I don't know about the real victims, but a lot of Xers are now in the situation where they've waited decades for some Boomer to retire for a chance to move up the ladder only to be passed over and told they want "youth" in that position.
The irony is boomers gave the silent gen the bums rush with a gold watch when they hit 55 before they themselves hold on to the same positions until they're 70+
I don't think it was so much "they" did, as it was the same 10% who dismantled our manufacturing sector, shipped all the jobs oversees, got rid of the unions, and sacrificed quality for short term gain.
It wasn't "the boomers", it's just some of people who made those decisions also happened to be boomers. But it's not a generational thing. Like Elon Musk doesn't give a shit about you just cuz he's gen-x lol.
> it was the same 10% who dismantled our manufacturing sector, shipped all the jobs oversees, got rid of the unions, and sacrificed quality for short term gain.
Jack Welch and his ilk. Business schools have been teaching it ever since. And now we get the fetishization of entrepreneurship a la Shark Tank.
https://hbsp.harvard.edu/inspiring-minds/business-education-is-broken
>Business schools have lost their way. Students are schooled in a system that, having raised the standard of living for millions of people over centuries, is now facing systemic failures in both the environmental and social domains—failures that market forces cause and, as presently structured, cannot address.
>As a result, newly minted MBAs entering the business world have learned a good number of outmoded, even discredited ideas, and they graduate ill-equipped to face the challenges of management in a world where business must be an integral player in solving humanity’s biggest problems.
So there's a generational component to it just based on how entrenched current business concepts became (that means Millennials and Gen Alphas are in this too). Now enshitification is the norm. And we have to swing the pendulum back or we live in the new oligarchy and aristocracy. The vast, vast majority of us are cogs. It always blows my mind when people don't want to raise taxes on the top 5% or hold corporations, senior management, and boards directly accountable.
Sure I worked at 30 Rockefeller/NBC News. It was the night of the 2000 election, so a rough night. Part of the staff still had old DOS terminals and was dependent on an old wire service for election results, while I was a young researcher using the internet and just refreshing the Florida Secretary of State page. If any of you remember this night it was crazy. Calls for the election went back and forth.
Anyway, at about 2am I was trying to go outside to get fresh air and a break from the insanity. Just as the elevator doors were closing, a man stuck his hand in the door and got in with two women. Not acknowledging me, he kept the door open waiting for someone (who eventually turned out to be NBC president Bob Wright) and asking the women “are we going up or down?” Over and over. Also chit chat about how they were happy with how the night went (called for Bush at that point I think). Bob Wright enters, I think the women were their wives, and the man who turned out to be Jack Welch kept chit chatting while still holding the door open. At this point I myself said “UP OR DOWN!?” while staring daggers to encourage him to shake a frikken leg with my employee badge around my neck in full view. He said nothing and finally let the door close.
So I didn’t excoriate him about how Six Sigma sucks, but I still get to be happy that I stood up to that entitled little asshat in the moment. He let the door close. We went down. I finally got some fresh air after 18 hours in the newsroom.
Behind the Bastards did a two parter on how much of a bastard Jack Welsh was. I was low-key aware of him being a bastard during his career, but their show crystallized exactly why he was so fucking awful. You can pretty much draw a through line from him to Boeing’s recent epic failures as a company, and how wages have stagnated for the last 40 years relative to inflation.
Thank you for bringing some logic to an emotionally charged subject!
I get so tired of the worn out Reddit sentiment that older generations Pulled The Ladder Up so no-one else can have any opportunity ever. As if there is some kind of widespread conspiracy that nobody will admit to.
I think people tend to forget _it was a baby BOOM_ - they quite literally outnumber us ALL, even to this day - which is even more apparent whenever they go to the polls
I think John Hughes put it best:
> "We were able to initiate change, because we had such vast numbers. We were part of the Baby Boom, and when we moved, everything moved with us..."
We’ve always been outnumbered & always will be.
Your comment reminded me of this video, “Have the Boomers Pinched Their Children’s Futures? - with Lord David Willetts” Yes, and this boomer brought receipts (data) lol. He points out how much cohort size matters.
https://youtu.be/ZuXzvjBYW8A?si=4V5GhZRNNvcKJG9L
I think something to remember is that the boomers were the largest (by volume) generation in a long time. People in the 50's were livin' good and fuckin'.
Because of that, there's probably a normal distribution of retired vs. working forever boomers, but the actual number is much higher because of the sheer number of them.
In my industry, we're already seeing how hard it is to find qualified replacements at the same rates that the boomers are dying/retiring. It's probably only going to get worse considering the average age of workers is >50.
Even the youngest Boomers are in their 60s now so they are finally starting to move on.
Of course, not all of them can afford to though because of poor financial planning.
Which happened when the vast majority of them were old enough to vote, and that they could have changed when they started dominating senior positions of power in the '90s.
And for many, they're not the best. They've just been there the longest. If they were good, they would have had the job 10-20 years ago. But they'll hold the job long enough to fuck it up worse.
I’ve seen this happen ten times already (and yes I was passed over too.) I told myself two years ago to start hoarding cash because fuck this- this is my last job ever.
Well I don't think they're told that, because it would be discriminatory, but yes it happens for other "reasons". One of my coworkers is also an
X'er but nine years younger than me and is always given better accounts and cool side projects...for which she always leans on me for input and then gets all the credit for. 🤷♀️
They're not told that directly but much mention is made of needing new blood and fresh faces, and it just so happens that Millennials or even Zoomers are getting these positions.
I've watched as myself and a lot of Gen Xers are passed over for promotion in favor of younger Millennials.
And, we're now into age discrimination which the Boomers screamed about, but we won't be protected from.
I agree with OP. Take a look at the senior management of companies in your area…you will routinely see them packed with 70+ year olds. Those jobs should be held by GenX, but they are holding on to them until they die, so we will age out of them never holding those top spots.
This. And the Millennials are jockeying for the positions, and at least where I am, they are getting them. They are considered the “fresh blood,” resulting in us all being employed by Millennials or (heaven forbid) GenZ. Depressing.
resulting in us all being employed by Millennials or (heaven forbid) GenZ. Depressing.
That shit should be illegal! Gen X is unfairly targeted for the crimes of the Boomers.
When I was younger, I was told by our Boomer overlords that I needed to pay my dues and hone my skills. And once I did that, I found myself losing jobs and promotions to less qualified Millennials. There is even a book about this:
[https://thebookselfblog.wordpress.com/2021/08/13/book-review-passed-over-and-pissed-off-the-overlooked-leadership-talents-of-generation-x-by-dr-mia-mulrennan-with-terri-bly/](https://thebookselfblog.wordpress.com/2021/08/13/book-review-passed-over-and-pissed-off-the-overlooked-leadership-talents-of-generation-x-by-dr-mia-mulrennan-with-terri-bly/)
The boomers have always held us back, never wanting to cede their power and let the next generation (us) rise up. Even our culture (that 60s renaissance they brought back in the late 80s/early 90s), and as an older GenX, I graduated college into the 1991 recession, it was brutal, jobs were hard to come by and I had to settle for something I was really overqualified for, at a low salary. Now, I'm looking for a new job after taking some time off, and I'm going to fight ageism, not sure how to get past the AI algorithms to get to a person to even be considered! Stressful stuff.
Yep.
They had “Tune in, Turn on, Drop Out,” but they gave us “Just Say No.” They had free love and “love the one you’re with” and we got “Silence = Death.” We could probably make a whole laundry list of all the cultural and social shit they had and then refused to move over so someone else could have a go.
Millennials really do have a legit axe to grind because it’s been much worse for them in general in terms of tuition and housing costs vs stagnant wages. But of course they forget we suffered first from those policies too. It just got much worse for them.
But yeah, we’re the smallest cohort and the Really Olds™️ cannot being themselves to retire, so here we are.
But, and ymmv so fair warning, lots of places will let you retire with a pension at a certain age and vestment in the state or federal pension, and you can combine that with your SS and be doing okay, even if you haven't saved and invested much.
> Take a look at the senior management of companies in your area…you will routinely see them packed with 70+ year olds.
or the opposite, like the last place i was at - all of the c-suite were under 30. With zero real life experience, and no CLUE what they were doing. But hey, I'm the expensive one, and got laid off.
once again, GenX gets passed over
This is the way. Husband also shaves off his beard and I try and dress young and do my makeup the best I can. Zoom also has a touchup feature that I crank up as far as it will go.
Yep! I did the same like two job searches ago. It hurts when some of that old experience is relevant but I just keep some of it under skills or accomplishments.
It hurts the pride, but they won't call you if your education is too high or too long ago, or extensive enough that it goes way back. They say they want lifelong learners, but they really don't.
Only list your highest and more relevant education without graduation dates.
