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Ditch the Chore List

Work, Age, Law4 min read

Purging old files, I happened upon our erstwhile chore list. (Comic relief can be found at very bottom.)

Designed when about six children could pitch in, its effectiveness was lost and enforcement abandoned.

The older kids had to get paying jobs in high school and sports had to be accommodated. Those at home, when others weren't, resented having to fill in for what wasn't their assigned weekly tasks; mom or dad or both had either to fight for the work to be done or do it themselves. Hence the list's preamble:

Mom or Dad may alter this list at any time, without notice (by word, thought, or deed) at her or his absolute discretion, and all resident minors will be bound thereby.

So let it be written, so let it be done only works in Yul Brenner movies.

Worse than the fighting, after a while my wife and I just loss credibility. Threats remained just that and became yawn-inducing, spilling over into other areas. A bad thing indeed.

Finally, life is short. When you have 11 children and take in international students to boot, it becomes a war of attrition, except that the other side continually conscripts reinforcements.

Fatigue commandeered the parental army; it waved the white, unlaundered flag, and the chore list was lowered in defeat.

ScoreTeam
11Children
0Chore List

After I re-discovered the decade-old remnant, I put it on the refrigerator for a few laughs. Also, I wanted to remind the Generation Slackers how much was expected (when it was enforced) of the Generation Older.

Employers Are Children Too

But I’ve since uncovered another reason to ponder the disinterred doc.

Recently I spoke with “Zed,” a friend who’d just lost his job. It was familiar territory, Zed's having lost a job about five or six years before.

After his first layoff I called around to see if I could help. I consulted an extremely well-compensated executive who took one look at Zed’s CV and said, “He has an impressive resume but one deal killer: he’s 50.”

Such comments and their like are not extraordinary.

(If you go with the belief that things happen in 3s, then I’ll mention that I also spied a recent article in The Wall Street Journal about ageism.)

Older job seekers know age discrimination violates the law, as do employers. Sometimes their job postings proclaim with overwrought prose how they don't discriminate based on age.

But older applicants don’t believe that, employers don't practice it, and recruiters, hiring managers, even Aunt Abundantia know it’s all nonsense.

That is, everyone, as in everyone, knows that the dreaded chore of hiring older candidates is always avoided.

Contempt Contagion

So more than nostalgia, I was looking at our yellowed list, pondering my jobless friend, and thinking a bit more about what happens when a law is on the books but wholly ignored.

Somewhere Aquinas warns about the deleterious effects of unenforced laws. He knew that, among other reasons, such laws cause a certain contempt contagion among the governed.

Whether a child, a company, or anyone else, we all reason that, if A isn't enforced and B's threats never materialize, then C, D, and E through Z are in doubt or, worse, are fair game for defiance.

"Hey, honey, if your cousin Guido can do X then you should be able to do a little Y," says your Aunt Abundantia (with a little wink).

Like mom and dad, lawmakers lose credibility and respect, even among the world’s Aunt Abundantias.

The Thrill is Gone

But at one time, long ago, those same legislators railed about the law’s necessity. Tempers flared along with nostrils. So it was passed, signed, codified, and came with the promise of vigorous (!) enforcement.

Today? Hmmm. No one can remember when it was a thing, in courts or elsewhere.

A division within the Bureau of High Expectations in the Department of Important Matters was named after the law, and somewhere in the agency’s basement a file cabinet (lower drawer) contains the relevant policies and procedures.

But were some upstart in that division to try to bring a case under it, the boss would roll his eyes: "Whoa! That’s way too tough to prove in court. Besides, we have bigger fish around here. Don't we?”

Take the federal ADEA. (Please.)

It was conceived within the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which mandated that the Secretary of Labor study age discrimination in employment.

When enacted three years later the ADEA’s preamble would solemnly intone some of the Secretary's findings:

[T]he incidence of unemployment ... with resultant deterioration of skill, morale, and employer acceptability is ... high among older workers; their numbers are great and growing; and their employment problems grave.

Gee, sounds bad. But that was then. Now? Well, as Aunt Abundantia would say, “Whatever.”

Honest is So Refreshing

Way back when age discrimination was a congressional concern, the feds reported that approximately half of all private-sector job openings were explicitly refused to applicants over 55 and a quarter for those over 45.

Does that sound bad?

The state of things at least allowed honesty, a rare virtue in the corporate crowd. Back then a company could be frank:

Help Wanted - Desperately Looking for Workers!!! (No grandparents need apply. We said 'desperate', not 'stupid.')

I Don't Hire Grandpa, I Vote for Him!

We just completed a presidential election, and politics aside, one of the few attributes shared by both candidates for high office was age, and lots of it.

The winner will be in his 80s at the end of term one; the loser barely behind that. But somehow, someway we all know someone who was zealous for one or the other.

If only Someone were hiring.

Zed is about 20 years their junior. A mathematician, expert in sophisticated financial instruments, bearing an impressive background, he can’t garner one company’s vote of confidence.

Consider the millions of Zeds who are younger than our ruling class: let go early, unable to find but the lowest paying jobs, stuck at home with no prospects, musing on their own unelectable state.

If a law is respected here, then it’s the one of diminishing returns.

Let’s Be Honest ...

If we don’t stop pretending a law is effective to protect the tenure of a genetic code, we may find useless a law designed to protect the code itself.

So let’s jettison rules serving no purpose but to raise expectations (if for a short time) among the seasoned work force, and worst of all emit an odor of such duplicity that we lose all taste for our many other civic chores.

Like the chore list, we can then post a copy of the repealed statute on the fridge and at least get a few laughs.


The Last Iteration of a Fondly-Remembered, But Dead, Chore List

(Names removed to prevent recriminations from the older generation.)

Any minor, merely by eating, sleeping, or breathing in this house, is a “resident minor” and has consented to be bound by this chore list. Moreover, Mom or Dad may alter this list at any time, without notice (by word, thought, or deed) at her or his absolute discretion, and all resident minors will be bound thereby.

WeekDPGMM2J
1K-1K-2BRFR/LRLaundryOutside
2OutsideK-1K-2BRFR/LRLaundry
3LaundryOutsideK-1K-2BRFR/LR
4etc. . .. . .. . .. . .. . .
ChoreDescriptionComments
K-1Clean dishes & Load dishwasherMany complain when they have this chore. But it need not take so much time. It can be done well in 15 minutes. Quit moanin’ … get goin’!!!
K-2Clear and clean table and counters, sweep floor, clean appliancesThis is perhaps the most important job on a week night. You want to have the red table clean enough so that others may do their homework on it, i.e., write a paper without the butter.
BRClean sink, tub, toilet, floor, etc.This is primarily a Saturday morning job. If you leave the job undone for the week, Mom and Dad may be prosecuted for the crime of SQUALOR. (We don’t know what that is, but it appears on the news quite often and sounds serious.)
FR/LRPick up; Sweep room, entryway, and stairs, dustAnyone complaining about these jobs will be shot.
LaundryBring hampers to laundry room & sortThis used to be started on Sunday; then on Saturday; now I think it starts Thursday [Check with Mom. but someday it may work its way all the way back to Sunday.] Whites are easy to figure out; I still can’t tell the difference between most colors and darks. “When in doubt — dark!” (Remember, after martyrdom, there’s no surer way to heaven than cleaning someone else’s underwear.)
OutsidePick up outside, esp. when grass to be mowedIf the neighbors ever do petition the village to fine us, the person on duty that week has to appear in court and pay the fine. (Sorry.)