Getting Squeezed from Both Sides
So I know this will sound like a rant but I can't help myself. I'm a later boomer, born in late 1959.. now referred to Generation Jones. I first entered the IT workforce in the early 80's right as Reagan was elected. I entered a workforce that was dominated by baby boomers. They held the jobs, the management positions and the economic purse strings. Like many other Gen. Joners, I could never compete with them, no matter how hard I tried or how good I performed. In my "career" I was downsized twice, saw may salary see-saw and was never officially recognized for any of the good work I was doing. The Boomers, always kept me down saying and I was bypassed for promotions because "You are too young", "You are too inexperienced", "You are too green".
By the late 90's when I was no longer "too young", "too inexperienced", "too green", suddenly I was deemed to be TOO OLD. So I wound up reporting to people older than me to people younger than me within 3 years. Then the Y2K debacle, and theDot-Com meltdown hit and found myself out of work with no real prospects again.
So it took a dead-end job waiting for the IT profession to recover. Then the 2008 crisis hit and Odumb-ass got elected. Shot the whole economy to hell for the next 8 years. So I stayed where I was. So for the past 20 years I've sat in a dead-end job just for the decent pay and benefits and saving as much as i can for my 401K so I can retire and disappear somewhere.
Now, we have another set of Boomer politicians (senile Joe, Nervous Nancy, Chuckie Schumer, and Pocahontas) screwing up the economy again. Gas prices up, and I've been hearing talk of going after pension and 401K's. After all it's not MY MONEY IS IT?
So after 40 years of getting screwed by the Boomers, it's going to continue to happen. Then as I get older the Gen Xers and Millenials will say "Hey boomer.. you got yours.. now we are taking it for ourselves".
I'd like to know what it's like to WIN.
The election of Trump was the last gasp of a dying country.
By the late 90's when I was no longer "too young", "too inexperienced", "too green", suddenly I was deemed to be TOO OLD. So I wound up reporting to people older than me to people younger than me within 3 years. Then the Y2K debacle, and theDot-Com meltdown hit and found myself out of work with no real prospects again.
So it took a dead-end job waiting for the IT profession to recover. Then the 2008 crisis hit and Odumb-ass got elected. Shot the whole economy to hell for the next 8 years. So I stayed where I was. So for the past 20 years I've sat in a dead-end job just for the decent pay and benefits and saving as much as i can for my 401K so I can retire and disappear somewhere.
Now, we have another set of Boomer politicians (senile Joe, Nervous Nancy, Chuckie Schumer, and Pocahontas) screwing up the economy again. Gas prices up, and I've been hearing talk of going after pension and 401K's. After all it's not MY MONEY IS IT?
So after 40 years of getting screwed by the Boomers, it's going to continue to happen. Then as I get older the Gen Xers and Millenials will say "Hey boomer.. you got yours.. now we are taking it for ourselves".
I'd like to know what it's like to WIN.
The election of Trump was the last gasp of a dying country.
I'm 8 years younger than you. I didn't seem to fall prey to the age-related issues you mention, but I'm not surprised by your comments.
I don't mean to offend, at all. But, some thoughts come to mind. To sit in a dead-end job for many years is brutal. I couldn't do it. I did it once for one year. Ended up more broke when I quit after that first year - haha.
I remember the scene in the movie Josey Wales where he says, "Now remember, when things look bad and it looks like you're not gonna make it, then you gotta get mean. I mean plumb, mad-dog mean. Cause if you lose your head and you give up then you neither live nor win. That's just the way it is." My high school football coach would say, "Don't be denied" when directing me to run over defenders while carrying the football. Sometimes you gotta fight. Do whatever it takes to succeed. Much easier said than done. One should be willing to make a big career change, big relocation...whatever it takes. In the situation of getting squeezed from both sides as you describe there still remains winning options. You have to be very observant, flexible and, sometimes, plum mad-dog mean. In my case, I switched from the aerospace industry to healthcare. Healthcare is where the money is and the cold war ended just before I made the switch. Aerospace was a boon to engineers back in the 60s, 70s and 80s. Then it shriveled. Now the government-healthcare complex rules the world and is in the mind of every thinking person...like working for The Matrix. But, in the middle of all that, even though I was busy with a wife and baby, I went back to the local university to study investing/finance. Before I finished my second class a firm I had been a client of offered me a job. Get skills that people will pay you for - skills that society is willing to pay for. Man...it ain't easy at times...
The people running government aren't boomers, they're looters. That has been true for 108 years.
If we don't defend individual liberty, we are cowards regardless of age.
Your situation (regardless of field), diessos, is not unique. Born in 1952 I am a boomer and have been looted (screwed) throughout my career while employed in similar and a few different ways as you. Abaco's advice to press for something better is good advice.
I think a redefining of what it means to "WIN" might be in order.
My husband and I are both at the tail end of the boomer generation. We're both in IT. He made a great living for himself early in life running his own IT consultancy. Even though he eventually took on a regular full-time job when business dwindled, he still has loyal clients that he does "charity" work for. That makes him happy as well as his other hobbies outside of the day-to-day IT work he is paid to do.
He was in a similar situation as you when he applied for IT jobs that were more interesting and had upward potential -- he was too experienced and/or over-qualified for the job. The kids that interviewed him didn't know half of what he knows and working for them may have been another fresh hell that he avoided. Ageism sucks for sure.
As for me, after years in the Silicon Valley, I moved back home to Kentucky to be closer to my family. There were no great IT jobs in this area. After several year of complaining about it, I have come to appreciate my dead-end IT job for the benefits and pay without the political stress of an upper management job.
Our jobs are simply fuel for the other things in life that DO make us happy. We have more time and money for family, hobbies, and charity work. At 57, my life less is less about work and more about my family, personal growth and achievements. I simply do not factor my job into the "winning" equation anymore.
Time to shrug, not playing their game nor participating in their transdemic asstastrophy
hope you have been preparing
In addition to everything Ayn Rand wrote I also read the Peter Principle and later the Peter Prescription. Fortunate enough to utilize 6 months of Army training into a 30 year career. Wondered at times if I wasn't failing to follow what Rand implied but in my career activity helped over a thousand individuals to have a better life. Shrugged in 2001 and have enjoyed most of the past 20 years.(Death has claimed many I knew) Still helping a few on a different scale now. Spent probably 20 years practicing the Peter Prescription and when events no longer allowed avoiding promotion into my level of incompetence simply shrugged and walked away.
I was one of the fortunate ones, I guess...I held good jobs, that I liked, raised a family, paid off my house in 19 years, salted away a nest egg (separate from my employer's retirement program) and am now, comfortably retired.
Now, I'm hoping to use that nest egg to move from Washington to Idaho, if I can afford to...the price of housing has skyrocketed there, in the past year or two.
I'm also in the IT field, and I'm in the same boat as you. I have twenty+ years of experience and an MBA, but I was passed over for promotion. I'd also like to know what it would be like to WIN. Let me know if you find out.
“The best portion of a good man’s life.
His little, nameless, unremembered acts
Of kindness and love.”
When push comes to shove there are many more of US than the demons. As you know our path to the distant future is much brighter and cooler then the looters
And the frauds.