The other day I got dumped from a job. I was hosting and producing a series of videos for a website. The videos came out better than anyone expected. I felt on top of the world. And then my world fell apart.
The marketing pro at the clients decided – I was too old for the part. In fact, even my voice was too old. I was angry, hurt, ticked off and mad!
Bottom line: The client is just plain wrong! We’ll talk about this in a future blog.
First, I can’t tell you how hurt I was when my client (who is older than I am) told me. I’ve worked with him for almost 20 years and I know he felt bad when he told me. He still wants me to host and produce material for him, but this client wants a younger demo. I told him they were wrong. And he agreed. But, as he pointed out, they also write the check.
Okay, this is certainly a case of “ageism.” This young woman is discriminating against me – not because of my talent or lack of talent, but because I’m old! Growing old does suck sometimes.
The client marketing person is a young twenty-something. She’s making decisions on marketing products to the wrong demographic. And she’s not alone. Marketing pros want the 18 – 34 year age group. I frankly don’t understand why. A 30 year old is practically a fetus, with just a few years of life experience. How can they be making decisions that experienced marketing people should be making? To me, experience equals years working.
When I was in my 20’s, I applied for an opening at a radio station. I had been referred to the manager and he was very friendly. He knew my work. He told me how great I was. And then asked, how could he help me? I told him I knew he had an opening and I wanted to be hired. After all his compliments, I felt this was a perfect match.
He almost laughed at me. Why would he hire me with just a few years experience, when he could bring in a guy with 20 years of experience? I was devastated.
At 28-years old, I signed with a major talent agency in Los Angeles. This was the agency. It was bigger than William Morris. I thought all my dreams had been realized. The agency specialized in representing host talent – for game shows and talk shows. As I left that day of signing, the head of the agency told me they anticipated great things for me. “And when you’re 50, you’ll be a hell of a host!” I was flabbergasted. The agency never got me any work. Today, they represent young guys.
Somehow the rules changed on me. First I was to young and then I was too old? What the hell happened? When did it happen? And what was I doing to let it happen?
To cap this off, my wife had planned a night on the town. It just happened to coincide with this incident. She dragged me to dinner and then to see Joan Rivers’ new play. This was the day after I was let go and I didn’t want to go. I was in a lousy mood. I certainly didn’t want to laugh. I wanted to stew in my own problems. Did I say, “I didn’t want to go?” But I did.
The play chronicles Joan’s life. And for some reason I resonated with Joan and her life. In fact, it was like a sign from the universe for me to see that play. Joan and I have a lot in common. The play gave me strength!
At one point she lost her TV show, her Las Vegas gigs and her spotlight. Her husband committed suicide. Her daughter wasn’t speaking to her. Her life was in the crapper. What did she do? She got up and started working in small clubs. She did ribbon cuttings at WalMart and Target. She did whatever she could to do, not what she wanted to do. All she wants to do is to make people laugh. This happened to Joan at the same age I’m at now. Wow!
The end of her story: she won’t let anyone tell her that she can’t do something. No one has the right to tell her what she can and can’t do. Then she told the audience: no one has the right to keep us from doing what we want to do. Thank you, Joan! You made me laugh. And you made me think.
And that’s what I’m going to do. I’m not going to let this little marketing person depress me anymore! I’m going to be happy and do the things I love to do.
Have you been told you can’t do something because “You’re too old?” Let me hear your story. We can’t let people tell us we can’t do something because we’re too old. We can do whatever we want to do!
Tags: Joan Rivers, jobs, old, too old, work
Good work! Thank you very much!
I always wanted to write in my blog something like that. Can I take part of your post to my site?
Of course, I will add backlink?
Regards, Timur I. Alhimenkov
Hello. Your site displays incorrectly in Mozilla, but content excellent! Thanks for your wise words.