50 and Fired (Fortune Magazine)

[Dover]

50 and Fired

Getting fired during your peak earning years has always been scary. You’d scramble for a few months, but you’d find something. Today it’s different. Get fired and you can scramble for years—and still find nothing. Welcome to the cold new world of the prematurely, involuntarily retired.
By John Helyar

When Zurich Financial let Bob Miller go in February 2003, he wasn’t worried. His résumé was impeccable. He had 20 years of experience under his belt and plenty of references describing him as a high-energy, highly accomplished financial-services marketer. From his home base in Chicago, he’d racked up 100,000-plus frequent-flier miles a year, working a vast network of contacts among insurance agents and financial planners to generate millions of dollars of revenue for financial giants like CNA. Sure, it hurt to be let go. It always did. But he’d been there before—five times, in fact. "And in every situation I ended up in a better place," he says.

Two years later he’s still looking for that better place. Or any place, for that matter. His wife, a real-estate agent, encourages him to think of his unemployment as a respite between sprints. "Enjoy your downtime," she says. "This is your reward." But since he doesn’t know when or how it’s going to end, it doesn’t feel like one. Money isn’t the problem: The Millers have neither kids nor mortgage payments (they paid cash for their downtown Chicago co-op). The problem is Miller’s sense of uselessness, which is barely alleviated by his service on nonprofit boards and his occasional pro bono consulting gigs. Miller wants a real job, a sales job—something that gets him back to where his previously scheduled career left off.

So Miller, 55, whiles away the days making phone calls, doing a lot of reading, and mulling what the hell happened. He keeps up with fellow members of MENG (Marketing Executives Networking Group), a national organization of 1,300 members who once held top corporate marketing jobs and now, for the most part, don’t. And he sees a lot of people out there like himself, trying desperately to keep up appearances: "You go into upscale suburbs, and what you see is lots of guys with laptops and cellphones, trying to look busy at the Starbucks." Miller and his peers are members of a flourishing species: the involuntary retiree. When these anxious white-collar exiles aren’t trying to look busy, they’re going to support groups. Or worrying about the bills. Or reading advice columns about the résumé risk of fudging their age or taking a sales job at Home Depot. Or hoping that a recent Supreme Court decision on age discrimination will give them some kind of legal recourse to sue the bastards who fired them. Or all of the above, in which case their internal terror alert has hit code red. After Linda Stalely, 52, lost her job as an information-technology manager at an Atlanta pharmaceutical company in 2003, she was all jagged nerves and pent-up energy. At five o’clock one morning toward the end of her 16 months between jobs, Staley’s husband got up for a few minutes and came back only to find she’d made the bed. "What are you doing?" he asked, dumbfounded. She was, Staley now realizes, at the breaking point, feeling if she could just get her house in order, maybe her career would follow. "Your self-worth, your self-confidence just takes a nosedive," she says. ..cont'd

http://www.fortune.com/fortune/careers/articles/0,15114,1056189,00.html

[mhr]

1. Unemployed 61 Months Now - I Understand This All Too Well

eom

[Me.]

2. Good Find Dover

Welcome all to the land of * and corporate greed.

[SpiralHawk]

3. Bush and the Republicans are responsible for this

They must shoulder the blame.

Republican government has led us to this, and next they will keep on attempting to disembowel Social Security.

They are to blame.

[Warpy]

4. Unemployed 18 months

and I understand this very, very well.

The problem is that employers have been trained by b-schools to look at anybody over 50 as a liability, earning too much money due to all that work experience and likely to have health problems that will drive the company insurance bills higher.

They actually have formulas that tell them when an older, experienced employee is going to cost them more than bringing in some kid off the street and training him. This is across all businesses.

This is the reason the unions had strict seniority rules, rules that looked horribly unfair to anyone under 30, but which protected the older worker against just this sort of coldhearted managerial horse shit. When layoffs were announced, the younger, less experienced workers were let go first, something which made a lot of sense for the company, too, since when the company hired again, they had the most experienced people around to train any new workers that came in.

