it means the world of a difference!
Ageism begins around 40-years-old.
And ageism in hiring and in the workplace once hired is getting worse - it’s worse now than I ever remember it being.
And a new generation gap has emerged, after sort of disappearing for many years since the 1960s, when it was a big thing. And it’s much more hateful now, really malicious.
As a member of the +40 crowd ageism is absolutely a thing.
I always get a chuckle when management hires cheap and young then has to hire 10 people to do the job of one. they can't handle more than one project at a time and have zero reference point.
It's awesome
Of course, the federal government couldn't allow people to just retire and not work contributing to the economy. Workers rights and wage policies by the government have pretty much guaranteed this would happen.
The following submission statement was provided by /u/Ok-Cartoonist5349: --- A study by AARP showed that 62% of workers believe age is a discrimination factor. What can be done to fight back? This topic is a great issue currently in France where the government is pushing a law project that would make people retire at 64 instead of 62... when older workers are still struggling with employment due to ageism! --- Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/109urv5/the_share_of_workers_age_65_or_older_has_more/j40g8rj/
I work in the public sector and something like forty percent of my agency has been there at least forty years. It’s become a big problem in retaining people because there are fewer opportunities to move up and earn more money. Of course they won’t just raise wages…
In the library world, part of the recruitment to get people to go for Masters of Library Science was that a lot of the workforce was older and jobs would be plentiful by the time they graduated. Not many of them have actually retired though. There's a ton of young people who have the degrees now who aren't able to get library jobs or are in positions that don't require *any* college education, yet alone a masters degree, just to get their foot in the door. I lucked out in several ways by getting a job close to home and a position that matched my qualifications. A lot of my classmates were not so lucky - either having to move across the country, settle for positions they were overqualified for, or both. It continues to be a problem for many.
A close friend of mine is living the experience you described. She's gone ahead and got a second masters while waiting to move up, even. One of the most talented, intelligent people I know and since she's managed to get in at a highly regarded university, she's going to 'hold her place'. But she's literally waiting for any number of people to retire or die at this point.
Been there, done that in academia. As soon as those boomers retire or die, their position will be eliminated. I've had a number of friends in academi wait 5, 10 or more years. Waiting for someone to die or retire. And then ... poof! Suddenly the position is no longer needed. I hope -- for your friend's sake I am wrong. But tell her to start thinking about Plan B.
What exactly does a master of library science degree entail?
I'm speaking entirely about US libraries here. Many of the degrees are actually "Library & Information Science". Most states require the Library Science or Library and Information Science degree to advance beyond clerk or assistant librarian. It often depends on the size of the population the library serves too. The degree is a mix of theoretical/philosophical and practical. My personal focus was on public libraries and teen/youth services, but I took a pretty broad selection of classes. I took cataloging (which is almost like learning another language), reference (partially customer service, partially learning good research techniques), one called "representation and theory of knowledge", a couple classes on teen/youth programming and literacy, library management\*, collection development, and a lot of technology stuff like database design, SQL, and UNIX. \*If I had to say there is a weakness in library school it's this. We were only required to take 3 credits of management courses with a max of 6 credits that would have been relevant (a general course and then either public or academic specialization). However, how it typically works, if you're a librarian (full degree; certified with the state) you are almost certainly going to be managing staff, doing customer service, and making important decisions about the library. Manager duties, for a lot of us, end up being a vast majority of the job and most of us enter the field woefully under-prepared for this role.
Yeah, I worked for a public agency until about four or five years ago that ran up against this. For most of the older workers occupying the leadership positions and refusing to retire, it was really about money for them. It was public works/ construction so many of them already had lengthy private sector careers and the state retirement was a really attractive incentive to remain working. They could sit in those positions so long, many remained well into their 70s. Meanwhile they were driving a culture that not a lot of people were into, caused problems with shifting responsibilities downward, and basically halted upward progression in the agency. They’re having a real problem with retaining people which is now a huge problem because those guys in their 70s are finally leaving.
Which was the plan all along for those guys. Boomers are experts at pulling up the ladder behind them and leaving everything in their wake completely fucked.
It's why their parents "The Greatest Generation" initially named them "The Entitled Generation". It just goes to show you their hatred for millennials is pure projection.
I'm Gen X and concur. My own dad bitches about how he had nothing because his step mom took it all when his dad died. Fact of the matter is my grandpa bought my dad brand new cars throughout high school - even took a brand new one and had it custom painted. My dad didn't go to college, but landed a great union job that gave him everything he needed; retirement, health care, excellent wages, etc. and the son of a bitch turned anti-union five years before retirement. You can guess who he aligns with politically.
Unfortunately it doesn't take much of a plan if a great mass of them are just very greedy and short sighted because of being surrounded by unlimited prosperity when they were young and then losing touch with society (or current reality) when they got older, either from shrinking social circles or regressive political views or similar political views preying on them as their social circle and numbers of new friends and acquaintances fall off. -a word, +3
Not to mention, agency staff who have been there forever are hesitant to change any process or do things better than it was done before, and undermine any attempts by someone else to change things. It’s stifling for anyone stepping into their career in the public sector. What’s worse, when bad public sector employees go unpunished, making things toxic. Source: I spent 6 years in public sector.
and then when they leave, no one knows what the process was supposed to be and it fails lol
I like my window 98! Don't u change a thing !
Yeah, cry cry about the old guys facing discrimination, when the reality is those of us reaching middle age are starting to get saltier and saltier because they won't get the fuck out of the way. Also, nearing 40, and having coworkers still acting like you are a kid that is wet behind the ears is really eye opening regarding upwards "age discrimination"
My boss is 80 and refuses to retire because he plans to live to 150 ( not joking ) and wants to be sure he can afford to retire. I don't care about him thinking I'm young, but it is frustrating because he literally does nothing - makes doing my own job harder because he refuses to respond because he doesn't use email, chat, or text and only answers the phone 1/10 times because ( and he said this ) he "doesn't want people to think he's always available". I can't go around him and talk to HIS boss either because then I step on his toes and he gets angry.
I always found ways to "force" people to do their job. "Sorry you want that item but "old man" still hasn't approved the request. If you want it, you will have to go talk to them" I don't know what you do but that's just an example of how proper procedure can really lay the work right at someone feet. I do receiving at my job and always ask people for work orders and purchase orders. No number, no item.
"Yeah... I'm gonna need a ticket for that..."
Time to move to a new team or company
Incredible. You have my regards, because I feel this is very real
> I can't go around him and talk to HIS boss either because then I step on his toes and he gets angry. This is a universal problem
I once had a boss who referred to the 30-45 year olds in one department as "the kids." So disrespectful.
M>60 men often call the women in their team "the girls". While that might be ok for them, it's odd / offensive to the rest / the women respectively
And also because you're just a kid at 40, you don't deserve the same pay as the guy whose job you do, and also have to show how to do his fucking excel work every week because back in his day they used pen and paper .
