Over-50

COVID-19 Pillages Our Memory Bank

The business of Ann Arbor, Michigan isn't really the university based there.

Rather it's embedded in all the industries supplying services and products to the 45,000 in that academic community. Those range from real estate which leases rooms and apartments to cheap wine and salty chips for partying. 

Because of COVID-19, which has resurged, that business is on life support. Business Insider points out how some entrepreneurs have reinvented their enterprises for the new realities. But the revenue remains lousy.

And things don't look promising for the 2020 - 2021 academic year. As that kicks off, the University of Michigan will provide a hybrid of in-person and online instruction. After Thanksgiving it will be all online. Then all courses will be halted until after MLK day. 

Along with this financial impact, there is the disruption to nostalgia.

For years University of Michigan alumni have circled back to Ann Arbor for time travel to that important part of our lives. I would revisit the restaurants and bookstores. A favorite was doing a walking tour of all the badly furnished "firetraps" I had rented during my seven years of doctoral studies. When living the life of the mind, we didn't need much.

Pre-COVID-19, I did return to Ann Arbor last August. Every year there are more university buildings and more upscale shops. But the ethos of extreme self-confidence was there. Everyone, it seemed, believed she or he was destined for success. 

I won't be returning this August. Instead, I have to reconfigure my memory bank to treasure another kind of seminal experience. But that won't be easy.

Because of global COVID-19, I can't absorb the ambiance of Calle de San Francisco in Barcelona, Spain. There, in the 1970s, I had leveraged my academic Spanish training to work in the hospitality industry. Those were days of heaven. Look, Mom, I am thinking in Spanish. Back then, there was the Ah-Ha moment that I was good at something else beside getting good grades in school. 

Reflection: The unacknowledged victim of COVID-19 is nostalgia. We can't go back, at least not now and not in the near future. 

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Career Interrupted - Shift Mindset to Earning a Living

Even before COVID-19, ProPublica documented two brutal realities.

One was that if you are 50 or older, the odds were not on your side that you would hold onto that good career job. You would be forced out. That could take the form of being presented with an early-retirement package, being laid off, or getting the ax through a termination with cause. 

And, two, there was only a 10% chance you would earn comparable compensation in your next job.

COVID-19, of course, has darkened that employment situation. 

Currently, 2.4 million between age 55 and 64 are out of work, primarily because of COVID-19. Among those 65 or older, beginning in March when the pandemic took over, the jobless rate surged from 3.7% to 15.6%.

Clearly, there is a phenomenon taking shape on a large scale: Career Interrupted. Losing a job, whatever way that occurs, could mean the end to that career for the aging.

However, that doesn't have to mean the end of being able to earn decent or even abundant income from work per se. AARP documents that twice as many of those 65 or older are working currently than had been in 1985. Their earning power can be good.

The ways they are bringing in income may not be through what had been their long-term career path. 

A replacement that is gaining traction, confirms the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, is entrepreneurship. During their former careers, the aging had developed the skills and confidence to operate their own business. That could be a franchise in which the structure is there. Or it could be an enterprise from scratch.

Also, there is the exploding-in-growth field of contract assignments. Those laid-off over-60 in-house lawyers can register for contract document review work. The compensation will not be peanuts. But it won't match the full-time former salary, plus benefits.

Another option is training, including online, to be certified in a line of work that is new to the professional. That could be an Google AdWord expert or a counselor for substance abusers.

What might be a surprise to some seniors is that in states such as Arizona which are aging-friendly it's possible to pick up full-time employment, which includes benefits. The examples range from call centers to sales. There are versions which are totally work-at-home.

Given the volatility of the labor market, it might not just be the aging who have to make the mindset shift from careerism to simply earning a living. I recommend to Gen Z and their parents that's how they assess educational majors, minors, internships, and part-time jobs.

The issue is: What combination will equip members of Gen Z to start and continue to make a good living?

