I have watched talented peer after talented peer get tossed into the employment dustbin for no other reason than they got old. It wasn't even that they had accumulated so many cost of living increases that they priced themselves out of a job. No, someone was enamored of the "latest trendy model," and "old reliable" got set aside to oxidize.
Including yours truly.
I'm working again, but the path to here was long and arduous. Nearly every person I know who has looked for work longer than a year is over 50. Eventually, they become "consultants" and "life coaches" and all sorts of other titles where you worry they are eating Mighty Dog out of a can.
You endure interviews with CEOs, CTOs, and CMOs who are all people half your age, and they beef to you about how lazy, uninspired, dismissive, and absent their younger employees are, and wouldn't it be great if they could just find someone who showed up every day, did the work assigned to them, and put some quality into what they delivered. Someone with a track record who just gave even a little damn?
And then they go and hire another round of the same kind of person they've been grousing about. Gray hairs need not apply—and how did you make it past the AI job application filter we erected anyway?
DEI is dying, and possibly meritocracy along with it. I can't even tell what the criteria are anymore—except that every staff page online is filled with young, beautiful people, the kind you find occupying the picture frames for sale at Hobby Lobby or Michael's.
I have watched talented peer after talented peer get tossed into the employment dustbin for no other reason than they got old. It wasn't even that they had accumulated so many cost of living increases that they priced themselves out of a job. No, someone was enamored of the "latest trendy model," and "old reliable" got set aside to oxidize.
Including yours truly.
I'm working again, but the path to here was long and arduous. Nearly every person I know who has looked for work longer than a year is over 50. Eventually, they become "consultants" and "life coaches" and all sorts of other titles where you worry they are eating Mighty Dog out of a can.
You endure interviews with CEOs, CTOs, and CMOs who are all people half your age, and they beef to you about how lazy, uninspired, dismissive, and absent their younger employees are, and wouldn't it be great if they could just find someone who showed up every day, did the work assigned to them, and put some quality into what they delivered. Someone with a track record who just gave even a little damn?
And then they go and hire another round of the same kind of person they've been grousing about. Gray hairs need not apply—and how did you make it past the AI job application filter we erected anyway?
DEI is dying, and possibly meritocracy along with it. I can't even tell what the criteria are anymore—except that every staff page online is filled with young, beautiful people, the kind you find occupying the picture frames for sale at Hobby Lobby or Michael's.
Or the world of _Logan's Run_.