I received a job offer. What made it interesting is that the person extending the offer knows I have zero experience in the position. I’ve never worked in banking, yet the offer was as a teller in my own bank. The manager would have hired me on the spot.
I was in the bank to make a deposit, and had to stand in line for a while because only one teller was working, though there were windows for two others. Finally the manager opened another window and worked it herself.
While conducting my business at the manager’s window I asked why there weren’t more tellers working. She said there was no one to hire who could pass the background check, then said “I know you could pass it, and learn the job quickly. Do you want a job as a teller?”
The manager knows my background so I didn’t think she was serious. She said she was, and if I wanted the job she could arrange for me to be hired, and start “as soon as possible”. That’s how desperate she was to find good employees.
At a diner where I regularly eat breakfast I saw the owner clearing tables. I jokingly said business must really be jumping if she had to be bussing tables. She said “I just can’t find anyone who is willing to work, so I have no busser right now.”
Being unable to find employees is a common lament for a variety of reasons — some cultural, some as a result of flawed government policies. That discussion is for another day. This column is about one of the effects of that worker shortage — retirees returning to the workforce.
My first job (other than as free indentured labor in my dad’s business) was bagging groceries part-time after school in a state-wide chain grocery store. In those days (1960’s) all the baggers were teens working part-time for minimum wage. Now if you go into any of the stores in that chain half the baggers are old guys working part-time.
A manager of one of those stores is a high-school classmate of mine, who I encountered at a reunion. Like me, he had started as a high-school bagger in that chain, but stayed and worked his way up in the company.
I mentioned to him my observation, and he told me retirees were more reliable than teens. That retirees understood the “work ethic”.
As an example he said, “We understand retirees have to take time off for doctor appointments, and have more health issues, but at least they let us know so we can adjust scheduling. These damn kids just don’t show up, without any notice, because they didn’t feel like working that day. How are we supposed to run a business like that?”
He said that even though retirees don’t need the jobs, they are easier to manage because they “understand why we’re in business.”
Throughout history in every culture (except, notably, some controlled by Marxists) elders were respected for their wisdom acquired through experience. That is being lost in our contemporary American youth-oriented (increasingly socialist) society.
Too often us old folks are the objects of ridicule, not to be taken seriously, by a clueless younger generation. But — like my grocery store manager acquaintance told me — many businesses are discovering that we seniors are a pool of potential employees to fill the void of those younger who can’t, or won’t, do the jobs.
As Bill Hudson has chronicled, the affordable housing crisis has resulted in a shortage of employees in Archuleta County. But, as Bill has also reported, there are a lot of retirees in the area. Have local businesses considered recruiting from among retirees? It’s not a solution to the affordable housing problem which needs to be addressed. But it is a way for some businesses to deal with the employee shortage.
Certainly there must be retirees around Pagosa who would welcome the opportunity to get out of the house (away from their spouses) for a few hours a week – and get paid for it!
Gary Beatty lives between Florida and Pagosa Springs. He retired after 30 years as a prosecutor for the State of Florida, has a doctorate in law, is Board Certified in Criminal Trial law by the Florida Supreme Court, and is now a law professor.