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.

Seniors Can Stop the Economy
by G. Polvinale 10/27/13

Ok. What are we going to do? Let Republicans slash our Social Security? Cut essential income and services? Even just implementing the chained CPI will result in tens of thousands of dollars lost to the average senior who is age 65 today. Time to get in their faces and in our streets.

That's right. Our streets. The kids didn't pay for them. The rich didn't build them. We did. Our generation. Just like we built the rest of this country. Now it's time to put our streets to good use. If nobody will listen to us when we tell them that we are already living in poverty levels before cuts, then it's time to get out there and stop traffic, shut down the system and stop the war on Seniors. I'm willing to put my body out there if others are. We stopped a war in 1970... we can stop this war on us.

At 50,000,000 Seniors strong, there are lots of things we can do to get their attention. We can harness our buying power, even target and bankrupt specific corporations (like BankAmerica and WalMart), and show them how cuts to our income would affect their profit margins. We could stop assisting younger family members trying to make it and let them feel the pain of the cuts. We could stop volunteering our services to hospitals, pubic aid organizations, churches and businesses. We can stop all the elections cold, since Seniors are most of the people you see volunteering at the polls on election day. And if they do manage to have an election, our sheer numbers can effectively vote out any trace of Republicans and Teapublicans from our Federal, State and local governments... it's time to give lawmakers a taste of what they intend to do to us.

Together we can do any number of things to disrupt and stop the economy in it's tracks. It's no longer a debate. It's no longer a bunch of talking heads on cable TV yelling at one another and going out for drinks after the show. The rich are coming after us right now. Forcing us to live in sub-poverty while McDonald's buys another corporate jet and Mitt Romney builds another elevator for his cars; while Wallstreet goes back to ripping us off after we bailed them out and Big Pharma is busy hooking us on drugs we won't be able to afford; while insurance corporations deny us healthcare and Congress denies us food stamps.

The average corporate CEO makes 300 times as much as the average factory worker, and 600 times as much as the average person in a non-industrial job or Senior Citizen on Social Security. CEO's don't do 600 times the work. What can they possibly be doing with all that extra money that poor people need to survive? Living like royalty... that's what.

So until a well-organized group shows up on the scene to harness our substantial power (and it will happen pretty soon), at least make Social Security a topic of conversation. At least write your Congresspeople. At least speak up when someone casually mentions that Congress needs to compromise on Social Security and Medicare cuts. Hopefully seniors will all find it within us to rise up and show them the power of the baby boomers, instead of letting them kill us slowly while they milk us of every penny we have. Just sayin'.