What's age got to do with it? Plenty.

When The New York Times published an article about the dour job prospects for women over 50, I rejoiced - not because I find such things worthy of celebration, but because I could relate.
As I write this, it dawns on me that some will think it's sour grapes or there is something pathologically wrong with me. Maybe I get into job interviews and step on the interviewer's foot, show up late, smoke in the hallway or tell him all about how I like to make queer kitten sounds at the office Christmas soirée.
But no, no, that's not me, and hasn't been me for all of the 23 or so job interviews I've had in this wonderful field we call journalism. What I have suffered from, though, is middle-aged woman syndrome. No longer taut, I find that projecting I can still be "taught" is tricky. Unless I'm interviewing with women my age or older, there is clear prejudice. Wait, back up, no it's not clear, it never is.
I just lost out on a job I actually wasn't sure I wanted, but it was a good job with benefits so I wanted it. What I didn't expect, though, was to not get a second interview. The initial interview lasted an hour and a half. I felt I was, for once, on solid footing. But then I didn't get it, and it took a long time to hear that I wasn't getting the second interview. I became very emotional that day, as if the final cog on the wheel that was holding me together was finally spent. I'd had it.
At least for now.
Problem was, I'd shared with the interviewer that I'd just written a paper on the same subject I'd be covering for him and my client had called it "brilliant." Apparently this came off as confrontational, and it would be disingenous of me to claim I wasn't trying to screw the knife in just a wee bit. It certainly didn't help reverse the decision. It just shone a light for me, once again, on the disconnect between what I was getting from job interviews versus my freelance career.
After being told at a top news agency in London that I couldn't interview powerful people, or could I?, I nabbed an interview with Yale Nobelist Thomas Steitz for Scientific American (Oct. 2009). After being asked if I was "quick enough" for a job in lower Manhattan, if I could keep up, I juggled assignments for at least five clients a week, rarely breaking for weekend frivolity. And after trying to prove my business writing credentials at a top wire service (granted, an informational interview), I wrote three stories for Institutional Investor (late 2015, early 2016).
The list goes on.
When I was 43 and under, when I was thin and beautiful, I got jobs easily - sometimes it felt like too easily. How is it that it was easier to get a job at 43 for a financial publication in lower Manhattan than it is now, when I have reported for Institutional Investor, E&T in the UK, MIT Technology Review, The Prague Post, The Commercial Record, Slate, Entrepreneur, The Hudson Dispatch, New Haven Advocate, Yankee, Cape Cod Life, AARP, and other publications? I can't even remember them all at this point.
When I was leaving my last job in early 2008, a man warned me it would be rough for me, if not then then very soon. I balked. "Aah, I'm fine." I thought him to be chauvenistic at worst, an alarmist at best.
Turns out, sadly, he was a sage.
The question is, what can be done about it? I've decided to reconfigure my resume so it clearly shows I graduated from college in 1985. I think all the job counselors telling folks to leave that off aren't helping anyone. I own my age. I will be 55 in August. I have earned every line, gray hair, and acidic tummy ache. In these years I have become more compassionate, more wise, more informed, more hilarious, and more curious. I've stopped pining over stupid men who say things like, "Wow, you have virtually perfect sentence structure" and instead, aim to write perfect sentences. I've stopped looking at the moon and dreaming of a fairytale ending that involves a chiseled chin and instead, dream of how my own chin will rest on the desk of The New York Times.
I hope that the right boss is around the corner for me, and for women - and men - like me, incredible people over 50 who have far more to give than they did a decade or three ago.
Contact Laurie at www.lauriewiegler.com and see her work at www.muckrack.com/laurie-wiegler

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Generations: How a young millennial journalist makes (and gets) her news (part 1 of 2)

Image
Marissa Gamache will be starting her senior year of college this autumn, spending part of it studying in Ireland at Maynooth University before graduating from Bethel University in Minnesota. She is completing a double major in journalism and international relations, and this summer, is interning as a reporter on the government team at Transport Topics in Arlington, Va. where I am a business reporter. I wanted to discuss with Marissa how her generation of reporters sees journalism these days, where it's going, and how she fights the allure of getting all her news from Facebook . Marissa, when you think of previous generations of journalists, what words come to mind? I think of the 6 p.m. nightly news and my parents. Are they journalists? No. I think of old journalism, Watergate, Edward R. Murrow, and Bob Costas. Thank you. So, how do you feel your generation is changing the way journalism is done? I think we're on a minute-to-minute basis. I think we are expecting...
Read more

What you should know about homelessness

Image
According to Yale Neurology I am homeless . I say according to them, because the resident who saw me most recently noted that. I did not want to depict my lifestyle that way, but how else would one assess five consecutive nights without shelter? Although I make $1163 a month in Early Social Security benefits and am getting a small stipend from a cousin, it is never enough here in Connecticut. Between dental bills and storage payments to both the U.S. and the U.K., where I went to grad school, I'm tapped out two weeks after receiving my money. You don't want to lose even one night of sleep. Although you may think you understand how it feels, because you have traveled to Peru and experienced jet lag or enjoyed an all-nighter at 17, ending up at a pancake house at five a.m. and not sleeping (as I did once), you don't have any idea. After five nights of sleep deprivation, even if you can count backwards by 7's (as I did for Yale Neuro, at their request), you are confusing w...
Read more

9-11 Conversations, 10 years of memories

Image
Edward's cousin worked at Cantor Fitzgerald. I would hear about his cousin's death when Edward came into Barnes & Noble in Westport, where I began working in October, 2001 after my job in New York came to an end that August. Edward was very depressed. He just wanted something of his brother's, wanted to go back, touch the site. I believe he got a sweater of the cousin's. Then there was the time I was wrapping a child's gift. I smiled, "Who's it for?" The patron, stonefaced, told me "her father died in the attacks." *** Moving to New York in 2001, I had a choice of either living in the city or moving farther out into the 'burbs. I chose the latter, but commuted into Midtown Manhattan, where I worked as a real estate writer for Rubenstein Associates. This PR firm happened to have represented, and still does, Larry Silverstein Properties. I had no idea who Silverstein was, but I knew this was all pretty fancy. I also knew that New York w...
Read more