More Departures at Work

Another week at work, another batch of rumors about who's leaving next. 😓

This week's rumored departures involve one of my immediate coworkers, "Abby", and a technical leader in an adjacent function, "Marty". Long story short, the rumor about Abby is not true— but also not 100% false; it was merely exaggerated— while the rumor about Marty has been confirmed, officially.

The rumor that Abby is leaving later this month really threw me for a loop. After my whole team was sacked four weeks ago and I was "last man standing" in the region, I was merged into another team. Then I learned that that team's top performer had just quit, because of reasons I totally agree with. That team's manager then quit, too, also for reasons I totally agree with. Now my new team, which used to be two full teams, is down to two engineers— myself and Abby— plus our acting manager. If Abby leaves I'm "last man standing"... again! Thus I'm glad the rumor I heard about Abby is not true. ...Well, not 100% true. 😥

I spoke to Abby today and found out that the person who shared the rumor with me misunderstood something Abby said in confidence. Normally I'm not one to traffic in rumors. I'm content to wait patiently, or perhaps check cautiously, to learn the truth of them. But with the raft of departures reaching crisis level in my department, I had to know. I asked Abby point-blank, explaining the above as the reason for my directness.

The truth is that Abby's not leaving. Yet. She hasn't accepted another job or given notice of departure. She merely told a mutual colleague, in confidence, that she's low-key looking for another job. "Low key" meaning she's now responding to cold calls and LinkedIn messages from recruiters instead of ignoring them. We chatted about her reasons for starting a job search and... unsurprisingly if you've read anything above... I totally agreed with her. 😓

The other rumored departure, the one confirmed by official announcement, is my colleague Marty. He's one of the leaders in an adjacent department. I haven't spoken to Marty yet about his reasons for leaving but I expect a lot of them will be the same as I've heard from everyone else. In addition to those, though, is an effective demotion. In the recent cuts and re-org Marty was shuffled down to a position I consider a dog house assignment. One of his peers was promoted to be his boss, others were promoted up next to him, and his direct reports were taken away from him and reassigned to new managers.

A year ago "quiet quitting" became a big term in Corporate America. What happened with Marty was, IMO, the role reversal of that: quiet firing. Marty retained his management title while his duties were reduced to those of a senior individual contributor. I call it quiet firing because across my career I've seen companies do it a variety of times but it's only ever worked out— as in, been mutually acceptable to employer and employee for more than a few weeks— once. Marty isn't success number two.

People Under 65 Want Dance Lessons, Too

Last week the program Marketplace on NPR ran a series of stories entitled "The Age of Work". Tuesday night I tuned in during a long car trip and listened to the episode In Tennessee county, an aging population means business opportunity.

"We start today in the middle of a line dancing class," host Kai Ryssdal started, "Because, silly as it might seem, the people in this class are the driving force behind a changing economy."

"You're talking about Boomers," I said back to the radio. "Boomers are the driving force behind a changing economy. And that's not news because Boomers have been the driving force behind pretty much every change in society, politics, and the economy for the past 60 years!!"

Indeed that's the whole gist of not just this episode but the whole series. A social trend is stretching and shifting to accommodate the needs of the Baby Boomer generation. Gosh, where have I heard that before? How about "Everywhere" and "For my entire life."

In this episode the story is about clubs and businesses in small, remote Cumberland County, Tennessee, that are thriving as they serve the needs of a burgeoning retiree population. The program's host and writers picked Cumberland in conjunction with payroll company ADP because ADP's data show it has the highest average age workforce in the US. What's happening today in Cumberland is coming soon to your community, the hosts tell us, like never before in the world has anyone seen things shift to favor the needs of Boomers.

The first business the show spotlights is the one Ryssdal quips about in the opening: a dancing class. It's full of seniors. It's pretty much all seniors. And it's totally crazy how it's so busy... at 9:30am on a Tuesday. Who could possibly want to take a dance lesson at 9:30am on a weekday? the host says in so many words.

"Because they're retired," I said back to the radio. Retirees can take dance lessons at 9:30am on a Tuesday. Especially when they're cheap, like $5 for a full hour if not longer.

"And do you know why it's only retirees there?" I continued. Well, aside from the fact that younger people might be literally barred from attending. Age discrimination is illegal in the US... but only when it discriminates against older people. Telling the young to kick rocks is socially and legally acceptable.

So, aside from having the police called on them and possibly being arrested for disturbing the peace if they make a fuss about wanting to dance, too, why aren't more younger people at this just-$5, 9:30am-on-a-Tuesday dance lesson?

How about, because a) School, and b) Work?

Seriously, how is this considered news. People under 65 are mostly busy with school or work on a Tuesday morning. And of those not in school or paid work, many of the rest are busy with the unpaid work of raising children at home. My mom was a stay-home parent for several years during my childhood, and never once during that period did she have time on a Tuesday morning to join an adult dance lesson at the town's rec center.

Speaking for myself now, as a child-free adult, I would've loved to have an opportunity like inexpensive dance lessons anytime the past 30 years... but again, not on a weekday morning. Dance lessons at 8pm? Sure! But those are rare. And even more rarely just $5.

The cheap classes on everything at the community center are at... drum roll, please... weekday mornings. Nights and weekends the community center is generally closed, locked, and dark. Programs like these have always been offered during the day, because people who teach them and support them by operating the facility only work during the day, making them implicitly only for people who don't have to work during the day. So they've always been implicitly, if not also explicitly, for retirees. And now because Boomers are retirees it's news!