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THIS MONTH'S BLOG

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Seniors In The Workplace

1/6/2019

1 Comment

 
​BLOG 35
SENIORS IN THE WORK PLACE

This article is the second of the two articles I referenced in my previous Blog on entrepreneurs in the work-place and speaks directly to SENIORS and again comes from a timely WSJ article on Friday 12/13/18, titled “What seniors face in the job market” to which I will add my thoughts, below.

It is one thing to be 60-ish and have the respect of your contemporaries and acknowledged would-be employers, which if smart, would hire you in a heartbeat and completely ignore you when you hit seventy and/or the eighties and have lost the recognition and even the admission that you still may have the right stuff to compete in the career in which you may have been immersed your entire life, the latter of which would make you an expert. 

In addition to hiring handicap of age, you as a senior will probably experience, at least in the first round of the interview, an additional obstacle of being interviewed by an individual, young enough to be your grandson or daughter, we now know as a Millennials, so kiss your-50-60 years of experience and/or “body of work” goodbye, relegating you to accept positions far-below your skill level.

So sad, that for most of us we may well fall into the following categories, again from the same WSJ article:

Nearly eight million older Americans are out-of-work or stuck in low-quality jobs; not the least of which are such jobs as grocery clerks/baggers, long days at a retail business and the following:
Men
•    Delivery workers & truck drivers 4.9%
•    Janitors and other cleaning functions 3.8%
•    Ground and maintenance workers 3.2%
•    Retail Sales Persons 3.0%
•    Farmers and ranchers2.8%

Even now, I cringe when I am at a grocery store and see some bright looking guy or women bagging my groceries or checking me out at a clothing store et al. I invariably wonder what happened in their lives that reduced them down to their present job? How much knowledge is lost that is in the heads of these people from which we could still learn, much like history is lost to the young of which I was once apart and as guilty as those millennials I now detest. 
I am 82 and very use to the finer things in life and formed a consulting firm 25 years ago after my “so-called” career track in finance and retired from my last venture as a Chairmen and CEO of a bank that I purchased along with an investment group when I was a young 57 years-old.

Yes, I am fortunate enough and blessed with a sound mind filled with 60 years of adult life experiences, much of which relates to the world of finance and have been able to use that experience in my present role as a business consultant advising on business strategies and debt/bridge financing.

So why do I still work? The answer is complicated, beginning with the simple fact, I need the cash to augment my expensive lifestyle, to which I have become accustomed, since my investments, Social Security and savings are not enough to match the buying power of the erosion of the dollar called inflation, which is essentially econ 101.

This situation, which is essentially not too different than what most people face as upper or middle-middle class folks living in this great country of ours, face daily; oh yes. We could reduce our life style there by reducing our need for more cash and simply retire, living on what I referenced above, but why do that when I am having more fun and, in many ways, giving back as I perceive that my knowledge and experience is worth much more than what I charge for such services that I provide, even pro-bono in many cases.

OK, “back to the future.” My message to all those who are working in jobs less that equal to your knowledge is to give thought, no matter what your age, is to take your life experience and leverage it by writing a book, starting a consulting firm, buying an existing business or even starting your own business, whether you are a former carpenter or banker there is always a need for your skill or your experience at the advisory level or even in the field, especially if you are healthy and have the support of your spouse. 

I say this not to be arrogant since even now some, no-many, of my clients and business associates are in their late sixties and seventies-even our new Speaker of The House, who is seventy- eight, just got a new job, as our 72 year-old president, Donald Trump did two years ago and still in-the-mix, as well as our viable presidential candidate Bernie Sanders is still going strong. I even have a client, who is in her seventies and as sharp as ever, running her own gourmet chocolate business for the last eighteen years and two partners, who are in their early seventies.

So, I am going to try to make a case, that as we live longer, thanks to modern medicine, we elders are not to be overlooked whether we can eliminate a task in the field saving big dollars or sitting at our desk creating the next TECH invention or any kind of inventions, we are not to be dismissed but acknowledged! 

Thanks for reading this article as I was fuming with the WSJ article portraying our seniors, including me, as “has-beens” on the contrary, we are still here to talk the talk, walk the walk and if necessary, fight the fight!

