A life rebuilt, a future now in doubt

This post is from a fellow former federal employee who goes by the name Jim Casy Lives. Now that three additional guest authors have contributed posts here, names or aliases have become necessary to avoid confusion. Like both of the previous guest posts, this essay has not been edited.

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When I first met my new colleagues as a federal employee in November 2014, I did my best to hide my insecurity and self-doubt. Here I was, an accomplished 52-year-old professional scarred by one of those corporate purges that allow stockholders to dodge responsibility for higher employee healthcare expenses by ejecting long-valued workers whose only offense was aging.

In more than two decades with Fortune 200 companies, I was lauded by employers who moved me through the ranks of manager to director to division vice president until fall 2011 when corporate America opted to rid itself of me, one of more than a dozen of the company’s “star” performers who suddenly had faults in our foundation worthy of dismissal.

For the next three years, overcoming unemployment was my full-time job, which meant constant networking and dozens upon dozens of applications, resumes, cover letters, follow-up calls and emails, and countless rejections from those “kind” enough to bother to respond after multiple interviews. Then, there were those six opportunities lost to “another candidate,” some likely younger than me.

As my job search continued, our financial fears rose. Anxiety was a frequent visitor as I paid $1,800 a month for COBRA health benefits (critical for easing my spouse’s debilitating chronic pain) atop the monthly mortgage, the nation’s highest auto insurance premiums, and life’s other necessary expenses. As the sole income provider, it wasn’t long before 20+ years of 401(k) savings all but evaporated, as taxes and penalties for early withdrawals took 38 cents on a dollar. As savings dwindled, we turned to Obamacare, declared bankruptcy and fell into home foreclosure when I could no longer make the payments demanded.

In winter 2014, I was asked to be one of two representatives of a non-profit support group for middle-aged unemployed professionals invited to meet with the host department’s Secretary for a discussion on the unique obstacles facing job-needy people in their 50s.

Before the meeting, I had reaffirmed my decision to make certain that, if nothing else, the Secretary and those at the roundtable would remember me and my story. My turn came to speak and I delivered my remarks like my family’s members’ lives depended on it, because they did. Summing up, I announced bluntly: “I had an aggressive form of lymphoma and chemotherapy in 2006 that left me with permanent nerve damage to my feet and chronic pain. After five years in remission, I can tell you that, for me, fighting unemployment has been worse than battling cancer. When you’re told you have cancer (on our daughter’s 5th birthday no less), you go to your appointments… you cope with the treatments… and hope you make it. When you’re unemployed at 50, very little is in your control, and you fear the future. Given the choice, I’d rather have cancer.”

Tears were shed by many in the room, including me, that day. After others told their stories and listened to the remarks of department leaders, we all headed home. Weeks later, I began getting occasional emails from one of the roundtable’s D.C. organizers. After exchanging emails over a few months, I was asked if I’d be interested in talking to a department assistant secretary about my situation. I assumed they’d listen, offer support and move on.

The call came, the department’s need was outlined and we discussed how my skills and experience aligned with a soon-to-be-created position. After a few more calls, I boarded Amtrak, headed for Washington for a full day of leadership interviews, after which I reconvened with the assistant secretary who then asked if I was ready to join the department as a Schedule A (Disabled) appointee. My cancer, it seemed, had saved my family’s life.

Almost 11 years have passed since I nervously introduced myself to many of the people to whom I painfully said goodbye last month. Despite doing my damndest to help our team be its best, I was given less than 10 days to decide whether to accept the department’s offer of a deferred resignation or risk being laid off and forced to retire immediately with no severance or worse, be fired for some “trumped up” show of disloyalty and be deprived of my retirement benefits.

I made the best of an awful situation and chose to leave the job I have truly loved, more than any I’ve ever had and the one of which I am most proud, to ensure that I secure — and can afford — health benefits for me and my family.

These 11 years have enabled me to replenish my retirement savings back to 2011 levels. While I had hoped to serve the department for another four to five years to increase my pension and savings and avoid losing Social Security benefits allowed at 67 years of age, I will have to claim those benefits and my monthly pension early and find a source of allowable part-time wages to slow the burn on my government 401(k). Oh, I hope I don’t run out of money before I die.

My story is one of several that could be told by the seven of 12 people in my office and the six of 12 colleagues in our regional offices whose careers have been obliterated by this administration’s executioners, the ill-equipped DOGE boys among them. These clueless brown shirts have invaded (and literally occupied) departments across the crumbling U.S. government, empowered by Musk — their drug-addled Fourth Reich gruppenfuher — to destroy many primary federal functions on behalf of Christian Nationalists and xenophobes united to “purify” our nation.

All things considered, I know I am among the lucky. I have resources to survive and provide shelter and care for me and my family. I was born in the U.S. with the rights of citizenship, at least for now. As a caucasian, I’m not worried (yet) that masked federal goons will invade my home on some faulty accusation. Today, I fear for people of color in a country I no longer recognize: our adopted Latino daughter especially, as well as friends, neighbors, workers in the local supermarkets and restaurants I visit, and the many other hard-working immigrants I encounter, any or all of whom may be targets of this rogue government.

Just as the Nazis were defeated, this aspiring dictator and his depraved cultists can — and must — be stopped. Action must replace outrage, resistance must overcome acceptance or worse, surrender. Get involved, join demonstrations, express your disgust with this tyrant and his goon squads to your elected officials (no matter now craven they may be) and find ways to fight back and demand change before the next door that gets shattered in the dead of night is yours.

— by Jim Casy Lives