Those of us in the 40+ category, somewhere between Baby Boomers and Generation X, have all been in one of two places.
I’m talking about getting strung out in a futile job where the prospect of being downsized, right-sized or outsized right out the outdoor is possible, probably probable, and probably already about to happen.
And I’m talking about it having already happened. And like myself, rampaging through hundreds of job boards, zapping resumes through cyberspace, attending scores of job fairs and job clubs where free bananas and cookies abound, and waiting for that one call, for that one interview, that might just lead to that one job, where again..
We get the next fix at the next job, and go through the same hell, again, grateful to be employed to pay the bills and keep the roof over our heads, miserable to know we are there in the first place, and how we ended up there in the first place.
Well, we’ve been strung out as working addicts for too long, frazzled almost to death in our cubes or out on the factory floor, wondering what we’re doing there in the first place. We know that no matter what, our jobs are not secure.
We are burning ourselves out, for the sake of being burnt at the stake.
(And why does this man look so forgiving?)
It’s the intent of this site to for us not to be so forgiving. It is my hope that we can vent, inform, rage, recuperate, and find a way to move our class – the class of the middle-aged, unappreciated man and woman – to front and center of the social and political arenas.
It is my hope that here, the dying class that is the backbone of America, the working 40+ Joes and Janes and the almost out-of-work Jims and Jessicas and the out-of-work Jerrys and Jennies, can revitalize itself and take back its right as the core of this country’s greatness.
It is my wish that we waste cases of the working world get ourselves off of the addiction of working futility and reinvent the idea of career. Because there was a time when career meant upward mobility, success, pride and stability. And we can get back to that idea.
As a network, as a force, as a movement, we can get back to that idea: work as a right, as a source of pride and inspiration. Let’s get it going, now!
Jake desJardins
