Busy Being Born, Yet Again

I drank the Kool-Aid. Work hard, save money, put in your time, and enjoy the fruits of your labor. Unfortunately, that lesson ended with the generation that represented it. After college, I took my first professional position at the lowest rung on the ladder earning the entry pittance, and worked tirelessly 6 days a week. After 8 long years, and a rapid climb up the corporate ladder, the founder died, and the heirs quickly wrapped the company up with a beautiful bow and sold it.

With 8 years of experience, and a successful record, it was easy to make a lateral move and find employment. After fielding multiple options, I chose another company and pledged my loyalty to carry the banner. As I climbed my new ladder, I blinked, and 8 more years slipped by. Then the owner decided he’d rather fish than run a company, and yet another company slipped away to become a distant memory.

Sixteen years of industry experience and a very impressive resume got the expected response from the right people resulting in outstanding competing offers. After careful research and deliberation, the choice was made. Having been burned twice by domestic companies, it was time to look abroad, and I chose an overseas suitor. Then 2008 happened, and as the tide went out, they quickly pulled up anchor, hoisted the sails and returned to port.

Luckily, I had become a trusted soldier to a Senior V.P. and was immediately rehired. In business, as in in life, it is important to create and foster allies. Unfortunately, the downside is, if they fall out of favor, you get swept up in the dustpan along side of them.

So, I found myself with 20+ years of experience, a modest savings & retirement, and a distrust for corporations. What’s the obvious choice? Of course, take all of that experience and my life savings and start a company in pursuit of the dream. At the time, it just so happened that a close friend wanted to take his small successful company and create an online presence. We partnered up, and I invested my nest egg. I taught myself how to build websites, perform SEO, and develop online marketing strategies, that proved to be very effective. They say that only 1% of online startups achieve the “Black Swan” status, go viral, and rapidly grow beyond any expectation. The rest of successful online businesses are on a three year, slow growth path, that requires you to stay focused, keep your head down, and pray you don’t run out of money before you achieve your goals. We were on the latter. Two and a half years in, my partner divorced his wife of 16 years and spiraled down into a very dark place that ultimately ended our 20+ year friendship and our business, just as we started to achieve success.

At this point, I find myself 50 years old. I’ve exhausted most of my retirement, and I am not nearly as attractive to corporate America as I once was, so what do I do now? I started reaching out to all of the contacts and allies that I created over the 25+ years of my professional career. Luckily, one of them remembered me with enough reverence to add me to their roster. It was perfect. I was in my element, all of my experience led me to this point, where the skills I had garnered over my storied career were on center stage. It was very high stress, and every decision I made impacted hundreds of people on a daily basis. I thrived in that environment, up until the point that I walked into the emergency room and was informed I needed open heart surgery.

After my surgery, it became clear very quickly, that I had 2 choices. Continue working there, and die at my desk, or move on and find another opportunity. I had managed to scrap together enough savings, credit, and equity to start another venture, and control my own destiny. So, I started a small business in December of 2019. This new business required me to use all of the skills I had developed over my career, sales, management, and administrative. Then Covid-19 happened, and everything came to a screeching halt. As a single employee entity with no track record, I didn’t qualify for any of the emergency funding sources. Unemployment wasn’t available because I voluntarily left my previous job, and most credit avenues were suspended due to the instability of the economy.

So, now I find myself looking into the mirror trying to figure out where it all went wrong. Which decision was it that steered me down this path. As I hear my peers tell me how they are getting ready for retirement, I have to realize that I am basically starting over with very few prospects. While it’s very demoralizing to come to the realization that all of the blood, sweat, and tears I’ve invested over the last 25+ years of my professional career are meaningless at this point, I know I am not alone.

Generation X will be known as the lost generation. While the boomers before us retired after 20 or 30 years of slugging it out in the salt mines, Generation X was sacrificed for corporate greed, buy-outs, and share holders. There are no pensions for most of Generation X, and there are very few of us that have been able to hang our shingle with a company for 20 or 30 years. When I started my professional career, they gave me a beeper, and when I got “beeped”, I found a pay phone and called the office. The technological advancements alone over the last 30 years are staggering, and we have had to adapt and evolve more than any generation in the history of the world. Yet, we find ourselves put out to pasture, irrelevant, and wanting.

I will dig my way out of this hole because that’s what Generation X’ers do. We adapt, we evolve, we fight! So, as I find myself busy being born, yet again, I can’t help but worry for future generations. When a society begins to sacrifice whole generations, and becomes divided politically because it starts to value material things over substantive contributions, the end is near.

This is America!