Over Qualified??????? (Ageism and Employment)

Member Name: assmonkey

Product:	Ageism and Employment
Date:	17/01/02 (94 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: None

Disadvantages: Anger, Poverty, Frustration

After being forced into retirement from the force, that is the Atlanta metro police force, I found myself looking for employment. I can understand being forced into retirement in a job lifting heavy objects or perhaps as a porno star but the police force. I am only 65 years old, I can still drive a car and I can still shoot you between the eyes from a 100 paces. Now I may not be able to chase you down as fast as I used to but with my gun who is really going to run that far anyway. I still think I have another good 20 years on me. I can do 100 situps, 100 pushups and 25 chinups at the drop of a dime and my old lady aint complaining too much in the bedroom. Personally I think the whole retirement thing had something to do with shooting them little black kids we caught trying to steal a car. Before you go getting all mad at me neither of them was killed. I just winged each of them in the legs to stop them from running...like I said I cant really run that fast anymore. So the city gets sued over this...it is ridiculus! Now the city of Atlanta is supposed to pay those two would be thieves a million dollars each for trying to steal a car. I dont care what you say...if you are trying to commit a crime there is no penalty for getting caught anymore...hell, you get more for getting caught. Crime really pays big if you get caught.

Anyway enough about that...so I am out looking for a new job at age 65..yes sure I have some retirement but give me a break if you think I can get by without eating dog food and living in low rent apartments. Not that I have anything against most of the people in low rent apartments but lets just say I may have roughed up a few people in the projects during the course of my career and I dont really feel comfortable living around them as a civilian.

So everybody tells me "go be a greeter at wal-mart" What kind of candy-ass job is that standing at the front door of store saying hello to people. Now if they would give me a
gun and let me catch shop lifters that would be different. But putting smiley face stickers on kids for minimum wage just turns my stomach. Well my friends I hate to tell you that is pretty much all that is out there for a guy like me. I first went to several security companies...it seemed like a natural fit but they cliamed my police record of brutality wouldnt allow thier insurance company to underwrite me, etc etc. But I am sure it was my age. So finally I thought what the hell I have always wanted to be a bartender in a strip club anyway. Believe it or not, the declined to hire me. Now I would have thought that they would have been glad to have a former member of the force on the inside, you know to kind-of keep the heat off. But they cliamed it was because some of the girls remembered me busting up thier houses in drug raids and maybe man handling them a little more than neccesarry, but hey why were there drugs there to begin with....anyway I am sure they took one look at my 65 year old mug and thought no way.

The local senior center has been looking for someone to call out Bingo, you know someone to draw the balls and call out the numbers, but I dont think I could really take being around all of that lying and cheating not to mention all the senility. "did he say b-57?" that was last game honey! And dont even get me started on the smell, at least when babies poop thier pants it is because they are babies.

I can totally understand why corporate america thinks they cant hire someone my age. I mean why bother spending all the money in training to have me die or get alzheimers or just plain quit. I mean people my age in general are not a great investment of corporate dollars. But I have wisdom and experience. Lets see one of those fresh college graduates in a suit tell you about shooting a knife out of a crackheads hand or how to trick a prostitute into soliciting when she knows you are a cop. Now that would be a valuable skill in any
white collar environment. So I am not worth the money, or I am too physically out of shape, or I may have done a great job keeping this city safe, it seems the only job I can get is greeting at Wal-Mart. So if you see me at the front door just keep walking and dont try anything funny.

Summary: