Yup, I agree that workers over 50 are not valued or even seen much in the work place. The exception may be teachers in public schools and in universities where there is some protection/tenure. I trained as an occupational therapist, and was always amazed that there were so few workers over 40 in health care. I realize that some jobs are very physically demanding, such as physical therapy, but not all are. And where do older workers go, who wnat/need to work? Whether it's in sales (retail/outside), office work, IT, anything----if there's so many of us baby boomers, where are we?
Definitely there's age discrimination. Saw it blatantly in England about ten years ago---seems to be legal for want ads to specify that they want a female 20 to 24 years old!
And saw it here, when DH lost his job in pharmaceutical sales due to a buy-out. With over ten years experience in the field and graduate school in the sciences, we were sure he could easily find another. How naive! Pharmaceutical sales jobs now go to females in their twenties and thirties.
I'm not imagining this---check out the next time you go to your doctor's office and see if there aren't a number of young, attractive (usually blonde) women in suits and sample cases below 35... And a news article came out acknowledging that pharmaceutical companies are now recruiting college cheerleaders, regardless of their majors, because they think they're peppy and enthusiastic!
At the age of 52, I did become burnt out on my job. But this was because I was striving for and achieving maximum productivity and quality---and not strictly a function of age. At the pace I was going (doing two to four times what others people in my position do), I couldn't continue---but I question whether someone half my age would be able to keep the pace for more than a year or two--or would even be willing to.
Younger workers may techically have more physical energy, but if they party til late at night, they may not come in to the work the next day with any more energy than a middle aged person. And they tend to have more personal crises than older workers, and this drains time, productivity, and concentration. I think younger workers are less committed---to hard work and staying with a company. And they're less skilled at thinking and problem-solving---look how dumbed down education has gotten.
I do think older workers have something to contribute to the work world---but I'm sure glad that I'm not in the cold, cruel work world anymore!
But I had to implement a "new" performance management systems in the final months. The problem was it was essentially the same failed system I developed 22 years previously and dumped 10 years after that. I found myself being the cynical old timer thinking "been there, done that..." I knew I was leaving and my subordinate directors were going to have to continue dealing with this BS, so I didn't voice my despair and instead tried to focus on how they could best implement the dumb thing. At that point I realized that the organization might not know it but they were better off without me. It helps to have a top boss who cares and is enthusiastic about what he or she is doing. In my later years I could protect my employees so was valued by them, but I probably wasn't the best leader.
