Companies Try to Retain Older Workers

LA Times ^ | 9-3-07 | Jonoathon Peterson

[TKDietz]

If you hate your job, go find another one. Otherwise, do good work and try to keep a good attitude and you’ll do fine. You and the rest of the younger folks in your profession aren’t the only ones who tend to have to wait until someone quits, retires or dies for there to be opportunity for advancement. That’s a pretty common complaint in a lot of professions. If you hang in there and don’t screw things up with your attitude your time will come, and people below you will be hoping you come to an untimely end. I’m 42 and the youngest in my profession in my office. I don’t plan on sticking around and waiting for someone to die though. Within a year or so I hope to be somewhere else earning more money than anyone in my current office.

[Cogadh na Sith]

I’m 42 and the youngest in my profession in my office. I don’t plan on sticking around and waiting for someone to die though. Within a year or so I hope to be somewhere else earning more money than anyone in my current office.

Yeah: I'm going to work for some other defense industry....

[VOA]

bump

[TKDietz]

Well there is more than one company involved in our defense industry, and there are other non-defense industry engineering jobs out there where your skills would be useful. Sounds to me like you’d rather just stay where you are and complain about your present condition and hope and pray that enough people above you die so that you can finally move up. It’s really hard for me to feel sorry for you. You are not powerless. Either move onto something bigger and better or stay where you are and quit your complaining. Your attitude sucks. It probably shows in your work. Fix it or be miserable while you decrease your chances of ever moving up in your field. If you really want to stay where you are, accept the fact that it is not likely that you will move up anytime in the near future and live with it. Don’t complain about it. Nobody wants to work with a whiner. Those in charge don’t want to promote people with bad attitudes. Life’s hard enough without having to work with jerks and whiners. Improve your attitude and your life will be better all around. You’ll be happier in your work, your coworkers will find you a better person to work with, and those above you will be more likely to pick you for the better slots when they open up.

[Cogadh na Sith]

Did you read any of my previous posts? How about the OPM paper I posted about the problem? Do you even understand what the issue is in DoD? Have you ever worked in DoD? Can you even spell DoD?

I hope you feel better after insulting me, as many others have on this thread.

The only time you can get freepers on an anti-defense rant is when you mention the defense industry is top-loaded with boomers and the "younger" workers are in their 40's--It's hard to stay motivated to work in it as an industry

What have you done for your country lately? (other than bitch at me, I suppose.)

Don't worry, I'll keep working to build stuff to protect your ass while you keep giving me grief for staying in that industry.

[TKDietz]

I’m not giving you grief for staying in the defense industry. I’m giving you grief for being a whiner. But if it makes you happy, just keep on with your rotten attitude blaming the baby boomers for all your problems. Good luck with that. I’ve got too much work to do today to argue about nothing.

[Cogadh na Sith]

I’m not giving you grief for staying in the defense industry. I’m giving you grief for being a whiner.

Yeah, I don't know what's wrong with me: why can't I just STFU, accept the lack of upward mobility in this sector and keep building bombs, planes and guns to keep your sanctimonious ass safe!

[TKDietz]

“...and keep building bombs, planes and guns to keep your sanctimonious ass safe!”

Is that what you are doing? Looks to me like your playing on the Internet on my dime, Mr. federal government employee.

Alright, I’m sorry. I’m really not out to attack you. I was hoping to get you to at least consider the fact that your attitude isn’t helping your situation at all, but the most perturbing thing to me about the post I originally responded to was your attack on baby boomers. Partly that’s because I hate to see people playing the blame game, but also I have to say that Boomer bashing just really gets under my skin. I’m not a boomer. I was born in 1965. A lot of the people I graduated high school with were boomers though whose birthdays happened to be in the first part of the school year rather than the latter part or in the following summer.

Personally, I think all the Baby Boomer Gex X crap is nothing but a bunch of nonsense. Are people born in 1946 all just like people born in 1964? Am I so different than the people I graduated with who happen to be Baby Boomers because they were born a few months before me?

I did read the article you linked us to. It was b.s. Let’s take the first sentence of the part you quoted in your post, “This is further compounded by what is termed the “gray ceiling” – promising Xers in their 30s and early 40s find themselves stuck, unable to move up because the pathways to advancement are blocked by Baby Boomers postponing retirement.” Baby Boomers postponing retirement? What? The oldest is only 61. Were Baby Boomers supposed to retire in their 50’s or something to make room for the new guys? The author talks about there being 300 and some odd SES employees that are from Generation X, compared to 3 times as many 60 or older. Most of those 60 and older wouldn’t even be Baby Boomers. The author makes a couple of decent points that apply across the generations, but in the end he really just puts us Gen X’rs in a bad light. If you believe everything he has to say you’d think we Gen X’rs change jobs at the drop of a hat. We’re trouble makers who don’t like the old ways of doing things. We’re not disloyal, but instead are “just in time” loyal, whatever the hell that means. We have a “what have you done for me lately” mentality, and are far more worried about our personal affairs rather than work, unlike previous generations. Really as I read what this fellow wrote I’m thinking that if I actually believed all of it I wouldn’t want to hire any Gen X’rs. I’d skip ‘em and move onto the next generation.