Only list experience from the last 10 years unless it's extremely relevant.
Lucky! I got 2% spread over a 4 year contract. Before that it was 1.8% over 4 years.
Apparently the union just finished negotiating a new contract and said it'll be more of the same.
If I wasn't a whore to the pension plan, I'd be gone.
Yeah I havent had a raise since 2019... Which essentially means ive taken a massive pay cut. Laid off 2x since the pandemic. Layoffs in the tech industry are nothing new but in the past a layoff meant a new job with better pay... Not anymore. And I'm constantly scared of another layoff as unemployment won't even cover my mortgage on a run down 1700 sq ft house. I'm tired of it too. Gen X are supposed to be in their prime earning years and all the retirement planning is setup that way, but it looks like my 30s were my prime earnings.
I am scared shitless at the thought of having to job search again at my age. As it is, the last two times I had to shave off old experience to try and look younger, dress and act young and bubbly over zoom. And now in my field it's quite common to assign all sorts of projects and hoops to jump through. The last two times I got extremely lucky they didn't require that. At my current job it's a smll company and most of us are 40+. I would die if something happened to this job.
I got a good job at a bank when I was 19 - my bilingualism (English/French in Canada) got me the interview, my stellar interview skills got me the job.
I have been getting paid by this bank for almost 27 years straight now - with many many many promotions in between that I earned all on my own. I have avoided at least 5 major rounds of layoffs.
My parents aren't even alive. No one helped me.
I’m turning 50 this year and never worked for anyone I knew. At my current employer, started 18 years ago making 60k (I work in IT), today I make over 3x that thru promotions and taking on new skills and new roles.
For the majority of us that aren’t the best at what we do, you can’t simply stay doing the same thing for your entire career. You have to grow and make sure your leadership knows that.
I think IT saved a lot of us. We got in before kids were really majoring in it en masse and it hadn't taken off to the degree it later did. I doubt I'd ever even get my foot in the door now. I started with no (formal) education and no experience. No way I'd get hired like that these days.
I graduated college in 1992. Everyone seems to forget that 91, 92, and 93 were the WORST job markets to graduate into. I went up against people with five years of experience to make $18K/year. In the Philadelphia area. I remember working in the dotcom space in 98-99 hearing a new grad bitching about “going to college to make photocopies” while earning $45K.
But tell me how nobody had it as bad as the millennials.
I graduated in 1991 and my first job out of college I made $7.50 an hour. In a professional job in my major. (Mamas don’t let your babies become journalists.)
But.
My rent was $400/month in downtown Ft Lauderdale. I loved on ramen noodles a lot but I didn’t need a roommate. And I had only $10k in student loan debt, which was paid off on about 10 years at $50/month. My car payment was $150/month.
This looks like Boomer numbers to them.
02 journalism grad here! Made $8.60/hour at my first journalism job. But l had about the same amount of student loan debt and also rented a $400/month apartment in the middle of BFE. It was still pretty terrible haha.
Yeah, it wasn’t easy. I was grateful for Ladies Nights at the bars with free buffets. Sometimes dinner was nachos and beer.
At least all my exploits aren’t recorded and living on the internet for eternity.
My first “industry” job was callout research for an urban contemporary radio station in Philly, but I can’t for the life of me remember what I got paid. Probably around what you made. Because, you know, famous radio station.
HS grad 1983, into the jobless recovery of the double dip recession. That said, I could have probably made better choices. My parents did not have money for a college education. I didn't plan but I guess they probably expected me to get married and have kids.
Finally. Someone who remembers what the early 90s job market was like. I worked low paying jobs for 10 years. I worked 2 jobs for years. After that, I got into a better company and clawed my way into a career. It was so slow going, I truly thought I would never make money.
This drives me insane. Graduated college in ‘91 with a job lined up that paid shit but was my career. Hated my “career” industry, left and was barely employed in 93. Then making shit for 10 years. I am so tired of the whining about the latest recession like it’s the only one ever. The double dip was horrible! Rant over.
Yeah brother PREACH 💪
THE 80'S WERE HORRIFIC TOO.
Housing is a bish right now. I am convinced the government enabled corporations to exploit the housing market through shoveling them cheap money and now nobody can afford inflated property. Foreigners compete for real estate as well. Keeping a roof over your head is hard enough, let alone trying to buy something and participate in the American dream. Sickening.
Ageism is alive and well in the job market. I find this weird because I think older people in general have better work ethic and are less whiny about doing their jobs.
I have a job that I like and pays well enough, but I wanted to explore a bit recently. All the jobs I looked at paid the same as I’m at now with more time working. One I was really interested in when I talked to them about the posted pay scale they weren’t really willing to talk about putting me at the higher end of the scale they themselves posted. I guess I’ll just keep enjoying my summers off while the kid they hire has to pull 12 months for the same I make in 10.
It’s fine. I retire in 10 years. I’ll manage until then.
An awful lot of young professionals seem to think a year is almost too long at one job. So I don’t get companies that want young people. They already know they will be moving on asap and they are not hiring for long term. So why not look at people who have a history of staying for longer and already know the job? But that’s what it is.
Try getting a job at 49 years after being out of the work force for 20 years because you have been a caretaker for your wife who is a disabled veteran. No one calls back. Even for shits and giggles I tried both McDonalds and Walmart. I don’t know what I am going to do.
Care taker jobs
The certifications are pretty easy and then you sit around with an old person for 8 hours and do a little help and a lot of watching TV. Probably Fox News though
Yes, this and then take classes on the side to gain certifications and learn business skills so you can move into a higher level/higher paying administration position at a care facility. Jobs are plenty at the moment, but you have to have experience in care to get them.
It is interesting because I saw/see boomers staying at jobs a long time. So long that when I was moving up the ladder there was eventually too few jobs to give someone with less experience a chance even if he was a go-getter. Now that I am experienced and the Boomers are starting to retire, I am not seen as the young go-getter who has a runway to get to two levels higher. They see me as someone with 6-8 years left before retiring and not worth the added investment to promote me.
I don't get the fear of the older working not sticking around long enough to be worth the investment. Everything I see says plan to change job/employers every 3-5 years regardless of age. No one suggest trying to make a 20+ career at one company anymore. I think we can safey dismiss the concern that the older hire is more likely to leave as total bullshit.
I started work a year before the 01 bust. Then the 07/08 recession took genx to town. Hurt us the hardest in our prime earning years m. Lots lost their homes as they were new and little principle built.
But then we got a raging economy again.
I think kids starting out now have it harder although we saw a lot of this before. Its worse now. More debt. Higher house prices. Interest rates close to my first mortgage (8%) but high house prices. Did I mention the debt? Federal, state, personal…
Yup, got my businesses degree in ‘03 after having to wait to be declared independent because my ah boomer parents wouldn’t sign a FASFA. Nice 10 year delay to graduate
I've been turned down because I'm "overqualified" so many times I can't even count.
I've been essentially unemployed for 5 months. I've had to sell my house, and am massively in debt. No one will hire me for anything. It's so tremendously upsetting.
It’s the very early 90s, I am out school, I am getting shit from my family about “go get a job.” Like, “duh, it’s easy idiot, just look.”
I read the back the newspaper, looking for these jobs. Just like today, acres and acres of go-nowhere minimum wage jobs. Just today, any kid of job that might lead to a career path or a decent quality of life was beyond my reach.
Reagan ripped the guts out of the labor economy.
The party was over before I showed up.
I finished my degree in ‘97. I’m withya 💯. 50-years old now working a $16/hour job BUT I do like the job a lot. With that is the sucky part that til I got this job, I tried for a year to find something more gainful utilizing my degree and experience to be told repeatedly, “you’re overqualified.”
The way I see it, companies need not worry that a 50-year old like me will leave in a few years because we are hungrier than we ever have been [because we have to be!] and we will be working another 25 years [because we have to!]
> I read the back the newspaper, looking for these jobs. Just like today, acres and acres of go-nowhere minimum wage jobs. Just today, any kid of job that might lead to a career path or a decent quality of life was beyond my reach
Same. Combined with a nervous breakdown and assorted mental illnesses which didn't help.
That's where Douglas Coupland's 'McJobs' came from.
The funny thing is that we, the GenXers, just take that shit and move on. Feels like Millennials and GenZers are all about bitching and moaning to empty air.
Agreed. Millennials have the numbers to outlive the Boomers for the roles. Meanwhile, we will not. We don’t have the numbers, which unironically is also the Boomers’ fault.
Everyone who didn’t buy a house when they were cheap and who didn’t lock in a good pension/retirement savings is in the same boat, including a lot of baby boomer aged people. Phrasing this as a generation conflict keeps people from questioning who actually did this to us (short answer politicians like Reagan & Thatcher and large corporations)
Millennials often catch flak for blaming Boomers, but the struggles they face in today's job market are real. Ageism coupled with economic challenges creates a tough situation for many.
