The cool ones

If you’re around my age and you lost your job tomorrow, how hard would it be to find a new one?

Gen Xers are having a career crisis – they have lots of skills, expertise and experience, but ageism is a bitch.

News stories about Gen Xers and their career and sandwich generation woes are rampant at the moment. I’m not entirely sure why, but I enjoy reading them all. It’s a bit like my fascination with reading articles about redheads or lefthanders or Pisceans – its fun to see what bits they get right (from my perspective) and what parts are way off.

Vogue published a story last week called “What if Gen Xers are actually the cool ones“. This one didn’t really speak to me, other than having a great headline, praising our music and fashion sense and featuring this line:

“Some of the coolest people to ever grace the planet are Gen X: Chloë Sevigny, Alexander McQueen, Winona Ryder, Naomi Campbell, Kate Moss.”

So Vogue.

Oh, and I quite like the closing line too: “As Gen Zers and millennials continue to argue over who’s more cringe, or who was born cooler, I’d like to offer an alternative viewpoint, which is this: maybe it’s neither of us. And maybe we weren’t ever the only ones in the race.”

Nice.

The Vogue article also introduced me to the fact there’s something called “Vogue Business” (seriously). Vogue Business published an article about how Gen X is more tapped into fashion, culture and tech than the 50-somethings of the past, but I can’t tell you anything more as it’s behind a paywall.

I had one last free article available on Forbes, so I clicked on “Generation-X At Work: Confronting Ageism, Competition, And A Challenging Job Market“.

I did feel an uncomfortable affinity with that one.

The opening sentence: “Generation-X, born between 1965 and 1980, find themselves in a challenging position. Now in their 40s and 50s, and some pushing 60, they are supposed to be at the peak of their careers, calling the shots and cashing in on decades of experience.”

However, the article notes, ageism is hitting my generation “with a vengeance”.

“Despite the huge wins, many [Gen Xers] are facing a career plateau, or worse, a freefall,” the article notes.

“Layoffs in tech, media, and other sectors have hit this generation hard. Take creative fields, for instance. A photographer or journalist in their 50s might find their skills labelled obsolete as TikTok campaigns replace glossy spreads. Even in corporate roles, the push for digital natives has left seasoned Gen Xers scrambling to prove that they are not dinosaurs.”

I feel incredibly lucky from that perspective. I’m a print journalist who successfully transitioned to having the word “digital” in her job title.

It was bit of a career rollercoaster until I finally found a boss who believed in my skills and ignored my birthdate.

I currently work in an office where there are just as many over 45 year olds as under 45 year olds. Isn’t that awesome?

I startled one of the young blokes last week by talking about retirement, he almost fell over when I told him I was three years off 60.

He kindly said I didn’t look it, which is a bit of a lie. I am looking old, but I act younger than my age … well, apart from when my hip is playing up.

But many of my contemporaries are finding it bloody hard to get new jobs after being made redundant. Ageism is way worse than sexism ever was … actually, now it’s a double whammy if you’re a woman and you’re over 50.

I would be feeling very nervous if I was back on the job market. And A.I. makes me wonder if there will even be a place for communications managers, digital or otherwise, in the coming years.

So, while the Vogue writer might think Gen X are the cool ones, she’s unfortunately in the minority.

How do we change that? Apart from anything it’s a bit nuts to be adding to the social security burden by not employing us.

The 85-plus age group in Australia is expected to double within the next 14 years.

This means that by 2034, the number of Australians aged 85 and over will rise from just under 600,000 to 1.2 million.

There will be huge pressure on younger generations to find care for ageing Boomers. Millennials and Gen Z will need all the tax-paying help from Gen X they can get.

They should think about that the next time they decide to not hire one of us because we’re “over qualified” or “not the right fit” for a job opening.

Soap box moment over. Have a cracker of a weekend. I’m off tonight to a pop-up Cuban bar … cheers!

Song of the day: The Human League “Don’t you want me?”