Young Research & Publishing Inc.

Investment Research Since 1978

Disclosure

  • About Us
    • Contributors
    • Archives
    • Dick Young’s Safe America
    • The Final Richard C. Young’s Intelligence Report
    • You’ve Read The Last Issue of Intelligence Report, Now What?
    • Dick Young’s Research Key: Anecdotal Evidence Gathering
    • Crisis at Vanguard
  • Investment Analysis
    • Bonds
    • Currencies and Gold
    • Dividend Investing
    • ETFs & Funds
    • Investment Strategy
    • Retirement Investing
    • Stocks
    • The Efficient Frontier
  • Investment Counsel
  • Retirement Compounders®
  • Free Email Signup

Amazon’s Nomadic Retiree Army

December 26, 2017 By E.J. Smith

By welcomia @ Shutterstock.com

Every year, Amazon needs thousands of extra workers to meet the holiday crush, explains Jessica Bruder in “Meet the Camperforce, Amazon’s Nomadic Retiree Army,” Wired’s adaptation from Bruder’s book Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century. Many of them are nomadic retirees living in RVs.

If You’re Serious, Sign Up for My Email. But Only If You’re Serious.

In Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos’s estimation, a quarter of all nomadic retirees in RVs will have worked for CamperForce by 2020.

Their reasons for working are not necessarily good ones and the story illustrates how quickly one’s retirement plans can be turned upside down—requiring part-time work at places like CamperForce just to survive.

Take Chuck Stout, for example, who began working at age 16 as a “garbage boy” at McDonald’s in Toledo, Ohio working his way up the corporate ladder, teaching at McDonald’s Hamburger University culminating in a treasured personal letter from founder Ray Kroc.

Then, while Stout was running a franchise in Columbia, PA the World Trade Center was hit in 2001.

Stout rushed to Manhattan and for three days he “loaded up Egg McMuffins, hash browns, and coffee, first onto a luggage trolley, then a golf cart, and hauled them down to the debris pit to feed rescuers. The experience felt like the capstone of Chuck’s more than 40 years with the company. It was, he believed, the most worthwhile thing he’d ever done,” writes Bruder.

When Chuck retired in 2002, he lost his wife of 25-years to cancer and found himself at age 60 starting over, explains Bruder.

“He moved to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, and bought a two-bedroom cottage with a hot tub on the 10th green of a golf course in a gated community,” she writes. He met a co-worker Barbara Gatti.

Then the 2008 financial crisis hit.

Wells Fargo called about the mortgage.

Then he spoke with his investment adviser. Stout, “had invested his $250,000 nest egg in a fund that supposedly guaranteed him $4,000 a month to live on. ‘You have no more money,’ he recalls his banker saying flatly.

“Barb had lost her savings too, some $200,000 in investments,” writes Bruder.

And with the Great Recession upon them they liquidated everything, bought an RV for $500 from her brother, and hit the road.

They wondered how anyone managed to survive on the road. Then someone told them about a website called Workers on Wheels. There they found a sprawling employment network for job-seeking RVers, a community whose members called themselves “workampers.”

A few weeks later, the Stouts were back on the move, driving west to Nevada, where they’d finally secured three months of full employment. For Chuck, the job meant he would occupy the lowest rung of a major corporation’s ladder for the first time since he was a garbage boy at McDonald’s. He didn’t mind, though. All that mattered was that he and Barb were together. And that Amazon would pay them.

Read more here.

Originally posted on Yoursurvivalguy.com.

Share this:

  • Email
  • Twitter
  • Facebook

You Might Also Like:

