>“If you’re over 55, forget about preparing for retirement,” he said in an interview. “You have to prepare for losing your job and burning through every cent you’ve saved just to get to retirement.”
>Alpern had a particular reason for wanting to stay on at IBM, at least until the end of last year. His younger son, Justin, then a high school senior, had been named a National Merit semifinalist. Alpern wanted him to be able to apply for one of the company’s Watson scholarships. But IBM had recently narrowed eligibility so only the children of current employees could apply, not also retirees as it was until 2014.
>Alpern had to make it through December for his son to be eligible.
>But in August, he said, his manager ordered him to retire. He sought to buy time by appealing to superiors. But he said the manager’s response was to threaten him with a bad job review that, he was told, would land him on a PIP, where his work would be scrutinized weekly. If he failed to hit his targets — and his managers would be the judges of that — he’d be fired and lose his benefits.
>Alpern couldn’t risk it; he retired on Oct. 31. His son, now a freshman on the dean’s list at Texas A&M University, didn’t get to apply.
>Edward Kishkill, then 60, of Hillsdale, New Jersey, had made a similar calculation.
>A senior systems engineer, Kishkill recognized the danger of layoffs, but assumed he was immune because he was working in systems security, the “S” in CAMS and another hot area at the company.
>With a daughter who was a senior in high school headed to Boston University, he scrambled to apply, but came up dry. His last day was May 31, 2016.
fug. programmers are like the new underclass.
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