While I’m not close to that mid-life mark yet, I’ve been thinking a lot about how to understand and translate my value when my career hasn’t exactly followed a linear path. Reading your words makes me feel I don’t need to fret too much and the answer will come to me. Maybe my ego needs to step back too.
Ps: hi. So nice to encounter a familiar face here :)
Being an old white woman, what struck me was the idea of “the day before the bad thing happened”. I do think about that and try to be present in every day because— you know…. Really good piece.
I've lived a sheltered (work) life. First I was active duty Air Force for 24 years, then I got a civil service job in the same field. I was never going to get rich, but I had as close to absolute job security as is reasonably possible in this world. Then this past spring, the DOGE stuff gave me a glimpse of what it feels like to be out there in the real work world. I'm not sure I'm mentally equipped to come in to work one day to find out I've been let go even though I didn't do anything wrong. Pretty sure my section has dodged that bullet (pun intended) so I probably won't have to find out. But for a second or two it certainly did make me ponder exactly the question in the title of your post.
My grandfather retired from IBM and all my uncles worked there—until IBM started mass layoffs in the '80s. Some of them were unemployed for pretty long periods, long enough to degrade their finances and mental health. They all found new jobs eventually, but I'm not sure how if they ever made up the lost years of income. I just don't know. What I saw, though, was the end of the job for life system, and after some of my own employment setbacks, I just can't trust employers anymore.
Yeah, I think the 80s was the beginning of the end of that ‘job for life’ workforce you're describing, as unions began to weaken, then globalization, then the ‘gig economy’ and now AI.
Great piece, and actually also a functional prompt for us middle aged writer readers.
Yes, please share what results!
What a beautiful piece of writing, Eric.
While I’m not close to that mid-life mark yet, I’ve been thinking a lot about how to understand and translate my value when my career hasn’t exactly followed a linear path. Reading your words makes me feel I don’t need to fret too much and the answer will come to me. Maybe my ego needs to step back too.
Ps: hi. So nice to encounter a familiar face here :)
Being an old white woman, what struck me was the idea of “the day before the bad thing happened”. I do think about that and try to be present in every day because— you know…. Really good piece.
I've lived a sheltered (work) life. First I was active duty Air Force for 24 years, then I got a civil service job in the same field. I was never going to get rich, but I had as close to absolute job security as is reasonably possible in this world. Then this past spring, the DOGE stuff gave me a glimpse of what it feels like to be out there in the real work world. I'm not sure I'm mentally equipped to come in to work one day to find out I've been let go even though I didn't do anything wrong. Pretty sure my section has dodged that bullet (pun intended) so I probably won't have to find out. But for a second or two it certainly did make me ponder exactly the question in the title of your post.
My grandfather retired from IBM and all my uncles worked there—until IBM started mass layoffs in the '80s. Some of them were unemployed for pretty long periods, long enough to degrade their finances and mental health. They all found new jobs eventually, but I'm not sure how if they ever made up the lost years of income. I just don't know. What I saw, though, was the end of the job for life system, and after some of my own employment setbacks, I just can't trust employers anymore.
Yeah, I think the 80s was the beginning of the end of that ‘job for life’ workforce you're describing, as unions began to weaken, then globalization, then the ‘gig economy’ and now AI.