“Baby Boomer,” “Generation X,” these are just made up labels. They don’t really mean much of anything. You can’t take everybody born in a 15 or 20 year time frame and lump them all together and say they are all the same. There really isn’t even much agreement about when these periods start and end. I’ll say Baby Boomers are those born from 1946 through 1964, and Gen X’ers are those born from 1965 to 1979. Baby Boomers were born over a 19 year time frame, Gen X’ers over a 15 year time frame. If you just added up all the people born in the 19 years after the Baby Boom generation, there really wouldn’t be that many more people born between 1946 and 1964 than there were born in the next 19 years. And the people born during any of these years aren’t going to be much different than those born during the other years. We’re all different in some ways, but the similarities outweigh the differences. People like you who are 39 today aren’t much different than those who were 39 ten years ago.

You were born in 1968, and it is true that more people were born every year before you were born all the way back to 1947. Only about 3.5 million people were born in 1968. Actually though more people were born in 1968 than in the first year of the baby boom, 1946, and the number born each year from 1947 through 1953 wasn’t that much greater than the number born in 1968, but from 1954 through 1964 more than 4 million were born each year. About 3.76 million were born in ‘65, 3.6 in ‘66, and 3.52 in 1967. The biggest bulge was between 1954 and 1964, and yeah, with better than a half million more of these people having been born every year than were born in the year you were bron chances are there are a lot more of them competing for the better jobs where you work than there are people your age doing the same. I understand what you are saying.

What’s worse for you though is that you work for the government, the federal government no less. Federal government jobs are the kind hardly anyone ever leaves. The pay and benefits are usually pretty good. It’s hard for a federal employee to get fired, and as long as you can swing decent performance evaluations you ought to get decent pay raises and be considered for promotions as they come up. The problem is that if no one leaves, no better jobs are going to come open. I have a brother in law who is full time Air Guard in the same boat. He’s actually a Baby Boomer, but all the slots above him are populated by people not too much older than him so he’s not likely to move up for a long time.

Look at the bright side though, at least you aren’t a state employee. I’m a government lawyer employed by a Southern state. I’m in the same boat as you in that basically someone in my office would have to retire or die in order for me to advance, and that’s not going to happen anytime soon. But I don’t have decent pay and great benefits like a federal employee. I’m paid far less than my equivalent federal counterpart. We don’t get merit raises. I get a 2.1% cost of living increase but the cost of living is increasing faster than that. I pay $420 a month for health insurance, which doesn’t even include dental insurance, and every year the premiums go up. Our office budget is so pitifully small we run out of money for postage stamps every year. I end up having to pay for all sorts of things out of my own pocket, like most of my continuing legal education credits I have to get in order to keep my license. The only thing in my office I didn’t pay for out of my own pocket is my phone, my filing cabinet, and a lamp. I’m in a damp basement with asbestos tiles and no air conditioning. At least I have a walled in office now. Before the community service workers built me walls from salvaged paneling and fire damaged insulation from one of our old courthouses that burned down I had no walls. I still don’t have a doorknob, but the little hole in the door makes a great place for them to stick rolled up memos and dockets and such. Not only is there no chance for advancement, but the pay sucks, the benefits suck, our office budget sucks, and our caseloads are ridiculously huge. A cushy federal job with good pay and good benefits and the wimpy caseloads our local federal guys have looks pretty good from where I’m sitting. I wouldn’t take one of those jobs now though because I know I’m going to be able to earn a lot more in the private sector than I would with even one of those sweet federal attorney jobs.

You could be doing worse than you are now, and you probably could do a lot better if you went with a private firm that builds bombs, planes or guns. Are there not better paying jobs with more advancement opportunities in the private sector of the defense industry?

[Cogadh na Sith]

Thank you for the kind reply. I'm sorry we got off on the wrong foot.

and you probably could do a lot better if you went with a private firm that builds bombs, planes or guns. Are there not better paying jobs with more advancement opportunities in the private sector of the defense industry?

In fact, I am a contractor, it's the same story here--DoD workers either contractor or federal employee are skewed toward the older end. We lost an entire generation of defense engineers in the 90's as I said before, I've been laid off 4 times. I have as much loyalty to any company as they have to me...

The silver lining is that even if as the opportunities for me to advance are postponed by the boomer 'snake in the pig', the advancement will come quickly as they retire and/or die.

My boss, who thinks rather highly of me and my abilities, laughingly agrees with my take: "I'll be the junior guy forever until suddenly I'm the last one left and I'm in charge!"

But if I ever start feeling too convivial towards the boomers, I visit the Friday wine-tasting at the 'Mercado' in the little New Mexican town I grew up in. Apparently it is now part of the Bay Area.... Ugh....

[Cogadh na Sith]

postponed by the boomer 'snake in the pig', the advancement will come quickly as they retire and/or die.

'snake in the pig' Hahahahaha! There's a good Freudian slip for you!

[Shion]

>>There’s nothing wrong with a degree from DeVry.<<

Except that you won’t get hired because it’s not considered a “real” degree.

It’s a shame, but the truth.

[BBell]

That is not true. A friend of mines nephew works for applied materials along side a guy who has a degree from MIT. They make the same money. My friend's nephew hails from DeVry. I realize DeVry won’t land you a posh job in Silicon Vally but it’s a good start and this in conjunction with on the job experience will make you a good living. Even courses offered at local Community Colleges can land you a nice living, once you gain that experience. We could just fore go any additional education considered mediocre and wait tables the rest of our lives.