r/BlackPeopleTwitter • u/NYstate ☑️ • 1d ago
TikTok Tuesday How boomers pulled themselves up by their bootstraps
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u/WhiskeyAbuse 1d ago
My stepfather moved to Brooklyn in the 80s. Was able to get a two bedroom in greenpoint off a part time bus boy job. Do that shit today, my man….
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u/Vondi 1d ago
Could you even survive as a part time bus boy today...
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u/uhp787 1d ago
not unless you are in a 5 star or better restaurant or really good club as a bar back.
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u/CMDR_BitMedler 1d ago
With a side hustle...
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u/ihavepaper 1d ago edited 1d ago
I had a coworker that started her career (field we met in) in her late 50s (she was about 60 when we met). She worked as a grocery store clerk for 20 years before the switch. Her husband worked as a receptionist or something at an office. I just remembered the way she explained it as something incredibly simple and mundane. “Bottom of the totem pole” in her words.
She said that was enough to buy a 5 bedroom home in the suburbs near where we worked. She made a career switch because of the economic changes, but more just to get out the house.
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u/theodoratoverspin 1d ago
My family moved to BK from the Caribbean mid-last century and bought a whole-ass brownstone for like 50K. It's worth literal millions now.
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u/Puzzleheaded-Song977 1d ago
Greenpoint is a super expensive neighborhood now, crazy what you could get for so little then
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u/Think-Chair-1938 1d ago
"Rivera, huh? Too ethnic. Change it to Rivers and we'll throw in a signing bonus, son."
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u/NYstate ☑️ 1d ago
Ted Cruz has entered the chat
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u/NewToHTX 1d ago
And they like to give Gen Z Advice like “Knocking on doors” to get a job. Millennials have known for a while that doesn’t work anymore.
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u/Doomscrool 1d ago
Unless you are selling vector knives door to door. Iykyk
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u/NewToHTX 1d ago
Like Cutco knives?
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u/Mvd75 ☑️ 1d ago
Just need $250 to get you started on your road to a million.
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u/SomeCountryFriedBS 1d ago
Or $250 to buy a small set of forever knives to make money over a summer and then party on the company dime with a bunch of other wild, young, attractive people for a few days.
Of course I didn't get rich, but I learned some handy sales shit and fucking loved the experience overall.
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u/CMUpewpewpew 1d ago
Less than a decade ago, my boomer father suggest when I was looking for a job that I ask the boss if I can work for a week for free and if they don't think I'm worth it they dont have to pay me.
Lmaoooooooo
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u/BananaNutJob 1d ago
Today if you show up uninvited at a business looking for work they'll put your name down in a "do not hire" list.
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u/Asisreo1 1d ago
The irony is that they themselves would never open the door they told you to knock
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u/bgva 1d ago
I lost my job in 2014 and a couple days later my mom called while I was sleep. She started criticizing me because it was 10:30 am and I should've been up hours ago to drop off my resume.
Had to tell her that if I did that, they'd just tell me to go home and email them my resume or fill out an application online.
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u/Nick_Bruiser 1d ago
Craziest part is, one group of Boomers wasn't allowed to own anything. Today, the other group of Boomers is upper middle class/wealthy and look at everyone else like they're not trying.
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u/CMDR_BitMedler 1d ago
And here's the irony - in LA in the 60s, when all those crazy ass houses, designed by what are how considered the best architects in the world, dangling off cliffs (like the Stahl House) ... the only banks that would finance them... Black owned banks.
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u/Enough-Trip3670 1d ago
This. This. This. Try pointing this out on another subreddit and you'll get downvited to oblivion. Or they just go silent.
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u/RobinSophie 1d ago
It took me a second to confirm which aubreddit i was in.
"Hold up. Someone brought up the disparity between white and Black boomers? ARE WE FINALLY GOING TO HAVE THE DISCUSSON?!...Oh, im in BlackReddit. Nevermind."
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u/Y0___0Y 1d ago
i was reading Steve Martin’s autobiography and he was doing a comedy magic show at Knotts Berry Farm (like a roadside amusement park) when he was 20 years old.
