The wisdom of youth

Surfing the internet, and I happened on this gem of youthful wisdom (in the comments):

Btw, let's don't forget that today's victims of age discrimination were beneficiaries of it when they were young and pushing their way into the work force...and displacing older workers.

So, this meathead thinks it’s okay to discriminate on the basis of age because he thinks that probably the older person benefitted from age discrimination in the past. Must be an HR manager.

I don’t know that I ever did benefit from age discrimination. I might have.  But, I’m pretty darn sure I’ve been the victim of age discrimination. Further, I know I’ve been discriminated against because I’m a white male from a middle-class background. Ever heard of Affirmative Action?

My first job, in 1974, I worked in a machine shop. I asked about moving to the tool room. I thought being a tool and die maker would probably be a good career move. They needed someone; but the HR manager wouldn’t let me go there because they needed a black person in there. Yes, that’s exactly what I was told.

I had another job, again in a machine shop, where we were offered the opportunity to choose what area we wanted to work in. The harder, dirtier jobs were paid more to entice people to take those jobs. I took one, only to watch as the women (not all, but a lot) proceeded to sue the company on the basis of pay discrimination. Even though these women had chosen lower paying jobs for themselves, the company lost, and as a result, I ended up making the same pay for harder, dirtier work. Silly me.

Then, as luck would have it, in 1996, as I turned 40 and finally would have found myself in one of the protected classes under Affirmative Action, the judiciary, and public, began to come to their senses. Of course, it’s doubtful that Affirmative Action would have benefitted me since age discrimination in hiring is difficult to prove. I think many employers don’t want to hire older workers mostly because they’ll never be able to get rid of them; it might look too much like they fired an older worker to avoid paying a pension.

And now, some punk wants to shoot his mouth off about how I benefitted from age discrimination. Yeah, I can feel it coming… that time when my mood gets so foul that someone decides I need a pill to make me happy.