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I'm very blessed to have an employer that likes my work and tells me "you can't leave, can't retire and can stay on as long as I want." I think that it is sad, but yes, there's no security working for corporate America. But this shouldn't have been a surprise to anyone. I saw this in the 80's recession. Then too, men with many years with their employers were pushed out way before their retirement. I learned then, you're only wanted as long as they need you. So I feel sorry for you who have been forced out, but it has been this way for many years.
My advice to young people today is to start your own business or get a marketable skill that is normally in demand, the kind of job that most people don't want to do, or with bad hours. Nursing, police, fireman, etc. (My job is similar. Most people don't want to be a pastor, very small church, in a small declining town on the Great Plains) Last time I checked, they are still looking for people to these kinds of jobs, along with truck driver, welder and others. Its called work and its there if you want it.
My last few months were pretty tough before I retired but I wouldn't say I was forced out. I simply decided to retire from Federal civil service since it had been my plan all along to escape the dishonesty and politics I saw working with government environmental activities. I retired the same day I turned 50 and other than the occasional nightmares I still have about my stint with the very dysfunctional US Fish and Wildlife Service, I rarely look back. Back in the 1990s the USFWS seemed to always have a tendency to somehow acquire from Congress the authority for early retirement and that was one of the reasons I transferred to them five years before I became 50. It was a gamble that paid off.
For my whole career, the writing was pretty much on the wall regarding a declining US economy so I started planning early and began saving the maximum in the government's TSP program although I remained in the old CSRS system. After retirement, I took my TSP savings and purchased my small farm and, along with my small CSRS annuity, we manage fairly well. On top of this, I took my SS at age 62 although it was much reduced because of the Windfall Elimination Provision and early withdrawal. My SS annuity pays my cell phone bill and a half basket of groceries.
Nightlife, crowds and expensive world travel have never been in our list of great loves so moving to a very secluded farm in western Texas has been no sacrifice. The sacrifice was getting here.
Most people don't want to be a pastor, very small church, in a small declining town on the Great Plains) Last time I checked, they are still looking for people to these kinds of jobs, along with truck driver, welder and others. Its called work and its there if you want it.
Tried to rep you but I guess I don't post enough any more.
I am a relative newbie on this board but I can't believe how many people have already posted to this thread the past two days...it's hit a chord...
I am glad I left the corporate world six+ years ago. There were mergers and bonuses were being cut. Reorgs every year. I managed to get a County job in a middle management/senior analyst equivalent position (33% pay cut at the time) and if all goes to plan I should leave with a pension that will keep me comfortable (not rich) in retirement.
In 2012 they cut the pension formula due to the recession...new employees receive 33% less under the new formula.
I would like to consider some part time work after I "retire". Gotta do some research on that.
I retired at 51. No one was forced out. In fact the opposite was true, they were begging me to stay and trying to find ways to make me happy enough to stay. They offered to switch my programs with someone else's, they offered me an assistant to reduce my workload. I was tired of the changes I'd seen in the workplace. The district was hiring people with no experience at all in our industry, and who had no knowledge of our workplace culture, and putting them in positions of power over those of us who had spent 20+ years learning it from the ground up. I was burned out from the disappointments that just kept being heaped onto my plate. So I left with an adequate, but smaller than I would have liked, pension. My peace of mind and my time were worth more to me than the money. I am very happy with the results of my decision.
I have recently participated in the number of interview panels where I and the team have interviewed hundreds of people for a huge government contract. This has been an eye opening experience to say the least. A large number of applicants are 55-65 years old and unemployed. The stories they have told us about being fired, laid off or pushed out their last job. So much bitterness and anger and so many of these people I suspect will never work full time again in a professional job. They have been sent out to pasture by a society that generally is not interested in older workers.
If you are on this board, I suspect you are either retired or are planning for retirement. Did you retire on your own schedule? Or were you pushed out and forced to retire because there was no one who was willing to hire someone at your age? Tell us your story.
I was laid off for the last time when I was 55 years old. I worked in IT in NYC where I worked my tush off for an interview. I changed my resumes around. I did a lot of things. It was a fulltime job looking. But I also come with unseen complications - besides age (and I kept the look and looked younger) my hearing was getting a lot worse. I did well finding jobs to keep me employed all those years. I wish I could've continued but it just didn't and I was feeling really exhausted and beat up. It came to a point where we knew without my being able to work (and UI was ridiculously low in NY), we had to leave or lose our house (I would've given between the mortgage and hellish taxes we'd last a year). We left.
