I AM grateful to those of you who commented on my first effort, or as more likely, the second shorter piece from a week ago, and feedback is always valuable.
Naturally the writer hopes that it will be constructive rather than obscene but as they say in the classics, you have to take the rough with the smooth. (for those so-minded my e-mail is [email protected] but I am very busy and can’t guarantee as quick response). This week, I want to carp about two different but connected subjects, namely the problem with youth and the difficulties associated with age. However, as I am fairly old, I will tackle them in reverse order.
When age and experience count for nothing.
Despite what you may be told when you are 20, 30 and perhaps 40 years of age, retirement is not all it’s cracked up to be. If you are financially independent and therefore secure, then you can turn your hand to just about anything provided that you are physically fit. However, it is abundantly clear that the statistics do not lie in relation to aging. Australia is one of those countries where the aged are an increasing proportion of the population and as a consequence, they will have increased health needs and other demands, which do not necessarily fall to government. I could write a few pages on the problems of aging and associated sickness but that can keep for the moment. Instead, of late, I have met one of the scourges of our time – discrimination on the basis of age, especially with regard to employment.
When I was young and fit, I travelled the world and sometimes, I flew in what is now called “cattle” or “herd” class and it can be extremely unpleasant and uncomfortable over long distances. The worst flight I ever had was an intra-island hop from the North to the South Island of New Zealand. The aircraft was an early model Boeing 737 and I must confess that I am deeply prejudiced against that aircraft – the tubby little models used by domestic airlines were designed to pack as many people in a small space and they wallowed when they flew, a sharp contrast with the Airbus. But the New Zealand national carrier could not have put seats any closer or made them any narrower than I experienced that day. I am just less than 6 foot tall in God’s own measurements and I’m usually described as having a powerful physique. Think of the average rugby player but one with a neck and you get the idea. My knees were almost jammed onto my chest because it was impossible to stretch any further and when and air hostesses came down the aisle, with refreshments, it was as much as I could do not to laugh. I settled for Pepsi and a straw because the people either side of me were bigger and they had tea and coffee in cups. It was a one class aircraft and packed full. Economy extra is of course roomier but the seats are still on the narrow side and I maintain, the only way to travel is first class or business. You might think I’m a snob but if you have to travel on business, it is expected that you will be fresh arrival and able to function effectively from the moment you pick your bag from the luggage carousel. Intercontinental trips are notorious for messing around with the body clock and jet lag is well recognized. I think of one occasion when I had propeller lag from travelling in a Lockheed Constellation. I love those old birds but a flight across the Pacific is a tour de force in more ways than one.
By the time I had hit 40 years of age, still fit and a pretty mean tennis and badminton player, I found myself travelling with a diplomatic passport to various conferences which demanded my expertise. I rather liked the diplomatic passport and business class status because on a couple of occasions, I found myself seated next to Australian politicians. I had a very enjoyable time talking to former Senator Margaret Guilfoyle on my way to Singapore. It made little difference that I was fairly open about my content for Malcolm Fraser and my Labor leanings. The good senator and I parted on amicable terms, agreeing to disagree on some matters but enjoying the pleasure of articulate company. I mention this only in passing because I have rubbed shoulders with many politicians and their staff and it distresses me that we have come to loathe or despise politicians. It’s not an easy life, especially in Canberra and I know several other writers have made the same point in Tasmanian Times but do not expect to change the opinions of many. Furthermore, politics is not for everyone with its wild (or weird) schedules and time spent away from home, which has driven the last nail into many a political coffin or marriages. However, most politicians who retire usually land on their feet. I have been surprised at the number of former Liberal politicians appointed to various important positions by the Rudd Government. But this article is not about politicians or highfliers, merely what our Canadian cousins like to call the average Joe or presumably, the average Josephine. The latest outrage in giving Peter Costello a position on the public purse astounds me. I would’ve thought Easter Island would have be more appropriate and with no satellite phone.
I have met people of late who are caught in the “demographic of the disastrous” and it is a mark of our obsession with youth that a woman in her 30s cannot always be employed, even if, like an acquaintance of mine, she has taken courses recommended by Centrelink and upgraded her qualifications. The professional classes, like lawyers, doctors, dentists and so on can usually find a part-time job or full-time once they’ve had children but for a 30-something female of above-average intelligence, life can be hard. In some countries, age is revered but certainly not in Australia and the UK and I will confess to not too sure about other countries. From time to time, you hear employers talking about their most valuable assets, their staff and cynic that I am, in many cases I know that’s a prelude to retrenchment, redeployment or any other euphemism for getting the boot. A lot depends on how a woman looks and it must be said that some could take more care with their appearance. Even as a young man, I saw great beauty in older women and it’s not a fetish: some call them handsome or mature while others refer to the fading but still beautiful roses. Some of my best staff were on the “wrong side” of 35 and I could mention a clutch of greying grannies that at one stage were the backbone of our department.
