Moving on: Diary of a busted boomer

Jan. 20, 2009 Inauguration Day - Looking for a job
So President Obama gets to start the year off with a job. For those of us who start it unemployed, we are truly envious. Just to have a place of work to go to every day, knowing when you go home at night you’ll receive a paycheck you can use to live on. What’s that song they sing in "Cabaret"? Money makes the world go round, the world go round … and so on.

With only $400 of cash left in my pocket, my job prospects in this second great depression are really dampening my morale. Especially here in New York, what with all these unemployed bankers to compete with now. The job market is downright bleak, jobs at my executive level too far and too few. Friends and family, with all their good intentions, advise me to apply for the abundance of jobs below my level of skill and experience. But they don’t understand, I could not possibly apply without grossly misrepresenting myself. I’m just too overqualified for the vast number of basic accounting and finance positions out there. … I may just have to rewrite my resume a dozen different ways: As an accountant who makes $50,000, as an unskilled laborer without a college degree. Perhaps I’m better off applying for a job as a pizza delivery boy.

And what now of America’s aging baby boom generation? If we all have to continue to work past retirement age? The future belongs to the young, yes, but which generation will win the battle in corporate America today? Will they prefer to staff their middle management with young, up-and-coming sharp malleable executives, or with more experienced, older bodies more set in their ways? And how will the generations behind all of us feel about that, our taking away, denying, or at least delaying the higher paying jobs for them?

Jan. 22, 2009 - The feel of shame
I’ve been lingering on the last words spoken between myself and my daughter on the phone last night. She wanted to know about my bankruptcy. I was not prepared to give her the simple answers she sought, and felt a deep regret.

Nancy had just watched a 2004 documentary about credit cards, and it scared her to think how much power banks have over credit card holders who they need in order to stay profitable, yet against whom they apply tremendous amounts of pressure (and some would say unfair advantage) once the money is borrowed. It’s a vicious cycle, I told her, not wanting her to misunderstand or romanticize my own fall into the credit death spiral. Having taken on bankruptcy is nothing I am proud of, the price for it greater beyond money, when one counts the psychological cost. … And now, too, I will be losing my house.

Today is another day I look to stay busy, keep my spirits positive. Nancy called in again, this time from a health clinic. She was with her mother trying to sort it all out. She’s a college student in New York, no longer a resident of Massachusetts. She needs to be treated, but the clinic was asking who was going to pay for it and how. Nancy has no insurance — another story. She put her mother on the phone, and that opened another vulnerable spot.

Nancy’s mother asked if I was working again, and I said no, still very few leads. She asked what was I going to do about it, and I said keep looking. I have enough savings for to live on for one more month, but that’s about it — I need to start visiting the food pantries soon. Another angst for her — she knows that means I can’t send her the girl’s child support for a few months, maybe longer. I am most fortunate — she’s been very understanding about that. Of course the unspoken expectation is that when the times are once again good, I’ll make up for the shortfall, as I’ve done before between jobs. I also told her the bank finally decided on a date to foreclose on my house: Jan. 29. My time for saving my home is up.

Special Report: Reinventing America As the economy gets uglier, Americans are adapting to the crisis. Here are their stories. About the series PART 1 Recession leaving some couples without work Vote: Which generation is suffering most? New beginnings: Your reinvention stories PART 2 Gen Xers get hit with a double whammy Reinventing your career |  8 reinvention tips PART 3 Boomers face stark choices in bleak economy Moving on: Diary of a busted Boomer PART4 Recession transforming the U.S. jobs picture Michigan looks to jump-start stalled careers For some, franchising a viable career path Downturn puts trucking firms in driver's seat Have a story idea? Send an e-mail to .

I look for work every day and, if nothing, find things to keep myself busy, like cleaning my apartment or reading, so as not to turn to drink. It is sobering to think of the fine line separating two possible futures right now. One possibility: To secure a job in the next 30 days and go on, more careful with my pennies than ever before, save against a future calamity. Or two: My last pennies trickle out of my piggy bank like the last sands of an hourglass. The final blow to pride a working man feels is when the labor of his own hands and mind have no more economic value to offer the world.

Boston, Jan. 31 - The auction
Few people showed up for the foreclosure today. The sky was sunny, the air freezing, the snow on the ground no less than two feet. The auction took place in my driveway in front of the house. Besides me, the bank rep and the auctioneer, there were a few of my neighbors who came to watch, and a few young men dressed warmly, blabbing on cell phones the whole time, as if they were reporting the day's stock quotes. Only one man, a transportation employee wearing his phosphorescent red vest from work, came with a $10,000 certified check to bid. He appeared the oldest present, perhaps nearing retirement, looking to buy low.

The bidding begins at $400,000, the last appraised value on the property in 2006. My home is a small, three-room colonial on two floors, about 1,600 square feet of total living space. Built in 1960 upon Met Hill in the Roslindale neighborhood of Boston, it still has an unobstructed view of the cityscape — the Prudential building and John Hancock and the rest of the downtown skyscrapers are easily visible miles away above forest. If it were summer, the lights of Fenway stadium on game days would be visibly reflecting into the night sky.

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