Bitterness and anger about it all? Yes, to the point where discrimination was obvious. I've messed up our lives tremendously. This ending is so far off from where I thought I'd be. I'd like to get a job but without hearing, since this is new to me, and where we moved a job for me is not in my line of site unless I work for free.
So in addition to my anger, I'm pretty afraid of what the rest of life where lead us both.
Last edited by PeaceOut001; 02-04-2015 at 10:48 AM..
Reason: typo!
Location: We_tside PNW (Columbia Gorge) / CO / SA TX / Thailand
34,747 posts, read 58,102,528 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by augiedogie
I'm very blessed to have an employer that likes my work and tells me "you can't leave, can't retire and can stay on as long as I want." ... you're only wanted as long as they need you. So I feel sorry for you who have been forced out, but it has been this way for many years.
My advice to young people today is to start your own business or get a marketable skill that is normally in demand, the kind of job that most people don't want to do, or with bad hours.
30 yrs of night shift work served my family well.
Agree... get an Hourly skill if you are planning to work for wages. But realize Hourly wages are getting hammered with tax burden (getting worse).
OK for subsistence, but for wealth building, have another plan. No one but you (and your greedy planner) is interested in your financial situation.
... you're only wanted as long as they need you. Reading and heeding 'Dying Broke' helped deliver that message 20 yrs ago.
Take control of your employment, you are only employed at will / for benefit of (to) employer.
Consider yourself 'self-employed' wherever you are, as YOU will be making the decisions to chart your future. Company has bigger fish to fry. (and smaller fish are MUCH cheaper (come in schools and are raised to fit Employer liking)
Last edited by StealthRabbit; 02-04-2015 at 11:46 AM..
All of these tales of woe by the individual workers speaks to a growing need for a resurgence of labor organizing. Had it not been for the union my employment would have been cut short, why? Well, dollars and cents don't always add up to dollars and sense. American corporations have been on the warpath against their older workforce. Believing that the cheaper less experienced worker would be a boon to their bottom line, they made offers to the aging union workers to get out early, those older salaried types were summarily canned with no apology.
The fact of a diminishing need for human labor is also a factor in the corporate move to garner efficient labor constructs, this means an inevitable clash of generations will be the new norm as the workplace becomes less enamored of the human contribution, leading to a scarcity of jobs. Jeremy Rifkin in his book "The End of Work" coined the term "corporatized" to denote the attitude among many of our countrymen that corporations are all knowing and their actions always noble. Included in this thinking is the notion that the horrendous abuse heaped upon their workforce is seen as a kind of natural Darwinian business reality.
I felt a definite disdain for us older types when dealing with the younger team members, I was likened to their dad, and that hostility that they normally reserved for their parents was now unleashed on us of the over 55 group. The bosses were now left to deal with a new type of worker, many knew everything and felt a sense of entitlement to the top positions in a mere two years or so. They had been hoorah-ed for every small triumph from potty training to their sports accomplishments, they got their kudos often and with much fanfare, not all, but a significant majority were thus imbued.
Yeah, they'll grow up and get old, but why this inevitability isn't seen for what it implies is beyond me, young forever, the stuff of youthful hubris. I feel bad for those who have been dealt a grueling experience in their employment, for most of us (work) is the one thing that separates us from those destitute souls wandering the streets, or those who have given in to the feelings of low self worth that all too often accompany our unemployment days. The workplace in many cases is now devoid of a long string of age, leaving these companies with little to no mentoring processes in place. I'm aware of that when dealing with the everyday business contact required of all of us as consumers. This is evidence of a cultural shift that relegates us to the notion of being "old and in the way".
P.S. Not only has the older generation tolerated this abuse but to add insult to injury many of the posts on CD seek to denigrate us for being retired and "living it up" in the words of those who rail against the much hated "Boomers".
That's ok. People will have their opinions but I never argue with anyone over my viewpoint or my actions. I simply don't see the logic of arguing with anyone about politics, religion or for that matter, anything that I am not, that the other person is, or vice versa.
I say, let the world rail against the boomers! Let's live it up today and let tomorrow worry about itself!
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