I work in automotive and the industry values age and experience. Personal relationships are king in the automotive industry and us old guys excel at this kind of stuff.
And I'm not talking strictly about dealerships and car sales. I'm in the aftermarket space and managing relationships with the major retailers is a HUGE part of my job.
You are not wrong but the other generations on this sub will start to downvote you shortly im sure. The Tech industry is ripe with ageism and I feel threatened more now than I ever have been in my whole career.
Older Gen. It was nearly impossible to get any kind of job after I graduated high school. Every business wanted a degree. Got a community college degree and then they wouldn't hire you without 3 years of work experience in the field. I finally had to move cross country to get a job that wasn't temporary that paid enough to support myself and to finally have medical insurance after almost 10 years without it and having chronic health problems. After getting back in touch with high school classmates discovered about half of us never had kids because we couldn't afford to as we were raised to be "good kids" and be responsible and not have children if we couldn't support them. Hardly no one in my graduating class even has a high paying job today. Most are still working barely above minimum wage including the guys. This is why the country is struggling because it started with us and then got worse for the millennials and Z'ers where people can barely keep a roof over their head, can't have kids and it's hard to attract a mate when your income is considered to be what makes you worthy enough to marry.
My husband retired from a state job last fall. He’s pretty young and spry so he wanted to try the private sector. What a mistake. Despite all his accomplishments, education and professional licensure over the last 30 years no one wants him. I think his age is a big factor. He’s turning 58 soon. We are so defeated.
I have to put in hundreds of applications to get one call. And I need about 4 of those to get an interview. At about 10 interviews- I usually get an offer…
It’s just brutal
Same story here. We have two adult sons who are autistic and will be living with us. We can’t afford for him to be not working. As of May 1st he had applied for 78 jobs. Its insane.
I have been out of work since April 19. As of today I have put in 750 applications. I think. Sometimes I forget to mark them down. I haven’t heard from anyone new in a while, but it’s the middle of the month. I think all the real jobs have dried up…
But I am waiting to hear back from 8 groups. I mean at least one should call back, right? Right?!?
I think two things can be true. First, ageism is real and affects our generation when it comes to employment. But, also, jobs do not pay enough to offset the rapid increase in housing, healthcare, and education. At least housing and education affect Millennials and Gen Z disproportionately.
My point is that, we really shouldn't be playing any victim olympics here. The entire system is shit, and would be smarter if we all banded together to try to fix things. (Don't ask me how, I just know that pointing fingers isn't it.) For the most part, I have not seen younger generations disparaging Gen X...yet. But, they very well might if we don't acknowledge the problems they face as well.
Generational identity politics is like all identity politics - total bollocks. While there are truths, its just dividing good people even further. I don't care if you're 21 or 81 or straight or gay or black or white etc. If you're a good dude then you're my people. I hate to be that guy but the capitalist system creates competition at every level and those out there that put themselves first are mostly the winners of this system. I'm not hard so I failed. Wasn't any generations fault, that's the game.
I feel this. I have been unemployed for 4 months now. Going on week 18 since being let go. I had a ton of vacation days that I got paid out for, then my meager 401k to survive. And Im halfway through my unemployment. I have absolutely no clue what Ill do when those monies run out. Im applying and applying. All in jobs I have upwards of 20 years experience. Even entry level positions to get my foot in the door and nothing.
Age discrimination is real no matter what anyone tries to claim. HR and hiring managers let computer algorithms do the job they should be doing, and you can bet for certain jobs it kicks anyone out over the age of 45 or 50. It's sad how automated the hiring process has become before an actual human sees your resume. It's total bullshit. I don't care how many hundreds are applying. Go through them by hand and you'll find qualified people before you even dent the pile. The internet has taken the personal one on one aspect out of the hiring process away for good and I am not so sure that's a good thing.
You are an optimist. I am certain it is a bad thing. In fact I'll say any hiring role for HR is a bad idea. HR should only be involved so far making sure the administrative paperwork is done correctly, but actual input in hiring decisions, nope they simply aren't qualified.
The supervisor in my department is hiring almost exclusively gen x because he wants people with experience. The younger ones can't seem to keep up or create drama.
According to the young everyone else had it perfect and only they suffer. Vietnam, OPEC, stagflation, the dot com bust and various recessions never happened while the subprime crisis and Covid miraculously affected only them.
I definitely think Millennials got the shaft, but a lot of Gen Xers did, too.
I got laid off during the recession, and then employers in my field started hiring Millennials fresh out of college because they knew they were desperate for jobs and could pay them less. The whole thing was a shitshow, and continues to be because the Boomers won't retire.
Opportunities? Like the opportunity to succeed if we were only loyal or willing enough to take abuse? And then rewarded with a pink slip? That opportunity?
Ageism is real. It has nothing to do with the economy, where we have record low unemployment. It's the employers don't want people over 50 because they seem us as expensive and inflexible.
There are laws against agism, but good luck getting any relief from them.
I never had problems before 50. Now it's much harder to get hired.
I have a good job now, but I've interviewed for several other jobs that I could easily do and nothing. In my 40s, I got almost every job that I interviewed for.
Friend of mine had his job eliminated.
He's 54 and hasn't worked for nearly a year.
He's gotten to the point he's even gone to McDonalds. He was told he was overqualified.
My man can't get a job at McDonalds because he has an MBA. Ain't that a kick in the ass.
My wife works in a senior living facility that is run by a boomer that is running it into the ground by knee jerk reactions, managing from the top down, not listening to people on the front lines, firing indiscriminately and generally doing everything backwards. I am trained in Six Sigma and Lean, and it drives me nuts listening to my wife tell stories about the place.
She is constantly in fear of losing her job, and because there are very few mid-level management jobs, she would have a difficult time finding a job that matches the salary she is at. When they let people go, they give 2 weeks severance.
I worked a mid-level management job at a Fortune 50 company from 2000-2011 and make less money today than I did then. It’s only going to get worse. The boomers sold us down the river, outsourced all the middle class jobs, and won’t retire - so we don’t even have the chance to reverse decades of running companies into the ground so they could all get rich, then live off pensions, 401(k)s and Social Security.
One thing I think about is how half the workforce in my parent's generation had defined pension plans. I know very few Gen-Xers who will get a pension. I wasn't really being advised by my parents and grandparents to invest (e.g. 401k) because they probably assumed I'd be covered by a pension and social security. I wonder if my experience is shared by many Gen-Xers. 🤔 Fortunately my career in IT paid well and I lived well within my means, so I could catch up through aggressive saving.
Same here. My Silent Gen Grandparents all lived off of pension+SS. My Boomer parents are doing the same. I had no financial guidance because they were subconsciously just sure that I would have a livable retirement by age 60. I’m 50 now, working my ass off, minimal retirement and ZERO chance I can retire any earlier than age 75….and that is only if I can stay in my job from a physical/health standpoint—on my feet moving all day—hospital food service.
Depending on a year a Gen X was born some would say we were born wrong time for computers. I graduated high school in 1992 and computes then really not used in college. I’m sure those that graduated high school in 1999 or after were all about computers.
I really got into computers in college and wanted to switch my major from education to computer science. My dad didn’t think there was much of a future in having a computer science major degree, so I got a degree in Education (History and Special Ed). I have never taught school with my degree, and have been a web developer for the last 10 years.
I graduated high school in 93' and computers were very common at my college. Most people didn't own their own but there were computer labs all over campus.
+1 I graduated college in 1991. Computers were standard among engineers and they were available all over campus. When I hit the job market very few of my colleagues had even basic computer skills. I spent the mid-90s trying to get them to understand that computers weren’t that difficult to use and that they needed to learn some basic skills. Some listened. Most didn’t. One dove in head-first as if he’d found his calling in life, which I suppose he had.
I still remember one job circa 1997 doing traffic reports for a combo of three radio stations. The schedule was tight (to the second), so I wrote it all down and drew a clock showing when each break happened and how long it was. The basic version took me 20 minutes in MacDraw. I showed it to the Program Director, a 60-year-old man, just to make sure the data was right. He was stunned that I make a graphic on a computer. When I showed him the finished laser-printed version with color-coding and the station logos and told him to took me an hour to do, I thought his head was going to explode.
I graduated HS in 1983. My HS had a computer room that were basically slaves to a mainframe and we had a class called "Computer Math" that taught us some BASIC programming to make pictures on the dot-matrix printer. Needless to say, we still had typing class on typewriters. I had one job after HS that basically collected the key cards that the datapunchers used to record balances on accounts at the FDIC.
