That totally sucks what they are doing. Im sorry muji. Hugs to you. I hope the 2 years left till retirement goes super quick.

Super quick, aspie, yeah! Thanks for hoping for that for me! :-)

Muji it's ridiculous how people treat the older generation not that I'm saying you're old please understand that :-) not that I really want to talk about my father, but when he was going job hunting after he lost his job he could not get a job for ages because of his age. And yet when they told him that they were not hiring oh, I called the exact same place and they listened to my younger voice and said in an instant oh yes for hiring come in for an interview right away! So it infuriates me to see how people treat those who have put in so much hard work, devotion, and loyalty to their jobs & treat people without any respect, then allow young people who have absolutely no responsibility or reliability to take over. It drives me bonkers! So I feel for you and I hope that this gives you some measure of support. You deserve so much more and you definitely deserve respect from your bosses not what they are giving you.

Triple hugs of support muji~ i totally understand the environment, as my hospital has been under the similar situation for a few years now, and I am the least seniority employee there. Im always joking that if i show up and they still let me work that day, its a good day. We have loss three techs since i have been there, and the lab has not replaced any of them.
May I suggest to you, that the boost to self esteem isnt in the job, but in the result you have on your students. If you are feeling bad about yourself when you return due to the situation, look at every face in your class room and everyday at least one face will give you the boost you need. When you see maybe one of them really enjoying it, or beginning to understand and crasp a long hard fought understanding of some aspect. For me, its in the moments when one of the IVF patients finally becomes pregnant and then even more so when those pregnancies are successful and a new life arrives. Our self esteem, muji, its in the young ones~ the children, the students, the young at heart. Again, triple hugs friend~

College should be about the classes, the teachers and students. Bugs the heck out of me how much money is spent on non-essential things like fancy landscaping.

One day, one situation at a time Muji. I know what it's like. I worked at a major university. Ran a graduate program that ranked second best in the country. It was a dual major program and they split it in two. Programs were no longer even competitive. The strength was having them together. I went to another graduate program. Good thing I did, they were going to lay me off. It's crazy what they do. No rhyme or reason. You never know what they are going to do. It's hard but try and go with the flow. Worrying about it now will wear you down and if it comes time to fight you'll be weak. Supportive hugs.

Wow, do y'all ever get it! I was getting to feeling sorry for myself, that isolating self pity thing was beginning to take hold. So I figured, what the heck? Reach out.

The worst that can happen would be that my bosses would log on and see that I'd talked about them. That's why I tried to be fair in what I said about them behind their backs here, because I'd have to back it up to their faces, too.

Y'all get it, though, that hospitals and colleges can be places where some of the smartest go to work, But that running the business of the place can be no smarter than anywhere else.

I'm trying to read books on retiring and facing becoming obsolete at work while looking forward to the third phase of life, retirement. It's going to happen to us all, right? It makes a big difference, though, that I've got y'all to tell me I'm truly not alone. You've gone through stuff like this at work, too.

Your advice is right on. It's not smart just to look to bosses' "attaboys" for my self esteem. Look to the people served, in hospitals the patients, at my school the students.

I got a really nice note from a student at the end of the year this year. Taking your advice here I'm gonna print that note off and scotch tape it to my fridge door when I get back home from Mexico Sunday. That way I can be reminded to follow your advice every day.

Thanks, everybody!

Muji, above replies have said so much. So many online colleges and universities have sprung up. Not replacing when someone leaves has been around for decades. My brother headed up the Vocational Rehab program in Florida. Went from a staff of five, to only him. Fortunately, more and more businesses are recognizing the benefits of hiring the older, experienced employees. I have had a variety of contracts with varying pay. Each got my best. It is about those in front of you, not the system. That is the reward; the paycheck is a bonus. Hugs.

Yup, not replacing is really common, I do know. Retiring not only means leaving, it often also means having your workplace legacy erased behind you.

It's just that mine's being erased before I'm out the door, literally.

My boss and this year's new psych instructor met to rewrite the college catalog description of the death and dying course I teach. They rewrote it to eliminate any mention of religion, since I taught it as a hospital chaplain and I'd no longer be there. I get it.

It would have been nice to be told since we have 2 years to go as coworkers, though. When I took over teaching those death and dying classes, I went and talked about those courses to the instructor who taught them before me who retired. Just as a courtesy; that's just me, I know.

I'm not a "don't let the door hit your in the rear" kind of coworker toward my workplace colleagues when they leave, but there's no reason not to be, either, I understand.

I interviewed as a finalist on the academic job market every year for the last 10 years. I like your business contract by contract marketplace much more. It's much more flexible, and ours is rigid.

That's why it's not been my experience that the academic job market has recognized the benefits of hiring older more experienced employees like you've seen happen in your more open business market. That's because of the unique outdated presence of tenure in the academic market.

In hiring older academic employees we come having run the course of the tenure track. I've run the gamut twice, once for 7 years and once for 5.

In almost all full time long term positions in the USA you have no choice about whether to go up for tenure or not. I'm not a fan of tenure because it's a "you get it or you're fired" system everywhere, that is way too inflexible for today's workplace. But I've done it because it was the law, literally, and I got it always even though I didn't even seek or want it.

For those hiring us older faculty who come with tenure whether we want to or not it means that if the hire turns out to have been mistake for the boss the boss can't get rid of us. If the boss hires younger untenured faculty right out of grad school, though, they're not only cheaper.
You also have more power as a boss to fire them if they don't work out.

It's an interesting USA opposite of free market economics and an open marketplace for negotiating contracts freely like you're used to doing. Boy, would I ever have preferred your negotiating position.

Tenure hamstrings both parties in academe, and yet in nearly all places it can't be refused. In 40 years of an academic career interviewing at dozens of schools in higher education, I only ever got to interview at one school that didn't have the tenure system.

Big squishy hugs Muji…… We've just had a ton of education cuts in our province and sadly it takes the human factor out of the equation and that can really hurt

Unfortunately your boss doesn't make things any easier

I'm glad that you just have 2 more years until the next adventure sweetie....

You and the good friends you've made will still be in touch I have no doubt because you're a good friend

They'll want to be visitors in Mexico!!…..xo

Thanks, SunCloud! It's nice of you to send me a big squishy hug today. On top of the way I feel about the countdown to leaving on Sunday, I had my first physically challenging day here all summer. Wonder if they're related.

Anyway, stomach upset. Then when I made myself go out to my usual family restaurant around the corner, for the first time all summer something wasn't right with the food. It was fish, and it was under cooked.

I didn't say anything, but the waiter knows me so he came over, saw it, and made it right with another order. Great guy.

By then, though, I'd tried a few bites of under cooked fish on an already unwell tummy, so ick.

Then, I tried logging on here and neither of my two used laptops I brought down here would work. Guess what? It wasn't the laptops.

Hours later, I found out that TelMex, the national phone company that also runs the Internet, had a massive outage that affected millions across the country.

Obviously, all's well that ends well. I'm here, so that means the Internet's working again. But what a day, huh?

Logging on and finding your squishy hug was especially great, then, This day being a bit of a challenge, it was very timely! :-)

Well, it's another day, the countdown to flying back Sunday continues...10, 9, 8....I'm trying to be humorous about it by listening to that old David Bowie song about Major Tom and blasting off.

"Space Oddity by David Bowie

Ground Control to Major Tom
Ground Control to Major Tom
Take your protein pills and put your helmet on
Ground Control to Major Tom
Commencing countdown, engines on
Check ignition and may God's love be with you
Ten, Nine, Eight, Seven, Six, Five, Four, Three, Two, One, Lift off"

Believe it or not, it's helping.....