Hope from the Battle of Grandpas

 

One of the key issues that was used against US President-Elect, Joe Biden is the fact that he’s old. As at the time of writing, Mr. Biden is 78-years old and when he’s inaugurated on 20 January 2020, Mr. Biden will be a good nine years older than the previous record holder for oldest man to take office, Ronald Regan, who was 69 at the time of his inauguration in 1981. Interestingly enough, Mr. Biden’s opponent, the Donald was not much younger at 73. The two key records from this particular US election was the fact that it involved the greatest number of votes cast and the first time that two septuagenarians went against each other.

This fact shouldn’t escape people, especially in a day and age where people in advanced economies face unprecedented ageism. Singapore is no exception. Despite being healthier and fitter than I was a decade ago, I’ve effectively accepted that at the age of 46, I will never have a “corporate career,” and the fact that people still consider me for some white-collar work (OK, admittedly I am allergic to files and offices) is something of a miracle. I am, as they say, a lucky one. For people who have had good careers and suddenly find themselves thrown out of work, the situation is even worse. It’s a terrible experience to be an established character one day and less than nobody with bills to pay the next.

We have to face an uncomfortable fact – we’re all getting old and while getting old is an inescapable fact, the idea of a comfortable old age of playing golf and sipping pina coladas by the beach is an increasingly unattainable fantasy. Let’s face it – aging folk need to keep going. From a social demographic perspective, Covid-19 is helping us cull old folks but not making it easier to grow old.

Ageism in Singapore is rife enough for government ministers to come out to state that age should not be a barrier to hiring people. Yet, age discrimination continues and the only saving grace for Singapore is the fact it isn’t the only place where ageism happens. Why does it happen? Some of the reasons for not hiring aging workers are as follows:

https://content.wisestep.com/older-workers/

• 1.      May be too set in their way of working
• 2.      Might have problems to take instructions
• 3.      Not be able to use modern technology well
• 4.      Used to do things manually
• 5.      Expect respect from the manager
• 6.      Will be nearer to the age of retirement
• 7.      Will be serving lesser tenure in the company
• 8.      May not be open to any kind of criticism
• 9.      Might be tough to adapt themselves to new setting

It helps that we live in age of constant technological change that has “disrupted” just about every industry around. The argument goes – old people can’t keep up with the constant technological change – they simply don’t have the energy to keep up with the constant and rapid pace of change.

Being old is simply not cool. In business, we always read about “Young Start-up Founders” or kids with a bright idea who avoided the conventional path and made billions. That stuff is cool. Nobody wants to know about aged executives or old boys trying to start a noodle shop to make ends meet. Being aged is the opposite of hip.

Hopefully the battling grandpas will help settle some of the issues on age old discrimination. If you can consider letting two septuagenarians run for the most complex job on the planet, surely you can allow someone over the age of 50 the right to run a convenience shop? The very presence of the grandpas should help put some of the myths of hiring old people to rest.

Take the key issue of energy. The main argument against hiring old people is that they lack energy for today’s fast paced work place. To make matters worse, not only do old people not have the energy to get things done, they’re more likely to get sick and die. There is as they say, a good reason why your insurance premiums get higher as you get older. So, from a business perspective, why hire someone who will have less energy to do the things that you need to get done and will costs more.

Having said all that, people should look at Mr. Bidden as a positive example of why you should not make such examples about old people. At the age of 78, Mr. Bidden is physically active. The man runs without any assistance and goes cycling

Then there was the example of George HW Bush who took up parachuting at the age of 90. As was said at his funeral, he was someone who knew how to die young as late as possible. While much is said about how the young people are shaking up things, the truth is that it’s the baby boomers who are the real driving force of things. Look at it this way, there was a generational change between the “silent generation” and the “baby boomers,” when Bill Clinton defeated the first George Bush in 1992. Clinton was succeeded by Bush II, who was another boomer. There was something of a generational change when Obama came in but this was quickly reversed with the advent of Donald Trump.

Copyright Business Insider

Then there is the issue of whether the old folks get technology. It’s here, where the Donald sets an example of a grandpa who does get new technologies. While Mr. Trump lacks the physical energy of Mr. Bidden (he struggles to walk down a plank – an obvious result of a diet of junk food), Mr. Trump more than makes up for it in his use of technologies like Twitter. While his predecessor was supposed to the “young” and “hip” President, the first “real social media” President is Donald Trump who ran the country from his infamous Twitter account.

Whatever one’s political inclinations, we should be grateful that this most recent US election was fought by two grandpas, who managed to show the world that age is a number. Contrary to conventional wisdom – grandpas do get it and we should never discount someone just because they’re past a certain age that the text books disqualify them from.