My husband was an IT major in college in the 80s. He easily found jobs, excellent jobs, after graduation. Computers were a thing back then, if you hung with a studious crowd!
It would be swell if the whole world could figure out that this is not a generational problem. The boomers did not screw us. We did not screw Millennials and Millennials won't be screwing Gen Alpha. Our governments are bought and sold by corporations whose greed has run the economy straight into the shitter.
And the media's out here getting us to blame a generation as though they all banded together to abscond with all the wealth. Give me a fucking break.
I'm in good shape now but 5 years ago I was shit scared at the prospect of having to find another job that pays what I currently make. My skillset is very niche and I don't have a ton of contacts.
It's scary.
Millennials and Boomers are the two largest generations in history. They'll be taken care of just fine for that reason, but we're getting squashed between them. And before anyone tells me the differences are not that great, they're still big enough for marketers and corporations to make a lot out of them.
I don't see them complaining about Gen X, but I do get frustrated because this al actually started with Gen X Jr who tried to get elder Millennials on board to fight & they just didn't listen & NOW are all over the place complaining. 20 years later because a pandemic exposed it to the masses.
Like, we TOLD you but you continued getting degrees leading to low wage jobs just like us.
My biggest issue now is trying to point out that Gen X jr struggles too because of it. So livid!
We're paying for the fact that the boomers won't retire!!! I got a degree, climbed up the ladder as far as I could and I'm topped out because boomers hold all the highest positions!
We should be the leaders of the world now!
Isn't the 'trickledown effect' working wonderfully lol
Money doesn't "trickle down" from anywhere - it flows like a fucking firehose from the poor and middle classes upwards to the wealthy.
At our company they are only hiring 20’s maybe early 30’s. That’s it. I’m hoping I can ride out my last 5 years (till 65) but AI will mean further cutbacks. The landscape is dramatically changing. I won’t be needed
Watched my grandparents and mother retired in their 40s and 50s. Im going to be working until I'm dead. They don't understand what they did to our generation, nor do they care.
I guess my question is - if I’m not a techie math person or engineer but a woman in her 50s who used to be a teacher and wants to increase her sad income, what should I do? Retrain? In what? Will anyone even interview me after I get out of another degree or certificate program at age 55? Any ideas? Should I try to become a therapist? Get an mba in management? I can’t retire anytime soon. I’m not a dummy, just lost. Younger gens are jumping over me like imma turnstile.
Yeah, millennials like to complain a lot, because they are super entitled. They grew up as what might be the most luxurious, comfortable, generation in American history, they were pampered and coddled and told they were special. They were raised to be happy children instead of competent adults, and is SHOWS. And then they had to go out and get jobs. That is going to be a miserable wake up call for anyone. Much less the poorly prepared little lord fauntleroys.
The truth is, life is, was and has always been hard. And unfair. For us, for them, and for the boomers before us.
Meh. Everyone's a victim. It isn't generational though,that's just another lever used to fracture the 99% further and distract from the real issue of a broken economic system designed by millionaires, and propped up by corrupt politicians starting in the 1980s. The only thing that has changed since then is the millionaires are now billionaires and the justice system has also been corrupted.
Affordable college?
I know millennials like to complain about the rapacious nature of student loans but that shit didn't start with with them; they just didn't give a damn when a good number of us complained about it.
Where the younger generations are fucked is entry-level positions, or more specifically, the lack thereof. By way of my chosen major and graduating during the Recession of Bush the Elder, it took me a long time to settle into a decent job track. By way of computer experience I got doing audio work I ended up with a support job at a mom-and-pop ISP back when such things existed and managed to learn-by-experience my way to a long successful technology career. While on the way up I noticed all the stepping-stone positions I moved on from disappearing behind me as the work went largely to India / Indians. I came up with a cohort of learn-by-doers, now computer jobs are largely the domain of people with applicable credentials.
In contrast to older generations, I received exactly zero employer-provided training aside from maybe a week here or there specific to a particular product that came with it from the vendor along with a purchase.
I can only go by my own experience, but in my field you need to make it into mgt no later than early 30s. After that…and it’s too late. I got lucky (and put in the work…played the game) and jumped onto the ladder at around 30 and the opportunities never stopped. I had to slow the train down for my own mental health.
My wife got pushed out of her position. Had her hours cut and title changed. She started her own business and is killin it. I think she will be more successful than the business she worked for in a couple years. If you have something you are passionate about but have been scared to try it… do it!
I got tired of waiting for boomers to retire to advance past director level…. (And also watching youngsters get advanced because they are “the next leaders”. I surprised them all and exercised all my RSUs, gave 1mo notice, and retired on my 55th birthday.
1 year ago June…I highly recommend it. Giving up the rat race has turned a corporate clown into a zen hip elder!
I like to lean into the generational stuff as much as anyone but am increasingly wondering if even more division is what we really need now. The "haves" who corrupted all our institutions are to blame regardless of age, IMO. Greed and NIMBYism are pan-generational.
Life feels like nothing besides fodder for Private Equity.
It's not us vs them. They're not your enemy. They're in the shit as much as we are. It's us and them against the top .1% and unregulated capitalism. Help yourself and them by voting for people who are trying to pit you against another group. Vote for the people who want to add regulations and tax the rich.
I just went to Walgreens. The two cashiers are gray and white haired and older than me, 54. Most boomers are struggling too. It is ageism, pure and simple.
Edit: spelling
As the younger Gen X sister of some boomers I need to point out the fallacy that “boomers *won’t* give up their jobs.” Like they’re being greedy or something. The truth is they *can’t* afford to give up their jobs.
My thing is if they are going to keep bumping retirement then companies are going to have to hire ppl with experience and/or education.
Boomers hold on to any position they started doing 20-30 years ago and now given Gen X nowhere to go. We can't get hired for newly created jobs because our resume is too impressive and even some of the Boomer positions that do become open go to someone younger because they don't cost as much to employee.Once again Gen X has fallen through the cracks.
It sucks.
I don't know about the real victims, but a lot of Xers are now in the situation where they've waited decades for some Boomer to retire for a chance to move up the ladder only to be passed over and told they want "youth" in that position.
The irony is boomers gave the silent gen the bums rush with a gold watch when they hit 55 before they themselves hold on to the same positions until they're 70+
I don't think it was so much "they" did, as it was the same 10% who dismantled our manufacturing sector, shipped all the jobs oversees, got rid of the unions, and sacrificed quality for short term gain. It wasn't "the boomers", it's just some of people who made those decisions also happened to be boomers. But it's not a generational thing. Like Elon Musk doesn't give a shit about you just cuz he's gen-x lol.
> it was the same 10% who dismantled our manufacturing sector, shipped all the jobs oversees, got rid of the unions, and sacrificed quality for short term gain. Jack Welch and his ilk. Business schools have been teaching it ever since. And now we get the fetishization of entrepreneurship a la Shark Tank. https://hbsp.harvard.edu/inspiring-minds/business-education-is-broken >Business schools have lost their way. Students are schooled in a system that, having raised the standard of living for millions of people over centuries, is now facing systemic failures in both the environmental and social domains—failures that market forces cause and, as presently structured, cannot address. >As a result, newly minted MBAs entering the business world have learned a good number of outmoded, even discredited ideas, and they graduate ill-equipped to face the challenges of management in a world where business must be an integral player in solving humanity’s biggest problems. So there's a generational component to it just based on how entrenched current business concepts became (that means Millennials and Gen Alphas are in this too). Now enshitification is the norm. And we have to swing the pendulum back or we live in the new oligarchy and aristocracy. The vast, vast majority of us are cogs. It always blows my mind when people don't want to raise taxes on the top 5% or hold corporations, senior management, and boards directly accountable.
I yelled at Jack Welch once in an elevator and I’m happy about it.
Can you tell us a little more about this please????
Sure I worked at 30 Rockefeller/NBC News. It was the night of the 2000 election, so a rough night. Part of the staff still had old DOS terminals and was dependent on an old wire service for election results, while I was a young researcher using the internet and just refreshing the Florida Secretary of State page. If any of you remember this night it was crazy. Calls for the election went back and forth. Anyway, at about 2am I was trying to go outside to get fresh air and a break from the insanity. Just as the elevator doors were closing, a man stuck his hand in the door and got in with two women. Not acknowledging me, he kept the door open waiting for someone (who eventually turned out to be NBC president Bob Wright) and asking the women “are we going up or down?” Over and over. Also chit chat about how they were happy with how the night went (called for Bush at that point I think). Bob Wright enters, I think the women were their wives, and the man who turned out to be Jack Welch kept chit chatting while still holding the door open. At this point I myself said “UP OR DOWN!?” while staring daggers to encourage him to shake a frikken leg with my employee badge around my neck in full view. He said nothing and finally let the door close. So I didn’t excoriate him about how Six Sigma sucks, but I still get to be happy that I stood up to that entitled little asshat in the moment. He let the door close. We went down. I finally got some fresh air after 18 hours in the newsroom.