On the male side, qualified and trained men usually last longer than their female counterparts. Look carefully and you can see it everywhere. I don’t like mentioning names but Mary Kostakidis, one time newsreader on SBS-TV aged gracefully in the job and I don’t think she was stood down for her looks. I’m told it was the politics of the TV station. When you look at European, British and American TV, there are men and women well over 40 years of age. To men it brings often grey hair and lined features which are seen as a mark of gravitas and the older woman likewise appears to know where it’s at, as they say. The BBC in particular employs an extraordinary number of female foreign correspondents out in the field, and they appear dressed in all types of strange garb, anywhere from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe. The male of the species tends to be the anchor, back in the studio and the male reporter in the field is usually but not necessarily, old before their time.
I found in academe that men generally stay the course far longer than women but successive governments that persisted with the lunacy that accompanied the so-called reforms instituted 30 years ago, ensured that the prediction of mine came true, namely that administrators would outnumber academics and in due course, they would run the universities. My alma mater in Victoria during the 60s through to the 1990s comprised a truly remarkable staff of both gender. But when the grey-suited administrative class came into their own, so many gifted academics with a great deal to offer found themselves out of a job. I recall with great sadness that a history professor, who taught me and then my daughter, found himself on the scrapheap, because history was not considered to be an essential subject. Being an expert on medieval Florence and fluent in the language, he was one of the fortunate few to be able to move or relocate, in this instance to Italy. When I look at the staff lists at UTAS and especially a couple of departments with which I’m familiar, they are crowded by the younger, ill-educated products of the declining teaching standards which have prevailed for too long. In one particular department, there are two women of modest academic standing (in terms of the pecking order) who are outstanding in ability and indeed, one of them is far more qualified than me to talk about age and demography. Given that Tasmania has an older work force generally than the mainland, it’s remarkable that she keeps going and is available to point out the bleeding obvious to those who will listen. I’m sure Dr. Natalie Jackson will not mind being mentioned as an outstanding demographer.
The problem is that far too many employers are not prepared to hear, let alone listen. A wise person would say that we should make the most of accumulated experience and wisdom in all sectors of the workforce. Youth in Tasmania is far too often told that there is no future here and they must go to the mainland or abroad to get the all-elusive jobs. And unfortunately, that’s probably the case that I’ve seen so many young women who have graduated from university and left the state because there is nothing here for them and that is an indictment of government and employer organizations alike. I will refrain from mentioning that parochialism plays its part, as it makes little difference which geographic area these young people come from, they have to leave.
If the average skilled and semiskilled female worker over 35 and without a university degree cannot get work, then something is wrong with the system. It is not that they have lost skill or ability and that too often it depends on looks. As a nation, we stand condemned for not using our human resources to their best effect.
With men, it can be heartbreaking if they are laid off on the younger side of 40. Small wonder then, that our society has problems with drinking, gambling, domestic violence and a high degree of dependence on what our politicians like to call welfare. With men, it’s not looks that count, unlike women but just the age factor. We have to face facts because many industries for which men trained no longer exist. They are victims of globalization and nothing could be more clearly demonstrated than the loss of white-collar goods and electronics to cheap imports from China and elsewhere. Even computer geeks appear to have a problem with age. Far too many are led to believe that like mathematicians, once they’ve turned 30, their best years are behind them.
I do not want to belabour the point too much but there is a chronic mismatch between what is needed for a job and the successful candidate. Far too often, age and experience are the victims yet as I recall, a famous footballer who was also an architect and became a politician once said: “old age and treachery will beat youth and enthusiasm every day.” If only he were right but the recent Commonwealth statistics concerning the number of people who are categorized as being on a disability pension, rather than the dreaded dole, which pays less is yet another indictment of over obsession with youth and the realization that social security spending needs an urgent review. I’m not sure whether the German idea still works but at one stage, I was told about rolling re-education for workers whereby every few years, the worker would have skills upgraded and this applied to both white and blue collar workers. Not having been to Germany of late, and my German language skills having lapsed, I’m not sure whether this system still obtains but it seemed to me that with every major European, North American and Australasian country having a very low birth rate, the solution was seen to lie in immigration. Certainly some migrants were prepared and are prepared to do the types of work that an average Australian would not consider (I hope I don’t offend by calling them ‘shit jobs’) but when you look at the waste in the talent pool, it can be frightening and daunting.
