On Getting Laid Off at 67

In a way this whole blog is partly about this, but I haven't really looked at it directly.

I have been laid off three times in my career, and taken a separation deal once. The latter was my own choice and was a pretty sweet financial deal that let me relocate to Seattle at 48. The first layoff was expected as the job had been a temporary stepping stone when I was just a few years out of grad school. The last two were in my last two jobs when I was 61 and 67 respectively. Both were blows.

Age discrimination is a reality in employment. The people doing the initial screening are all in their twenties and thirties so that anyone over 55 looks like their parents to them; and you know what we all thought of our parents when we were that age. So you hear the word "overqualified" a lot, even when you are interested in doing the work for the money offered. It can be easy to end up angry all the time, especially when there is no evidence that the people we elect to help address things like the economy are interested in anything but their ideologies.

[Disclaimer: I have no interest in having this blog be about politics, and that last statement was not intended to represent a partisan position. It is just that I don't think any of them are doing their jobs.]

But back to being laid off. In both recent cases I knew it was coming. In one, the recruitment of a new executive enabled the execution of a political vendetta that had been simmering for a long time. I was only one of several people targeted. I did just happen to be the oldest. This kind of thing begets anger in any circumstance, but I was also scheduled for prostate surgery in a month, and compelled to smile at my assassin while he delivered a patronizing "Up in the Air" style, "this happens to everyone" speech. A twelve month plus job search landed me the last job I was laid off from.

It was supposed to be temporary to begin with but was extended into regular employment because the work they wanted took longer than they had planned before hiring me, and there were other things they wanted me to do once I was there. The 2008 meltdown impacted the company and they had to do some serious budget cutting. I was expensive, and old, and working on some things that while needing doing could be deferred, so I became part of an $18 million budget cut (something around 6% of the company's revenues).

It all makes sense. Even the political one was not entirely unreasonable and would have happened a few months later during a merger anyway. But what happens is you get pushed up against the whole idea that your worth is defined by your employment, and repeatedly informed that you're not worth enough for someone to even consider employing you. Might tend to make you angry, or depressed, or any number of other negative emotions.

I think that being my age and nominally of the age to retire may have made it a bit easier for me. I can play to the expectations of being a person of an age to retire. The problem is that I don't want to. I still have value to offer and knowledge that can make a difference.

The world of work makes a big mistake about this and it is going to be a bigger and bigger one as the baby boom generation reaches my age. All that talent and skill can make a difference. None of that talent and skill deserves to be thrown away. But as long as the opportunities they present to us are people killing full-time positions (nominally 40 hours a week but really 50 or 55) I can see why they would have reservations about us decrepit ones. But it's ridiculous. Competence and value doesn't dole out like piecework. There is no clock on wisdom or skill.

So I have found ways to bring my value to a game, if not the game. I do it with writing, with pro bono work, with keeping myself sharp by studying and reading.

I'm certainly not planning on holding my breath for the employment world to wake up.