The (Secret) Fears of the Unemployed Baby Boomer

I’m over 50 and I’ve been unemployed for too long.  Am I “done”?  Maybe this is “it” for me.  Maybe it’s time for me to sail off into the sunset, to slowly disappear from view into the hazy horizon.  Is it that time for me?  Already?

These are the scariest feelings I’ve had since my layoff early last year.

I’ve read all that stuff about 50 being the new 30 and actually, I believe it's true.  I don’t feel “older,” despite our society’s insistence on categorizing me that way.  An “older” unemployed worker.  Ugh, that sounds awful.  I suppose that is me.  But I don’t feel or act that way! 

I observe that many of the hiring managers are young enough to be my kids.  Maybe it’s all in my head, but sometimes I worry that they view me the way they view their Moms.  Would they hire their Moms?

My skills haven’t stagnated.  I’m no technological dinosaur.  Most of my fellow Boomers and I have welcomed new technologies, new software and new media and enjoy incorporating them into our work and personal lives.  Sheesh, I am not sitting here still staring at the Wang CRT terminal I was introduced to 30 years ago!

I also worry that a company won’t want to invest in me because they figure I’ll be “outta there” in a few years.  But haven’t they seen the latest statistics?  The Congressional Budget Office noted recently that Baby Boomers are working longer than ever (http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2011/03/22/baby-boomers-and-the-labor-force/?KEYWORDS=baby+boomers+and+retirement).   We have to.  Besides being healthier and living longer than ever, most of us took terrible hits to our retirement savings a few years ago.  We can’t afford to get out now. 

The economic losses we suffered also affected our ability to count on those rosy, fun-in-the-sun after-career lives we once anticipated.  We still have those dreams, though!  Retirement may appear to be within our grasp, but we aren’t able to reach for it yet because of our financial needs, both now and down the road.

So if anything, we Baby Boomers are probably the most motivated workers out there.  We still have so much to work for! 

I know I’m not finished yet.  I just earned a Master’s degree a few months ago, three decades or so after my BA.  Does that sound someone who’s coasting to retirement?  I never want to stop learning and growing.  I know so much more and have experienced so much more than my younger counterparts.  I can contribute even more now.  These things make me a more valuable employee today than I ever was. 

That’s why, even though the thought occasionally creeps into my head on a “down” day, in my heart I refuse to accept that I’m “done.”  I just have to find an employer who realizes that too.