Blazing 50s told to #retire
Everyone waits to get to the top only to be told to drop to the bottom.
If this graph (below) was true, there wouldn’t be so many jobless in their 50s. Nevertheless, the employable age is under 45 in most Asian countries.
How does Asia end up with so little respect for #diversity? It’s just the way it is where they are pushing for the younger, less experienced to take up the top jobs so they can peg less cost per employee hoping to squeeze more from the restless youngsters; working them to the bone and getting more ounce for every pound.
As soon as the 50-something reach the top of their game, they are told they are redundant. I’ve worked almost 30 years of my freaking career to get slowly promoted to the #1 job in my department only to be told I was too old for that job now.
This is the biggest slap on the face of the GenX-es. With heftier bills to pay, children to put through college, home mortgages, exorbitant health insurance and the struggle to get the next job, what could they possibly do to reset their lives? Some of them are high performers, hard workers, and talented professionals but the minute their age gets scrutinised in a job application, they are off the mark.
Such is the state of the 50-something in my country today and devastatingly true — in many Asian countries plagued by the mentality that the 50s can’t possibly be as agile and tech savvy as their younger peers. But this is just the myth corporations have stereotyped to be their alternate reality. I, for one have proven to learn and pick-up new tools, systems and processes much faster than those in their 20s and 30s. I’ve been trained since young to do it because I happened to work in the technology sector where change is inevitable. Even in one of the hardest working sector of shared services and BPO where I’ve spent the last 10 years of my career, I have adapted to the pace of my global colleagues working beyond my normal hours, understand and apply the abstract principles I learn very swiftly, speaking at least three languages, and constantly staying competitive even at work just so I don’t get left behind.
“It all comes down to age,” they told me, Who is they? Recruiters, hiring managers, friends and family. Not one supports the idea that age can be the hallmark of one’s success. Instead it’s being played down as the reason for all the rejections. So what are we blazing 50s going to do for the next 2 decades while we are still healthy, fit and packed with experience?
The answer of retirement sounds so voraciously cruel but its implication continues to echo louder with each passing 50s.