I will conclude by saying that a US agency with which I had some professional dealings lost some 178 man-years of experience with the retirement of five men who had the capacity to work for a lot longer on what was described as a black Friday. The knowledge lost, which was not computerized, was enormous. Some were re-incarnated as “advisers” but that didn’t go down very well with the thrusting upwardly mobile youth, who wondered what would an old fart know? The answer is plenty because in some respects the more things change, the more they stay the same – just like bureaucracy. Yes Minister and Yes Prime Minister should be mandatory viewing for management classes. I know about these matters because a Tasmanian Minister thought I had good ideas about youth and justice. Indeed I did and do but the expression on the face of the Ministerial adviser said it all. Behind the smiling mask, I could just about read his mind: “There’s nothing this old fool can teach me.” I’ve junked his card because he’s never called and is not likely to before or after the next State election.
The fate of our young
The other side of the coin is an indecent obsession with youth. I mentioned earlier that most Western liberal democracies have a birth rate which carried to its logical conclusion, means that deaths outnumber births and these days, it is no small wonder that family sizes are restricted. I heard some rather chilling news tossed around on ABC radio not so long ago. Someone had produced a figure which suggested that it took close to half $1 million to feed, educate and raise one child until at least university age. For two children, the figure was less than double the original amount, provided that hand-me-downs could be passed on but guys in drag and women in men’s clothing are not exactly the norm. Okay for a laugh but not as a general rule.
Over the years, I’ve heard a great deal about generations X. and Y. and now Z. Being a member of generation W. myself, and a contrarian by nature, I can only reflect on what I see and how different a child’s upbringing is today. When I was young and sometimes at a loose end, my parents’ generation would say something along the lines of: “when we were young, we made our own entertainment.” And that particular phrase resonates down the ages, increasing in volume and becoming more and more to the point. Many people blame the Catholic Church or Vladimir Ilyich Lenin for saying that if they have a child by the age of seven, then they have them for life. In terms of crude indoctrination, this is almost axiomatic. I maintain as a parent, I lost my kids once they started infant school. They would argue the toss with me over just about everything from how they dressed to late nights, TV programs and normal social interaction. These days, I think I’m lucky because at least they spoke to me even if we didn’t always see eye to eye or hammer out a compromise.
Today’s generation and we’ll take teenagers as the benchmark, have ‘never had it so good’ in many respects but can you tell them that? I don’t think so and I think there is sufficient evidence to support my contention. The educational pressures on children start early and some parents have kids enrolled in private schools before they are anything more than a bulge in the father’s pants or the mother’s womb. It sounds crazy but that’s the way it is and whether we like it or not, the state system struggles to compete with private schools – ’twas ever thus, I fear because education is an expensive commodity and a family with one child directs its expenditure on education with one eye on the child getting a good education and appropriate employment. I met the mother of a prodigious young musician not that long ago. Her playing of Mozart was sublime and I asked her and her mother, what this gifted young musician in year 12 was planning as a career. The answer was the law or medicine. With a great sense of sadness, I offered the only words I could think of at the time and advised her never to give up playing a musical instrument just because she might enter the law or medicine faculties at University. I’m not denying that there is much more money to be made in the law and as a medico but to not use a rare talent is well-nigh akin to a tragedy but at the same time, I realized that professional musicians are not paid well, let alone those who play classical music.
I’m not saying that all kids are like this and poorer households face difficult problems, which I will not enumerate at this point but suffice to say, I have seen young women and young men from outer suburban high schools literally going mad sending text messages on mobile phones. At one stage, it was appropriate to describe mobile phones as the tool of business and politics and I remember seeing a clutch of federal political advisers whose mobile phones appeared to be attached to their ears permanently. I wondered whether the superglue bandit had struck but these days, the mobile phone is ubiquitous and cuts across socioeconomic status and is a fashion statement as much as a perceived necessity by worried parents. How else do you get in touch with your kids when you don’t know where they are?