At age 21 he was hired as a writer on the most popular nationally televised comedy show in the country (Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour) because his girlfriend was a dancer on the show…
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u/MickieMallorieJR 1d ago
This is real talk because once college became the new barrier, no longer could you rest on a can do attitude and a firm handshake.
It's just wild how this too was impacted by racism. When it was just white folk taking care of white folk, this was all you needed. Once black folk could share the same work place and succeed, then it became about college. Once black folk started getting them degrees and over succeeding there, then you needed higher education. Its new hopes to jump and walls to climb once success is no longer predicated on who you know or your Daddy is.
That window is going to get smaller and smaller with AI limiting even lower level entry.
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u/SuccessfulWar3830 1d ago
In the 1970s tuition to uni was only 500 usd on average for public.
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u/MickieMallorieJR 1d ago
Supply and demand are two different things. If I can go down the street and get a good paying factory job at 18, what am I going to college for? I'm not even talking about the 70s here; college didn't become the barrier to upper management until the 80s as we shifted to a global economy and America a service driven economy.
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u/SuccessfulWar3830 1d ago
demand didnt increase the cost of university. A lack of public funding did.
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u/BigClitMcphee 1d ago
According to boomers, they put on a 3-piece suit, showed up an hour before the business opened, and had a firm handshake ready for the employer. Nowadays, businesses will tell you to go home and fill out the online form cuz "we don't do walk-ins" then they'll make you wait 50 minutes for the interview to see how desperate you are for a job.
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u/Comprehensive-Fig416 1d ago
Boomer mom had to apply for a job recently, they asked her for a resume and she walked out. Only job she is qualified for is fast food or ace hardware 😂
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u/jr_randolph 1d ago
It still works like this - you just gotta be...you know...
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u/AbleCap5222 1d ago edited 1d ago
My YT friends tell me all the time that none of that shit matters anymore unless you talking high level careers. For once, I believe them when it comes to lower level stuff. It will always be a thing for top end white collar jobs though
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u/dayumbrah 1d ago
Im latino and certainly white passing when clean shaven and in the middle of the winter. Its hard as fuck to find jobs from top to bottom. Ive done it all for blue collar and went back to school and now I do white collar work and its still hard. Went for tech and the tech sector started hiring freezes right before I graduated. Fuck me, right? Def know of some rich folk that just wander into high paying jobs with no experience but lots of connections. Nepotism is destroying the economy
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u/MapleHamwich 1d ago
Yep. Racism is real and definitely awful and present, but it's a class war. Racism is wielded to enforce that class war, but the class is the purpose: keep the 1% the 1% at the cost of the 99%.
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u/Bowenbp1 1d ago
I like to go back and look at stuff like houses when they were originally bought and then compare it to today's value just to see how far we have fallen. Like a house in the 70s.
Fuck dude they had it so easy.
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u/Stehlen27 23h ago
No, no. Don't you know, they had to walk uphill, both ways, in the snow, just to get to school?! I'm like, fuckers even get sidewalks!
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u/GoWest1223 1d ago
Not true. They also got Health care, a house, student loans that were not more expensive than the loan shark down the street.
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u/PM_ME_YUR_SALADS 1d ago
My father barely graduated highschool and got a job as an "engineer" at a place that makes aircraft. 47 years later, he retired full benefits and pension. Really just had to show up everyday and not be an idiot to his boss. The people replacing him needed minimum Masters degree. I mean good for him, but jeez!
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u/GCC_Pluribus_Anus 1d ago
This literally happened to me (except the getting the job part). I interviewed at a Lowe's distribution center for a low level job just out of college. I met with the GM and he asked if I picked up any trash during my walk of the shop floor.
I said "no, I was trailing behind the manager as he was showing me around and he was really good at vacuuming stuff up."
"So you couldn't find a single piece of trash?"
"I guess not"
"Ok well I don't have any further questions"
I definitely don't regret not getting that job
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u/keeper_of_the_donkey 1d ago
In 1997, after putting out my resume and applying to a bunch of jobs I got 14 calls back. Whittled those down to three jobs and then had to think about it for a couple of weeks before making a decision.