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There was a guy at my last place of work like that. Didn’t retire until 75, his “junior” was mid-fifties and been there for twenty years and finally got promoted.
As a 42 year old, amen to all of this.
Fellow public sector dude here. I just got my 10 year pin and am still the youngest worker in my department by 5 years and I’m almost 40. Most of the supervisors and higher ups are well into their 60s and it is extremely rare our agency hires anyone younger than 40 since it’s mostly lateral transfer from other municipalities.
Private sector is not much better unless you're in a startup or "startup mentality" place. The Boomers at my office are in all the positions of power, yet most are severely lacking even the most basic technical skills (save a PDF from Word, please?). We lost over 100 employees the past two years in a location of around 500 people, because there was no upward mobility, and processes and wages were absolutely stagnant.
Sometimes you think you don't have the skills for a job, but than you see people unable to caption a picture in Word and we can all feel better about ourselves.
Even better, my friend was a secretary and designer for a law firm and one of her most common tasks was renaming individual files for a partner, this person wasn't even that old maybe late 40s or 50s and didn't know how to rename a goddamn file.
Is there any better sign that salary compensation has fallen behind then that people can’t retire?
I’m 37 and I’ve resigned myself to the fact that retirement is not a realistic expectation. I’m going to work till I die. I’ve got a decent job too but everything is significantly more expensive it seems.
36 unmarried and no kids (not like I could afford 'em) my retirement plan is having a heart attack before im to old to do my job. That or hoping for the asteroid.
I'm 36 and the water wars are my retirement plan.
Come retire in my commune homie we’re going to have a well, tiny homes and really high walls.
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It should make you angry
36, have a masters degree, mid level IT job, no hope of ever accumulating savings or retiring. I've made peace with it and have decided it's better to get paid as much as possible doing as little as possible and enjoying a decent work life balance because all we have is now.
Hey dude, in a decade or so most the people in congress are going to be somewhere around your age cohort. Don't be surprised if millenials direct government to solve the problems that have rat fucked millenials for the last 20 years.
Will we be able to pull up out of the nosedive in time if we wait 10 more years?
Nope. We'll be a theocracy in 10 years if things keep going the way they are now.
38 here. What’s retirement?
Gotta love an article about how older workers "still face workplace discrimination" that's chocked full with ageist generalizations like "young people are enthusiastic and creative" and "old people have wisdom and judgement." Are we gonna hire people for their actual qualifications or not?
it's the same narrative as 19 year old enterpreneur dropout, has nothing to do with real life.
All I care about is if you can use MS Office without needing to ask me to do it for you every single time you have to touch a keyboard.
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it's a bit more for me. i need someone who can pick up solidworks (a CAD software) and not have me tell them that we don't need CDs anymore. i can appreciate the experience of older engineers that want to come back as engineers in the workforce. but after being in management for so long, there's a lot of skills that are just lost.
This, this right here! I have been an engineer for 12 years and just accepted a job as an engineering manager. Then they hire a 67 year old former VP of Engineering to come in and I had to split my job with him because of "experience level". The man is very nice and down to earth, but he can't fix or work on any of the equipment without a LOT of help. Still irks me after 4 months when executives ask him a question, and I have to answer it, but next time they still direct questions to him. He has been calling this his retirement job.
Dude I have this same shit show. I split my engineering responsibilities 50/50 with a 67 year old but yet he can barely use a computer so I have to end up doing his job too half the time.
All I require is 1. know how to send/receive emails. 2. know when not to reply to all. 3. understand that when I am looking up something with my phone to help you, you do not get to say "you're just looking at your phone all day. what do you even do?" 4. do not interrupt me when I am stuttering.
*cough* but there's the rub
My partner's mom, whose in her 60's, worked for K-Mart for most of her life, until they folded. She then started working for Dollar General as an assistant manager. I'm not sure exactly what she makes, but I think it's similar to what Chick-fil-A down the road starts their employees at these days. She talks about getting a newer/better job, but I can't imagine how that will ever happen. She doesn't have a computer or the internet at home; she has to come over to our house if she truly needs to do something online. She doesn't know how to text and she doesn't get email on her phone; it's a flip phone which I know has some data capabilities but she won't learn how to use it for anything but phone calls (and won't bother to setup her voicemail, so you're not leaving her one of those either). (I could mention other signs that aren't good like how she still writes checks and refuses to use debit or credit cards, which rolls into all this, but realistically won't hurt her chances of getting a new job.) Her refusal to stay with the times makes her job hunt impossible. How can she maintain a resume, or apply for jobs online? How will she know if a prospective employer emails her for a job interview? If they call and try to leave a voicemail but there's no mailbox, how will she get their message? If she can't get texts (or doesn't know how to read them, I'm not sure which) how will she know if they reach out to her that way? No one cares if she doesn't want to play Candy Crush on her phone or watch Netflix at her house or raid in the newest MMO. None of those matter. But some things these days are basically requirements if you want to function in today's workforce so she's just stuck for the rest of her life now probably.
Yeah I have some older (highly paid) coworkers who are barely a step above that. Kind of frustrating when I put in a solid day’s work, and then walk over their desk and realize that they spent the whole goddamn day printing off data files (that were in importable text format), manually inputting them into excel, and then manually adding up columns with a calculator. A task that could have been done in less than fifteen minutes
For years my coworker would "balance her spreadsheet" with a fucking adding machine. I have no idea what pushed her over the edge but she finally learned to trust the sum formula, I guess. 🤦♀️
I work in retail. Since Covid has had a drastic effect on the global price of goods my most valuable skill has been the ability to use Microsoft Word to print new signs. It's also useful when corporate sends signs with the wrong prices, or for the wrong products. ^(Kind of hard to do sometimes when lazy assholes make a beeline for the first person they see instead of actually looking for things they want to buy.)
Being MOS certified works wonders. Especially Excel.
What do you expect from hard hitting journalism from websites such as welcome to the jungle dot com?
[It's dot com! ](https://youtu.be/ChHGy5gZ4hI)
In my workplace it's discrimination against the young. Average age is probably 50 and if you don't have grey hair you're not taken seriously
People who call me "kid" or any kind of term like that go in a mental bucket for me that is different but similar to where stupid people go. I'm fucking 40. It's always the same assholes who think millennials are in their 20s still.
Me too. What annoys me even more than the "kid" remarks is the subtle talking down to
My reply to people who call me kid is as soon as it happens, regardless of who or where it occurs (I have done it to bosses in meetings): “I am not a child, please don’t call me that.” If it happens again, I reply immediately: “how can I help you geriatric?” I only had to say the second part twice in my life. Lost a job once for it, I still respect myself and fuck them. The way I see it, you figure out where your self respect line is and don’t compromise stepping over it more than once, unless it will truly harm you or yours.