Careers come and careers go. Just ask journalists. In the 2017 book "Disrupted," former reporter Dan Lyons tells his story of extreme hustle, after he was knocked out of the media box. 

Across generations, the scary reality is putting together what can ensure, at least for a while, financial survival. A useful guide is the book "What Color Is Your Parachute?" Each year an updated edition comes out. Public libraries stock multiple copies. And Amazon sells them used as well as new.

The timeframe has mutated into just-in-time for making a buck.

John Walters, who's in the creative niches, advised those in the difficult field of the arts to position and package work as a kind of hitchhiking. Stick out the thumb. The wait might be tedious. But eventually someone stops and says, "Hop in." For a while, yeah, it's okay. A good living is being earned. Walters' book is "Make Trouble." That attitude seems to apply to most lines of work, not just the creative arts. 

In my late 50s, I was an early adopter of blogging. A public relations agency said, "Hop in." I earned outstanding compensation for four year. Then, it was back on the road with my thumb out. Since then, that's been the ritual, over and over again.

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Olivia de Havilland: Happy 104th Birthday

Today, iconic film, theatre, and television actress Olivia de Havilland is 104th years young. 

Her performances brought such joy over the decades.

But her legacy might be the she is a symbol of endurance. She outlived the Golden Age of Hollywood. A legal feud in which she claimed she was misrepresented. And her own family, including her sister Joan Fontaine. 

She is a role model for not allowing aging to tarnish her brand. 

Happy birthday, Ms. de Havilland.

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The Most Difficult Conversation: Aging Talking Real About Aging With Other Aging People

"I am getting older. I am not old."

That's what a 75-year-old said to me when I finally get real in talking about aging. He was in my support group for those over-50.

First I had brought up another issue. That was the struggle to see my four-legged son LOV through what will be his last months. In early June he had been diagnosed with congestive heart failure.

Then I dropped the bomb: For years and years I have been unable to get my head around the reality that I was no longer middle aged or even very young old. What was obvious to the world but not to me was that I was now in the senior citizen nitch.

Never before had I reached out about aging. Not in the kind of way that invited real conversation. You bet, talking about aging with other aging people is a very difficult conversation. 

The other group members got that I was being real. So they were real in their sharing about their own aging. 

The experience was the most liberating I had had since August 1981. That's when I admitted and accepted that I was an alcoholic. A million-ton boulder was lifted off my shoulders.

"I never had a childhood." 

That's what a man in his late 60s said. He shared that he was the oldest of seven siblings. You know the rest. Recently a therapist brought it to his consciousness that he had missed out on being young and carefree. Now, instead of a bucket list, he was focusing on how to learn to have fun. 

"I can't change that I'm this old." 

A 50-something who had recently been laid off managed to get that out. Wasn't easy. He knew that age bias was hindering his job hunt. I had a sense this was the first time he had accepted that reality. My hunch is now that he did his job search would be more effective.

Then they turned the floor back to me. The most difficult share was this: I was eaten alive with envy when I spotted on LinkedIn all the amazing things my colleagues in their late 30s were accomplishing. As we age the world of youth continues to gallop along, doesn't it.

No, I won't need to talk about aging again, at least not any time soon. I did my talk.

How did I manage to do that?

The pain of holding in all that conflict was growing. My sense of self was shrinking. And what I did accomplish in my professional life I derided.

So, I had to find other aging human beings to talk straight with. And that I did.

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The Future of Work: Pay to Play Could Become Standard (especially for over-50)

On its website, Rooftop Slushie describes itself as platform in which job searchers can anonymously ask questions about careers and seasoned professionals, who have been vetted, answer them.

One of the categories on the website does indicate that the latter can earn money doing this. Well, since career experts and executive coaches bill all the time for such help, the transaction seems benign.

However, Business Insider picks up on the possible undercurrent of lousy ethics. The media outlet portrays the platform as really about "selling" job referrals for $20 to $50 each. Those interested in applying for a job at the tech giants, especially Facebook and Google, present themselves anonymously to those employed at those corporations. The professional vets them, if appropriate makes a referral, and then makes a few bucks on the side.

