I told my kids, as I would tell anyone graduating high school or college. Have a plan to work for yourself by the time you reach 40. Because after that, they will look for any reason to get rid of you.
I started at 26, best decision ever.
More like 50-55 and depends on the job/company, but I think the biggest issue for a lot is more its far harder for white men to move up than it used to be. Probably 3-4x as hard. If you aren’t in the top 10% in your line of work, forget about regular promotions as a straight white male.
You are so right. I started with my last employer in 1987, and worked my way into being virtually irreplaceable, by way of experience and hard work and long hours. In 2012, after 24.5 years, they decided to ditch me anyway.
My division of a large corp had been sold to a larger corp in 1999, and part of the sales agreement was that legacy employees would keep the same retirement benefits, which included half again pension after 25 years.
I had my revenge for the layoff when the TWO young women they hired to replace me both quit in less than 30 days, complaining about overwork.