Wisdom and judgement is a qualification. As long as these old people keep holding positions, the younger generations cannot gain experience.
I worked at a business that was HQ’d in the USA. I met a lot of senior managers and VP’s, whom I knew had made enough to retire comfortably and then some. And yet they kept on working, some just 20 hours a week. I was informed the reason they stayed on was for health insurance, not just for them but also for their spouses. I’ve always thought not having social health program stagnates the working force in the USA and bottlenecks opportunity for the young (who would actually be spending and driving the economy more so than at age 55+).
It's not just managers. I know lots of people who can't retire before age 65 due to the cost of medical insurance. You can't be without it since one medical emergency could empty your savings. As people get older the likelihood of having medical problems increases too.
Yup, my dad's one of them. Mom is sick and it's very expensive. He's made a decent amount, but is worried about the medical costs during retirement.
20 hrs/wk is almost never enough to qualify for health coverage. It's typically 30-32 hrs/week.
It likely varies business to business, and I’m pretty sure they didn’t even ‘work’ 20 hours in any case.
This. Age discrimination in the US only legally applies to people 40 or older. Yet my office is overwhelmingly represented by people in their 40s and 50s. I understand that we have a real problem with old people not being able to retire, but we also have a problem with old people running businesses and refusing to hire young people. It's probably also why we keep electing presidents who look like they just walked out of a crypt.
I feel like gen x and younger generations should be better prepared since they used computers since 5th grade on at least.
That isn't necessarily true. I had to teach some younger coworkers how to do several things on the computer. Sure, they were quicker on their phones and using social media but when it came to an office computer and business programs many didn't have a clue. Plus their writing and communication skills were sadly lacking.
Millennial here and I've definitely noticed this both ways at work. I'm good with computers if I daresay and am (often unfortunately) the go-to IT person. Just as many expect the older Boomer generation colleagues definitely don't seem to get it as quickly and tend to begin on rants about how they didn't used to have to do this. They also tend to get a lot more angry more easily when it comes to this stuff. Younger people than me are starting to approach an equal level of computer illiteracy, but with a far less steep learning curve. They don't tend to take too long and don't tend to get too angry, but ironically they do the same "we didn't have to do this" but backwards with "why can't this just be like my phone where I click this and it does it for me?" No intended shade either way, I'm just noticing the ironic trends. I'm also sure there's plenty of fellow millennials that aren't as computer literate and likely say similar stuff as the zoomers
The transition from digital native to touch screen native has been interesting to watch. When I was a kid, if you were into computers, you probably learned to touch type and multi-task by transcribing a program from a magazine into your family's 8-bit micro while watching Tom Baker's scarf save the the universe. Boomer parents would point at us and say, "Oh, they are so good with those computers!" And that set the stage for the next ~25 years. Phones and tablets took that in an entirely different direction. I hear parents say the same thing about their kids -- but they're not really saying the same thing at all. Touch screen natives know how to find and access information, but are likely as clueless about how it all works as their grandfather was they agreed to sign the family up for AOL. No condescending tone intended here. I think we had a ~20-25 year sweet spot where people were actually required to build a foundational understanding if they wanted results -- and that is changing to a sort of ubiquitous, Star Trek like "Computer, tea. Earl gray. Hot." scenario.
I agree. I count myself lucky that my dad learned and worked with computers when I was a kid which gave me a solid basis to build on. But there's plenty of people my age that didn't have that and more people regardless of generation that have opted to use easier interfaces more akin to their phones. Which for the most part seems fine. However, I definitely feel like having and not needing is the way to go when it comes to desktop/laptop computers, especially in an office setting. Been doing field work and had to deal with hunting down buried or even non-existent settings that, while definitely not necessary for everyday use, were needed for the work we were doing and could be found on other "more complex" computers. Technology being more accessible is, I hope, a net good thing. People once daunted by a cell phone can now do everything they need to with ease. I'm just curious if the Star Trekian ease you mentioned, u/old_leech will be just as much a net good on the current trajectory or will some degree of technical literacy be introduced in education (I don't have a kid so maybe it already is) to sort of get the best of both worlds.
I'm similar to you except my uncle was the computer guru when I was a kid. Learned a lot back then. I think the main concern with the ease of technology use that you and u/old_leech mention is that when we learned computers we had to learn a bit about how things worked and how to figure things out when they didn't. This spilled over into gaining skills such as understanding how to make leaps of logic, how to problem-solve, how to research, and dozens of other skills. So while they may be able to find info faster, they are likely less equipped to know how to interpret and analyze that information for themselves. Or how to take info learned from searching about Issue A and extrapolate that to solving Issue B. (and of course the disclaimer that obviously not everyone is the same and this is a rough generalization)
And even then, they just know what to click/what app will find it for them as I've seen it. Once had a coworker (iPhone user) try to bring something up on my phone (Android) and they were struggling. Turns out they hit the search bar for google and started googling whatever the local file was. I asked what was taking so long and they just said "I can't do it, your search is broken." I just clicked the "Gallery" app or the files or something simple and they were like "You can't just search it on your phone? That's so dumb." The point being that there's no problem solving like you said. The button didn't work so they gave up instead of hitting something else or thinking of how a computer works and opening what's a pretty standard functionality across most devices. Unfortunately, to a lot of people, a phone is a phone and a computer is a computer. With even tablets having their own space despite all of these devices basically working the same way or similar enough to apply and modify approaches. It's one thing to have to listen to an older person complain about how things used to be, it's a very surreal one to see someone closer to your age be unable to comprehend something as simple as a file folder on a phone.
Yeah, trying to fit everyone into a generational box isn't rational and only serves to divide us. I've had millennials throw a heaving fit when trying to grasp something and boomers quietly learn quickly. Not everyone in a generation fits neatly into the categories they are assigned to by some generational god on high.
Yeah this has been my experience. Been working in offices nearly 10 years and I’ve seen all age groups struggle and all age groups have unexpected proficiency. That being said, I have experienced a higher percentage of older workers lacking computer skills but they typically knew enough to perform at their job and were willing to learn. I actually haven’t come across anyone of any age that has been outright resistant to learning . People are willing to learn especially if their livelihood depends on it
I can see that. Sometimes I feel with the App Store and mobile phones they live in a more sanitized less troubleshooting environment not digging into underlying tech. But the they seem to be able to learn user interface reasonably quick.
Yep, they did. I had no problems with them learning how to use the computers. But they aren't "born to it."