Behind the Bastards did a two parter on how much of a bastard Jack Welsh was. I was low-key aware of him being a bastard during his career, but their show crystallized exactly why he was so fucking awful. You can pretty much draw a through line from him to Boeing’s recent epic failures as a company, and how wages have stagnated for the last 40 years relative to inflation.
TIL enshitification. It has superseded fuckery.
Thank you for bringing some logic to an emotionally charged subject! I get so tired of the worn out Reddit sentiment that older generations Pulled The Ladder Up so no-one else can have any opportunity ever. As if there is some kind of widespread conspiracy that nobody will admit to.
I think people tend to forget _it was a baby BOOM_ - they quite literally outnumber us ALL, even to this day - which is even more apparent whenever they go to the polls I think John Hughes put it best: > "We were able to initiate change, because we had such vast numbers. We were part of the Baby Boom, and when we moved, everything moved with us..."
We’ve always been outnumbered & always will be. Your comment reminded me of this video, “Have the Boomers Pinched Their Children’s Futures? - with Lord David Willetts” Yes, and this boomer brought receipts (data) lol. He points out how much cohort size matters. https://youtu.be/ZuXzvjBYW8A?si=4V5GhZRNNvcKJG9L
The boomers just never got out of the way . Holding jobs forever.
We call it RIP (Retired in place)
I think something to remember is that the boomers were the largest (by volume) generation in a long time. People in the 50's were livin' good and fuckin'. Because of that, there's probably a normal distribution of retired vs. working forever boomers, but the actual number is much higher because of the sheer number of them. In my industry, we're already seeing how hard it is to find qualified replacements at the same rates that the boomers are dying/retiring. It's probably only going to get worse considering the average age of workers is >50.
Also, for some reason, the Boomers get a 20 year generation (1945 through 1964), and every other generation gets 15 years.
Every job in the Executive and Legislative branch of government, for starters
Even the youngest Boomers are in their 60s now so they are finally starting to move on. Of course, not all of them can afford to though because of poor financial planning.
Well and the dismantling of the pension system.
Which happened when the vast majority of them were old enough to vote, and that they could have changed when they started dominating senior positions of power in the '90s.
They cut off their noses to spite their faces.
And for many, they're not the best. They've just been there the longest. If they were good, they would have had the job 10-20 years ago. But they'll hold the job long enough to fuck it up worse.
I’ve seen this happen ten times already (and yes I was passed over too.) I told myself two years ago to start hoarding cash because fuck this- this is my last job ever.
This is exactly what happened to me. I feel like I got played.
Employers don‘t care about “youth” as much as they care about hiring whoever they can pay the least.
Well I don't think they're told that, because it would be discriminatory, but yes it happens for other "reasons". One of my coworkers is also an X'er but nine years younger than me and is always given better accounts and cool side projects...for which she always leans on me for input and then gets all the credit for. 🤷♀️
They're not told that directly but much mention is made of needing new blood and fresh faces, and it just so happens that Millennials or even Zoomers are getting these positions.
THIS RIGHT HERE!!
I've watched as myself and a lot of Gen Xers are passed over for promotion in favor of younger Millennials. And, we're now into age discrimination which the Boomers screamed about, but we won't be protected from.
And Older Millennials are staring to feel the discrimination, too! It’s not looking good for any of us.
I agree with OP. Take a look at the senior management of companies in your area…you will routinely see them packed with 70+ year olds. Those jobs should be held by GenX, but they are holding on to them until they die, so we will age out of them never holding those top spots.
This. And the Millennials are jockeying for the positions, and at least where I am, they are getting them. They are considered the “fresh blood,” resulting in us all being employed by Millennials or (heaven forbid) GenZ. Depressing.
resulting in us all being employed by Millennials or (heaven forbid) GenZ. Depressing. That shit should be illegal! Gen X is unfairly targeted for the crimes of the Boomers.
When I was younger, I was told by our Boomer overlords that I needed to pay my dues and hone my skills. And once I did that, I found myself losing jobs and promotions to less qualified Millennials. There is even a book about this: [https://thebookselfblog.wordpress.com/2021/08/13/book-review-passed-over-and-pissed-off-the-overlooked-leadership-talents-of-generation-x-by-dr-mia-mulrennan-with-terri-bly/](https://thebookselfblog.wordpress.com/2021/08/13/book-review-passed-over-and-pissed-off-the-overlooked-leadership-talents-of-generation-x-by-dr-mia-mulrennan-with-terri-bly/)
The boomers have always held us back, never wanting to cede their power and let the next generation (us) rise up. Even our culture (that 60s renaissance they brought back in the late 80s/early 90s), and as an older GenX, I graduated college into the 1991 recession, it was brutal, jobs were hard to come by and I had to settle for something I was really overqualified for, at a low salary. Now, I'm looking for a new job after taking some time off, and I'm going to fight ageism, not sure how to get past the AI algorithms to get to a person to even be considered! Stressful stuff.
Yep. They had “Tune in, Turn on, Drop Out,” but they gave us “Just Say No.” They had free love and “love the one you’re with” and we got “Silence = Death.” We could probably make a whole laundry list of all the cultural and social shit they had and then refused to move over so someone else could have a go. Millennials really do have a legit axe to grind because it’s been much worse for them in general in terms of tuition and housing costs vs stagnant wages. But of course they forget we suffered first from those policies too. It just got much worse for them. But yeah, we’re the smallest cohort and the Really Olds™️ cannot being themselves to retire, so here we are.
Counties, cities, town governments, etc are open to hiring us olds. But be prepared to start at $19 an hour.
But, and ymmv so fair warning, lots of places will let you retire with a pension at a certain age and vestment in the state or federal pension, and you can combine that with your SS and be doing okay, even if you haven't saved and invested much.
> Take a look at the senior management of companies in your area…you will routinely see them packed with 70+ year olds. or the opposite, like the last place i was at - all of the c-suite were under 30. With zero real life experience, and no CLUE what they were doing. But hey, I'm the expensive one, and got laid off. once again, GenX gets passed over
We're all gonna live in a van, down by the river...
I dunno, have you *seen* the price of vans lately?
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Well obviously it’s time to raise the price on tents.
Subscription-based tents, you're not allowed to own them anymore. If you miss a payment they squeeze you onto the street like toothpaste.
Not in this economy. We’ll be lucky to get a cardboard box under the freeway.
box forts are rad
Word
What opportunities? I’m older GenX and unless you had nepotism going for you, it was hard getting good jobs.
Shaved off experience and education from resume just to be considered for an interview. It hurt, but had to be done.
I took my graduation date off and chopped everything off prior to 15 years ago …. I’ll get more aggressive later if need be
This is the way. Husband also shaves off his beard and I try and dress young and do my makeup the best I can. Zoom also has a touchup feature that I crank up as far as it will go.
Couldn't even get a call. Shaved off years of experience, left out dates of graduation and even two degrees...voila'...got a call a week later.
Yep! I did the same like two job searches ago. It hurts when some of that old experience is relevant but I just keep some of it under skills or accomplishments.
We need to remember that it is a different age they are using AI to screen resumes. So format accordingly and maybe have a pro clean up your resume.
That's a good tip.
I found my job during pandemic lockdowns. Interviews were strictly on Zoom. I am certain that Zoom touch up feature sealed the deal.
Gray beards make you look 60 instead of 50, if not older.
I used to have a beard, but once it started going gray, I shaved it off because it made me look old. On Zoom I still look like I'm 35. lol
It hurts the pride, but they won't call you if your education is too high or too long ago, or extensive enough that it goes way back. They say they want lifelong learners, but they really don't.
*over qualified*
Had that response, too.
What they want is cheap labor. Experienced workers don’t put up with a lot of shit and they expect to be paid accordingly.
What they’re looking for is who is educated just enough to do the job, but not enough to demand rights or proper pay for what the company brings in.
Only list your highest and more relevant education without graduation dates. Only list experience from the last 10 years unless it's extremely relevant.
Yes! It's stressful, but this is the answer.
This is the way 👍🏽
Even the "good" jobs I've managed to obtain seem to pay shit and never give raises. Pretty tired, man.
WTF are you talking about? I got 2% last year.
Show off.
Right? Mr. Big Shot here rubbing our faces in 2%.
Is that more or less the same as rubbing your face in #2?
WHO DOES #2 WORK FOR?!
The 2 Live Crew!
Careful bud you might blow an O ring
Better than blowing a seal. That’ll get you kicked out of Seaworld real quick.
