Thursday, August 01, 2013

"Let it go, Gal. Just let it go."

"But it was small minded and elitist."

"And it was just one paragraph of a six page booklet."

"Exactly! It was just one paragraph of a six page booklet! That's why he should have let me keep it!"

So goes the internal dialog I have been having with myself for two days.

The project we're working on is about handling money for young adults. My boss, whose son is in
college on the five-year plan (the kid has had health problems), had me take out any references to budgeting for child care, long-term savings for a mortgage/a child's tuition/retirement, and the bullet point in the paragraph about emergency funds that referenced paying for groceries or utilities if you lose your job.

He says that "no one under 25 cares about that stuff."

I ride the el with young women (and occasionally young men) who are under 25 and have small children. Where are they going? I've always assumed that there is an affordable child care facility nestled somewhere within the skyscrapers where they work and Harold Washington College where they go to school. Apparently these women do not exist.

Likewise, the administrative assistants in our own agency, or the mail room staff. Under 25. Working 40 hour weeks. I suppose that we would advise them NOT to have the automatic deductions made for life insurance or retirement? Or maybe we wouldn't bother, because in his world, they don't exist.

He said that the line about paying for groceries if you lose your job should go because kids would just say, "Dad, I lost my job at Jimmy John's. Send me money." So I guess my niece, a college student who would be lost without her job because her parents are financially strapped, doesn't exist.

Bottom line -- he's my boss. He made the cuts and they are gone.

The elitism pisses me off. It's not only small minded, it's bad for business. Our client is not Charles Schwab. The people who would turn to our client for financial advice are not upper middle class or better.

And I hate it it when some of us deem others of us invisible.

But I have to let it go. I think it's taken a toll on my complexion! (See post below.)


Photo credit: Image courtesy of Ambro / FreeDigitalPhotos.net



3 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  2. I wish someone had told me about retirement savings when I was young.

    ReplyDelete
  3. That would just piss me off. I really WISH EVERYONE would teach people more about savings and investing at as young of an age as they can!

    ReplyDelete

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