\"I'm becoming useless\": losing your job at 50 years

First published in Italian on Purpletude on June 28th, 2019 : https://purpletude.com/trovarelavoro/sto-diventando-inutile-perdere-il-lavoro-a-50-anni/

"I'm becoming USELESS"

The thought strikes me like a punch when I wake up.
I was fired. It never happened to me before.
What are my chances after 50?

The rage grows; I try to steer it.
It's not up to me: I've done everything as usual, I asked for the right things, at the right moment.
They're the ones who can't understand; they're the ones who needed a scapegoat.

No, this thought doesn’t make me feel better: it doesn’t replace the safety of the salary that was deposited every month on my bank account.

“How am I going to deal with that?”

---

How many of us have passed through this moment.
Maybe not after 50 years: today even at 40, at 30, I meet people who feel old for this Labour Market.
The world is changing: that is what the media tells us.

We often remain trapped in a limited viewpoint, in a sensationalism that shows us only the limits of our Country, of our Labour Market, hiding its reassuring characteristics: we are still one of the main manufacturing economies of the World, we are still one of the Countries with the highest Gross Domestic Product, we have assets of thousands of billions, an enviable Quality of Life (climate, gastronomy, culture,…) which leads us to be among the longest-living peoples in the world.

Yes, but… Yes, but this is of little use to me; our economy resembles Trilussa's chicken [1]: we are very rich ON AVERAGE, but the huge tax avoidance produces an increasingly scarce redistribution of wealth, and I worry about tomorrow, about that salary that is no longer there, about the sacrifices that I will have to do, about the “no” that will weaken me slowly.

“Is there still space for me?”

I still have so much to give

I decide to give a look around.
I’ve been away from home too long, and I have no idea about what happened, about the health of local businesses.

I start to attend meetings, workshops, seminars: an effervescent and disheartening picture; effervescent, because there are so many opportunities for encounter, relationship, learning; disheartening, because historical companies are closing, one after another.

We produce too much on behalf of others; we are strong when the economy is growing, but we sink when the economy is sluggish, and the economy is sluggish since 10 years.

After all, it is so for a large part of the Italian manufacturing industry: so much attention to costs, little investment in Research and Development; in the long run the competition on costs has led us to a race to the bottom, it has led us to consider people only as costs; and so companies look for people who cost less in other Countries, or look for technologies that replace people: robots never get tired.

Disheartening. When I look at this, I see no escape. I understand the boys who flee abroad; I understand the boys who stop looking for a job (or do not start at all).

What chance do I have in a world of surplus labor?

Yet…

Yet I feel that I still have so much to give; I think enthusiastically of the things I have done, of the things I could and would still like to do.

I focus on myself and start listing my skills, my roles, the projects I developed, my achievements. It is a long list; many things I had also forgotten; memories reappear; and the question changes: “can this Country go ahead without me ?”

I look into myself and see possibilities.

No, it can't go ahead without me. Nor without you.
Because what we are is the result of a huge collective investment, an investment that has borne fruit: we came out of the World War II destroyed (and it is not that we had developed so much before) and we are one of the top ten world economies.

We have got creativity, technical skills, accumulated knowledge, available capital, …

“Is there still room for me?”, I wondered.
Of course there is, but I live in a system that has renounced to invest in people and ideas, a system blocked by fears and rules, a system that is no longer a system, that does not look in one direction and row as one.

“So what do I do with my know-how?”

Luckily right now when everything is changing.

I had a look around me, and it gave me a panorama not at all encouraging, but…

But the World is changing: I'm not the only one inadequate: we are all inadequate!
So let's restart from scratch, with no advantage positions, because the crisis can destroy all wealth, and the only enduring wealth is my ability to cope with it.

I still look around me and see opportunities, I see unsatisfied needs, I see people who can benefit from my skills.
Sure, I also lack experience, skills, tools, to fully develop my professionalism: I invest in myself, to acquire what I lack, to satisfy all the prerequisites.

I assess my skills, I make a reference point, and I look at my goals, at the skills I will need to take the first step.

Sure, I only look to the first step, because the World is changing too fast to plan too much ahead, even when my goal is clearcut. All the beutiful theories on cyclic Process Management (Plan, Do, Check, Act) are vital when the waves of Change could drive me adrift.

I'm useful for the needed change.

The World is changing and I am part of this Change, I'm useful to this Change, I'm necessary.
I am, because I know, because I know how to do, because I know how to be, because I know how to communicate it; these are the key competences: theoretical knowlegde, practical knowledge, communicative knowledge.

And if I miss something, I will invest on myself to build it: to acquire new technical skills, to put them into practice, to relate with other people, and to communicate what I can contribute.

I wipe my tears, then restart.
And I don't feel alone anymore, because that's what human relationships, knowing each other, networking are for.

[1] Trilussa was a dialectal poet living in Rome; in a famous poem he ironized on statistics: if a eat two chickens this year and you eat none, statistics will say that each of us ate one.