Generation B - Middle Aged, Laid Off and Losing Hope

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/30/fashion/30genb.html?8dpc=&_r=1&pagewanted=all

by boggles • 17 years ago

55 59 17 years ago

kiba• 17 years ago

I wonder how fast or economically it would be to retrain workers to other section of the economies experiencing shortage of workers.

darien5• 17 years ago

Interesting thought, but a couple caveats. A good economy self-regulates supply and demand for industries/job positions. This is especially true when all online job postings are online; it is easy for anyone to see what type of jobs are hiring the most. In an economy like ours, where unemployment is at a record high, if a section of the economy is experiencing a shortage, it is because those positions demand years of experience. Therefore it would take years for a government/institutional program to train workers for that field, which by that time the economic imbalance might have repaired itself. (Recessions typically don't last more than 2-3 years)

c-m• 17 years ago

"This is especially true when all online job postings are online" -- as that true by definition, you probably mean "when all jobs are posted in public". That however appears not to be the case, by a long shot. From my vantage point it looks like employers at least in "tech" try to first use "networking", and only go to public channels when this doesn't yield. Often you have "stealth req" - "we have a candidate" - "create public req" - "oops we already found a match". Hence the name "LinkedIn" - it's meant quite literally.

gaius• 17 years ago

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, joblessness is worse for men over 45 (7.7 percent in July) than women the same age (6.9 percent).

And feminists still claim discrimination in the workplace.

emmett• 17 years ago

Unemployment could be higher for men, and there could still be discrimination against women in the workplace. Those are not in contradiction. Your comment seems like a non sequitur. (Leaving aside whether there really is sex discrimination in the workplace, a complex question that almost certainly has an answer more subtle than "yes" or "no")

anamax2• 17 years ago

> Leaving aside whether there really is sex discrimination in the workplace, a complex question that almost certainly has an answer more subtle than "yes" or "no".

Actually, the answer is both sex and workplace dependent. (Yes, there are workplaces where there's no sex discrimination and some where the sex discrimination is against men.)

However, the furor over sex discrimination isn't that "subtle".

vermontdevil• 17 years ago

Discrimination comes in different forms than % of people being employed.

anamax2• 17 years ago

True, but would you rather be "discriminated against in the workplace but employed" or "unemployed"?

This line of thought reminds me of the furor over the lack of women on the boards of fortune 500 companies. I find it hard to get excited over whether folks who are otherwise extremely favored (namely the women who would be considered) run into a glass ceiling. The vast majority of both men and women run into glass ceilings that are a lot lower.

It's sort of like being mad because the oldest son gets to be king even if there's an even older daughter. Discrimination, sure, but it's not a problem worth significant effort.

TomOfTTB• 17 years ago

Oh what the hell people? Is this what it's come to? Am I now expected to feel bad for the guy who, after making as much as $255,000 up until the age of 55, only has enough savings to live for 2 or 3 years? Who, with a business degree, chose to move to New York of all places. The heart of the financial industry and the hardest hit area probably in the world?

I have a lot of sympathy for people who have lost their job and if you were making $30,000 a year I can understand not having a nest egg. But for this guy I have no sympathy.

TriinT5• 17 years ago

"Am I now expected to feel bad for the guy who, after making as much as $255,000 up until the age of 55, only has enough savings to live for 2 or 3 years?"

Well, the article says he asked his wife for divorce. If the divorce did materialize, I wouldn't be surprised to hear that his savings were drastically slashed ;-)

gommm• 17 years ago

Yes but he still got $188,000 severance package... More than enough to find a good business idea and get the ball rolling...

bayareaguy• 17 years ago

From 2001 to 2008 he was a senior vice president for a private student-loan company

I might feel more sympathy for this guy if he were one of the many recent graduates unable to find the kind of jobs they need to pay off private student loans (with exorbitant rates) instead of being part of an industry that profited from them while ignoring their employment predicaments. What sympathy do guys like these ever show for their unemployed debitors?

ca98am79• 17 years ago

I agree. This is a little over-dramatic, and made me roll my eyes:

"Mr. Blattman cannot walk by a street person now without wondering if this could be him."

stse• 17 years ago

Yes, you are. He didn't know this was going to hit him. Just imagine the psychological impact of having everything you know change, and basically being told that 30 years of experience is worthless. How many years of savings do you really expect someone to have?

hnal943• 17 years ago

I object to his sad-sack attitude. I agree that 2 years is a ton of savings.