Business Insider observes that some experts in the job-hunt niche have ethical concerns about this kind of transaction. 

In addition, some might wonder why do employees in major tech corporations, who likely earn better than average compensation, engage in this process? Doesn't that raise a red flag about how much clout they have in their sector? 

On the other hand, there are myriad digital sites oriented toward seeking work that are essentially pay to play.

One is LinkedIn ProFinder. That platform operates like this. Freelancers, including those searching for public relations assignments, sign up for the version of Premium which offers access to ProFinder. The cost is $59.99 a month, with a discount for an annual subscription. Cancellation with full refund is possible for 60 days. Note that it's the freelancer, not those hiring, who ponies up the fee. This is very different from the executive search business. 

After signing up, what LinkedIn assesses as appropriate opportunities appear in the LinkedIn inbox. During that month, the freelancer can provide a proposal for 10. The prospect may or may not respond. Along with the ability to submit proposals the subscriber has other benefits such as contacting 15 LinkedIn members whose profile is behind the Premium wall. 

Another pay-to-play platform is Upwork. It also charges the freelance the fee. For billings under $500, that will be 20% of the revenue. But that goes down to 5% for a lifetime when billings reach $10,000.

The problem with Upwork is that it's a global platform. In bidding for assignments, the U.S. ghostwriter could be competing with a communications expert in India who is willing to accept considerably less. 

Ethics?

For those who are ambitious to land a good job in a brandname corporation and for those who need freelance work to keep a roof over their heads, the issue of ethics may seem irrelevant. To those analyzing that dynamic it could be assessed as exploitation.

Meanwhile, as The New York Times detailed, the second wave of COVID-19 layoffs hit white collar workers hard. Many have been unable to land comparable jobs or even freelance assignments. Their professional lives are in limbo. Given that the worst might not have kicked off in COVID-19, they may be in limbo for years. To them pay to play might not seem reprehensible. 

Actually, pay to play could be the salvation of the over-50. ProPublica research hammered that they are likely to be forced out of those good jobs. Also, if they are hired for another job, the odds are that only one in 10 of them will earn comparable income. 

A useful guide for the hunt for work is "What Color Is Your Parachute?" It points out that those who are hired are not necessarily the best at what they do. Their edge is that they become the best at marketing themselves. Each year a new version is published. Multiple copies are available at the public library. Amazon sells used ones. 

No surprise, more media outlets are chatting up Universal Basic Income (UBI). One way of describing that concept is this: Those opting out of work receive a monthly strings-fee stipend. They can apply those funds to paying the rent and/or financing their art. 

The Future of Work may be less and less work available. Pay to play may become standard, configured to pass ethical and legal muster.

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Traveling and Retirement - If It's Tuesday, It Probably Won't Be Belgium

The travel brand communicated extreme pleasure, at least for tourists who had retired. And, enough pain to complain about for business people whose work involved too much time on planes and hotels far from home.

That brand identity has fallen apart.

According to Airbnb head Brian Chesky, it might never be able to be put together again.

In an interview with influential Axios, Chesky fingered a permanent shift from travel which involved planes, border-crossing, city tourism, and primarily for business reasons. Instead, any form of wanderlust will consist of getting there by car, sticking within about 200 miles, heading for small cities, and sheltering in homes, not hotels or motels.

A big gainer will be open-air natural recreational areas such as National Parks. This weekend in the Midwest, parks were full. In addition to the cars that Chesky mentioned, there had been plenty of motorcycles, motor scooters, and bicycles (traditional and e-). 

Of course, the disruption has been put in play by COVID-19. 

And, again travel writers will have to return to the drawing board to focus on what people are interested in.

That upheaval in subject matter correlated with the coming of the Airbnb concept. Tourists wanted to experience the local scene, say in Barcelona, Spain, in an intimate way. Airbnb made it possible to stay where the natives lived and worked, not in a standalone hotel chain. And the travel media directed writers to ferret out where the insiders really went to eat, drink, flirt, and gawk. Out were the usual tourist traps.