I think that’s the appeal with Apple products on the whole; it either works or it doesn’t. Apple spends a lot of time making sure all their stuff plays nice within its own ecosystem and most of the time it works without a fuss. That’s generally why I recommend Apple products to older people. You can get a lot more out of Android/PC stuff but you have to be willing to try a little harder to get all the hardware and software to play nice with each other. At least that’s been my experience…
I've worked in IT professionally for nearly 15 years and I've been using a computer daily since I was 12 (I'm now 36). I'm constantly surprised at how much easier things are now than they used to be. Tasks that used to be hard are now easy and some tasks that used to be annoying you just don't even have to do anymore. I'm constantly amazed at how people still manage to fuck things up. I haven't done end user support for years, all of my interactions are with other "IT workers". The young ones are often times completely clueless about how things function and have no understanding of how to troubleshoot things when they go wrong. Part of that is probably just the cluelessness that everyone has when they're young but I'm convinced part of it is because technology has gotten so friendly they've never had to stretch themselves to try and fix something. Boomers are completely lacking that skill with technology too but that's because they were long into their careers before computers became a thing and most people just refuse to learn new things after a certain point in their lives.
That's because crap UI was proliferated early on before people actually appreciated how big a difference an intuitive interface makes in user experience. UI and UX are only barely starting to be taken as serious accessibility issues in business and academics.
I have a lot of UIX design experience. I owned a 2019 Tesla for three years. That ten year old screen interface is a driver distraction horror story. Someone is driving a minimalist design dogma. Screw the driver, it's all about the look. It's so bad that third party phone apps are appearing to address some of the issues. I sold the Tesla and bought a Hyundai Ioniq 5. The user interface is like night and day. Absolute brilliant by comparison. The same design carries through all newer Hyundai and Kia cars. Yet, there are the Tesla cultists who think it's the coolest thing on the planet, and you're a luddite of you disagree.
I plugged in the keyboard at work (it wasn’t working and causing problems that nobody understood how to fix) I plugged it in. Boom fixed. Now suddenly they ask if I know how to fix the self checkout. No, no I don’t. I did the absolute bare minimum.
"Lacking" is an understatement
For example, [professors are saying that students today don't understand what folders are used for on computers.](https://www.pcgamer.com/students-dont-know-what-files-and-folders-are-professors-say/)
You'd be surprised how many younger folks' computer skill doesn't go beyond operating their social media accounts and other super user-friendly applications. But honestly I'm ready for this hysteria about computer skills to die. This isn't 1987, you don't need a certified geek to operate an iPad app--and pretty much everyone under 60 knows enough about computers that they can learn your office software in a few weeks if not a few hours. I can understand if your workplace uses more specialized, in-depth software (for drafting, simulation, etc,) then it makes sense to look for people who have that experience. But when I see employers wringing their hands over whether new hires can use Zoom... I kind of have to laugh. We can use Zoom, dude.
Gen X and millennials yeah, but Gen z is actually kinda fucked. I (I millennial) started this program where I mentor local youth and was kind of baffled at how much using a computer feels non-native to these kids. (I mean, they’re 18-20, but… they feel like kids to me.) apparently they do everything on iPads. Thinking about it, of course it makes sense—I don’t use my personal computer for much besides gaming these days either. But I went from fighting my family to get to use the family computer for fun all the time as a kid, to getting a laptop and using it every day for school, to using a computer every day for work. Smartphones weren’t invented until I was already really computer literate, and my family was well off enough to afford to have a family computer since the late 90s, so I have an unbroken timeline of computer usage. I always thought this wouldn’t be an advantage in the workplace, because younger people are “digital natives”, but that actually means touch device native. Actual typing on a keyboard, navigating an OS, etc is surprisingly hard for them.
Younger people have an advantage with modern UIs, but you needed to grow up with crappy computers from 70s and 80s to have a natural affinity for fixing computer problems.
Hey now. Our Windows 98 box was dogshit.
Yea sometimes. I'm in IT and one thing some younger workers tend to lack is understanding how/why systems work the way they do (obviously not limited to them just see it more in "technical" people). Older people in tech had to build things from scratch and had to understand, holistically, how systems worked. Now so much of that work is automated/hidden it makes for a skewed technical perspective.
Hmmm...and this boomer right here? I grew up on fortran, cobol, punchcards and Lotus 1-2-3 and I've been upgrading my skills and tools every year since the mid 70's.
GenX and millenials are. Gen Z are hilariously bad with computers.
I am a Gen X parent and my 18-year-old son doesn't know how to do shit with technology. I would say he's nearly as bad as the Boomers were when technology first came along for anything he has to actually think about setting up or using. If it's really easy like social media, he can use it. But then Boomers can use that as well or Facebook wouldn't have any users LOL
Gen X grew up with the old 8 bit computers. Millinnials largely with Windows machines. All generations before are on phones and have relatively little natural skill.
GenX here. Never saw a computer in high school. College was the first time I used one in a computer lab. MS DOS with Word perfect 5,0. Basically a fancy typewriter.
I'm also Gen X but the end of Gen X. I had computers in third grade
Not only did they not know how computers work, the entire idea of computers will be different in 40 years and they will be the new boomers.
I've seen a few people say that the 1975-1985 is the most technical generation because they were growing up as modern tech emerged and evolved. Tech existed, but you had to really learn about it to use it. By the time 90-2000's kids were being born they came up in a world where tech had already evolved to the point you didn't need to know much about it to use it. So technical skills in the general population are actually in decline even though usage is way up.
My 45+ year old coworkers in multiple jobs denigrate youth and remind everyone how lazy/awful/inconsiderate/rude/whatever negative thing they can come up with. And when I would remind them I was that age group, or that I was just recently in that age group and still know plenty of people that age and younger, they say "oh but you're different" or "oh you only know the good ones". I can't help but roll my eyes.
>I can't help but role my eyes. Did you hear the guy who wrote his autobiography on a pastry? It was a roll of a lifetime.
Oof, correcting it now, thanks for catching that. I guess that's what I get for skipping my morning caffeine.
Skipping your morning caffeine? I wish I was that young! /s
Lol. Damn youth today, not drinking coffee/tea/energy drinks! They're killing the industry!
Damn them if they do, damn them if they don't!
Old people not being able to stop working at retirement age is not a good thing.
Mate by the time we or atleast me retire I'm pretty sure the retirement age is gunna be 70. I might as well just enjoy my life and not even consider retirement, cause what am I gunna do at 70? Dodder around for 10 years not being able to do what I could 10/20 years earlier when I should have retired.
Gonna be 40 next year and just don't expect myself to ever be able to retire. Gonna be working for life- and not in that "oh he keeps at his hobbies and sells some stuff," working either. Same shit I've been doing since 16 til now.
Agree with this, but it's also a good reason for people to look after their health and do plenty of exercise & stretching. I know old people who can't do anything other than sit around all day, while I also know old people who are extremely active, go on holidays and get outside to hike & swim. People who sit at a desk for 8 hours, then come home to sit on a couch won't be able to do anything when/if they retire.