The social contract is no more, folks, and if you're unlucky enough to live to be over 50, or heaven forbid 55, you're thrown onto the scrap heap, unemployable in the field you were trained for and in which you have the most experience, suitable only for running gas stations and convenience stores (if you're lucky).

Welcome to the wonderful world of laissez faire capitalism and a government that does not care about its people.

[Dover]

5. Perhaps one solution is to become entrepreneurial and

either find or found businesses for niche markets. With all those skills and experience it seems a more positive, pro-active response than waiting for months on end while savings dwindle, trying to get back into the same situation. Entrepreneurial endeavors are scarier and riskier but they might also be exciting and life affirming. This kind of creativity would also bring some needed innovation into our stagnant economy.

Perhaps several skilled unemployed folks can join forces and assets.

[JDPriestly]

6. Taking risks is hard over 55

because the length of time over which you can amortize your start-up costs may or may not be long enough to make it pay off. I took a chance and went back to school at 50. My grades were great and in a difficult field. I went into debt to go to school. I have officially been unemployed for some months, but actually out of a job for over a year and was aware I would be laid off for over two years. I'm living off my retirement savings way before I should be, still paying off student loans, a house and health care costs. I am loathe to take additional financial risks. I love to work, and I love the field I entered after 50. I work hard and am extremely flexible, well educated, willing to learn new things, reliable and conscientious. But, although I desperately need work, I feel paralyzed by the hopelessness of trying to get a job now that I am over 60. It's much worse than you could imagine. Fortunately, I have a wonderful family and am in good health. That is what keeps me going.

By the way, I'm a California lawyer and interested in job discrimination litigation. I am trying to take cases working out of my home, however, practicing law is expensive -- the filing fees, the deposition costs, the copying, aside from trying to make a living. The Fortune article discusses the EEOC and federal law. California law is somewhat more favorable to plaintiffs -- especially with regard to business necessity as a defense. The California legislature overruled a case that had determined that business necessity was a valid defense to age discrimination claims and admonished courts in the legislative history to look favorably on age discrimination cases. I don't have time now to get the links and most people would not be interested, but you are interested, contact me. I will get links.

P.S. I would be interested in networking with other senior jobseekers. I like the idea of working together.

[Vitruvius]

10. Rule-of-thumb: it takes 5 to 10 years to start a business and get it up

and running. IF you're both smart and lucky; lucky enough to not be in the majority of new businesses that fail.

And more-than-half of the people I know who successfully started a (tech) business did it on their second try. In fact, VCs like it if you've started a business before -- because starting a business -- even if it fails -- is the best training. If one is willing to learn.

So we're talking about two 5-to-10-year periods in series; the bottom line is: if you're 55 and start a business, chances are you'll be 65+ before things are going well. Or -- as you said -- "taking risks is hard over 55 because the length of time over which you can amortize your start-up costs may or may not be long enough to make it pay off."


By-the-way, in my observation, older people are more often fired because of their ability, and not because of "obsolescence" or "slowing down" or being "out of date". In most Fortune 500 companies, one of the best ways to get fired is to make a breakthru that's big enough to make it into the Annual Report. Management then gives the credit & promotions for the older person's breakthrus & accomplishments to themselves and to their young fast-track buddies.

My own case is all-too-typical of many cases I've known of. I was fired & blacklisted by senior management in cahoots with a gang of 30-something fast-track bums; they got themselves promoted on one of my inventions by destroying my career and blacklisting me out of the industry. And all of these managers were loud-mouth Rethugnicans; THAT is what hard work brings you in Rethugnican Amerika today. And they were open and smug about it: there's nothing like hearing some ignorant young fast-track bum whose very job you created tell you (with a George W. Bush smirk on his face) that "We're going to see to it (that) you never get another engineering job again."

And the Amerikan/Rethugncian legal system has a "privileged communication exemption" to the libel and slander laws to protect any manager who decides to ruin you; they can tell any lie they want, no matter how transparent, and no matter how much evidence you have, you cannot sue the bastards. Because, under the Rethugnican law of the land, one boss sliming you to another is a "privileged communication" and exempt from the libel & slander laws.

