Unconscious Bias

The miserable weather we had this weekend, spilled over with today's overcast, cold and lingering dampness, and in spite of the temperature in my office being set at a comfortable degree, the dampness managed to seep inward enough to cause discomfort. One of my out of town visitors mentioned how unprepared he was for today's weather, so I guess my personal complaints were justified.

Most of the earlier hours of my day was spent chasing after things which would help to make several people more comfortable, and once they were satisfied, I busied myself with my own end of the month errands. In spite of it being a Monday and only two days before the first of May, I was shocked at how few people there were out and about in our downtown, so I guess the weather must've had something to do with it. Keep in mind, over sixty percent of our population is over 55 years of age and not wanting to be out and about on days like today.

A very dear client of mine stopped by to drop off some documents I was needing, along with a well-received gift which I will definitely keep as a remembrance. Gosh, I'm still struggling with there soon being another loss of yet one more highly intelligent person who's opted-out of calling Mason City a long-term home, and for sure I'm convinced it's the overall caliber and texture of our city's mentality, which has become even more polarized over this past decade. We can definitely thank our city's administration and elected council members for promoting such thinking. The only comforting thoughts I have about it all, is there'll be a day when it all comes to a head and a changing of the guard taking place, and if those people intentionally created hardships on others, then we must leave it to Divine Justice/Karma to mete out the respective forms of due punishments.

One of my dear old clients/customers stopped by today to have a long-overdue chat, and to my shock, I was once again reminded of how ageism which is one form of unconscious bias, is alive and well in North Iowa, which has always been a sore spot for me from the time I first realized it was happening a very many years ago.

Having recently fully retired from his job of many decades, he decided to take a part-time job of four hours for a corporate company here in North Iowa, which happened to require more physical strength that he was expecting, and since he's no longer twenty-something, he's not able to move quite as fast as his fellow co-workers.

Well, you can be sure, I had much to say after him telling me about how overly-demanding his supervisor has been with his work, and so much so, I personally informed him that he must either take a stand, or find another company to work for, because such continued mental abuse would more sooner than later, erode his self-respect. What caused me to see red the most, was when he shared his non-benefit wage of less than $17.00 per hour. Wasn't it not but a week or so ago when I spoke about the modern-day slavery that's going on? Well, today's conversation was one more confirmation. Shame on all of them.

Getting back to ageism, I must remind all of you that such discrimination is very much alive and well right here in River City, and it's even happening in non-corporate settings.? Because I worked in the corporate world for well over ten years, I could see it happening even back then, and you can be sure I had several not so pleasant confrontations with upper management whenever I'd discover an unfairness taking place. Just one example of ageism, is when a far younger and greatly less-experienced person on a work team, is promoted over a much older, and markedly more experienced team member.

Most of the time they seem to get away with it, but I remember several times right here in North Iowa, where the injured employee took legal action, and believe me, after it was all over, those who were a party to ageism, were cursing the day they were born. I distinctly remember a ring-leader of one of those situations, being fired on the spot and assured no future recommendations.

Sometimes those who're wrongly promoting, will use the excuse that the older one they'd was passed over, didn't have enough years remaining before retirement to justify the promotion. Oh, not so would a judge and jury believe, and all I can say about ageism, is anyone who's holds such unconscious bias, is playing with fire, and I will continue to hope and pray they all pay the price for doing something they know is absolutely wrong.

Yes, we do live in the 'last outpost' where un-constitutional ordinances are passed, every form of unconscious bias is put into practice, and tight tribal circles who believe they always know what's best for the general public, but once again, I'm of the belief that's all it's gonna take is a handful of people who've had enough and know how to grab onto the end of a 'tail' and start climbing up. Yes, that's all it'll take, and especially if there's a pattern of wrongdoing discovered which would then trigger a class action lawsuit. Why can't people from the very beginning, do what's right?

Tonight's One-liner is: Power does not corrupt, because fear corrupts...perhaps the fear of a loss of power.

original post ... https://niowarealty.net/life/2024/04/29/unconscious-bias/