So why the drama?

I'm actually shocked that this guy is in such disarray. If he's so in touch with the reality that "the world has changed," why doesn't he get another job doing something? Even delivering pizzas earns more than nothing - it would also get him out and talking to people.

Why move to new york, instead of a place with a lower cost of living?

Why write a novel? The story certainly didn't give me the impression that novel writing was something he loved to do. Also, writing a novel about your own life seems not only self-absorbed but uninteresting. Escpecially if you believe - as he does - that your situation is so common?

shard• 17 years ago

He did raise two kids, the youngest of which is just about to enter college. Kids aren't cheap, especially if you lavish high quality education and extra curricular activities on them.

ojbyrne• 17 years ago

This really screams "start a business" at me. Sales guy, probably has a killer rolodex, enough savings to live for 2-3 years, complaints about not being able to fill his free time.

wglb• 17 years ago

That was my thought as well. In that situation, you need to look at all angles.

electromagnetic• 17 years ago

He has enough savings for 2-3 years, which as the majority of businesses fail within the first 2 years (with bank loans) he could easily try to start himself in his own company where there's zero risk of a lay-off (to him at least) and if he strikes lucky he'll be making far more money than he did before.

I know people with their own businesses, not even big businesses, and they pull down upwards of $500,000 a year in money they pocket. The people I know didn't start off where he did, they started off with no degrees, no college, no nothing, just a ford truck and an idea.

This guy's going to sit on his ass for the next two years until things get desperate for him and by that time the economy will be back in full swing and he'll be straight back into a job.

jhancock• 17 years ago

I doubt the economy will be in full swing in two years. I would love to be wrong about this.

btakita• 17 years ago

I remember an article about college graduates not being able to find jobs during the dot bomb era. I was one of those statistics. Fortunately things have changed. I was able to consult/contract and meet people and my career took off from there. It sucks to be marginalized, and it's reality for those who do not have the right skills and/or know the right people.

Of course the situation is different for older people. They already have experience and there is age discrimination (which does not make sense in most situations because it's not like workers will be in the same job for 10+ years).

The one thing that did not work for me was to spam resumes. Better to identify an area you want to get into and meet people.

avdempsey2• 17 years ago

There's a whole generation of engineers in a similar situation. But what to do? Typically they cost more than a young buck, and their station often requires income now versus a startup windfall later. What is a creative approach for them?

My uncle is just such a hacker. Developed the Canon Cat, target disk mode on the Mac, tested nuclear weapons in Nevada when he was a kid (and god knows what else he still won't talk about). But in America where we succeed by embracing the new it is equally characteristic to leave our old champions behind.

This is worth fixing. We're forsaking the very people we hope to become.

keeptrying• 17 years ago

I've seen this up close and personal where the older engineers are being laid off and its very hard for them to get a job again.

The company seems to create a bad situation ... ie give him a project which he has no chance of finishing, his direct manager ignores his cries for help and then waits till he fails and then fires him.

I've known this happen to 2 people. And at least in one case, I knew the engineer just needed a little guidance.

jbm• 17 years ago

Woah - did he write the book "The Humane Interface"? I just finished reading that a few days ago, it totally changed my views in regards to interface and even coding style.

avdempsey2• 17 years ago

No, but Jef was a friend.

azanar• 17 years ago

We need to also be very careful that we are fixing the right thing, and we are fixing it the right way.

I have a completely off-in-the-weeds hypothesis that is based on some anecdotes of those around me. This hypothesis is as follows: the good, experienced hackers -- like your uncle -- are getting thrown into an faceless aggregate of all other not-so-good, experienced programmers of their generation. This bucket has a lot of assumptions that don't fit everyone within, but are applied to everyone all the same.