In the COVID-19 era and afterward travel writers will be digging around for what's undiscovered fun in natural surroundings and in small whatever.

For example, there could be a story with lots of action-packed photos of how the Coast Guard rescued a small boat in a state park surrounding Lake Erie in Toledo, Ohio. Or, where the regulars contend fishing is best in that location. As for commercial tie-ins there will be plugs for where to rent a bicycle or motor scooter and what private homes host guests (including w/o a middleman such as Airbnb). Also, cover tenting. What facilities allow pets?

The old jingle about Seeing the USA in Your Chevrolet might mutate into Hop on a Honda 125 and Tent Your Way to Enlightenment. The new travel symbol could be couples, of all sexual configurations, motorcycling across the USA. Already, I am observing more three-wheeler cycles wherever. 

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Bob Dilenschneider, 76 - In the Era of The Social Brand as Everything (and when Google is your homepage)

How is your social media branding doing?

Likely if it's serving your professional needs well, it probably doesn't include a book you published recently.

In digital, "real" books are an anachronism, with some exceptions.

Sure, though, knock out some free e-ones as a download on your website. But, since Google is your new homepage, that website per se has less and less ROI.

Now and then, Google will pick up some content from your website. But the game is actually about what makes it onto search engines about you. Add onto that reality this: Google is currently a major part of your resume. Employers review your social branding. 

And, just as important, in the era of Amazon - as public relations player Bob Dilenschneider should have known - publishing a book is a risk. If it doesn't get traction in Amazon rankings, that book puts the author in what could be called The Amazon Corridor of Shame."

Here's an interesting tidbit in the annals of branding. There's a lesson here. 

On December 31, 2019, scheduled to help folks with their own decisions in 2020, Dilenschneider published the book "Decisions."

Since then, it never did catch fire.

Right now, at 6:00P.M. ET, its Amazon ranking is 700,749.

The number of customers who had reviewed: six.

No Big Brandname has given it gush. After all, both the long-time business celebrities on Dilenschneider's network - Roger Ailes and Jack Welch - have died.

The composite social brand is what counts, not being the author of a book, at least not one which isn't a best-seller or a juicy expose.

The elephant in the room is: Could "Decisions" or, by extension, any book had done okay had there been no coronavirus? A judge on the bench assessing who's in and who's out would rule that issue speculative and irrelevant. All that matters is what's getting attention for and enhancing the social brand in the now. 

Those in the trenches of executive communications in the Fortune 100 and in marketing for BigLaw, for instance, have to embrace that development. That is, if they want to generate results for their clients.

In addition, they are probably struggling to hold onto their jobs during the latest Stalin-like purge of white-collar workers. As The New York Times reports, once they are knocked out the 2020 sandbox, they wind up in suspended animation. Too many do not understand how to grab onto work in a very different phase of the American labor market. They may never land comparable jobs. 

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Want a Very Long Life? - Be in a City with Walkable Neighborhoods

Research at Washington State University headed by Rajan Bhardwaj found a correlation between long lives and walkable urban neighborhoods.

Actually, that should be obvious to the aging who have already adopted that lifestyle.

The benefits are comprehensive.

Not only is there the exercise piece.

There's the social one. The traditional isolation associated with aging goes poof.  

I would add to this the financial plus. Being in a neighborhood which does not require car ownership can cut more than $700 monthly from a budget, documents Nerd Wallet. Easing financial pressure can, in itself, be a life-extender.

The ideal city to make home is one with excellent public transit. They range from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to Tucson, Arizona.

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How Did We Get Here? - Mostly, Painfully

These times mirror those of the Counterculture. During revolutions many hold as sacred the belief that they are held to a higher code of law, not the conventional one. 

So, it is no surprise, as Law.com reports, that Colinford Mattis has plenty of supporters. They spoke up during the conference call which was how his arraignment had been conducted. He took a plea of not guilty to 7 counts.

