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Old 02-04-2015, 12:37 PM
 
Location: Copenhagen, Denmark
10,931 posts, read 11,670,728 times
Reputation: 13170

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Quote:
Originally Posted by Good Point View Post
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'm 71. I tried to retire at 67, but instead I got a raise and a promotion. I tried to retire at 70, but i let myself be talked into another 2 years by another raise, but i accepted it with the provision that i work 1/2 time. They bought it. I am going to retire at 72. I have a piece of paper that says so.

Wish me luck. Perhaps, they'll pay me not to work?
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Old 02-04-2015, 01:25 PM
 
524 posts, read 840,737 times
Reputation: 1033
I was illegally fired last year right before my 55th b day. my firing had to do with working over 40 hours a week and being misclassified as exempt. Lawyers weren't interested.
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Old 02-04-2015, 02:33 PM
 
Location: Northern Wisconsin
10,379 posts, read 10,853,250 times
Reputation: 18712
Organized labor a solution? LOL LOL. Those guys are only interest in themselves. I've already heard enough stories of the Teamsters cheating long time union members from their pension. Gee, I wonder why there's no money for a pension.

I heard another story years ago about the bricklayers union in Chicago. The story I heard was that they actually had very few members. So the contractors hired non-union guys. So the BA would come around the construction site and hit them up for a contribution or they would threaten a strike and shut down the whole job. I've seen enough other stuff first hand to know that unions are worse than what we have now.

Another example. We had a little job going at Cat in E. Peoria, Ill. Their people were installing our product. But they could never get started right away in the morning because the string of lights in the furnace we were working on could only be plugged in by a union electrician. They pulled the same scam in Chicago at McCormack Place where our company had a display set up for a trade show. You had to pay a union electrician to plug in your display lights in the morning.

Sorry this is off topic, but I couldn't help myself.
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Old 02-04-2015, 02:50 PM
 
15,442 posts, read 21,251,255 times
Reputation: 28680
Onward and upward folks! For many of us, our former employers proved to be less than desirable and to make matters worse, the homes we bought for our families while working for these beggars are worth less now than what we gave for them many years ago. Then too, some folks are not so fortunate and have even lost their homes during this downturn.

Around here we just like to say "money is tight." However, there are still dollars out there to be gathered up if your time is spent using your brains and not spent "eating worms." I now find myself competing with younger folks with a whole lot less education for the very few dollars that I can find floating around. This is the way it works when times get tough, i.e, only hard times trickle down when the money dries up.

Regarding those young folks who now spend all their time on their PCs blaming whole generations for their economic woes, age awaits them, if they are lucky.
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Old 02-04-2015, 04:26 PM
 
1,486 posts, read 2,225,782 times
Reputation: 2300
Advances in productivity and automation have frankly made much of the workforce flat out superfluous.

The real reason we want everyone to keep working is the economic morality of our culture.

Every one of us agrees with the idea that "he who does not work, shall not eat", but that cultural belief was formed in scarcity conditions when everyone worked in agriculture, thousands of years ago.

There's simply no need for most people to work. Still, suggest something like a universal basic guaranteed income and people freak out imagining all the lazy slackers living it up. That's the deep-seated emotional and now irrational economic morality of our culture.

So we look for makework for people, doing stuff that could be automated. Or we drive 55-year old superfluous tech industry employees into an early grave from stress or ruin their marriages, forcing them to mainline propaganda like "Who Moved My Cheese".
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Old 02-04-2015, 04:29 PM
 
Location: North Idaho
2,392 posts, read 2,992,567 times
Reputation: 2934
I'll be retiring in about 18 months. I'll be 61 at the time. I'm going when I'm ready, emotionally and financially.

Dave
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Old 02-04-2015, 05:09 PM
 
Location: Great State of Texas
86,052 posts, read 84,183,047 times
Reputation: 27718
Quote:
Originally Posted by northwesty View Post
Sadly, we are reaping what we have sown. We have had 3+ decades of anti-union, right to work legislation that has culminated with corporations and their purchased politicians in nearly complete control. For the most part, the public (and voters) have supported this. NAFTA and other trade agreements were sold to the public with the promise of jobs. All it did was facilitate offshoring and corporate tax dodging. The unions have much responsibility, too. Overreaching, corruption, etc. all contributed to the mess we are in now.

The media feeds a "youth culture" mentality which is now manifest in the workplace. 50 is the new 70. You are a "has been" in what was once your prime. Cost cutting serves the stock holders. Quality in product, customer service and corporate citizenship are a distant memory.

I don't know how we get out of this.
It has nothing to do with anti-union as teachers with unions are being pushed out as well due to age.
The real issue is that younger people work for less money.

It's all about the money.
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Old 02-04-2015, 05:28 PM
 
Location: TN/NC
34,851 posts, read 30,947,424 times
Reputation: 47194
Quote:
Originally Posted by HappyTexan View Post
It has nothing to do with anti-union as teachers with unions are being pushed out as well due to age.
The real issue is that younger people work for less money.

It's all about the money.
The counterpoint to that is that corporations demand unrealistic experience requirements young people can't meet.
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Old 02-04-2015, 05:32 PM
 
146 posts, read 161,948 times
Reputation: 807
Quote:
Originally Posted by high iron View Post
Advances in productivity and automation have frankly made much of the workforce flat out superfluous.

The real reason we want everyone to keep working is the economic morality of our culture.

Every one of us agrees with the idea that "he who does not work, shall not eat", but that cultural belief was formed in scarcity conditions when everyone worked in agriculture, thousands of years ago.

There's simply no need for most people to work. Still, suggest something like a universal basic guaranteed income and people freak out imagining all the lazy slackers living it up. That's the deep-seated emotional and now irrational economic morality of our culture.

So we look for makework for people, doing stuff that could be automated. Or we drive 55-year old superfluous tech industry employees into an early grave from stress or ruin their marriages, forcing them to mainline propaganda like "Who Moved My Cheese".
Wait until cars and trucks drive themselves... coming soon to cabs and delivery vehicles.

Jaron Lanier recently authored a book about the very things you mention ("Who Owns the Future?") and some provocative ideas about alternate income schemes to save the middle class. I found it a good read.

Last edited by northwesty; 02-04-2015 at 05:50 PM..
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Old 02-04-2015, 05:46 PM
 
146 posts, read 161,948 times
Reputation: 807
Quote:
Originally Posted by HappyTexan View Post
It has nothing to do with anti-union as teachers with unions are being pushed out as well due to age.
The real issue is that younger people work for less money.

It's all about the money.
Which is why I mentioned corruption and the unions.

But it does involve anti-union forces. Scott Walker (with support funding from the Koch brothers) gutted the public employee unions in Wisconsin, including the teachers by proposing to ban collective bargaining. Wisconsin voters thought it was a great idea and Walker is now one of the darlings of the Republican party. Expect more of the same elsewhere.

I personally think that people will eventually wake up to the fact that they have been duped, but it will be too late. The bloodless coup orchestrated by the corporate and business class is already well underway.

Like Warren Buffet said, "Class warfare? We already had the war and my class won!"
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