It is damned difficult to die these days. Sure, you can throwyourself in front of a 16-wheeler, but that's messy and not terriblysatisfying, much less economical for those left behind.
The fact is that our children -- and mine range in age from 8to 38 -- have a fairly good chance of living to age 90 or 100, whatwith cures being found for many maladies and the ability to switch outbody organs as if they were automobile radiator hoses.
What does this have to do with the workforce? It haseverything to do with how we of the yellow leaf generation -- those ofus over 60 -- are viewed, and how this impacts those taking baby stepsup the career ladder.
While it is becoming more difficult to die, it is alsobecoming more difficult to survive professionally. A person over 60 isa target for redundancy. The 30-year-old in the cubicle around thecorner is eyeing your spacious corner office with a view.
The youngster on your heels is not necessarily smarter andcertainly less experienced than you, the older worker. However, he isperceived to have more energy, more drive, and the ability to adaptbetter to new technologies in the information age.
While this perception might or might not be true, it isreality. We live in reality.
But you can't retire. You still have a hefty mortgage, firstand second family responsibilities, and alimony payments that wouldfeed a medium-sized village in Botswana.
Plus, actuarial charts suggest you have a better-than-evenchance of living another 20 years. What to do? I wrote an entire book about it called "ThePortfolio Bubble: Surviving Professionally at 60." However, this column is about the the increasing trend ofolder workers, and not necessarily a how-to guide. Retirement is an invention of the late 19th century. Its useis a sliver in the time compendium. It is one star that has burnedbrightly for 150 years -- give or take a few -- and is losing itsluster. Other social factors are fast making it an antique concept. This is not bad, merely a certainty with which we must deal. It implies that with a little luck and a moderately healthylifestyle, we will live to bounce a great-grandson on our knee in theevening and report for some sort of work the next morning. In the not-to-distant future, this will be the rule ratherthan the exception. It will be something we become conditioned to wantto do and not something we have to do. But we are not there yet ... not even close. The phenomenon has out-raced the structural fabric of how welive and work. Most rules of modern societies have conditioned us towork until we are 60 or 65 and then retire to Sun City. However, for every professional I know who can choose toretire or not to retire, I know 10 for whom retirement is either not anoption or is a depressing one. Their Sun City dream is raging withthunderstorms.
Being financially unready for retirement is only part of theequation. Many professionals simply don't aspire to retire. My friend Lynn in Houston retired a year ago from a large oilcompany at age 60 having accumulated $3 million in stock through thecompany's investment program. The same year, she ran the HoustonMarathon. For folks like Lynn who are full of life, retirement is adrag, and she was shortly back to work as a consultant. She didn't needthe money. She needed the reward of simply working productively. However, the problem presented is not merely one of individualdesires, but one that is being forced on us by the happy thought thatwe will be visiting planet earth longer than the generations that havegone before us. But it is a problem, and a pressing one. How do we address it? It begins with thinking -- not aboutsociety as a whole, but about groups of people, even individuals. Itbegins with the realization that one size does not fit all. In my view, terms such as "retirement" and "pensioner" shouldbe tossed on the garbage heap. We should not merely raise the age forobtaining Social Security and pension checks, but we should moreadequately base such programs on individual options. We should not in any way punish individuals for wanting not toretire by restricting what rewards they have worked long and hard toobtain; and, in most cases, have actually purchased through theirtaxes.
Companies should be encouraged to take a second look at olderworkers; and, in fact, age discrimination laws should be strengthenedto make it extremely difficult for a qualified worker to be sackedmerely because he is older and is more expensive. Great Britain hastaken some steps toward this. What's more, the great defenders of the older individual -- inthe United States, the American Association of Retired Persons --should wake up and realize that their mission has drastically changed. It is not about retirement, or even about working. It is aboutliving. All the laws and social re-engineering, however, will notsucceed if there is not a change in attitude toward the older worker, arealization that experience counts and that energy and drive are notgroup descriptors but are assets of individuals, old or young. The great architect Frank Lloyd Wright did his best work afterage 70, famed heart surgeon Michael DeBakey operated into his 90s, andCol. Harlan Sanders started his fried chicken empire after becoming apensioner. Oh, and my mother, Mary Willard, worked as a practical nursewell into her late 70s, drove a jet ski when she was 75, and at 86continues her voluntary unpaid work at a pace that would put mostyoungsters to shame. J. Michael Willard is a former Charleston, N.C.,businessman who has lived and worked in Eastern Europe for 13 years. Heis chairman of Willard, an advertising and public relations companywith offices in Moscow, Kiev and Istanbul. He is a former presssecretary for Sen. Robert Byrd. Source: Charleston DailyMail. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. Powered byYellowbrix.
