Dr. Ben Braddock @GraduatedBen I graduated into the Great Recession. Had a solid academic record, internships, some awards. But the job market was terrible. In the meantime I had worked construction for day laborer wages.
It took about a year for me to finally snag a salaried job. Was in a different field but at that point I just wanted to not be carrying shingles up a 40 ft ladder over a concrete pad.
The job I landed was for an IT firm. 40k/year before taxes and the newly mandatory health insurance. But it seemed like a decent start.
I was hired along with some other recent grads, as I would find out later, because we were more accommodating to the psychotic managers. A month after I started, Chuck joined the program. We shared an office, along with 6 other people jammed in there. We were deskmates.
Chuck was a boomer. He was around retirement age but still spry and sharp and he needed the work.
His wife had cancer and was a couple years younger than him, so she wasn’t eligible for Medicare, and Medicaid in my state was too barebones to get good cancer treatment.
Chuck was the nicest guy. Very kind and considerate. He was diligent with his work and very earnest and focused with everything he did.
He would call his wife on every break. He treated her like a queen. He was proud that he was able to provide for her.
He wasn’t a total digital native, but he was decent with a computer, honest, and totally committed to doing great work.
His work product was better than the average person I worked with. We had H1B people who would straight up lie about the work they didn’t do but claimed they did. My job was basically to clean up the mistakes of an Indian woman who made twice what I did but half of her assignments were not even done (though she claimed they were) and the other half were incomprehensible nonsense.
But my manager got into his head that Chuck was too old.
He would make fun of him behind his back and just sort of wrote him off - not because of his work, but because of his demeanor.
Chuck never had a real shot.
One day, HR sent an email to those of us who worked in that office to come to the meeting room.
All but Chuck.
We got to the conference room and were told to just stay put.
When we came back, Chuck was gone and his desk was bare.
He was let go for being a boomer.
He was never given the chance to say goodbye to any of us or to swap contact info. I wish he had because I would have liked to stay in touch.
That was probably the end of his career. No watch or retirement ceremony. Just told that he was obsolete and thrown out into the cold.
This is the sort of thing that was rejected at the ballot box. We aren’t resentful communists. We don’t want to burden business with nonsense regulations and bureaucracy. But we have had enough of the abuse and disrespect that has been heaped upon decent Americans by capricious managers, executives, and politicians who violate the social contract on the slightest whim.
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@GraduatedBen
I graduated into the Great Recession. Had a solid academic record, internships, some awards. But the job market was terrible. In the meantime I had worked construction for day laborer wages.
It took about a year for me to finally snag a salaried job. Was in a different field but at that point I just wanted to not be carrying shingles up a 40 ft ladder over a concrete pad.
The job I landed was for an IT firm. 40k/year before taxes and the newly mandatory health insurance. But it seemed like a decent start.
I was hired along with some other recent grads, as I would find out later, because we were more accommodating to the psychotic managers. A month after I started, Chuck joined the program. We shared an office, along with 6 other people jammed in there. We were deskmates.
Chuck was a boomer. He was around retirement age but still spry and sharp and he needed the work.
His wife had cancer and was a couple years younger than him, so she wasn’t eligible for Medicare, and Medicaid in my state was too barebones to get good cancer treatment.
Chuck was the nicest guy. Very kind and considerate. He was diligent with his work and very earnest and focused with everything he did.
He would call his wife on every break. He treated her like a queen. He was proud that he was able to provide for her.
He wasn’t a total digital native, but he was decent with a computer, honest, and totally committed to doing great work.
His work product was better than the average person I worked with. We had H1B people who would straight up lie about the work they didn’t do but claimed they did. My job was basically to clean up the mistakes of an Indian woman who made twice what I did but half of her assignments were not even done (though she claimed they were) and the other half were incomprehensible nonsense.
But my manager got into his head that Chuck was too old.
He would make fun of him behind his back and just sort of wrote him off - not because of his work, but because of his demeanor.
Chuck never had a real shot.
One day, HR sent an email to those of us who worked in that office to come to the meeting room.
All but Chuck.
We got to the conference room and were told to just stay put.
When we came back, Chuck was gone and his desk was bare.
He was let go for being a boomer.
He was never given the chance to say goodbye to any of us or to swap contact info. I wish he had because I would have liked to stay in touch.
That was probably the end of his career. No watch or retirement ceremony. Just told that he was obsolete and thrown out into the cold.
This is the sort of thing that was rejected at the ballot box. We aren’t resentful communists. We don’t want to burden business with nonsense regulations and bureaucracy. But we have had enough of the abuse and disrespect that has been heaped upon decent Americans by capricious managers, executives, and politicians who violate the social contract on the slightest whim.
https://x.com/GraduatedBen/status/1872507940244009369