Generation B - Middle-Aged, Laid Off and Losing Hope Go - NYTimes.com

Generation B - Middle-Aged, Laid Off and Losing Hope Go - NYTimes.com
At 58, a Life Story in Need of a Rewrite. Hey, they interviewed the wrong Mr. B. Only a few differences between that Blattman guy and the "Authentic Mr. B"
1) He sent out a few more resumes than I did, and he beat me with 3 interviews to my zero. [Like "who is going to fly a guy in from Bolivia for an interview when the candidates are falling over themselves for the last few stinking jobs left?"]
2) The Authentic Mr. B is still married to the same college sweet-heart.
3) I beat that other Mr. B by 30:1 in "months without insurance". And given that our lack of insurance is permanent, I will keep racking up the score until some little ailment that I can't pay for plows me under....
4) He was in financial services, I was in telecom engineering. The Great Telecom Bust dates from 2001. Since then the industry that I was in has "restructured" (this is the same word that we use for a scuttled ship as it slowly decomposes underwater). Check out "how many million square feet of telecom space in the Richardson/Plano/Dallas Telecom Corridor" has either a) been converted into a Catholic High School in Plano (previous campus of DSC Communications); b) has some other non-telecom tenant occupying it since the Telecom Bust; c) simply is sitting idle now for years (has someone finally taken the old Rockwell Collins site over just off Arapaho and converted it into a craft mall?); d) demolished it; or e) awaiting the decision of one or another bankruptcy courts to convert it into "one of the above." [For extra points, please indicate the difference between "what has happened to the telecom industry in Dallas?" and "warmed over death". ]
5) NO, I am not writting a thriller about a financial advisor coming back to life as a reincarnated Financial Guru. My book(s) are on completely different topics. How about "Mad Engineer Plots Revenge and Takes Over Entire Eastern Seaboard with Bolivian Political Techniques" (i.e. blocking roads, burning tires and hunger strikes).
And finally:
6) We live in semi-rural San Jacinto, suburb of Sacaba which is itself a suburb of Cochabamba Bolivia. Mr B. lives near New York & goes to town in an old SUV or public transport. The Authenic Mr. B walks about 1 1/2 miles down to the main road and gets on a trufi to ride to central Cochabamba. My guess is that that the other Mr. B doesn't even know what a "trufi" is. But with his health insurance, he can get on and be assured that when / if it crashes that somehow the bills will be paid.