So -- my first consulting gigs were to teach two Japanese companies how to make that invention (and how to leapfrog past the first-generation product) -- if the Japanese could take the market away from the company that ruined me (and the other Rethugican companies who honored their blacklist of me), maybe the managers who ruined me would lose their jobs too. And no longer be in a position to hurt me.

Best of all, what I did to them was all perfectly legal. Just like what they did to me. And what I did was not in any way original -- I knew the drill from friends of mine who'd been in the same position.

So far, over half of my fast-track enemies have bit the dust (it's been the better part of a decade; Rethug blacklists are forever). Too bad it involved America losing that business. But if America will not protect me, if America denies me the protection of even the libel & slander laws, I have to do what is best for myself. Nobody has any obligation to starve for their country.

Vitruvius

P.S: Right now, your typical Rethug manager thinks it's smart & clever to kill anybody who innovates, works hard, and produces. What they don't realize is that: once they kill you, they can do you no further harm; and there's no reason in the world for you to not do everything you can to kill them back. In this case, "Freedom is just another word for 'nothing left to lose'."

Incidentally, before I was fired, I approached the Union at that company -- and asked for the names of some of the outside labor lawyers they sometimes used so I could hire one of them to represent me -- or get a referral. The Union refused -- because they "didn't want to get in the middle." Please note that I was not asking the union to get involved; I was only asking for the names of some lawyers in private practice. And the Union said no. That made it real easy for me later when I helped send the jobs I created abroad -- if they don't care about me enough to even give me a couple of NAMES, I certainly can't afford to care about them or their jobs.

[Vitruvius]

13. For those who are still young,

NOW is the time to go into business for yourself. And not be forced into it in your 50s -- my own struggles will only have been worth it if I live & keep working into my 80s.

If you are still in high school, you might also consider a skilled trade where being in business for yourself is the norm -- something like being an electrician or plumber. If I had it to do over again, I'd become an electrican like my brothers-in-law; I would have done better financially (when you add up the time & money a Ph.D. costs, it isn't worth it in financial terms; better to begin work at 18 than spend much of your 20s on school and low-paying postdocs), and I would have avoided the years of stress and high blood pressure that big business dishes out to anybody who does anything useful. And I would have been out in the fresh air instead of sitting at a desk or workstation, hunched over a microscope, working in a fume hood, etc.

And I cheer inwardly every time I hear some fat-cat Rethugnican complain about how much it costs to bring in an electrician or plumber to work on their McMansions.

Whatever you do, DON'T become a scientist or engineer as I did. From the article: "A November survey of 983 IEEE-USA members, median age 49, found that 42% were unemployed"; the IEEE is the Electrical & Electronic Engineers' professional society. America may be losing its' technological edge, America may need technological breakthrus, but you will be treated like DIRT then thrown away if you become a technologist. Especially if you make breakthrus.

Which is why every engineer I know has told their children to stay away from engineering.

[teryang]

20. The Seargent at Arms in my courtroom is about to retire

...after twenty years as a deputy sheriff. He gave up on his electrical engineering career a long time ago.

[chemenger]

25. "...stay away from engineering."

You can't begin to imagine how many times I've said that to myself and others. I'm 53, a chemical engineer, suffering through major mid-life crisis because I feel trapped in a profession I hate.

[JDPriestly]

14. Doing away with the immunity for bosses

laws would be a great liberal issue. Maybe we could start a movement here on DU. It is completely unfair and wrong that you can't sue your boss for libel if the boss lies about you -- especially since, at common law, lying about a person's professional ability was considered libel per se. That immunity causes so much social injustice.

[Vitruvius]

17. Bosses, the rich, and Rethugs are indeed above the law

on almost EVERYTHING. And they literally get away with murder.

For example, more people are killed every year in industrial accidents than in automobile accidents. Many if not most from deliberately unsafe working conditions; safety costs money and can cut production. Yet no boss in US history has ever been convicted of murder for this. Let alone put to death. Even tho' the death penalty would do a lot more to deter a rich boss (with plenty to lose) than typical street criminals (most of whom are down-and-out and have nothing to lose).