One of the things this bucket assumes, and one of the stereotypes we don't confront much, is that programmers don't develop any new skills after they leave college. They are useful so long as the technology du jour is the same as the day they graduated; as soon as it isn't, kick them to the curb and get the next batch.

Of course, this isn't true of all people. The problem is that they are lumped in with what I'll call the vocational programmers, who's titles are conspicuously prepended not just with the technologies they know, but the only technologies they will ever learn. It doesn't matter if they aren't capable or they just don't care, the net effect on their perception by others is the same. For a person to declare they are a loyal Blub programmer, for any value of Blub, is already the first nail in the coffin; more nails are driven every time their value of Blub gets more marginalized. That these sorts of programmers seem so common begets the assumption that every programmer has a defined value of Blub, and part of culling them is figuring out what their Blub is, and if it matches the required Blub du jour.

The bitch about stereotypes is they are almost never entirely false; there will often be some core group to which the stereotype applies, and then potentially a satellite group that gets falsely included into stereotype.

Something needs to change that changes the application of the stereotype; the easiest way I can think to do that is to make it extraordinarily painful on the people who would perpetuate the stereotype before they end up in a position where they do. Get the people who would cast disparaging labels on the bucket out as fast as possible, so the rest don't have the added weight of convincing everyone they're not like the others. These mediocre workers are not the people I hope to become, and though it may make me a heartless bastard for saying so, I have little reason but to forsake them. I think only by doing so will I avoid forsaking those that I do want to become, by making it clear that there is more than just a narrow band between the two groups.

maxniederhofer• 17 years ago

What's a good hack for putting older, experienced people to work? My assumption is we're only going to be seeing more of this given demographics and changing career paths. Smells like a market opportunity.

edw519• 17 years ago

Pair their work ethic, real world experience, and life lessons with the passion and technical skills of a 20 something hacker.

I started my first business when I was 27. My partner was 41 and had done things I hadn't even imagined. He was so smart, so seasoned, and knew the ropes about so many things that he saved us both countless hours and dead ends. And I was able to do things he never had a chance to learn. We made a great team.

Now I'm on the other side of that relationship. And would love to do it again with someone in their 20's. I have a million ideas that come from years of real world experience and not enough time to act upon them. (One of the reasons I'm here.)

derwiki• 17 years ago

Am I the only one who thinks the word "hack" has been tossed around all willy-nilly lately on HN? No offense to the parent post, it's just a trend that I'm starting to notice..

darien5• 17 years ago

I'm curious whether having himself written on by the NYTimes in this way will help or hurt his chances for employment. Like you guys suggested, this guy sure is a whiner.

varjag4• 17 years ago

Not a whiner perhaps: it is easy to turn cranky when you're out of job for a stretch of time.

Although the rant about employers not acknowledging receipt of resume sure got me chuckle. Never had it other way, we certainly live in the different worlds :)

ghost112• 17 years ago

Roughly a quarter of the people aged 65+ are working full-time. So, when did 58 become "middle-aged?"

varjag4• 17 years ago

It is a common figure of speech to refer to people in their late 40s or 50s as middle-aged; common enough to be ingrained in concepts like "middle-age crisis". It is technically correct, since this age represents the midpoint of one's adult life with modern life expectancy.

darien5• 17 years ago

Last I checked only 0.012% of people actually reach age 100.

RiderOfGiraffes• 17 years ago

I've worked it out ...

Average life expectancy in countries where most people die from old age or incurable diseases is around 80. Slightly higher in Australia, lower in the USA. So if 55 is still middle aged, then 60 or so will probably be the boundary into old age.

Dividing things up equally, we get that old age is 60 to 80, and middle age is 40 to 60, and the age where you don't think about it and don't name it is 20 to 40.

That fits.

So what about pre 20? I've always held that children are aliens that mutate into humans. I think we pretty much would all agree that teenagers are not properly human, and so that ties in. Up to age 13 we are aliens, then 13 through to about 20 we mutate into humans. 20 to 40 we're simply "people", 40 to 60 middle-aged, 60 onwards old-aged.