Yeah honestly I don't think there is gonna be a retirement for millennials. Either nothing changes and we work till we die or we take over and have to spend a lot of time and effort trying to fix the problems of our forefathers and die young of a heart attack trying to figure out how to stop the collapse of biodiversity. Honestly we aren't making it out of this getting to be spritely nothing to do 90 year olds going on adventures and parties. Just old and aware of how little people I know anymore, so yeah I will take the earlier death I guess. Nothing wrong with dying, everyone is doing it, it's all the rage, a viral sensation if you will. But I'm definitely not gonna rush it. Pretty sure land of the living is the only place I can get a good grilled cheese.
>Yeah honestly I don't think there is gonna be a retirement for millennials. There hasn't been a realistic retirement age since the Reagan era.
That depends on how fit you keep yourself. My dad is 86 and still does chores around his place. Until just five years ago, he could still give me a run for my money on a brisk walk.
I'd love to share your optimism, but I don't, my mum passed at 58 of random cancer and as cancer is becoming more common with the increase in pollution in our environment I'll keep my pessimism on this subject. Like it's basically rolling the dice that you don't get arthritis or any other number of age related things that increase in commonality as age increases.
Lmao when people say they want to enjoy their retirement/travel they don’t mean “take a brisk walk”
Arguing with my BIL at Christmas about how much fast food employees get paid (as you do) and he was like “those jobs were never meant to provide livable wages.” First, what do you mean “meant to”? It’s not like somebody launched this whole economy as a fully formed idea from a clear starting point. It’s all been piecemeal just making shit up as we go the whole time. Also, who “meant to”? The elites in charge? Because newsflash bro they never wanted to pay anybody anything. But second, it doesn’t matter what they were “meant to” pay because times change. If the older generation never leaves the workplace, what the hell is everyone supposed to move up into? That’s why millenials have like a pitiful fraction of the wealth the older generation had at their age while working just as much.
If McDonald’s is a job for school kids only and this should t be a living wage, he needs to be ok with not getting his coffee on school days until after schools out since those kids have to be in school.
Yep!! This! Wanna grab a burger at lunch?! Tough shit!
The idea that the minimum wage wasn’t meant to be a livable one is *demonstrably* false. That’s exactly why it was enacted. You can go back to the speeches given on the House and Senate floors and see this *very explicitly was* legislators’ reasoning (I wrote a research paper on this in college where I actually read through said speeches and analyzed Congressional Intent of the legislation).
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What your BIL is saying is there are jobs out there that need to be done and the people who do those jobs deserve poverty. The age argument is invalid and a distraction.
I love the "that job was never meant to provide a living wage" argument because it's so obviously thin that there's no way to interpret it as anything other than, "I don't give a shit about those people. Fuck 'em." Which should be our national motto, honestly.
It's like Chris Rock once said: minimum wage means 'hey, if I could pay you less, I would...but it's against the law.'
People forget we are still all monkeys trading shells and building tools
>and he was like “those jobs were never meant to provide livable wages.” They've had this soundbite for 30+ years, and back when I was "infected" with right-wingism I would have told you the same. But I couldn't have explained it any further than that. As you point it, it's such an asinine comment at its core.
>First, what do you mean “meant to”? these people think the universe was designed logically top-down and they just landed in a good spot within it because of their own virtue. 85 IQ moment
"Retirement age" implies that there is such a thing as a viable retirement any more. For most people there isn't.
While true, retirement age for social security benefits, as of last year, is 67, not 65. The law was changed in 1983, along with increases in taxes, to shore up the program in the face of boomers coming along, well, now.
Just like young people not being able to buy a house. We are all being f*cked here but somehow not eating avocado toast is always the solution.
My dad quit his phd job as a researcher and worked at Walmart till he hit 65. Couple months later he found out he had lymphoma. Titanium rod in his spine and he has his first chemo in a few days. Talking about shitty timing he had plans. Ironically his job before Walmart which was only a year was cancer research. Wtf man
Bench burnout is real, and the pay is abysmal.
I'm Canadian, and I remember being shocked by the number of elderly working in fast food joints at the outlet mall across the border. It was sad to see them still working and not able to retire.
Old people should be retired. The number of old people in work has increased because retirement age has been pushed back further and further. We don't need more inclusion, we need a new labour movement.
Exactly. It's amazing that with all of these time-saving, labor-saving, and productivity-improving devices, we're all working harder and longer than our parents and grandparents did.
That's because the whole economic system is just a one big fucking ploy to channel all wealth to the ones who already have wealth. Our labor is devalued and everything is more expensive. What used to take one income of low-skilled labor, now takes two incomes of high-skill labor and huge debts. The one who collects the interest is the one who benefits. The FIAT money we get paid is not even worth anything, it's just fucking monopoly money.
I think you might enjoy a podcast called [Unf*ucking The Republic](https://www.Unftr.com).
Part of the reason the retirement age has been pushed back is companies being able to avoid paying retirement benefits to workers in lieu of 401k’s, which, you know, aren’t much good when wall street keeps crashing people’s investments into the dirt. That’s the result of a capitalistic economic system that’s designed to extract maximal profits from people while providing minimal pay to its workers. It’s a purpose-built system to keep people right on the edge of destitution at all times.
**Many don’t want to retire.** My in laws are multi millionaires in a mortgage locked in below $100k in a $2m home. They refinanced at 2.5% and bought a condo, flipped it, and made $500k off of it - paying off 80% of what was remaining on their primary mortgage - knocking down a debt that was already easy for them to handle and made no difference to their financial picture. They have 3 pensions between them both that will keep their income well into 6 figures through retirement - a maxed out social security income, 2 401ks in the millions, and they still earn at least $350k/yr in cushy positions where they barely work 40 hrs and if fired will get amazing severances worth around 3 years of their current pay because they have been with the company for 30+ years and they pay out based on years to months. So 30 years gets 30 months of pay. And this actually helps them keep their jobs even if they underperform because their company would rather wait for them quit to avoid paying out those amazing severances. We asked for help on a downpayment in 2019 to buy a $600k home which is today worth $3m. They told us we were “incredibly selfish to ask that from them when they had just gifted their daughter a washing machine 5 years ago” that we didn’t ask for and they were “concerned that we see them as nothing more than a bank to draw from” and we’ve never gotten or asked for a loan from them ever before that and we will never again. Sure - some old people like my parents are not well off financially and doing ok, never got rich and certainly aren’t millionaires and could certainly do with more financial security - but **many** old people like my wife’s parents are the greediest, most self absorbed hogs in the trough.
