Replies

That’s another interesting aspect of where I think we are right now.

Once upon a time, someone could start at the bottom. Entry-level stuff. Work hard, show dedication and loyalty and you move up. Soon you can be a low-level middle manager and maybe lead a team of 5. If you have what it takes, you move up again and mange a team of 25 — then 100. Over a period of years, with a lot of hardwork, you might make District Manager or VP or something sweet. That corner office is waiting for you if you have the right stuff.

But that’s largely gone.

They got rid of middle management. They became a lot more efficient and productive.

Now, you start at the bottom and you stay at the bottom. There is no where to move up to. Middle Management is gone. So, you don’t have a “career” — you have a “job”. And your pay sucks and you have no future.

Some folks start at the top, with a fancy Ivy League degree and some connections. They come in with a salary of $150,000 and they move up from there. They switch from running a Beer company, to an Airline, to an Insurance firm. They don’t understand any of these industries, but they all rotate from top job to top job. But the people at the bottom stay at the bottom.

I don’t think many older workers understand how fundamentally the workplace has been transformed for a lot of people. Many jobs are BS jobs and even the “real” jobs have no future. No where to move up to.

There are exceptions, of course. But at a deep level we now have an economy of hopelessness.