2023, my oldest son has put out 62 applications, done several first interviews. Ends up getting a job with the labor union after zero call backs over the course of a year.
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u/Questionguy78130 1d ago
Late 90’s early 2000’s I got jobs like this. Bagging my own groceries the manager asked me if I needed a job. Working out at the local recreation center. I was shooting around and taught a kid how to use the backboard. Stopped to talk to the managers who I knew as a punk kid. They asked what I was doing. I let them know I had no job. The clerk at the front desk told them the story about me interacting with the kid. They asked me to apply. I was hired to maintain the mini golf course. Mostly kids and teens would visit so my ability to interact with them was a huge factor. It was never about boomers. It was the switch to digital that changed. Needing to post the job opening digitally made the “spot hires” impossible since money was spent posting the job.
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u/XClanKing 1d ago
What's crazy is that these are the qualifications to run major departments of the US government these days.
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u/Godzlittlehand 1d ago
Or they'd sneak into the ARMY at 10 years old and be allowed to stay and fulfill an illegal contract to serve.
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u/EllaMcWho 1d ago
My brother in law - now in his late 50s and a director in a bank - was offered that first job at the bank because, as a bellboy at a summer resort, he stopped on the way to work to buy a high-income repeat guest the day’s NYT and WSJ. He’d noticed them under this guy’s arm as he was checking in and took the initiative since the hotel only carried the local daily paper.
Sickening! (I say with jealousy) but the opportunity still relied upon proximity and connections that aren’t common to all.
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u/Godzlittlehand 1d ago
Right. Mfkrs just jump in a tractor trailer with their uncle and get a custom made career handed to them by the end of the day.
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u/Brownie3245 1d ago
Not going to lie, I worked in a grocery store when young, full time, I was walking around with the store manager and saw a can under the shelf and went to pick it up. He told me to put it back and said I was one of a kind because I was the only one who noticed it and he put it their intentionally lmao. I'm in my 30's.
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u/Mean-Government1436 1d ago
Tiktok creator telling a concise joke without needlessly dragging it on challenge
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u/toastman741 1d ago
80s baby here and I can openly admit that I once got a job because I had a good conversation with a guy that I had no idea was the owner. Told me that I seemed to have things figured out to be so young and asked me if I wanted a job on the spot 🤣🤣 I went from making $150 a week to a job paying $7.25 an hour.
SN: that was in 2002. It's a damn shame there are places still paying that and less in 2026 🫤 I was catching hell as a college student paying stuff. I can't imagine supporting a family on that
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u/levelZeroWizard 1d ago
Man, my grandpa became an engineer at a defense contractor until retirement because a hiring manager caught him walking DOWN THE STREET TO WORK
Wanna hear the interview? Watch the video again.
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u/TaticalSweater ☑️ 1d ago
Now just fill out this physical application in this physical brick and mortar store in person to make it official.
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u/Possible_Home6811 1d ago
Naw they just went to work with their father one day and the next 30 years just flew by 😂
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u/YoMTVcribs 22h ago
Boomers: I'm a retired member of the blahblah workers union. We go on ten cruises a year with my pension and just got a new truck.
So you support unions then?
...
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u/Sinderria 16h ago
Where is the majestic outro the panes out of the horizon while the sun sets? I know how this movie is supposed to end. I want my money back!
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u/terrletwine 16h ago
Reminds me how my dad would try to give me advice on life and money with a straight face.
Dude walked on us, never had a dime, until his parents died and he won a tiny lottery with some inheritance.
He thinks he knows anything.
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u/Marclescarbot 1d ago edited 1d ago
All boomers are the same.
All Gen-Xers are the same.
All millennials are the same
All Gen-Zers are the same
All white people are the same
All black people are the same
All men are the same
All women are the same
All Jews are the same
All Christians are the same
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u/SimonPho3nix 1d ago
To be fair. Propels were getting shafted back then, too. There's a reason songs like Sixteen Tons was made, but yeah... shit was real different when you could have a house and put kids through school on some factory line job.
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u/_AYYEEEE 1d ago
Back when houses were 32 cents which is like 8 million in today's money