

Generation B - Middle Aged, Laid Off and Losing Hope - boggles
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/30/fashion/30genb.html?8dpc=&_r=1&pagewanted=all

======
TomOfTTB
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.

~~~
stse
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
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?

------
avdempsey
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.

~~~
jbm
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.

~~~
avdempsey
No, but Jef was a friend.

------
ojbyrne
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.

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

------
hkuo
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.

~~~
randomtask
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
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.

------
computerofmeat
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.

------
jasonkester
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?

------
dcheong
For non-subscribers:

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maxniederhofer
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
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.)

------
RiderOfGiraffes
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
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.

------
darien
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.

~~~
varjag
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
:)

------
btakita
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.

------
asdlfj2sd33
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.

------
indigoshift
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....

------
ghost11
Roughly a quarter of the people aged 65+ are working full-time. So, when did
58 become "middle-aged?"

~~~
varjag
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.

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

~~~
varjag
In most modern nations, "adult" refers to someone over 18 to 21. With life
expectancy of over 70 years, that places middle age exactly in the middle of
50-year period. I thought that was obvious enough.

~~~
ghost11
Post-college working life: 22 - 72 (extended SS eligibility age for the USA).
Half of that: 47.

~~~
varjag
Yes, 72-22 is 50. Thanks for doing the math :)

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

~~~
darien
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
"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.

~~~
darien
Unfortunately that is very true and good point. I work for a newspaper company
and was baffled during a conversation with the Classifieds-Jobs manager when
she told me something to the tune of "95% of job openings are posted online,
but 75% of the postings are fulfilled by internal networking, not by
respondents to the job listing."

------
gaius
_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
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")

~~~
anamax
> 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".