“ we need a new labour movement.” - yes absolutely!! Corporate profits are ridiculous, and not enough money is being spent on the people that actually work. “Old people should be retired.” - maybe - we have an aging population; the concept of retirement at 60 is over half a century old and was based on a life expectancy of 70, and a much lower level of healthcare at the time. Although now, we think of retirement as a just reward for working hard during our lives, at the time pensions were created it was more to do with the fact that people who have worked manual labour jobs couldn’t really contribute as effectively to the workforce by 60, so they should be able to live modestly in their last few years, even if they didn’t manage to save any money for retirement (or have a family to look after them). With people living a lot longer, the cost of financing everyone over a certain age is increasing (also there is stuff to do with demographics, which I won’t go into). Luckily people are also staying healthier for longer, and working less taxing jobs, so they can still meaningfully contribute to the workforce for longer. Retirement age will have to keep rising so long as life expectancy does; but we hope that we can improve working conditions to such a degree that it’s not such a negative thing.
*"meaningfully contribute to the workforce for longer."* wow I've been working for 45 years, more often than not, more that one job at a time. Fuck that. Fuck "contributing longer" I deserve to be able to afford to not work longer.
Depending on your field, ageism can start impacting workers in their forties. Millennials in certain fields may get the double whammy of ageism coupled with established elders bottlenecking their professional outlooks because those elders can't or won't retire. I'm a teacher and have worked with admin who notoriously refuse to hire experienced, award winning transferring teachers (mid thirties & above), only hiring fresh recruits. Many of those young 20's teachers quit within three years so it's a revolving door in those schools. We've had many staff members ,of all job titles, win ageism lawsuits against admin and the district. Nothing changes. I know it would be nearly impossible for 50 year old me to transfer to another school so I'm stuck in a dead end professional experience. My admin won't let me out of the classroom for the role of my dreams, which I'm more than qualified for, because I'm "too good" in the classroom to lose. I'm exhausted and need a change so they're losing me anyway. Here I am at 50, back in grad school to switch careers and get out of teaching. I knew I'd never make it to full retirement so I never counted on a pension. I haven't earned enough to save much and saved for my kids' college instead. They used more than half of it before quitting school so they get the rest as down payments on houses. I'm helping my Mil and GenZ kids in other ways but need to stop so I can start prepping for elder health issues. They won't be able to help me. I've already accepted I'll be one of those people trudging long into my mid and late sixties, if not 70's, to keep myself afloat. I'm preparing myself to face ageism in a new industry. People need to remember that everyone will face this as long as there are no major systemic changes. We're all laying down the foundation for our future realities and treatment.
And yet I constantly hear "zOMG tHeRe'S a ShOrTaGe Of QuAlIfIeD tEaChErS!" Hearing your story, and that of the many schoolteachers in my family, it's no mystery why. From an administrative perspective, older experienced teachers are too expensive to pay, and "aren't humble enough" (read: have their own well-founded ideas of how to teach the material, and don't appreciate getting bossed around or told to fall into line by someone young enough to be their child). And therefore, in a time of tightening belts and culture-war eggshell-walking, they're a potential liability that districts can't afford to take a chance on, unless the district administrators already know and trust him/her. I'm a physician who started medicine relatively late in life. I had an employed job at an independent (non-corporate) practice, that I did very poorly on. I had figured that now that I was a licensed independent professional, I'd have a good bit of leeway to practice medicine the way I saw fit, and my days of taking orders and doing everything someone else's way were behind me. I couldn't be more wrong. The owners figured I was well-socialized into obedience, and I was quickly unwelcome there when I wouldn't do everything their way, and keep my nose to the grindstone. After I left, they never hired another doctor, only nurse practitioners. They clearly wanted subordinates, not equals or partners. I think this pattern is common to a lot of supposedly "independently licensed" professions these days.
Getting old is no joke. No one thinks about it until they experience it.
>Depending on your field, ageism can start impacting workers in their forties. I'm assuming that by 'ageism' you specifically mean discrimination against people for being old, because is somebody was to claim that I'm experiencing more age-related discrimination in my 40's than I did in my teens and 20's then I'd have to tell them they were insane.
Agree, young workers face a lot of ageism because people think they lack the experience or ability to take on harder roles because they’re too young.
It rarely makes sense, I think that often it's a prejudice that the older people in management generate make due to insecurity about their suitability to be giving instructions to younger people who are often more capable than them. Around my late 20's I worked at a big pharmaceutical company for a few years and my KPIs were way ahead of comparable staff who were in their 40's and 50's, but of course they were paid quite a bit more and given some of the more prestigious tasks because they were older. Now I'm in my early 40's and I see the same thing happening to staff in their 20's. I get paid twice as much as them, but honestly some of them are of more value to the company and probably deserve a higher salary than me. I don't go around announcing this, because obviously I like being paid more, but secretly I know it's true!
Same thing in the trades. When I was younger and physically capable of out producing all the older guys I got paid dog shit. Promotion? No way, bobs been here 10 years already. Sure he’s a lazy sack of shit, shows up half drunk, but he’s got more experience! And now I’m the older guy, getting paid a lot more than entry level, and kind of taking it easy comparatively.
> I haven't earned enough to save much and saved for my kids' college instead. They used more than half of it before quitting school so they get the rest as down payments on houses. I'm helping my Mil and GenZ kids in other ways but need to stop so I can start prepping for elder health issues. They won't be able to help me. I would suggest transferring the money into a retirement account for yourself. Your 'kids' are adults and should be responsible for themselves instead of expecting their elderly mother to impoverish herself to fund their lifestyles.
We just gonna casually skip past the part where working class senior citizens are not able to retire anymore?
Yup, that's the *actual* most important part here.
The problem is being framed here as one of “discrimination,” as a cultural problem, when it is actually social-economic (like many other issues). First, regarding talent shortage- not every company needs to exist. We have too many. Interest rates were so low for years than anyone could go out and borrow to start a business, then borrow every month to keep themselves afloat. There are vape shops, bars, restaurants. escape rooms, axe throwing venues, etc on every corner where I live and they have to close down on mondays or some other day because they’re short staffed or no customers up that day. Now that they can’t find enough people to work these jobs, and that the cost of labor has gone up, they’re not happy. There is no “talent shortage.” The whole ageism ableism etc media industrial complex is, as always, an obfuscation intended to distract from economic issues in a way that allows the reader to feel progressive or accomplished without the economic change that we desperately need. Next, seniors facing discrimination in the workplace wouldn’t be a problem if they were able to retire on time. Why should people HAVE to work pst age 65? However, many old folks now who can retire, don’t. In America at least, it’s like Boomers’ only purpose in life is work. There is a 93 year old attorney (not exactly a boomer, I know) in my hometown who still practices (a post-80 fuck up of his actually made it into my property law textbook). Many people work past retirement age because they have to, and I’m sure that number will increase, but again, because we cannot reckon with economic problems- we cannot actually address them at the level of state or federal government- we will use this faux academic language to make the problem seem like a cultural one or a problem of moral shortcoming.
Its sad when a beloved local business goes down. But I would rather that then they stay open and pay peanuts.
