I don't know anyone, at any age, who willingly will work their butts off for a lousy 8.00 per hour.

This is the amount of money that my old man was recently offered . And yes, like any other 40 (or in his case, almost 40 year old) year old, he balked at it. He was vehemently disappointed in the idea that here is this man with 20 years...more than 20 years...of experience in warehousing, production line, sales and marketing, anything at all, he was only worth 8.00.

And who was he worth this amount of money to?

Here is my problem with society these days. Too many people who are too young to know better than to think past their own existence, and by this I mean that a lot of the newer managers in any industry are too young to know what it takes to run the life of a 40 year old. Period.

Younger managers are fine and good. They are cut-throat and they are go getters, but they are not experienced, they still have lots of issues that someone in their twenties would have. And the best part of this all is that they are still, many of them - not all, very worried about losing their positions in the companies they work for. Young people are worried that their educations will not compensate for what an older worker can bring to a company.

This is the dilema that plagues working America today. Too many companies are run by twenty-somethings who have not been on the planet long enough to find their way out of the bar, let alone out of their issues. Forty-somethings, though, have nothing to prove. All they want to do is work for a living.

But working for a living, and working for gas money are two different ways of working. To work for a living means that when you leave your place of employment at the end of the day, you feel accomplished. You feel like you have done for your family what you are supposed to be doing.

This is the difference between working for a living, and working for 8.00 an hour. At 8.00 an hour, you can put gas in your family car, but that is all you can do.

On the other side of that coin is the twenty-something manager whose life is not even halfway what the forty-something's life is. Sure, there are the things in life that they need, but LOTS of twenty-something managers have not been breathing long enough to even begin to know what it takes to run a forty-something's life. I will repeat myself, over and over and over again until someone tells me that I am wrong for feeling this way.

Forty-somethings have mortgages and kids. Some of them are married and some of them are not only paying child support but also alimony. Many of them have ailments that no twenty-something can even conjure having when they are in their forites. Forty-somethings have credit bills instead of too many credit cards, and forty somethings have a tendency to like having the lights on, the gas running, the fridge with more than just beer and snacks in it. Oh yes, and kids. Usually more than one, almost always planned and not an accident that caused the forty-something to have to do the right thing and marry said pregnant person.

Forty-somethings have no issues other than do thekids have shoes, clothes, food and something to play?

So, in light of all this information regarding what it takes to please someone in this age range, I am hopeful that someone in the position to hire someone in this age range will take my words to heart when I say that in order to have anyone working for you, you MUST pay them what they are worth.

Frankly, I know of NO forty-somethings who are only worth a lousy 8.00 an hour.

Okay, maybe one.

AUNTY