A few weeks ago, my husband and I ran into someone we've known a long time. He works in TV, making documentaries. He's among the best in the business, and for the past 30 years he's worked steadily. "What are you up to these days?" we asked. The answer was nothing. A while ago, his phone just stopped ringing.
Like half the people we know, this person has been self-employed for much of his career. He belongs to what we've come to call the creative class - people who work in the media or graphic arts, PR, consulting, law. The world has been very, very good to them - until now. On the cusp of 60 (plus or minus a few years), they've found that work is quitting them long before they're ready to quit work.
"Everyone's talking about how the recession's over," says Neil Stewart, who runs a specialty printing firm that makes high-end artisanal products such as limited editions and corporate promotional material. "Well, it ain't over."
More Stories
"You have to spend 90 per cent of your time marketing in order to survive," says a photographer who does not want people to know just how far her income has dropped.
"It's not just that the phone isn't ringing," says Tim Knight, who used to make a good living training broadcast journalists. "It's that the world has changed."
These people are not as vulnerable as the workers featured in Retirement Lost, the terrific series that starts on our front page today. They'll never lose the pensions that were promised to them, because they never had pension plans in the first place. They didn't want them. They are the generation - mine - that vowed to shake off the corporate shackles. They never would have dreamed of trading their freedom for pensions and job security. Instead, they've always bet on themselves - their talent, their resourcefulness and their work ethic - to provide for the future.
But now, the aging creative class has more in common with laid-off manufacturing workers than you might think. The recession has bashed them hard. Their age is working against them. And seismic shifts in technology and the marketplace have made their skills and experience increasingly irrelevant.
"Broadcasters are busy firing - not hiring or training - these days, so my business has collapsed," says Mr. Knight, who has also turned his hand to TV wildlife documentaries, speechwriting, and training people to give speeches. All that has dried up, too. A couple of weeks ago, he swallowed his pride and wrote an e-mail to 50 or 60 acquaintances, asking if anyone knew of any employment opportunities for "an aging, witty, Emmy-holding" person such as himself. "It wasn't easy," he says. "I pressed a button, then had rather a large number of Scotches."
To many creative-class boomers, being unwanted comes as a complete surprise.
"We've always had an ability to shape our lives," says a woman who does high-level work in media and community relations. "We thought, why would that ever change?"
The same Internet revolution that's shaking up the world of print has devastated other fields, too. One is commercial photography. Not long ago, original, high-quality photography was in demand for hundreds of uses, from advertising to corporate brochures. Today, companies put all the latest product information on their websites, and the corporate brochure is all but extinct. Cameras and software have become much better, so that even amateurs can do work that used to require professionals. And why hire a photographer at all when an art director can get almost any image she wants in minutes on the Internet? "I know some very talented people who've just given up," says Sid Tabak, one experienced photographer who hasn't.
Mr. Tabak, who's 59 - and still skis the black diamonds - has grown used to working with (and for) people who are 30 years younger than he is. He relies on their recommendations. They like him because he's relaxed and flexible. But he knows his age is not exactly his greatest asset. "Who wants to work with their father or mother?" he says.
"I'm getting older and they're getting younger," says Mr. Stewart, the printer, who's only 55. "The middle management got cut out of organizations years ago, so I'm dealing with very young people who have absolutely no idea what they're doing. I save people's asses every day."
None of these people have what you might call retirement plans. To start with, they have no desire to retire. They don't feel old and they don't feel tired. Besides, they really can't afford to retire. Most have set aside some savings, but are also going to live another 25 or 30 years.
"The scary part is that our options seem to be shrinking," says the media-relations woman. "We're vulnerable and humble. Very humble."
"I'll die working, which is fine with me," says Mr. Stewart. Like most of the creative boomers I know, most of his net worth consists of personal real estate. He and his wife downsized to put their daughter through university, and they're prepared to downsize again to put themselves through old age. "Our real estate is our pension plan. That's the only way it's working for us," he says.
But money's not the only issue, or maybe even the most important one. Just like steel makers and bank vice-presidents, creative workers have their identities heavily invested in their work. When the work has dried up and the Emmys are gathering dust, what then? As Tim Knight puts it, he has a website you can visit "for details on who I think I am."
Yet, even though the future is more uncertain than they expected it to be, they don't regret their choices. Most figure things will work out one way or another, as they generally have. "Here's my prediction," says Mr. Tabak. "We'll all start living in communes again. It'll be like the Seventies, when we had no money but we all lived together and ate well and smoked dope." This time, presumably, the dope will be medicinal. "Creative types are resourceful, and they come up with stuff."