Laypeople who aren't sophisticated in legal matters know that he is accused of being in the loop of a Molotov Cocktail being thrown during a George Floyd protest.

In addition, there had been an open letter from the New York Law University on June 17th in support of him. Mattis is a 2016 alumnus of that law school. 

However, the compassion for his alleged form of response to a system he might have perceived as racist (he is a man of color) is not universal. On social networks I have received push-back. I shared my understanding of how such anger could build up and then burst through safety valves. 

The wrench in the works of supporting Mattis is this: Civil disobedience is supposed to be non-violent.

Back in the Counterculture, we had joined hands, marched, and sang "We Shall Overcome" during the human rights movements of the early 1970. We didn't condone those who had thrown rocks through the windows of the Ann Arbor, Michigan banks surrounding the University of Michigan campus. We tutored our parents in what we considered was right thinking. We dragged our younger siblings along to D.C. on protest trains.

Nobody has to condone Mattis' alleged act of violence. But attention must be paid to what a man of color might have endured jumping through the hoops he had. Those range from matriculating in the Ivy League to being an associate at an elite law firm.

A female from an immigrant ghetto in Jersey City, New Jersey during the vestiges of the Frank Hague Machine, I felt like a novelty in a circus. It was palpable, at least to me. I experienced being watched as I struggled to navigate doctoral studies at the U of M, first year at Harvard Law, and being an executive ghostwriter/speechwriter for the Fortune 100. Therapists told me that I was very angry.

I call that phenomenon The Curse of Opportunity.

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Lost Everything? - It Still Might Not Be Smart to File for Personal Bankruptcy

"Federal law allows private employers to turn down a job applicant because of a past bankruptcy filing …" - Katy Stech Ferek, The Wall Street Journal, June 24, 2020.

Each year, about 800,000 individuals file for personal bankruptcy. They might feel great relief at ending the nightmare of struggling with debt - and debt collectors.

Unfortunately, some supposed experts in the helping professions such as therapists might have recommended that they take that radical step to gain control of finances.

Yeah, sure, and they may never work again.

The taboo about hiring those who had filed for bankruptcy extends beyond positions involving handling of money. Those with that on the record might not even be able to handle the French-Fry cooking equipment. 

Post-9/11, after my industry had collapsed, my nest egg had gone poof, and I struggled with clinical depression, a psychotherapist saw bankruptcy as an option. It was never explained to me that such a course of action could slam shut future doors for employment. 

Fortunately, real estate was still booming. I was blessed: I sold my house for a king's ransom which paid off 80% of debt. Without bankruptcy on my record, I could get survival jobs. Those provided income, medical health coverage, and confidence until I could launch a new enterprise. 

No surprise, banning employers from discriminating against job applicants because of a history of bankruptcy has become a focus among consumer advocates.

Talk about a Catch-22. Those file for bankruptcy because they are in a financial pickle. Then they can't find jobs because they had gone the bankruptcy route.

As is well known, many filings result from bad luck. Not financial recklessness. There had been big medical bills not covered by insurance. A job is lost at the wrong time in the wrong place. The divorce wipes out assets. 

During COVID-19, of course, the number of filings is escalating. The double whammy is that those filings probably won't be able to rent an apartment either. 

The triple whammy is that those over-50 are also encountering age bias in seeking employment. Even before COVID-19, the odds were against them.

ProPublica found that the majority of aging workers will be forced out their jobs. Many of them are professionals.

Bloomberg documented that the second wave of layoffs as a result of the pandemic is hitting white collar workers hard.

Meanwhile, The New York Times confirmed they are not landing replacement ones. Most are in "limbo."

For some it will take years for their industry as a hospitality to bounce back. For others their industry such as editorial in media may not come back. To them, bankruptcy might be seductive. That could prevent their ever working again.

Reflection: The bankruptcies filed during the pandemic could create a permanent class of The Unemployables. 

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