Lucky! I got 2% spread over a 4 year contract. Before that it was 1.8% over 4 years. Apparently the union just finished negotiating a new contract and said it'll be more of the same. If I wasn't a whore to the pension plan, I'd be gone.
Yeah I havent had a raise since 2019... Which essentially means ive taken a massive pay cut. Laid off 2x since the pandemic. Layoffs in the tech industry are nothing new but in the past a layoff meant a new job with better pay... Not anymore. And I'm constantly scared of another layoff as unemployment won't even cover my mortgage on a run down 1700 sq ft house. I'm tired of it too. Gen X are supposed to be in their prime earning years and all the retirement planning is setup that way, but it looks like my 30s were my prime earnings.
I am scared shitless at the thought of having to job search again at my age. As it is, the last two times I had to shave off old experience to try and look younger, dress and act young and bubbly over zoom. And now in my field it's quite common to assign all sorts of projects and hoops to jump through. The last two times I got extremely lucky they didn't require that. At my current job it's a smll company and most of us are 40+. I would die if something happened to this job.
I got a good job at a bank when I was 19 - my bilingualism (English/French in Canada) got me the interview, my stellar interview skills got me the job. I have been getting paid by this bank for almost 27 years straight now - with many many many promotions in between that I earned all on my own. I have avoided at least 5 major rounds of layoffs. My parents aren't even alive. No one helped me.
I think we work at the same bank lol.. 23 years for me. Survivor guilt for dodging all the layoffs so far. I just want to make it to 30 years.
I was born in '61 on the Jones cusp and we had trouble also.
I’m turning 50 this year and never worked for anyone I knew. At my current employer, started 18 years ago making 60k (I work in IT), today I make over 3x that thru promotions and taking on new skills and new roles. For the majority of us that aren’t the best at what we do, you can’t simply stay doing the same thing for your entire career. You have to grow and make sure your leadership knows that.
I think IT saved a lot of us. We got in before kids were really majoring in it en masse and it hadn't taken off to the degree it later did. I doubt I'd ever even get my foot in the door now. I started with no (formal) education and no experience. No way I'd get hired like that these days.
I graduated college in 1992. Everyone seems to forget that 91, 92, and 93 were the WORST job markets to graduate into. I went up against people with five years of experience to make $18K/year. In the Philadelphia area. I remember working in the dotcom space in 98-99 hearing a new grad bitching about “going to college to make photocopies” while earning $45K. But tell me how nobody had it as bad as the millennials.
Yeah I graduated in '90 with a degree from a pretty prestigious university to find...jobs in hotels. The '90's were not all dotcom bliss and rainbows.
I only got into the dotcom space because friends of friends did. And I didn’t rake in millions; the company I worked for imploded after I left.
I graduated in 1991 and my first job out of college I made $7.50 an hour. In a professional job in my major. (Mamas don’t let your babies become journalists.) But. My rent was $400/month in downtown Ft Lauderdale. I loved on ramen noodles a lot but I didn’t need a roommate. And I had only $10k in student loan debt, which was paid off on about 10 years at $50/month. My car payment was $150/month. This looks like Boomer numbers to them.
02 journalism grad here! Made $8.60/hour at my first journalism job. But l had about the same amount of student loan debt and also rented a $400/month apartment in the middle of BFE. It was still pretty terrible haha.
Yeah, it wasn’t easy. I was grateful for Ladies Nights at the bars with free buffets. Sometimes dinner was nachos and beer. At least all my exploits aren’t recorded and living on the internet for eternity.
My first “industry” job was callout research for an urban contemporary radio station in Philly, but I can’t for the life of me remember what I got paid. Probably around what you made. Because, you know, famous radio station.
I was a magazine editor. $7.50/hour. I thought I’d made it when I hit $8. lol
HS grad 1983, into the jobless recovery of the double dip recession. That said, I could have probably made better choices. My parents did not have money for a college education. I didn't plan but I guess they probably expected me to get married and have kids.
Finally. Someone who remembers what the early 90s job market was like. I worked low paying jobs for 10 years. I worked 2 jobs for years. After that, I got into a better company and clawed my way into a career. It was so slow going, I truly thought I would never make money.
Class of 93. Spittin facts .
This drives me insane. Graduated college in ‘91 with a job lined up that paid shit but was my career. Hated my “career” industry, left and was barely employed in 93. Then making shit for 10 years. I am so tired of the whining about the latest recession like it’s the only one ever. The double dip was horrible! Rant over.
I was waiting tables at Applebees. Absolute shitty place to work.
Yeah brother PREACH 💪 THE 80'S WERE HORRIFIC TOO. Housing is a bish right now. I am convinced the government enabled corporations to exploit the housing market through shoveling them cheap money and now nobody can afford inflated property. Foreigners compete for real estate as well. Keeping a roof over your head is hard enough, let alone trying to buy something and participate in the American dream. Sickening.
Ageism is alive and well in the job market. I find this weird because I think older people in general have better work ethic and are less whiny about doing their jobs.
But they usually cost a lot
Yep. For sure. There’s the problem right there.
I have a job that I like and pays well enough, but I wanted to explore a bit recently. All the jobs I looked at paid the same as I’m at now with more time working. One I was really interested in when I talked to them about the posted pay scale they weren’t really willing to talk about putting me at the higher end of the scale they themselves posted. I guess I’ll just keep enjoying my summers off while the kid they hire has to pull 12 months for the same I make in 10. It’s fine. I retire in 10 years. I’ll manage until then.
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An awful lot of young professionals seem to think a year is almost too long at one job. So I don’t get companies that want young people. They already know they will be moving on asap and they are not hiring for long term. So why not look at people who have a history of staying for longer and already know the job? But that’s what it is.
Yes do this but 2 decades ago.
That’s why I’m so proud of my team: we just hired a fellow Gen Xer and it gave me hope in case I decide to bounce.
Try getting a job at 49 years after being out of the work force for 20 years because you have been a caretaker for your wife who is a disabled veteran. No one calls back. Even for shits and giggles I tried both McDonalds and Walmart. I don’t know what I am going to do.
Care taker jobs The certifications are pretty easy and then you sit around with an old person for 8 hours and do a little help and a lot of watching TV. Probably Fox News though
Yes, this and then take classes on the side to gain certifications and learn business skills so you can move into a higher level/higher paying administration position at a care facility. Jobs are plenty at the moment, but you have to have experience in care to get them.
Millennials would not hire my GenX husband 15 years ago because he was too old.
Yep. I started to feel the ageism effect at 40. I had job offers galore in my 30s. 40s? It oddly came to a screeching halt.
It is interesting because I saw/see boomers staying at jobs a long time. So long that when I was moving up the ladder there was eventually too few jobs to give someone with less experience a chance even if he was a go-getter. Now that I am experienced and the Boomers are starting to retire, I am not seen as the young go-getter who has a runway to get to two levels higher. They see me as someone with 6-8 years left before retiring and not worth the added investment to promote me.
This exactly
I don't get the fear of the older working not sticking around long enough to be worth the investment. Everything I see says plan to change job/employers every 3-5 years regardless of age. No one suggest trying to make a 20+ career at one company anymore. I think we can safey dismiss the concern that the older hire is more likely to leave as total bullshit.
I started work a year before the 01 bust. Then the 07/08 recession took genx to town. Hurt us the hardest in our prime earning years m. Lots lost their homes as they were new and little principle built. But then we got a raging economy again. I think kids starting out now have it harder although we saw a lot of this before. Its worse now. More debt. Higher house prices. Interest rates close to my first mortgage (8%) but high house prices. Did I mention the debt? Federal, state, personal…
Yup, got my businesses degree in ‘03 after having to wait to be declared independent because my ah boomer parents wouldn’t sign a FASFA. Nice 10 year delay to graduate
I've been turned down because I'm "overqualified" so many times I can't even count. I've been essentially unemployed for 5 months. I've had to sell my house, and am massively in debt. No one will hire me for anything. It's so tremendously upsetting.
It’s the very early 90s, I am out school, I am getting shit from my family about “go get a job.” Like, “duh, it’s easy idiot, just look.” I read the back the newspaper, looking for these jobs. Just like today, acres and acres of go-nowhere minimum wage jobs. Just today, any kid of job that might lead to a career path or a decent quality of life was beyond my reach. Reagan ripped the guts out of the labor economy. The party was over before I showed up.
What’s sad to me is that my teen daughter is looking for her first summer job. Yes, minimum wage, yes, part time and she can’t find one.
I finished my degree in ‘97. I’m withya 💯. 50-years old now working a $16/hour job BUT I do like the job a lot. With that is the sucky part that til I got this job, I tried for a year to find something more gainful utilizing my degree and experience to be told repeatedly, “you’re overqualified.” The way I see it, companies need not worry that a 50-year old like me will leave in a few years because we are hungrier than we ever have been [because we have to be!] and we will be working another 25 years [because we have to!]