And this does not even include the people who die from the long term effects of their deliberately unsafe workplaces; for example, the asbestos industry knew in 1910 that asbestos was a lethal hazard -- but they hid that knowledge until the 1970s. And thousands died; thousands more had their lives ruined by lung disease; gasping for breath night-and-day is no way to live.

Needless to say, Halliburton is a big asbestos offender. Which is why you hear George W. Bu$h yammering on about "frivolous asbestos lawsuits" -- and getting special legislation to exempt the asbestos companies from paying damages for what they did.

Too bad Bu$h and Cheney will never have the experience of gasping their lungs out -- like the asbestos victims who will now be unable to even pay for their medical care. But Bu$h, Cheney, and their kind are above the law, which is why they are so vicious -- it can never happen to them.

So bosses routinely kill white-collar careers (as they did mine), but they routinely kill blue-collar workers DEAD.

They also routinely kill consumers with unsafe products. Remember the Ford Pinto and its' exploding gas tank? Ford executives calculated that it would be cheaper to pay the occasional lawsuit than to spend the less than $5.00 per car to make that gas tank safe. If even ONE of those execs had been convicted of murder and put to death, it would have put a stop to this kind of nonsense. But nothing bad happened to any of them -- because they're above the law.

Then there's pollution; a study commission of the AMA found the strongest possible statistical evidence that the majority of cancers are caused by environmental pollution. But bosses, the rich, and Rethugs are above the law -- and therefore entitled to use OUR air and water as their toxic waste dump.

Everybody -- blue collar, white collar, or consumer; everybody who breathes the air or drinks the water -- is at risk because bosses, the rich, and Rethugs are above the law. Bringing them to justice, bringing them under control would indeed be a great Democratic issue -- and a great humanitarian issue.

[MountainLaurel]

26. Thanks Vitruvius

I've been interested in white-collar crime since I took a college class that began with the Dalkon Shield case and moved through the Ford Pinto issue, legal cases regarding corporate negligence in blue-collar workers (do migrant farmworkers even make it to a blue collar?), the S&L scandal (involving the Bushes), and finally Iran-Contra. Plus, I grew up in an area with heavy industrial pollution and have no idea what those chemicals have done to my body and to my genes.

This is an important issue that gets almost no play, but I find it especially disconcerting considering the current state of healthcare in this country.

[shrike]

18. Ain't that the truth

"it's smart & clever to kill anybody who innovates, works hard, and produces."

I've seen it happen so many times. Management rewards those who don't work hard and punishes those who do. Those who work hard and try to make a difference are chumps. I remember at one place where I worked, one fellow literally did nothing but run around on his cell phone and look important. He was on his way up the corporate ladder when I left.

I became self-employed at 35, after losing two jobs in a row. It's been 10 years now and by far it's the best thing I ever did. I shudder to think what would have happened to me if I'd hung in there and kept on slugging.

[JDPriestly]

7. Thanks for posting this.

Very interesting. Very helpful.

[Dover]

8. I'm glad if it was helpful..if only to know we're not alone.

It can all really take a toll on selfconfidence. Perhaps that's another good reason to not play the waiting/searching game too long before delving into riskier ventures.

I completely understand that those risks are hard. That's the nature of risk. Perhaps when we finally just get plain tired of feeling bad and in a stagnent situation, or when the need to be productive outweighs the fears, can we take such a risk.

Sometimes any movement at all is better than waiting.

[Dover]

9. Why not start an "over 55" networking group for developing "new"

businesses and creating niche research? Have "Brainstorming Luncheons". Have FUN while building community. Creating a job based on our own needs is a great place to start once you realize that you're not the only one with that need.

[CTyankee]

12. Love to . Probably did that.

I left a nonprofit that threatened me, an older worker. Now I work as an hourly worker for another nonprofit. It's part time and just fine with me. I am a little bit still unhappy about my separation from my full time employer, but I am happy with my part time employer.

The reality is that it takes time to get over these past hurts. You can forgive (which I do) but it takes time to forget. I have found that the key is to let go of resentment, even tho you recognize the guilt of the person commiting the injustice. For example, the Pope forgave the man who tried to kill him, but did not exonerate from his guilt of having tried to kill him.

The point is to have some closure, some forgiveness, in your heart so that you can heal from the experience. It is not easy to do, but it is necessary to do.

