The Kid Always Gets The Job
by G. Polvinale 01/31/16

The following is a reply I sent to a recent email job posting from a recruiter.

Thanks for considering and contacting me regarding the open IT position. This second email says it is a reminder that you are awaiting a response, so I thought I would explain why I didn't answer your first email. I'm satirical by nature, so don't take this personally.

After losing my job through no fault of my own in a hostile corporate takeover, and the resulting 3 years of online searching, scouring newspaper classifieds, pounding the bricks, sending out hundreds of resumes, going to dozens of interviews, half a dozen of which were "one of the final two ", I finally figured out that the kid is always going to get the job. Always. No matter that I work out at the gym 3 days a week, ride the bike, walk the treadmill, stairclimb, lift the weights, do Tai Chi 15 times a week and eat vegan organic. Nobody will hire a 67 year old. It's that simple. I am extremely qualified, having a vast array of experience doing everything from basic PC tech support to managing an IT department, and I have strong communications skills. Doesn't matter.

So now I have taken those skills, repurposed them into building a business teaching Tai Chi in order to put food on the table. The employers' loss. Even though everything you describe in the job description below fits me to a "T", and even though they could have snapped me up for practically a song, right now I'm not ready to give up my Tai Chi business that I've spent 2 years building so far. My clients are businesses and healthcare institutions interested in providing their employees and residents with inexpensive wellness benefits. I also teach Tai Chi at EHOVE (a well-known local vocational school) and offer individual classes to the general community. This kind of enthusiasm, creativity and drive is what short-sighted corporate interviewers are missing out on because they don't want to hire an "old person".

The government should really repeal the law that makes it illegal for employers to discriminate based on age. Because employers are doing it anyway. At least then recruiters could put the age requirement in their job postings, saving themselves a lot of interview time, and save job seekers a lot of trouble and frustration by getting the truth right up front. Maybe someday when my business finally blossoms into its potential, the people I hire should be required to have 15-20 years' experience with Tai Chi. Although a shame that it would effectively exclude kids from employment, it would be legal enough.

I do harbor more than a little resentment for the system that effectively legally excludes every unemployed person over fifty from participating in what the president calls the remarkable recovery of the US economy with its 5% unemployment rate and millions of new jobs created. That 5% unemployment came from millions of people over fifty dropping off the map when they lost their jobs as a result of the Great Recession and unable to find work by the time their unemployment ran out. I have met many people over fifty who are happy to offer their remarkable experience and work ethic to employers for cheap wages. But all they ever hear back is "dead air" the minute the interviewer gets a whiff that they might have white hair.

I think recruiters are missing the boat by passing over a rich pool of labor resources. But that's only me talking. Thanks for the heads up on the job, though.

Good luck,

People Over 40 Are Done
by G. Polvinale 03/02/16

I'm more than fed up with being replaced by a kid in every job out there. I saw plenty of interviewing discrimination after I lost my job because of my age and experience, and then couldn't get hired for those same reasons.

Society's economic model has changed in the last several years. When we were younger, we had to work hard to scrape by, giving us valuable experience and skills that would see us through our whole life. Gradually, we made a life for ourselves. Now suddenly everywhere you look, the kids have plenty of money to spend on the tech culture that corporations are pushing. And older people are handcuffed, watching everything they worked hard for slip away, due to higher living expenses and no job prospects. This is criminal. And it's all part of the new corporate culture that has taken over every aspect of our lives.

Those of us over 40 "don't fit in" to the new society. So we scrape by the best we can... or die trying. The "greatest generation" and the "baby boomers" have been thrown under the bus, to provide cheap labor to the soulless corporations. The result? Everywhere you go now, you get some seemingly unemployable, ignorant, inexperienced, belligerent kid who doesn't give a shit waiting on you, taking care of you, on the other end of the phone, selling you stuff, fixing your plumbing, building your car or reading you the news.

After the greedy rich top 1 percent take 90 percent of what our economy generates, the rest of us have to fight over what's left. And "what's left" has pretty much been commandeered by workers in their 20's. And all this happened suddenly in the last 5 years, with no chance for a gradual adjustment to occur. Leaving people over fifty to die. Don't think so? Just wait.

Are you nuts, Michigan?
by G. Polvinale 06/21/12

Well, are you? I must have got it wrong, because the way I understand it, you're allowing your elected representatives to silence a woman - 2 women - 2 people - because they dare to speak about the real issue behind the rhetoric? Come on. Then you think like you play football (come on - had to slip in a little humor - this news story is giving me an upset stomach).

Do Scott Walker and the Koch bros truly own the state? Does everyone up there really believe the election wasn't manipulated by advertising and machine hacking? Are a handful of women the only ones who stand up to these corporate-owned roboreps and their gestapo tactics?

Michigan, open up your collective mouth and support these brave women fighting for their American right to freedom of expression. They had to perform a play to say the truth.

Nix Violence Against Women Act?
by G. Polvinale 04/10/12

What if a terrorist group decided to let all the wild animals out of all the major zoos in the United States? And what if those wild animals proceeded to eat many people in the surrounding communities all across America? What excuse would the guys who let all the animals have when they were arrested and brought to trial for murder? They knew the animals would eat the people when they let them out.

So is Congress going to be guilty of every black eye and every mangled woman and every dead one? When you let those animals run free and do what you know they are going to do, you are the guilty one. And it's you who should be receiving apt punishment. [Note to Ted Nugent -- I didn't say that activist judges should go out and kill members of Congress.]