GLIMPSES of how Canada worked: a writer's memoir.

65. Ending the 20th Century

copyright © 2015 WandaS All rights reserved

MY 'MONTREAL LUCK' STAYED IN MONTREAL. As the 1990s began in Toronto, unpleasant things happened too fast for me to cope. "A new normal" was nowhere in sight because everything, everyone, I dealt with was temporary so I couldn't make decisions for the future. Mom had died on New Year's Eve and special people in Montreal, cottage country, and Toronto became terminally ill and followed her within a few months.

Both CNHQ and the St. Lawrence Region had familiar permanent jobs waiting for me but first I had to sell Mom's co-operative apartment, a housing style few people appreciate*. Co-op prices fell faster than all others but the agent who helped her buy it six years earlier got no calls.

I had almost bought a "Magill split" house on Montreal's West Island for cash with my CN savings -- $125,000. Good thing I didn't because living in one of the most expensive parts of Toronto cost more than $2,000 a month.

For CN headquarters I commuted weekly to Montreal to edit Keeping Track, until July. An overlapping St. Lawrence Region assignment provided some peaceful summer drives through New England. CN's Toronto public affairs office wasn't friendly to anyone from Montreal. Papers in suburbs and small cities carried interesting ads, but only local residents were hired. My Toronto professional network of women dissolved while I was in Montreal.

Newspaper ads offered communications or public relations jobs describing my skill set exactly, but form letters came back: "We found someone more qualified". A year after turning me down for their top public affairs positions The Royal Ontario Museum and Ontario College of Physicians and Surgeons advertised them again, and turned me down again!

In June, during a week in Montreal, I learned that preparations for privatization of CN included a hiring freeze across the system, at HQ and all regions. I could not be re-hired. That was a pivotal moment in my life. I realized that somewhere deep in my subconscious, I had thought of the railway as a possibility if all else failed, a safety net. But suddenly it was gone.

For the first time in my life I had no support system. I was totally free. It was terrifying. Erich Fromm wrote about that brilliantly in 1941, in Fear of Freedom, or Escape from Freedom. (The title depends on your continent!)

Precarious employment was the new world order and I began continuous job-hunting, trying much harder to find work, any work. There were part-time jobs: "Junior file clerk" in a city councillor's office, and "sighted support worker" for a visually-impaired trainer in Ontario's Employment Equity Office**. The city councillor replaced me with a constituent's granddaughter, and the visually-impaired woman replaced me with a young man she was dating. 

Bill Bantey phoned occasionally. Finally he sent my resume to a major Toronto head-hunter who was refreshingly honest: I was 54 and corporate financial departments didn't hire people that old for jobs below Chief Executive, or Financial, or Operating Officers.

He made it so clear that I had the smarts it took to be employed that I began relaxing. I'd done more hands-on work than anyone he had ever recruited, but upper management ranks of corporations consisted of men who would see me as a threat. Hiring for lower jobs was out-sourced to interviewers instructed to ignore applicants over 45 and disbelieve one-third of the contents of resumes.

He said he would keep my file open and let me know if he came across any information that could help. Bill told me the man called him about our meeting, but after Bill's call I never heard from either of them again.

They had, however, revived my self-respect!

I went to Ontario's Ministry of Labour to discuss ageism! A young woman agreed that that was why I wasn't being hired. She said if I ever received a rejection letter stating that my age was unacceptable, the Office of the Ombudsman of Ontario would investigate quickly and whoever had rejected me would be ordered to hire me! We both knew it would never happen.