Good morning, everyone – I’m back, more or less.

Let’s spin that airlock wheel and get going, shall we?

Freeper callousness is an amazing thing to be sure – but this one…

Unemployed at 62, his plight may be a sign of the times (Barf alert!)bostonherald ^ | 3-11-03 | Margery Eagan

Posted on Tuesday, March 11, 2003 1:40:19 PM by Jimmyclyde

Unemployed at 62, his plight may be a sign of the times

by Margery Eagan Tuesday, March 11, 2003

Here in the living room of what feels like a cozy English country cottage – china-blue walls, hand-painted antique chairs, latticed windows and fine woods – it’s hard to believe the once-comfortable occupants are down to their last $2,500.

Not enough to pay their $2,000 monthly rent and $1,200 health insurance, never mind food or heat or gas.

But that’s the very scary story of North Easton couple Dick Wilcox, 62, and his wife, Michele, 56. Dick was laid off from his $65,000, mid-level insurance company job a year ago. He cannot afford to retire.

And as a nation obsesses over war, its politicians seeming to forget the crushing effects of a jittery economy, Dick Wilcox has joined the unenviable ranks of older, unemployed, white-collar workers who can’t find another decent job.

“It’s like all it takes,’ Dick Wilcox said yesterday, “is one crack in the system and you can go from having a really good lifestyle to being literally homeless.’

To prevent that is why he’s spent three months now, morning after frigid morning, at busy Canton intersections. He wears fat mittens and a hooded parka over a neat suit and tie. And like an upscale version of your average street corner beggar, lifelong, middle-class taxpayer Dick Wilcox stands with a mix of humiliation, desperation and defiance behind the 4-by-6-foot plywood sign he made in his basement. And he begs, too.

“I NEED A JOB. 508-238-3226.’ That’s what his sign reads in big black letters. “36 Yrs. Exper. Insur/Mngmnt.’

Dick Wilcox has dropped off hundreds of resumes at companies and office parks. He’s sent out hundreds more online. He’s had two interviews and not a single job offer near the $50,000 he needs.

Now his severance, unemployment, modest savings and pension are almost gone. Michele Wilcox, who raised three children and supplemented Dick’s income with a home crochet business, brought in just $9,000 this year. Her small business is yet another victim, it appears, of a shrinking economy.

A year ago, the couple planned to help an infertile daughter finance an expensive overseas adoption. They’d hoped to replace a 12-year-old car. Now, even if both find $10-an-hour jobs tomorrow, they’re on the brink of losing their home.

Dick Wilcox, who has a can-do, take-charge aura about him – and unique ideas on making older workers more attractive – says he’s still a bit stunned by it all. “When I first lost my job I said, `Well, it’s not the end of the world. I’ll go out and find something else . . .’ I never expected . . . this.’

Here is the good and bad news. Last week, his story made the front page of The Wall Street Journal. Since then he’s had hundreds of phone calls, mostly from other older laid-off workers who are discouraged, too, “and practically crying on the phone,’ he says. “Out of work nine months, 14 months. Unbelievable, terrible stories.’

But he’s also had calls from other media outlets, including nationally syndicated radio shows, cable TV’s NECN and two of the three big morning network shows: “Good Morning America’ and “The Early Show.’ But the morning shows keep delaying him, he says, because of war stories.

Meanwhile, he says, not a single politician has called. “They’d much rather debate the war than talk about the economy because they don’t have any solutions. They just keep promising the economy’s going to turn around. . . Now they don’t even say it anymore and we’ve got tens of thousands out of work.’

Although media coverage has led to at least one promising interview offer, Dick Wilcox is taking no chances. He plans to be out again tomorrow morning, the corner of Route 138 and Washington Street, where people have climbed over snowbanks to shake his hand or bring him Dunkin’ Donuts. “One woman tapped me on the shoulder with tears in her eyes. She said, `This is the gutsiest thing I ever saw anybody do.’ ‘

He says that when he first thought of the sign, he was afraid to tell his wife or children. He was embarrassed, scared he’d seem like a failure, like “some idiot’ standing in the road.

Yesterday, Michele Wilcox said she’d admired her husband’s daring. Yesterday Karen Wilcox, their oldest child, said her father “had proven us all wrong’ for ever fretting about his sign. She said her father had worked hard all his life and that when she heard him last week on the radio, “I had tears in my eyes. . . . I’m so proud of him.’

***************************

Unemployed at 62?
It’s called retirement.

1 posted on Tuesday, March 11, 2003 1:40:19 PM by Jimmyclyde

To: Jimmyclyde

He really expected to find another job at 62? Doesn’t he know that most employers are NOT going to hire a 62 year old man or 59 year old woman for that matter. Most employers don’t like to hire anyone over 50 unless they are CEO’s. There is a real prejudice in the work force when it comes to hiring older people.

3 posted on Tuesday, March 11, 2003 1:44:39 PM by areafiftyone (The U.N. is now officially irrelevant! The building is for Sale!!!)

To: Jimmyclyde

One word: MOVE

5 posted on Tuesday, March 11, 2003 1:45:13 PM by Extremely Extreme Extremist

To: Extremely Extreme Extremist

Three words: Paper or plastic?

9 posted on Tuesday, March 11, 2003 1:46:52 PM by JIM O

To: JIM O

ROTFLMAO

12 posted on Tuesday, March 11, 2003 1:49:55 PM by mtbrandon49 (BOHICA)

To: KC_for_Freedom

this guy has to be a dim bulb if he spends his time with a sign on the street.

16 posted on Tuesday, March 11, 2003 1:51:52 PM by RolandBurnam

To: KC_for_Freedom

I don’t understand why there is no sympathy for this man on this thread.

Can’t any of you put yourselves in his place?

I read about him in the Wall Street Journal last week and I really felt for him and his wife. So he was making $65,000 per year? He was also raising three children to adulthood and that probably took most of his earnings. The one thing I didn’t understand was the $2,000 per month rent. I wondered why they didn’t own a home.The main thing brought home to me by the article in the WSF is the age bigotry that exists. It actually begins when people are in their 40’s and gets progressively worse. Now that STINKS.

19 posted on Tuesday, March 11, 2003 1:53:47 PM by vikingcelt

To: Jimmyclyde

Oh, no–not this sob story again! (There was a thread last week).

Hey, Mister, get a job, get a life, send the old lady out to work.

Many of us have been there, done that. We didn’t alert the media

22 posted on Tuesday, March 11, 2003 1:55:03 PM by Palladin (Proud to be a FReeper!)

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