Ronald Mitchellette 
www.mitchelletteandassociates.com
rmitchellette@aol.com

FYI: Thank God, some of our seniors are OK with being part of the 17.7% of the aged work-force but I hope this article will inspire more of us to “hang-in-there” and stay !



1 Comment
Bill Bentley link
1/9/2019 01:42:14 pm

Hi Ron,
You may not remember me. We were in the Barefoot sailing club together for a couple of years in Atlanta and are linked on LinkedIn.

I read your blog 35. I applaud you for writing it but I wish you had made it a bit more hard hitting. I thought it went too easy on those who dismiss us. Let me tell you why I dropped out of Barefoot. I started my own consulting and training business. It went strong for 15 years from nothing to supporting me just fine.

It still would be but I wanted to do something new so at the age of 68 I returned to grad school and got a new degree, an MS in applied statistics. I had decided to enter the hot world of data analysis. I loved what I did for those 15 years but did not like the marketing I had to do. I had to spend 5-10 days of marketing for every satisfying work day where I got paid. My rate was high enough that I made good money but the ratio of distasteful to satisfying time was too high.

In my new chosen field I first planned to sign on as a part time consultant with 3-4 consulting companies and just do the highly technical work, at which I’m grateful to be good at, and let them do the marketing. That is my idea of retirement. That didn’t work. The world saw me as a ‘new kid out of grad school’ skills wise since it was such a big change. I actually did land three part-time W2 spots with consulting firms just as I had planned but I rarely get work for them. It’s not clear why but my guess is that they are not good at selling or I’m last on their list of who to put on projects. I also put some restrictions on what I would do that probably accounted for most of it. I refused to be a road warrior. The work had to be virtual or commuting distance from my home and as it turns out, most of their gigs are indeed road warrior, or temporary relocation oriented. C’est la vie.

Not being one to ever give up without a fight, I decided that I needed to return to the workforce as a full-time data scientist for 3-5 years and earn my bones in this new field, then I could return to the gig economy. I will be 75 in a few months. Last week I landed a full-time W2 job as a data scientist for a great company. Yes age discrimination is rampant but I think too many of us don’t want to fight the fight. Yes I’ll be working for people who could be my kids but I’ll do it happily, help and coach them in things they don’t even know they need, and they will help me climb my new technology ladder. Once I decided that a full-time job was the way to go, I landed mine in only two months and have several potential backups if this one washes out early for some reason.

So what was my takeaway from this? The WSJ article may have more truth in it than many of us, maybe you included, want to admit. The world changes constantly and most of us do not change much while we are working. It’s the norm for people to work for 10-15 years and then, instead of being seen as valuable experts, are seen as out of date. I recently invested 4 years re-training myself for the world I face, 2 in grad school and 2 more in just as much training via MOOC and other online and physical courses and seminars. I did this while continuing my training and consulting business at a less aggressive pace, so I had the time. I went head to head with 25-somethings and won my fair share of the pie.

I too cringe when I see my contemporaries bagging my groceries, walking dogs, or working 2 or 3 minimum wage jobs to get by, even if they have gotten new degrees like I did. They didn’t have the drive to win. It takes a lot of inner energy to compete and as we get older most of us have less of that so we think we are entitled to a role of ‘elder statesman’ that industry disagrees with, however unfair that is.

If you write a follow-up to your article I’d like to see you include a ‘wake up and see what the world has become’ tone, and urge seniors to learn how to compete all over again. We competed all our life when we were younger. The idea that we can stop competing and still get economic benefits of our past experiences isn’t realistic. It isn’t fair but it’s what life is now. We are as valuable as what we have done this month. Recruiters did not care what I did 20, 30, 40 or 50 years ago. They only care what I’ve done 1-10 years ago.

You and I won’t change that but we can recognize it and play by their rules. For those of us who can turn our past experiences in a consulting career and make it work, bravo. You and I did it. But most of our peers won’t or can’t or don’t realize how. In grad school #3 (my recent one) I was one of four senior citizens in my cohort. I start my new job in a few days excited about what I’ll be doing. The other three are 1. Walking dogs for a living, 2. Do

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