A Gold Pin and a Hearty Handshake

My father is officially retired as of March 1 of this month. Hurray! He worked for a large multi-national corporation for 33 years, starting out in 1972 as a lowly clerk in the credit department, working his way up the ranks, getting transferred to a different state and having to move his family, surviving a corporate merger and dodging through many layoffs. The company held a retirement luncheon for him yesterday and, besides my mom, my youngest sister, Mr. Random, and myself were all in attendance . . .

There were people there from all parts of his career – from his days starting out in Philly, to those who mentored him and assisted him in his diversity training days, to those who worked with him in his current department until he retired. There were many speeches – people stating how much they learned from my dad, how much joy and professionalism he brought to his job, how he knew his stuff. My dad even mad a short speech – made all the remarkable because he never makes short speeches, but also he said told us later that he had to cut it short because he was about to cry . . .

Can anyone imagine working in the same place for 30 years anymore? I mean, even if you wanted to? This morning I was watching CNBC, and the reporters were talking about how GM and its unions were about to make a statement about buyouts for 100,000 of its workers. (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/22/AR2006032200576.html) One of the reporters remarked that maybe now the GM workers would finally realize that “the gravy train was over.” Gravy train? Are these people on crack? These people work hard for their paychecks and have for most of their lives, depending on the money to live on and raise families and all people ask is to be paid a decent wage and have some decent benefits. But that’s not supposed to be a given anymore. Today the attitude seems to be “you should be glad that we even pay you . . .”

During my lunch, my dad talked about how their company was continuing to move jobs overseas, because a guy with an MBA and 10 years experience living in Bangkok only gets $20K a year – so of course it’s cheaper to go over there. Many of their departments are getting shipped elsewhere – Canada, Argentina, Thailand, Mexico . . .

I guess I’m writing this because even on this happy occasion, I am scared. I’m scared because me and Mr. Random aren’t going to have a pension to fall back on, like my parents. I’m scared because we may be fighting Random Cat #8 for the tuna fish. I’m scared, because we just may have to have kids so we have a chance of not ending up out on the street. Yes, we have our 401Ks and IRAs, but they’ve gone up and down so much who knows how much we’ll have in a 30-35 years – and even then it probably won’t be enough. I’m scared because no one seems to care that decent paying jobs are disappearing and lousy paying ones are popping up in their place – and even those aren’t certain. I’m scared because now businesses only care about employees in so much as how much they can use them up before they throw them away – and then wonder why no one feels particularly productive . . .

I guess it will be OK – working for a non-profit, people will always need help of some sort, and will need people to provide that help, person to person – but if I were just coming out of school right now, I would have no idea what to do or what sorts of plans to make . . .

Seeing someone retire just makes you start thinking of your own future all the more. Peering into the abyss, what is in store for us? I doubt that when it is our time we’ll get a gold pin and a hearty handshake. I envy my dad, now deciding what he wants to do next and having the luxury to pick and choose his projects . . . will I ever be able to do that? Will you? . . .