Damon Duncan, 49, worked as a sales engineer with a $148,000 base salary before layoffs in April 2023 and again after a merger in August 2024. After over two years away from technical sales, he accepted an entry-level cold-calling role at a consulting firm with a $52,000 base salary, about one-third of his prior pay. He now works alongside recent college graduates and experiences a pronounced generational and career gap. The pay cut forced major lifestyle changes: canceled travel and services, damaged credit, and inability to cosign a loan for his daughter's college. His daughter postponed university, taking a gap year and enrolling at a local tech school while saving and building credit. He now performs household tasks previously outsourced to reduce expenses.
I was laid off from my job as a sales engineer in April 2023. That was the last job I had in my career field. It's now been over two years since I worked in the technical sales field. I took a couple of related roles after my company went through a merger, but was laid off for a second time in August 2024 and was unemployed until I took a drastic step back - both in position and pay.
I went from being a sales engineer, an architect, and an account executive to working at a consulting firm in an entry-level cold-calling job. The majority of the people I work with are fresh out of college. When I sit with them in the common room, they're like, "This is my first big boy job fresh out of college," and I'm sitting here, almost 50 years old, with a child about to go to college.
I am now making about one-third of what I made at my sales engineering job. At my former job, my base salary was $148,000, but now it is $52,000. The layoff cost us a lot of money, and because of it, we don't travel anymore.Our credit also took a massive hit during this time, and we weren't able to cosign on a loan for our daughter to go to college.
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