[jburton]

11. Sounds like he should enroll in community college

/sarcasm

Seriously -- every time Bush* mentions "helping" the unemployed "get training" I think of people like those mentioned in this article.

Highly educated, at a high-point of their career, and tons of energy and skills. And they have a higher than average amount of job contacts to open doors for them, but there is nothing there on the other side of the doors so it really doesn't matter.

And they aren't being "picky", either. Many would be satisfied with a mediocre job with no benefits, temp status, and zero room for advancement. But they are "overqualified".

[Strawman]

15. There should be some form of wage insurance for displaced workers

Especially those between age 50 and the retirement age. It could be done relatively cheaply. For a fraction of what we've spent in Iraq.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

16. I lost my last academic job at age 43

Now I have a pretty secure reputation as a translator, and the more I hear about both the corporate and academic worlds, the happier I am that I'm self-employed. I'm doing something that I can do as long as my brain holds out.

I have two friends and one relative who bit the bullet and took early Social Security at 62 simply because they had exhausted all their financial resources, despite plenty of experience and good work records.

ON EDIT: It's interesting that Fortune is starting to cover this issue. Maybe it will touch the hearts of some of those Reagan-era MBAs, that is, if they have hearts.

[shrike]

19. I hear you

I feel lucky to have gone out on my own at such a young age.

Frankly, it's about time Fortune covered an issue like this.

[teryang]

21. Minimize your resume

Placing all your credentials and accomplishments on a resume makes it less likely that you will get hired.

The shorter my resume became, the more responses I got. This is because people stopped wondering if I would work for starting level pay.

[Daphne08]

22. My husband worked for a large aerospace company

for years (and had graduated before that with a degree in Computer Science), but over the years, he worked his way up into a different but very specialized area which was not related to his degree. He was happy and the money was good.

Two years ago his department was 'downsized' (for the third time) and on this cut, he was one of the unlucky ones.

He received a decent severance, but was unemployed for a couple of years (and anyone who knows anything about Computer Science will tell you that a CS degree based on knowledge from the 70's is now virtually worthless) and his job had been so "specialized" that he really wasn't qualified for anything else.

I'll never forget the night he told me, "I have no marketable skills."

He finally did find a job, but the pay is about half what he was making, and the work is tedious, plus he's starting all over again! It has really affected him adversely.

I wish these greedy CEO's could see just what they are doing to our husbands when they treat them like company deficits instead of assets. My husband was dedicated to that company, and they treated him like an old shoe!

He's so brave every morning and smiles as he leaves for work, but I know how stressed and worried he is.

I'm even thinking of returning to work (I was a high school teacher for too many years), and Damn... I'm old and I'm too tired to face these students now! Hell, I was burned out ten years before I quit! I'd better look for something else. ;)

Anyway, I don't like this new country of ours very much anymore. Our politicians have sold us out-- all in the name of corporate profit, and I fear the American dream is dying.

[CTyankee]

23. I am so sad for you and your husband

I was forced to resign, under horrible stress that my doctor told me to think about another line of work. I took his advice and since I was getting my full Social Security at the time, I retired gracefully. Now I work 15 hours a week at a great nonprofit and I have a wonderful boss. It is hourly work so I don't have to put in all those hours I had to before (when I was classified as a manager even tho I didn't manage anybody). I sleep fine now and get more exerise at the gym.

I am lucky. My spouse works for the city of New Haven and we have great benefits. I fear for those who are at the mercy of the health care system with no benefits.

[Daphne08]

24. Thank you for your kind remarks. The health insurance issue

is one reason our income has been cut so deeply. When he was with the large company, all our benefits were paid. It was a great plan.

Now with this smaller company, he has to pay for half of his coverage and 100% of mine. It's a huge bite out of his paycheck.

I do wish this administration would concern itself with matters other than war and Social Security. Let's have some serious discussion about solving our national health care crisis since so many people have no coverage at all, or they are being fleeced like we are!

Oh, well. I suppose we can always wait for a miracle. :)

(I'll be able to start collecting my retirement in a few years, and I'm really looking forward to it!)