Over-50

May Days from Baby Boomer Times: We learned we could change

Activists in Occupy Wall Street had leveraged May Day to get back on the media radar screen.  Time will tell if that works. 

The May Day rallies brought back to me memories of my own Baby Boomer political activism.  So many of our generation had come from a conservative background.  Because there were so many of us we had to stay within the lines to get into the system's schools and jobs.  Then we found out that we could change.  We could rethink our assumptions and adopt new behaviors.

All that is coming in handy as the world of work becomes undone.  Instead of waking up every morning as a fixed me I scan the horizon for opportunity and then figure out what parts of my background I can package to pursue that.

This week I might get my third interview for a dream communications placement. I have been approaching presenting myself as a continuum of constantly aligning myself to the shifting competitive factors.

Over-50 Career Paths: Whistleblower?

Should the over-50, restless for a new career path, press that "send" button?  That one act could turn them into a whistleblower.  They might be transmitting an opinion-editorial critical of their former company to brandname media such as THE WALL STREET JOURNAL or TECH CRUNCH.  They might be providing a memo that has been leaked.  Or, they might be sending a video they made of the lousy working conditions at Company X.

Whatever.  That could be interpreted as whistleblowing. 

Recently, some whistleblowers have done well for themselves.  For example, there has been former Goldman Sachs employee Greg Smith who now has a $1.5 million advance from Grand Central to do a book.

On the other hand, the fate of other whistleblowers is up in the air.  Former Fox employee Joe Muto got paid $5,000 by tabloid GAWKER to give a not-like to  the place, including a photo of the drab surroundings.  Fox canned him.  It also hired a law firm to warn him to stop and to inform him that his activity could be construed as criminal and civil wrongdoing.  GAWKER also was warned.

Whistleblowing has become a legitimate career path.  But it is a risky one.  I take a look at what the whistleblower can signal about the dysfunction of a company for financial information site Motley Fool. Here you can read about it.

Baby Boomers: "Mad Men" gives a peek at what we encountered

What a gift.  The television series "Mad Men" is giving us a peek into what we might have encountered in the social and legal revolution of the counterculture.  Many of us started out buttoned-down rule-obeyers.  Then we broke open or were broken open to choice.  That included everything from our values or how we saw the world to if we wanted to try to work where we hadn't been able to before such as corporate America.

At Sterling Cooper, a person of color has become a secretary and a Jew has applied for a job as a copywriter.  That represents a paradigm shift for both them and for the established order.   The takeaway from that experience might have been that we were the first generation of Americans who were able to become flexible.  The advantage of that is we have the option of leveraging that capacity for change into our work lives.

Since 2003 when my business derailed [Download Geezerguts] I have gone through several career transitions.   Actually, the old notion of career path has mutated into a mix and match system of just about every kind of way to bring home the bacon.  Somewhere along the line I surrendered the conventional ways of defining and measuring success.  If I can pay my bills and maintain inner peace most of the time, I am doing just fine.  At least in my book and in these days that's all that matters.

Nick Spaeth, 62, Sued Georgetown Law for Alleged Age Discrimination: Is that the way we Baby Boomers should go?

What Baby Boomer who wants to continue working hasn't felt the sting of age discrimination?  It's there.  Yet, many of us have learned how to manage it and not prevent us from making a good living doing what we are good at.

Of course there are those among us who decide to make an issue of it.  Those include Nick Spaeth.  A lawyer, he perceived that he was turned down for a position teaching law at Georgetown Law School because of his age.  Right now Spaeth is 62 years old.  The lawsuit may have merit. The court didn't toss it and has allowed it to move along in the system.

In BLOOMBERG, Michael Kinsley laments discrimination based on age.  And well he should.   It is a tragedy and we are victims of it.  However, life is short and the litigation process is slow moving.  As it grinds on and on, it can eat up the vitality of the plaintiff.   Spaeth could, after years and many appeals by both parties, wind up winning but he might have lost years of being at the top of his game.

Age discrimination?  I have found that the wise path on this is to just suck it up and look for opportunities such as entrepreneurship where our age is irrelevant or even a plus.  The business model for my communications boutique specializing in social media and financial communications is to factor in possible discrimination and create strategies to avoid it.  Incidentally, there is an opening at Facebook in Manhattan doing something I excel at.  I am not pursuing it, for obvious reasons.

Those Age Discrimination Lawsuits

Even in beleaguered industries like newspapers, axed employees are filing lawsuits for age discrimination.  At troubled THE CINCINNATI ENQUIRER, two former editors Joe Fenton and Cathy Rueter have filed complaints.  According to CINCINNATI CITYBEAT, the two contend they were targeted for layoff because they were over-50.

