What is Discrimination?

   If you are an adult fifty years old or more and have been doing a certain job for more then five years but suddenly your bosses are looking for every excuse available to fire you and if you are that age bracket and a woman doing a job that once mostly only men did then why is that not considered discrimination? oh but it is you say? Ok, yes it is if you are: Latin or Latin American; African or African American; Indian or Indian American; Asian or Asian American; and to some extent even if you are Native American, but not so much as the others. But if you are just a plane Jane white American there is no group to stand behind you; unless you are against God, then you can always count on the ACLU and our government as well.

   Instead of companies, corporations and organizations inventing ways of utilizing the experiences of the older generation they discard them like so much trash; and get away with it. We as people of America have allowed this to happen. So tell me this people of America, what happens when the electricity and or the computer systems in your stores shut down? Can you still make purchases during those inconvenient times? No you can’t and do you know why? Simply put there are two reasons, one is that the computers refuse to accept any monetary exchange. The tellers can’t even open their drawer. Number two even if the tellers could open their drawers they don’t know how to count change without a computer telling them how much money to give back. Pretty sad state of affairs and yet our wonderful government wants to keep it that way for further control over who can and can not be allowed to make purchases in the future.

   The point I’m trying to make here is that there is more then one way to accomplish the same goals. Everyone should learn them all whenever possible. That creates a win win situation for everyone. The older generation that has been doing things the old ways can teach the new generation those ways; so what if you will never use them again, what if you had too but no one new how anymore?

   Here is another idea; I’ve seen a lot of older truck drivers in that same age bracket; both men and women. Now these men and women have mostly been doing this for five years or more; many have been doing it for ten or more but my point is; don’t lookfor excuses to fire them, for many like my sister it’s their only source of income. Instead take these young people and have them do the distance driving and have the older ones drive the shorter distances and shorten some of the hours. For instance my sister’s company has a policy, work fourteen hours with eleven of those driving time and spend ten hours down. For most those are great but the older generation become weary and their eyes begin hurting and in some cases they become sleepy. They try every trick in the book so they don’t become a liability to their companies. Acknowledge this; give them an option; and I don’t mean quit or be fired. Give them the option of working less hours for the same pay, which is as much as forty cents per mile with the really good companies plus benefits, or take on a secondary driver with a slight pay reduction with benefits working their regular hours.