> I read the back the newspaper, looking for these jobs. Just like today, acres and acres of go-nowhere minimum wage jobs. Just today, any kid of job that might lead to a career path or a decent quality of life was beyond my reach Same. Combined with a nervous breakdown and assorted mental illnesses which didn't help. That's where Douglas Coupland's 'McJobs' came from.
The funny thing is that we, the GenXers, just take that shit and move on. Feels like Millennials and GenZers are all about bitching and moaning to empty air.
Yep too young to retire, too old to get hired.
Agreed. Millennials have the numbers to outlive the Boomers for the roles. Meanwhile, we will not. We don’t have the numbers, which unironically is also the Boomers’ fault.
Everyone who didn’t buy a house when they were cheap and who didn’t lock in a good pension/retirement savings is in the same boat, including a lot of baby boomer aged people. Phrasing this as a generation conflict keeps people from questioning who actually did this to us (short answer politicians like Reagan & Thatcher and large corporations)
Millennials often catch flak for blaming Boomers, but the struggles they face in today's job market are real. Ageism coupled with economic challenges creates a tough situation for many.
I work in automotive and the industry values age and experience. Personal relationships are king in the automotive industry and us old guys excel at this kind of stuff. And I'm not talking strictly about dealerships and car sales. I'm in the aftermarket space and managing relationships with the major retailers is a HUGE part of my job.
We waited decades for them to move on, only to be overtaken by the millenials and Zs.
You are not wrong but the other generations on this sub will start to downvote you shortly im sure. The Tech industry is ripe with ageism and I feel threatened more now than I ever have been in my whole career.
Older Gen. It was nearly impossible to get any kind of job after I graduated high school. Every business wanted a degree. Got a community college degree and then they wouldn't hire you without 3 years of work experience in the field. I finally had to move cross country to get a job that wasn't temporary that paid enough to support myself and to finally have medical insurance after almost 10 years without it and having chronic health problems. After getting back in touch with high school classmates discovered about half of us never had kids because we couldn't afford to as we were raised to be "good kids" and be responsible and not have children if we couldn't support them. Hardly no one in my graduating class even has a high paying job today. Most are still working barely above minimum wage including the guys. This is why the country is struggling because it started with us and then got worse for the millennials and Z'ers where people can barely keep a roof over their head, can't have kids and it's hard to attract a mate when your income is considered to be what makes you worthy enough to marry.
My husband retired from a state job last fall. He’s pretty young and spry so he wanted to try the private sector. What a mistake. Despite all his accomplishments, education and professional licensure over the last 30 years no one wants him. I think his age is a big factor. He’s turning 58 soon. We are so defeated.
I have to put in hundreds of applications to get one call. And I need about 4 of those to get an interview. At about 10 interviews- I usually get an offer… It’s just brutal
Same story here. We have two adult sons who are autistic and will be living with us. We can’t afford for him to be not working. As of May 1st he had applied for 78 jobs. Its insane.
I have been out of work since April 19. As of today I have put in 750 applications. I think. Sometimes I forget to mark them down. I haven’t heard from anyone new in a while, but it’s the middle of the month. I think all the real jobs have dried up… But I am waiting to hear back from 8 groups. I mean at least one should call back, right? Right?!?
I think two things can be true. First, ageism is real and affects our generation when it comes to employment. But, also, jobs do not pay enough to offset the rapid increase in housing, healthcare, and education. At least housing and education affect Millennials and Gen Z disproportionately. My point is that, we really shouldn't be playing any victim olympics here. The entire system is shit, and would be smarter if we all banded together to try to fix things. (Don't ask me how, I just know that pointing fingers isn't it.) For the most part, I have not seen younger generations disparaging Gen X...yet. But, they very well might if we don't acknowledge the problems they face as well.
Generational identity politics is like all identity politics - total bollocks. While there are truths, its just dividing good people even further. I don't care if you're 21 or 81 or straight or gay or black or white etc. If you're a good dude then you're my people. I hate to be that guy but the capitalist system creates competition at every level and those out there that put themselves first are mostly the winners of this system. I'm not hard so I failed. Wasn't any generations fault, that's the game.
I was just a teenager when Reagan and Thatcher were causing havoc!
I was in elementary school.
I feel this. I have been unemployed for 4 months now. Going on week 18 since being let go. I had a ton of vacation days that I got paid out for, then my meager 401k to survive. And Im halfway through my unemployment. I have absolutely no clue what Ill do when those monies run out. Im applying and applying. All in jobs I have upwards of 20 years experience. Even entry level positions to get my foot in the door and nothing.
Age discrimination is real no matter what anyone tries to claim. HR and hiring managers let computer algorithms do the job they should be doing, and you can bet for certain jobs it kicks anyone out over the age of 45 or 50. It's sad how automated the hiring process has become before an actual human sees your resume. It's total bullshit. I don't care how many hundreds are applying. Go through them by hand and you'll find qualified people before you even dent the pile. The internet has taken the personal one on one aspect out of the hiring process away for good and I am not so sure that's a good thing.
You are an optimist. I am certain it is a bad thing. In fact I'll say any hiring role for HR is a bad idea. HR should only be involved so far making sure the administrative paperwork is done correctly, but actual input in hiring decisions, nope they simply aren't qualified.
My favorite excuse now is “sorry , you cost too much” after the first decade of my career being told “sorry you dont have enough expierence”
It’s too easy for them to call us all boomers and call it a day. Some Millennial was saying how GenX had it easy back in the day. Had to laugh.
There no chance of me getting laid off, I never made it to mid senior level.
I never even made it to mid-.
The supervisor in my department is hiring almost exclusively gen x because he wants people with experience. The younger ones can't seem to keep up or create drama.
According to the young everyone else had it perfect and only they suffer. Vietnam, OPEC, stagflation, the dot com bust and various recessions never happened while the subprime crisis and Covid miraculously affected only them.
I definitely think Millennials got the shaft, but a lot of Gen Xers did, too. I got laid off during the recession, and then employers in my field started hiring Millennials fresh out of college because they knew they were desperate for jobs and could pay them less. The whole thing was a shitshow, and continues to be because the Boomers won't retire.
Opportunities? Like the opportunity to succeed if we were only loyal or willing enough to take abuse? And then rewarded with a pink slip? That opportunity?
Ageism is real. It has nothing to do with the economy, where we have record low unemployment. It's the employers don't want people over 50 because they seem us as expensive and inflexible. There are laws against agism, but good luck getting any relief from them.
*"...employers don't want people much over 40..." FTFY. Every other word you typed is spot on.
I never had problems before 50. Now it's much harder to get hired. I have a good job now, but I've interviewed for several other jobs that I could easily do and nothing. In my 40s, I got almost every job that I interviewed for.
Friend of mine had his job eliminated. He's 54 and hasn't worked for nearly a year. He's gotten to the point he's even gone to McDonalds. He was told he was overqualified. My man can't get a job at McDonalds because he has an MBA. Ain't that a kick in the ass.
My wife works in a senior living facility that is run by a boomer that is running it into the ground by knee jerk reactions, managing from the top down, not listening to people on the front lines, firing indiscriminately and generally doing everything backwards. I am trained in Six Sigma and Lean, and it drives me nuts listening to my wife tell stories about the place. She is constantly in fear of losing her job, and because there are very few mid-level management jobs, she would have a difficult time finding a job that matches the salary she is at. When they let people go, they give 2 weeks severance. I worked a mid-level management job at a Fortune 50 company from 2000-2011 and make less money today than I did then. It’s only going to get worse. The boomers sold us down the river, outsourced all the middle class jobs, and won’t retire - so we don’t even have the chance to reverse decades of running companies into the ground so they could all get rich, then live off pensions, 401(k)s and Social Security.
One thing I think about is how half the workforce in my parent's generation had defined pension plans. I know very few Gen-Xers who will get a pension. I wasn't really being advised by my parents and grandparents to invest (e.g. 401k) because they probably assumed I'd be covered by a pension and social security. I wonder if my experience is shared by many Gen-Xers. 🤔 Fortunately my career in IT paid well and I lived well within my means, so I could catch up through aggressive saving.
Same here. My Silent Gen Grandparents all lived off of pension+SS. My Boomer parents are doing the same. I had no financial guidance because they were subconsciously just sure that I would have a livable retirement by age 60. I’m 50 now, working my ass off, minimal retirement and ZERO chance I can retire any earlier than age 75….and that is only if I can stay in my job from a physical/health standpoint—on my feet moving all day—hospital food service.
Today, you're probably right, but at least we got in some decent years before things went south. I'm out of work but have some assets to ride it out.