My grandchildren’s generation whatever that might be (the youngest is seven years of age) frightens me almost witless at times. By the time they reach their early teens, the pressure is really on. The girls have to look like women from an obscenely young age (and I may write about the sexualization of the young in due course) but just like their male counterparts, they are computer literate, usually have a mobile phone and once home from school, are able to retreat to their territory – usually a bedroom with a TV and parents are not encouraged to enter without permission. Conversation with them can be a dialogue of the deaf because their language is not our language and communication skills are usually SMS messages or e-mail. In the main, far too many of our children lack adequate verbal communication skills, sufficient to talk to an adult and we may be producing a generation of computer literate but socially inadequate school-leavers. They can surf the net, use mobile phones, but face-to-face contact is something to be avoided, even with some parents.
A few years ago I would’ve thought that was a crazy idea but I’ve seen too much whether it be so-called “democratic households” or those that suffer from an excess of parental zeal in one form or another, from lack of discipline to anarchy on the one hand and tyranny on the other. The kids know how to use the remote controls on all electrical appliances but so many could not boil an egg, let alone cook a meal, which explains why so much fast food and frozen food is sold. I was told recently by a medical practitioner that in the UK, three households out of five have meals in front of the TV and in the U.S., houses are being built without kitchens.
As someone with a more than passing acquaintance with defence technology but not necessarily a master of the fiddly things, one thing is certain. A large solar flare or a huge electromagnetic pulse would wipe out computer chips in everything we own. Only so-called hardened sites would be capable of withstanding such events and naturally enough, they are run by the military and special departments of government, which never make the headlines. As an old friend of mine, gifted in the art of doublespeak would say: “it is surely no coincidence” that the book, “One Second After” by William Forstchen, published earlier this year made an immediate impact on the US book market. The synopsis is fairly simple: a high altitude nuclear EMP burst incapacitates the whole of the US and much of the civilized world. Being somewhat addicted to audiobooks, I listened to it and was gripped because it was set in a small American town. The overall lesson of course, was just how vulnerable modern technological society can be to acts of nature or malicious intent. The impact of the audio, on an iPod (which would’ve been a casualty of such an event) was quite impressive. It made me realize just how much we rely on modern technology and there is barely anything around the house that doesn’t have a computer chip in-built. The chances of my friend Michael reading this article are slender bordering on remote but we had one thing in common: being of a generation that knew how to cook from scratch and if necessary, go hunting and fishing and collecting food. Furthermore, we were both gardeners and self-sufficiency was always a dream.
I have met a few people whom I consider to be somewhat strange. They are not the knit your own yogurt, live in a cave and eat grass seeds types but they fear technology and as such, are probably neo-Luddites. I can get that way when I have to wade through instructions for electronic gizmos which were obviously written in Chinese, translated into Portuguese by a Hungarian and then rendered into the English form by a Pole. Nothing can be more confusing than separate remote controls for every electronic device around the house. I’m not a dystopian, nor would I wish to see anything like “One Second After” happen to us but it does make you wonder how we would cope, especially when motor vehicles stop running; the fuel pumps don’t and aircraft fall out of the sky. Quite probably, we would be back to typewriters, internal combustion engines with ‘shock, horror,’ no computerized system and good old-fashioned spark plugs. And that’s just the thin end of the wedge: refrigerators and freezers would not work; nor would dishwashers and washing machines, vacuum cleaners, mobile phones, TV, radio; need I go on? The printing presses would grind to a halt and news would be spread by word of mouth. Perhaps, the town crier would make a comeback until a mechanical printing press was reassembled. It doesn’t bear thinking about really but it would be possible to have conversations with kids and adults. Neglected speech, social interaction and community awareness would be re-ignited because there would be no option.
I leave this topic and readers with a fundamental question. Why are we so obsessed about youth and technology to the detriment of communication with our fellow man? (No cracks about gender please – I use the term man in the sense of Homo sapiens). Heaven forbid that any great tragedy should befall us but who would have the knowledge and therefore, the power, if we found ourselves in that situation. Why those of us with gray hair, failing sight but a rough idea of how to manage without computers, power tools and so on. We have become so reliant on technology and computers that humanity itself is being lost, especially communication. The clock cannot be turned back but TVs can be turned off and kids made to eat with their parents and to engage in conversation. That’s what I call an education revolution and it’s high time to turn young adults into adults, with social and interpersonal skills and that includes effective communication, not grunts and hand gestures.
And to Australian employers, whether in the private or public sector, I say look at the demographics – immigration of itself is a stop-gap measure. Treasure your golden oldies, remember the best tunes are played on old fiddles and stop ageist-sexist discrimination by positive action against employing agencies, especially your own. You have more to lose than most, for the grey panthers vote too…and our day will come.