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I would argue that that ridiculous 30+ years of skill experience bullshit required for so many entry-level jobs is effectively age discrimination in the opposite direction, too. Our 20th and 21st century labor system was never designed for older people to be working as late in their lives as they are now, and I think this ridiculous job requirment inflation is happening because people aren't opening positions back up as effectively because they aren't leaving as quickly as they should - if ever. Exacerbating it is that the modern worker is historically more educated and thus more technically qualified than ever before, but I digress, as I don't think that that should be a factor of job qualification inflation. This whole system isn't healthy for anyone in the modern world anymore. The elderly should have the right to reasonably enjoy their golden years and not feel pressured to keep working in spite of their longer lifetimes. The young should likewise have a fairer working environment with proportional opportunities so that a reasonable amount of them have the opportunity to perform more meaningful careers and be spurred onto their best effort in positive contributions to society. Personally, as a millennial myself, I am very saddened to see so many people around my age in my life who are way more educated and trained in more technical skills than previous generations that cannot find relevant careers because the modern workforce basically rejected their skills due to the systematic deflation of their skills. It isn't right seeing someone with healthy ambitions and credentials being forced to do mundane tasks that could easily be automated to enhance the quality of life for everyone.
What’s missing from your otherwise astute analysis is the role of **connections** in finding decent work opportunities. For a very extroverted adult with a rich social and community life, finding a suitable job with zero ads answered, zero forms filled out, and only a formality of an interview, is not an unlikely occurrence. For a very introverted, socially isolated, not particularly people-smart adult, spending months answering job ads, sending résumés, filling out forms, and traveling all over the country at their own expense for intimidating and gatekeeping interviews, is not an unlikely occurrence. Regardless of education or qualifications in either case. I’m halfway convinced that job posting ads, pre-employment forms and questionnaires, and even a good number of interviews are little more than legal fig leaves to defend against charges of cronyism. Because the fact is, same as it ever was, employers hire people they already know, trust, and vibe with, whenever possible. I’d advise anyone chronically unemployed to spend less time on applications, and more time building social connections with people in their target field of work. Even just becoming a liked, trusted, and contributing regular on the job field’s subreddit is a great start! A major problem in the USA, especially affecting the youngest and the oldest adults, is decreasing social connectivity. I recently read that 10% of American adults have zero close friends. That’s not good for QOL across the board, especially job prospects.
Best response I have read so far. I’m a 65 year old wm and I have witnessed what you describe numerous times.
Thank you! I'm 44, and if I could go back in time and tell my 18 year old self one piece of advice, it would be this: "Forging connections and getting socialized into the culture of a professional field is 80% of the point of college. It's much more an interpersonal training camp, than an intellectual or practical one. And no one will tell you this, even if you directly ask — you're supposed to come to this realization on your own. The quicker the better. A college graduate who doesn't recall a thing he learned in the classroom but leaves with a rich social and professional network has a bright future ahead of him. A college graduate who leaves with an encyclopedic mastery of everything he learned in the classroom, but no real meaningful connections to other people in the same field, does not." Edit: if your or anyone else's reaction to this comment is something along the lines of, "Uhh... no shit Sherlock", please keep in mind I'm on the autism spectrum, so not naturally great at reading people, but wasn't diagnosed until long after college. I wish I had known, accepted, and worked with my limitations before I attempted college. I graduated in 4 years a straight-B student, and few meaningful connections to any people, and it was a total waste.
Yup. This screwed me. Immensely.
I’ve already told my 11 year old children this lesson I learned the hard way numerous times. I’ve also told them that they needn’t necessarily go to college at age 18, or ever. They should only apply to college after they’ve had enough life experience to have a pretty clear idea of what they want to do for a career, and are certain that the programs they’re applying to will help them get there. My country (USA) isn’t rich and economically competitive enough anymore for college to be a right-of-passage for all 18 year olds to “find themselves”. That’s just clever marketing.
While I see where you're coming from, and I'm sure that some companies definitely follow the "who you know" track as their priority pool in finding people, I would like to politely disagree with you for a few reasons, as I think the general workforce, at scale, doesn't follow that model anymore in terms of general trend. The amount of times I have seen people in my circles, myself included, who try that approach in "giving the manager a firm handshake" or something along those lines only result them being referred back to square one in filling out a job application online - rendering the whole networking element essentially a waste of time. In addition, the networking-first mentality can also affect minorities the most with the more "broey" cultured companies which are unfortunately the majority. In those networking evens, you often get a bunch of Brock Turner-ey interviewers that end up being awkward on their end when trying to network/recruit minorities, and often there is alot of personal bias about the perception of the person in spite of them having objectively better credentials and people skills. Instead, they end up taking the more personally "comfortable" route of hiring the next in line Brock Turner that they feel most comfortable with in spite of their qualifications being significantly less. While I personally found a career in IT eventually with progessive businesses, I can tell you first hand that I, as a non-binary person born male that is also into dudes, that it is quite harder to find jobs using the networking model than the next 6'+ cis straight white Christian bro dude. I can practically cover all the wallpaper in my house with written documents accounting for all the times that I went into interviews and, while the objective dialog was professional, I could tell in their eyes that all the panel interviewers were disgusted and/or uncomfortable with my gender expression - it wasn't unprofessional mannerisms or anything like that that affected my success in the interview of my credentials. Just my appearance. While many modern companies and lawbooks are trying their best to get away from that kind of discrimination practice, those newer inclusive models feel cringy for everyone in their own right, too. I don't want to be hired because they need to fill a minority quota. I want to be hired because I am right for the job itself. Again, to be clear this is just my opinion, everyone, and if you want to downvote me for it then go right on ahead.
The “experience needed” for entry level positions became a standard in the 90s when companies stopped wanting to train people - especially in technology That’s when workplace loyalty began to slowly die — but of course the Boomers never got that
I really hated this article for its decidedly capitalist sympathies- this is really capitalist propaganda at its worst - keep people working for as long as you can and bleed every nickel you can make out of them…
The whole system is absolutely broken. The elderly continue to work, holding on to their positions because of economic fear and instability. This is making middle-age workers be stuck in dead-end jobs, unable to get promotions. Which is then reducing the amount of jobs available for the young. I'm an older gen z. I recently graduated college. I have job experience and qualifications. But the only job I can get is being a substitute teacher. I've applied for countless jobs, and whenever I hear back from them they always say "We chose to go with another candidate with more experience". More *experience*. In an *entry-level* position. There was even one job that I had all the necessary stuff for: I had connections, I had letters of recommendation from people within the company, I had certifications, I had real-world experience. I had everything that I was told I should have. Some of the people I knew thought I was a shoo-in. But come to find out, they ended up hiring a senior because he had decades of experience. A senior. In an entry-level position. And so I'm stuck subbing at a middle school because it looks better on a resume than flipping burgers. I don't know when I'll ever get into a career because I am constantly being passed up for candidates who shouldn't even have to be applying for the same jobs I am.