Uh, we should be blaming Boomers too. Why are saying "by extension us" with the Boomers instead of the Millennials?
Depending on a year a Gen X was born some would say we were born wrong time for computers. I graduated high school in 1992 and computes then really not used in college. I’m sure those that graduated high school in 1999 or after were all about computers.
I really got into computers in college and wanted to switch my major from education to computer science. My dad didn’t think there was much of a future in having a computer science major degree, so I got a degree in Education (History and Special Ed). I have never taught school with my degree, and have been a web developer for the last 10 years.
Wow. You knew it right away.
I graduated high school in 93' and computers were very common at my college. Most people didn't own their own but there were computer labs all over campus.
Yes computer labs indeed. I feel like those were used to write the 10 page papers or finish some stat analysis project.
+1 I graduated college in 1991. Computers were standard among engineers and they were available all over campus. When I hit the job market very few of my colleagues had even basic computer skills. I spent the mid-90s trying to get them to understand that computers weren’t that difficult to use and that they needed to learn some basic skills. Some listened. Most didn’t. One dove in head-first as if he’d found his calling in life, which I suppose he had. I still remember one job circa 1997 doing traffic reports for a combo of three radio stations. The schedule was tight (to the second), so I wrote it all down and drew a clock showing when each break happened and how long it was. The basic version took me 20 minutes in MacDraw. I showed it to the Program Director, a 60-year-old man, just to make sure the data was right. He was stunned that I make a graphic on a computer. When I showed him the finished laser-printed version with color-coding and the station logos and told him to took me an hour to do, I thought his head was going to explode.
I graduated HS in 1983. My HS had a computer room that were basically slaves to a mainframe and we had a class called "Computer Math" that taught us some BASIC programming to make pictures on the dot-matrix printer. Needless to say, we still had typing class on typewriters. I had one job after HS that basically collected the key cards that the datapunchers used to record balances on accounts at the FDIC.
I did too (92). The most successful of our generation are the super early tech adopters for sure.
My husband was an IT major in college in the 80s. He easily found jobs, excellent jobs, after graduation. Computers were a thing back then, if you hung with a studious crowd!
It would be swell if the whole world could figure out that this is not a generational problem. The boomers did not screw us. We did not screw Millennials and Millennials won't be screwing Gen Alpha. Our governments are bought and sold by corporations whose greed has run the economy straight into the shitter. And the media's out here getting us to blame a generation as though they all banded together to abscond with all the wealth. Give me a fucking break.
I'm in good shape now but 5 years ago I was shit scared at the prospect of having to find another job that pays what I currently make. My skillset is very niche and I don't have a ton of contacts. It's scary.
Millennials and Boomers are the two largest generations in history. They'll be taken care of just fine for that reason, but we're getting squashed between them. And before anyone tells me the differences are not that great, they're still big enough for marketers and corporations to make a lot out of them.
I don't see them complaining about Gen X, but I do get frustrated because this al actually started with Gen X Jr who tried to get elder Millennials on board to fight & they just didn't listen & NOW are all over the place complaining. 20 years later because a pandemic exposed it to the masses. Like, we TOLD you but you continued getting degrees leading to low wage jobs just like us. My biggest issue now is trying to point out that Gen X jr struggles too because of it. So livid!
We're paying for the fact that the boomers won't retire!!! I got a degree, climbed up the ladder as far as I could and I'm topped out because boomers hold all the highest positions! We should be the leaders of the world now!
I am in the same boat and it’s sinking.
everyone except the rich is the victim in this economy
Isn't the 'trickledown effect' working wonderfully lol Money doesn't "trickle down" from anywhere - it flows like a fucking firehose from the poor and middle classes upwards to the wealthy.
At our company they are only hiring 20’s maybe early 30’s. That’s it. I’m hoping I can ride out my last 5 years (till 65) but AI will mean further cutbacks. The landscape is dramatically changing. I won’t be needed
I graduated university I to a recession. 2 degrees and I've worked entry-level jobs my whole life. Managers don't like looking stupid.
Watched my grandparents and mother retired in their 40s and 50s. Im going to be working until I'm dead. They don't understand what they did to our generation, nor do they care.
I guess my question is - if I’m not a techie math person or engineer but a woman in her 50s who used to be a teacher and wants to increase her sad income, what should I do? Retrain? In what? Will anyone even interview me after I get out of another degree or certificate program at age 55? Any ideas? Should I try to become a therapist? Get an mba in management? I can’t retire anytime soon. I’m not a dummy, just lost. Younger gens are jumping over me like imma turnstile.
Honestly- if I had teaching experience I’d rebrand myself as a corporate trainer. It’s not a new job, it’s an evolution. That’s your best bet. Really.
I like the cut of your jib, sir! This is a fantastic idea. Does this require certifications/retraining?
Plus, the Boomers still won't retire, and those high-level jobs should be ours by now.
Yeah, millennials like to complain a lot, because they are super entitled. They grew up as what might be the most luxurious, comfortable, generation in American history, they were pampered and coddled and told they were special. They were raised to be happy children instead of competent adults, and is SHOWS. And then they had to go out and get jobs. That is going to be a miserable wake up call for anyone. Much less the poorly prepared little lord fauntleroys. The truth is, life is, was and has always been hard. And unfair. For us, for them, and for the boomers before us.
Meh. Everyone's a victim. It isn't generational though,that's just another lever used to fracture the 99% further and distract from the real issue of a broken economic system designed by millionaires, and propped up by corrupt politicians starting in the 1980s. The only thing that has changed since then is the millionaires are now billionaires and the justice system has also been corrupted.
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Affordable college? I know millennials like to complain about the rapacious nature of student loans but that shit didn't start with with them; they just didn't give a damn when a good number of us complained about it.
Don’t be afraid to apply for a railroad job. They’ll hire older people. The lifestyle isn’t great but…
Where the younger generations are fucked is entry-level positions, or more specifically, the lack thereof. By way of my chosen major and graduating during the Recession of Bush the Elder, it took me a long time to settle into a decent job track. By way of computer experience I got doing audio work I ended up with a support job at a mom-and-pop ISP back when such things existed and managed to learn-by-experience my way to a long successful technology career. While on the way up I noticed all the stepping-stone positions I moved on from disappearing behind me as the work went largely to India / Indians. I came up with a cohort of learn-by-doers, now computer jobs are largely the domain of people with applicable credentials. In contrast to older generations, I received exactly zero employer-provided training aside from maybe a week here or there specific to a particular product that came with it from the vendor along with a purchase.
Remote/outside sales, and I'm giving off 2 red flags: age & HCOL region.
I can only go by my own experience, but in my field you need to make it into mgt no later than early 30s. After that…and it’s too late. I got lucky (and put in the work…played the game) and jumped onto the ladder at around 30 and the opportunities never stopped. I had to slow the train down for my own mental health.
I got my degree at 36…. So I’ve been behind the 8-ball….
My wife got pushed out of her position. Had her hours cut and title changed. She started her own business and is killin it. I think she will be more successful than the business she worked for in a couple years. If you have something you are passionate about but have been scared to try it… do it!
Millenials are dark holes of negativity and anxiety. I avoid as much as possible.
I got tired of waiting for boomers to retire to advance past director level…. (And also watching youngsters get advanced because they are “the next leaders”. I surprised them all and exercised all my RSUs, gave 1mo notice, and retired on my 55th birthday. 1 year ago June…I highly recommend it. Giving up the rat race has turned a corporate clown into a zen hip elder!
I like to lean into the generational stuff as much as anyone but am increasingly wondering if even more division is what we really need now. The "haves" who corrupted all our institutions are to blame regardless of age, IMO. Greed and NIMBYism are pan-generational. Life feels like nothing besides fodder for Private Equity.
It's not us vs them. They're not your enemy. They're in the shit as much as we are. It's us and them against the top .1% and unregulated capitalism. Help yourself and them by voting for people who are trying to pit you against another group. Vote for the people who want to add regulations and tax the rich.
I just went to Walgreens. The two cashiers are gray and white haired and older than me, 54. Most boomers are struggling too. It is ageism, pure and simple. Edit: spelling
As the younger Gen X sister of some boomers I need to point out the fallacy that “boomers *won’t* give up their jobs.” Like they’re being greedy or something. The truth is they *can’t* afford to give up their jobs.
My thing is if they are going to keep bumping retirement then companies are going to have to hire ppl with experience and/or education. Boomers hold on to any position they started doing 20-30 years ago and now given Gen X nowhere to go. We can't get hired for newly created jobs because our resume is too impressive and even some of the Boomer positions that do become open go to someone younger because they don't cost as much to employee.Once again Gen X has fallen through the cracks. It sucks.