  • Amazon’s Amazing Business
  • Top 10 “Retirement Killers”
  • Have You Already Lost Hope for Retirement?
  • Author
  • Recent Posts
E.J. Smith
E.J. Smith is Founder of YourSurvivalGuy.com, Managing Director at Richard C. Young & Co., Ltd., a Managing Editor of Richardcyoung.com, and Editor-in-Chief of Youngresearch.com. His focus at all times is on preparing clients and readers for “Times Like These.” E.J. graduated from Babson College in Wellesley, Massachusetts, with a B.S. in finance and investments. In 1995, E.J. began his investment career at Fidelity Investments in Boston before joining Richard C. Young & Co., Ltd. in 1998. E.J. has trained at Sig Sauer Academy in Epping, NH. His first drum set was a 5-piece Slingerland with Zildjians. He grew-up worshiping Neil Peart (RIP) of the band Rush, and loves the song Tom Sawyer—the name of his family’s boat, a Grady-White Canyon 306. He grew up in Mattapoisett, MA, an idyllic small town on the water near Cape Cod. He spends time in Newport, RI and Bartlett, NH—both as far away from Wall Street as one could mentally get. The Newport office is on a quiet, tree lined street not far from the harbor and the log cabin in Bartlett, NH, the “Live Free or Die” state, sits on the edge of the White Mountain National Forest. He enjoys spending time in Key West and Paris.

Please get in touch with E.J. at ejsmith@youngresearch.com

Click here to sign up for my free monthly Survive & Thrive letter.
Latest posts by E.J. Smith (see all)
  • Your Survival Guy in Rome 30-Years A.B. (After Babson) - May 26, 2023
  • A Three-Week International Research Trip to Paris via Rome - May 25, 2023
  • What Does That Have to Do with Your Dividend? - May 24, 2023

Search Young Research

Most Popular

  • Letter to the Federal Reserve Chairman from Your Survival Guy
  • What Does That Have to Do with Your Dividend?
  • Is an Investment Property Disaster Looming?
  • “I Came from Nothing,” He Said. “I Mean Nothing.”
  • Private Debt Funds: More Risk than Meets the Eye
  • The Wisdom of Sam Zell
  • How Activists Have Weaponized Corporate Boards
  • Is Japan Rising Once More?
  • Vanguard Wellesley (VWINX) vs. Wellington (VWELX): Which Fund is Best?
  • When Did You Become Serious about Your Money?

Don’t Miss

Default Risk Among the Many Concerns with Annuities

Risk and Reward: An Efficient Frontier

How to be a Billionaire: Proven Strategies from the Titans of Wealth

Cryptocosm and Life After Google

Warning: Avoid Mutual Fund Year End Distributions

Is Gold a Good Long-term Investment?

How to Invest in Gold

Vanguard Wellington (VWELX): The Original Balanced Fund

What is the Best Gold ETF for Investing and Trading?

Procter & Gamble (PG) Stock: The Only True Dividend King

The Dividend King of the North

You’ll Love This if You’re Dreaming of an Active Retirement Life

The Importance of a Balanced Portfolio

Invest with Peace of Mind and Comfort

What Kind of Life Are You Investing For?

RSS The Latest at Richardcyoung.com

  • Pushing the Envelope Too Far
  • Your Survival Guy in Rome 30-Years A.B. (After Babson)
  • America’s Favorite Wordsmith Needs Tutoring
  • A Three-Week International Research Trip to Paris via Rome
  • BIOTERROR RISK: The Dangers Genetically Modified Insects
  • Why Be Proud?
  • What Does That Have to Do with Your Dividend?
  • Will Biden’s Ukraine Gambit Be America’s Worst Foreign Policy Disaster?
  • Stossel Says DeSantis Is “Smarter and Better than Biden.”
  • What Would They Give Up for “Equity”?

RSS The Latest at Yoursurvivalguy.com

  • Your Survival Guy in Rome 30-Years A.B. (After Babson)
  • Insurers Now Fleeing the Net Zero Insurance Alliance
  • A Three-Week International Research Trip to Paris via Rome
  • Will Biden Repeat Obama with US Debt Downgrade?
  • What Does That Have to Do with Your Dividend?
  • The ESG Cartel
  • Two More States Nearing Passage of Permitless Carry Legislation
  • How Activists Have Weaponized Corporate Boards
  • Letter to the Federal Reserve Chairman from Your Survival Guy
  • Big Blue Blob Cities Get Bad News from Census Report

About Us

  • About Young Research
  • Archives
  • Contributors

Our Partners

  • Richard C. Young & Co.
  • Richardcyoung.com

Copyright © 2023 | Terms & Conditions

 

Loading Comments...
 

    loading Cancel
    Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
    Email check failed, please try again
    Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.