We Over-50 Let Ourselves Be Bullied By Tech - 4 Lessons Learned

"Tech giants that have often sailed above the economy's turmoil can't escape the current downturn's pain ..." - Axios, July 29, 2022.

LinkedIn is keeping score on how many are being laid off in tech. More will become unemployed as the global slowdown deepens. The glutted market of those looking for work will make it increasingly difficult to find work. Recall the reductions-in-force in establishment media with the introduction of digital. Many journalists had to retrain for new career paths.

During the heyday of tech, there was plenty of gleeful bullying of us over-50. They made it their business to use their in-lingo to exclude us from full participation in the conversation. A business model wasn't a business model anymore. It was a platform for growth. Revenue was so 20th century. Talk only about growth.

No, don't even think about phoning them. 

There was the gush about being recognized in something about something as among the 40-under-40. Often that was a cute attempt of denigrating those-over-50. Now, maybe more organizations will establish a 50-over-50.

Amazingly, proven-out professionals stood for it. There was no attempt to negotiate a common language, metrics for assessing outcomes, modes of communications, or standardization of how to present credentials. 

So, what lessons have we learned so that won't happen again?

Here are 4:

The generational war has been going in America since 1964. That's detailed in the 2022 book by Robert S. McElvaine "The Times They Were A-Changing'" What that called for was some adaptation. Not a total embrace of what was being put out there on multiple fronts. Then and now the reality is this: We only need to figure out what changes we have to make and some ongoing course correction. No, we don't have to become clones of those in what is saluted as the emerging cool culture. It doesn't seem that Warren Buffett or Clint Eastwood care about being cool.

Business is business. We have a perfect right to question assumptions of what is being touted as "platforms" for profitability. Obviously there wasn't enough of that with Theranos. Its founder and a key executive are on their way to prison. 

Aging doesn't make us stupid. In cognitive processing we might not be as fast as those under-30. But it is standard in business to say, "I have to think about it." 

Negotiate the terms and conditions important to us. Yes, we feel more comfortable using the phone. No, we don't need all the continual input provided by collaboration software such as Slack. Just give us the consensus in real time.

With retirement becoming an anachronism more of us over-50 will be in the workforce. That means it will be increasingly multi-generational. Right now it consists of:

The Silent Generation

Baby Boomers

Generation X

Millennials

Generation Z.

Soon enough there will be members of Generation Alpha.

We have to maintain our presence as equals. Different, yes. But equal. 

The challenge is to respect the differences which made us the unique generation we are. 

A sign of that proud sense of self is this. In an Insider article the 63-year-old chairperson of Paul Weiss law firm Brad Karp made a reference to a 1950s television show. That was "I Love Lucy."

Karp cited the iconic - at least to us boomers and members of the Silent Generation - episode when Lucy and Ethel get jobs in the chocolate factory. As the automated line outpaces their own manual motor skills they try to outfox things by, yes, stuffing their mouths with the chocolate.

A less self-assured professional would have kept such a pop culture reference to 2022. For example, the Hulu "Victoria's Secret" documentary about too much change, too fast. 

It had been Eleanor Roosevelt who observed that no one can make us feel less-than. We are the ones who allow that. We allowed just that in the era when tech dominated.

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