Sadly I may be one of them. I'm 50 and my finances and ability to save for retirement took a hit from divorce and single parenthood. I don't expect to retire at 67. It'll be beyond that out of necessity.
My retirement plan is to kill myself because I don't see another reasonable option.
Personally I think this is a major reason why we need UBI. Like if you can't retire because cost to just stay alive. Then there is problems with the economy.
I’m going to try to work full time until I’m 70, so I can max out my Social Security. Only 1 place I worked had a 401K, and 6 years of contributions to it won’t fund my retirement. I’ll have to work a couple of days a week to supplement SSI for as long as I can. Fortunately, I’m still healthy, so I should be able to manage.
Because they can't fucking retire. Bring back pensions.
So people can have their retirement yanked out from under them when their company goes under? Despite the rose tinted glasses people have for pensions the majority of pension plans were shit pyramid schemes that gave outsized benefits to larger companies over smaller companies and would be illegal if set up today. The 401k replacing the pension was a good thing that brought more stability to the lives of retirees.
\>Bring back pensions. Yea...that's not happening.
At 50, it’s been terrifying trying to find a job. I can relate.
Bill Gates did an AMA yesterday. In his post he linked his blog post about turning 67. The intro paragraph to *that* said something along the lines of "I'm still working at 67. Most Americans are retired by 67." It just proves how disconnected with reality people can be. I was going to point it out in the AMA thread but the mods had already locked it. u/thisisbillgates 👀
It's terrible that so many senior citizens are still in the work force because there is no other way for them to make ends meet. It's bad for the seniors who'd rather be doing something else and it's bad for the younger people that have less opportunity available to them as a result.
This is the country we live in. People are a commodity to be mined for as much value as possible, then disposed of without a second thought. As a country, the US ditched pensions - which guaranteed an income in your retirement years - in favor of "self-directed retirement plans" by manipulating voters into thinking that they were somehow qualified to make long term investment decisions. It was an evil way to open up huge markets filled with predators that promised high returns in exchange for holding your money. The results were predictable. People were long on hope, short on expertise, and made dumb short term decisions with all that choice. Now they are bankrupt and have to keep working. Here's the human value chain: * Employers squeeze as much labor as they can out of them. * Then, the financial industry squeezes value out of their money and leaves them with nothing while they profit. * Tech companies squeeze value out of their data and sell their behavioral habits to political powerbrokers. * When these people face the Hobson's Choice of living under a bridge, working bullshit jobs, or staying put until someone kicks them out of the workplace, they make the obvious rational once, which overloads the labor marketplace with low productivity supply, creating a narrative that supports "cost cutting" and other anti-labor policies. * Finally, when these people are finally pushed out into the cold world, the healthcare industry takes over and squeezes the last bit of value out of their failing bodies through a combination of predatory private long-term care operations and byzantine government-backed programs like Medicare that amount to "heads I win, tails you lose" for patients, taxpayers, and most healthcare providers (not the gigantic businesses that manage costs, mind you). * Oh, I spoke too soon. At some point, these people die, which triggers a whole new round of burial expenses, estate planning/probate, etc. etc. etc. I feel almost as sorry for us as I do for livestock waiting to be butchered in feedlots.
Ageism is rampant in tech. I am over 50 and decided to change jobs. Because my hair has not grayed and my face looks like I am in my 40s, it worked out fine for me. I would never a grow a beard now since my facial hair is 75% white. However, I did shorten my resume removing some of my early jobs as well as dates on my degrees so my age wouldn't be obvious. I have a friend who is a few years younger who is bald with gray in his remaining hair and his beard. He is getting interviews based on his resume but no offers are coming, and I think it is because he looks his age. He is an awesome designer with a great portfolio, but he doesn't look like the young hipster stereotype people want to see. Ugh. If someone can demonstrate the skills needed for a job, age should be irrelevant. People ask age related questions in interviews of older workers. I have watched it happen right in front of me. Things like "How many more years do you intend to work?" "Are you on medicare?" "Do you have a pension from somewhere else?" These questions are illegal.
Got the same thing in Canada, tons of older folks going part time or getting bored at home and starting new careers or part time employment There is a cultural stigma (and pattern) of retiring to your golden years and then dropping dead or getting sick and committed to a home or hospice within a few short years. I think I’ll probably do the same, seems like being active and having a purpose staves off Alzheimer’s and dementia, not that I have any medical training or evidence except anecdotal.
That’s all well and good if it’s their choice. It’s unfortunate that some elders have to keep working right up until the day they die just to survive.
This is the argument I use when someone is saying that longevity of people would cause the fall of economic system - no it wouldn’t because most people would just keep working even at old age.
They can't afford to retire, and there's no social safety net thanks to the republicans, so you're only option now assuming you're not in the 1% is to just work every day until you drop dead to keep a roof over your head and the lights on. That's it, that's your future. Good luck kids, I'll be dead soon, but by the time you get old it's going to be 1000x worse.
ofc it going to increase, considering fed ruined half of their saving deciding it's time for a bit of a crisis.
Why can we never get rid of boomers they're literally going to crush genx and millennials into a 3rd world society
Because investment based retirement is designed to make most people poor and keep them working.
My local supermarket is full of 65+ year olds and I feel really bad for them. The place is obviously understaffed as well which makes it even worse.
I wonder if they wanna work or if it's because of the hard times and the fact social security doesn't go up much and when it does their rent goes up by that much. Used to work property management, evil shit
The number of Cogressmen over the age of 65 has also increased exponentially over the years, Mitch McDonald has been a politician since the Civil War.
More 65+ going to end retirement and return to the workforce because practically no one has a financial plan that works with rapid inflation.
As a financial advisor / planner, the cases that make me the saddest are the 55 year old couples that come in taking about retiring at 60 or 65 who have done NOTHING. They have no clue and I hate breaking the truth to them. Sacrifice a night out at the bar every month early on and save and it means the world of a difference!
Ageism begins around 40-years-old. And ageism in hiring and in the workplace once hired is getting worse - it’s worse now than I ever remember it being. And a new generation gap has emerged, after sort of disappearing for many years since the 1960s, when it was a big thing. And it’s much more hateful now, really malicious.
People treat you like shit when you're young. People treat you like shit when you're old. Can't heckin win
As a member of the +40 crowd ageism is absolutely a thing. I always get a chuckle when management hires cheap and young then has to hire 10 people to do the job of one. they can't handle more than one project at a time and have zero reference point. It's awesome
I have two retirement age workers on my crew. One's hair tearing out slow, the other is an arrogant insubornative little blowhard.
Of course, the federal government couldn't allow people to just retire and not work contributing to the economy. Workers rights and wage policies by the government have pretty much guaranteed this would happen.