In less than a week, I’ll be so close to 40 that, especially in gay terms, I might as well be dead.
I can feel the twinges of mid-life crisis beginning to creep into my doddering, graying head. For instance, it occurred to me yesterday that I should edit my resumé down. Since I have no formal college education, I’ve always relied on my years of experience — not to put down you college boys, but every time I’ve supervised someone who went to art school, they tended to come up with too many “by the book” and expensive ways to do something. The school of experience seems much more valuable in my line of work.
Anyway, my current resumé lists my employment history all the way back to the 1980s. I thought it was important to show the continuity of my design career… but now I think that it’s a liability, only showing prospective employers how old I am. Accordingly, I think I’ll start my resumé in the 90s from here on out. Maybe they’ll think I’m ten years younger, eh?
I’m gay and fifty and my husband is sixty and neither one of us is dead so there’s life after forty, I’ve seen it.
And I run into the same thing with education. While I barely finished highschool I did manage restaurants fo almost 30 years and and many times was told ‘we looking for a BA degree’ Well I’ll match my 25+ years against a BA degree anytime because life in the real world requires skills you cannot get from a book.
But the real reason the want kids fresh out of school is not the degree but the wages, those of us that have 20+ years on the job expect to be paid for it and its always cheaper to hire a eager young’en fresh out of school.