"J Edgar" - Unsympathetic guy

The first time I saw "J Edgar," Clint Eastwood's latest film, I was turned off by the petty creature who had acquired big power and misused it.  Today I tried it out again.  What became obvious was that this unsympathetic guy did have people who cared about him.  That's the issue which grabs us by the throat.

The sweet spot is his mother's love.  Sure it's dominating and is unwilling to accept him as he is.  But it's there and it shaped him.  That's what love, even the evil kind, does.

His administrative assistant sticks with him, even though he is losing his balance.  At the end, she obeys his order to destroy all his personal files.  Had Nixon found that out, she could have gone to prison.

Then there is the man Clyde who is sexually attracted to him and emotionally loyal.  That's the biggest puzzle.  Why did he remain with this madman? 

Should Eastwood have devoted his talent to this little man?  Maybe not.  But he did.  The talent does turn the story into one worth seeing.

Penn State: So many of us Baby Boomers grew up poor & molested

The boys allegedly sexually abused at Second Mile, a charity associated with former Penn State coach Jerry Sandusky, were poor.  They and their families were likely not at all sophisticated about how so-called "good men" could do bad things.  Too much trust tends to go with the territory of being low-income.

As the years went by and more of us Baby Boomers, who grew up in poverty, entered therapy we found out that, yes, we had been molested, both us girls and the guys.  But we never said anything.  We didn't know about laws.  It wasn't until we fell apart that we found out about healing. 

At age 58, I was asked by a therapist if I had been molested.  I wondered then why no one in the mental-health community had asked that question before.  Like most children of disadvantage I had blamed myself.  The therapist put out there that maybe those who should have been protecting me, hadn't.

Lower-income cildren need to be protected about those who contend they are making a difference.  We know from Penn State, and earlier from the lawsuits against the Roman Catholic Church, to be very wary of the altruists in poor neighborhoods.

#OWS - Wrong PR move by powers-that-be [as we counterculture alumni know]

If you went to Twitter #ows or NEW YORK Magazine, you know a lot of sympathy is with the 2000 members of Occupy Wall Street who are back in Zuccotti Park.  After being evicted, issuing a temporary order against the police, and then getting a ruling from Judge Michael Stallman, they are back.  But without their sleeping bags or tents.

Judge Stallman decided it was their First Amendment rights to be in the park.  But they couldn't haul in what they needed for a good night's sleep.  So, the 2000 are at the mercy of the elements.  And Mayor Michael Bloomberg who gave the eviction order is at the mercy of public opinion.

The new world order is made up of techies and social networkers.  No surprise, the wildly popular tech site MASHABLE covered the story as breaking news.  Twitter is where reaction counts. In contrast is the old order of a wealthy mayor and the police, whose image took a big hit this morning.

Seasoned public relations experts such as Jack O'Dwyer, Richard Edelman, and Bob Dilenschneider will be deconstructing this move in detail.  From being one of the alumni of the 1960s counterculture I know from experience that strong-arming protesters only engendered sympathy.  

Occupy Wall Street v Chicago Seven

Our generation, at least the liberal front, had the Chicago Seven.  Those defendants became the saints of our time, fighting the battle in court for all the good things America was supposed to be about.

The new generation has the five dozen protesters who will be arraigned in court in New York for disorderly conduct during the Brooklyn Bridge Occupy Wall Street.   As BLOOMBERG LAW reports, they will be represented by National Lawyers Guild attorney Martin Stolar.

Participating or even deconstructing this kind of political activism provides a tutorial to generations about the many tools available to make change happen.  We Baby Boomers spent our early years in Eisenhower conformity and "Father Knows Best" family values.  Then the counterculture movement broke open other values to us.  We went to the school of activism for several years, then headed into American capitalism to work for the Fortune 500.  That ability to adapt has equipped us well for the sustained volatility of the current global economy, disrupted by technology.

Death & Paperwork

The death of the last remaining parent means a lot of things.  At the top of the list is that we are the next to go.  In addition to that emotional trauma is a ton of paperwork to handle.

In the new site in the blogosphere "Outskirted," the author who chooses to be anonymous describes the paper chase.   It seems like it will never end.  Here is that saga. Meanwhile, like all of us who are getting older, she's facing changes like divorce, sending the oldest child to college, returning to a career she left behind to mother, and wondering if love can still be in the cards.

You can follow"Outskirted" daily through those transitions.