I'm not sure I find that comforting ...

jbr• 17 years ago

Here we are in a fairly lively field with technical skills and a million ideas but (generally) not all that much life experience. The demographic that this article talks about are older, more experienced, but either weary or lost due to unexpected circumstances. What if we built a marketplace for startups (and founders-to-be) and young engineers to connect with older unemployed folks? Kinda like an age-reversed mentorship program, maybe. Or a "young hackers teaching older folks how to hack" program?

I was a bit surprised to find this article on HN, but since we're discussing it: Anyone else have ideas on how we, as a fairly narrowly-defined demographic, could help "generation B?" I personally feel like we have a responsibility to do so, if we can figure out how.

dcheong• 17 years ago

For non-subscribers:

Page 1 - http://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/3...

Page 2 - http://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/3...

computerofmeat• 17 years ago

So basically this guy has come face to face with the world his generation built for my generation? With 2 or 3 years and that much free time he'd better start thinking like people like me if he wants to survive. Somewhere there is a very tiny violin playing a sad tune. He'll get no sympathy from the people making hay with the kind of money and time he has on his hands.

asdlfj2sd33• 17 years ago

HN on the weekends is like a vision of the future HN on every day. It will be filled with general interested articles like this.

jasonkester• 17 years ago

I know I've been out of the country for a few years and all, but really, is this what passes for hardship these days?

So basically, here's a guy living large for most of his life, bringing in $250k for much of it, and retiring at the age of 58. This is pretty much the definition of the American Dream.

Granted, he has a terrible self-esteem problem (top tip for all you 58 year old multimillionaires without jobs: don't tell women you're 'unemployed'. You're retired!), and evidently he managed to squander most of his wealth along the way.

But really, how sorry are we supposed to feel for a guy living well in the suburbs who might need to think about moving to a smaller apartment at some point in the next 3 years?

hkuo• 17 years ago

Most telling quote for me was “If I walk to the store, I’m back in 10 minutes, and then what?” And then what???? Man, if I had enough money to live for 2-3 years, single, and having 24/7 time to do whatever the heck I wanted, I'd for damn sure be working on some crazy-ass shit. Another quote from him "...I can adapt". He refers to adapting as taking a cut in pay. Simply put, this man has no ability to adapt, nor an understanding of what adapting means. I have zero sympathy for this guy. 10 minutes to the store and back and then what? Get on the f'ing internet and freakin learn something and get a clue.

randomtask3• 17 years ago

The trip to the store seems to be a reference to the plans he has each day, that is he has nothing he has to do each day that will get him out of his flat. On the other hand at the end of the article it mentions that he's written a book, is actively seeking publication, and has started to think about his second. So he is in fact being productive. His statement about adapting was to an interviewer who asked about pay. He may just have wanted to make it clear that he doesn't expect to earn anything like what he was on before. Taking a massive pay cut requires adapting. Going from a $225,000 lifestyle to a $30,000 one is a hell of a difference.

mistermann• 17 years ago

Does writing a book seem like a reasonably intelligent reaction to the scenario he finds himself in? What percentage of writers make enough to survive on....my guess would be <1%.

No sympathy for this guy, or others of his ilk. There are so many middle aged, baby boomer, middle management people that have been way overpaid, promoted for no good reason, and pissed all of their ill-gotten gains away who are now complaining that they are hard done by in the financial crisis. I would counter that no, they aren't hard done by, they are now actually getting what they deserve, it certainly must feel like they are hard done by compared to the decades of being massively overpaid.

indigoshift• 17 years ago

The only problem in this guy's life is his mentality.

He gets almost $200K handed to him and decides he wants to be an author? Great! But he's going about it all wrong.

Move out of the city, man! Find a nice country home. Ditch the Blackberry and all the other tech toys. Sell the suits. Stop spending money needlessly on train rides, eating out, and all that other nonsense. He's still trying to live his old lifestyle. It makes no sense at all.

Buy yourself a cheap laptop, get a basic package from your local ISP, install OpenOffice so you have a word processor for your writing, save your pennies, grow and cook your own food, and write!

Geez, I probably shouldn't armchair-quarterback other people's lives this early in the morning, but....

Generation B - Middle Aged, Laid Off and Losing Hope

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