July 2022 by Edward T.
Perhaps CA is the home office for this particular company, although the hagiography that I read about them indicated that they originated in the Windy City many moons ago. Which makes a certain grim sense. Bankers Life, originally from Chicago, is concerned about the "elderly"- - Capone opened soup kitchens in Chicago for the indigent. I think Capone's concern and humanity were more genuine.Reading over the reviews here...from those who were approached to be employees, to those who suffered under its "services" as customers, the basic paradigm seems to be an overall lack of respect for anyone. For Bankers Life, it's all about the moolah.Without wanting to get up on my political soap box, Reagan's presidency, and everyone's since then (including Clinton's) has been an effort to destroy anything progressive that was brought about in the 20th century, including unions and the labor movement, to...as Noam Chomsky put it..."atomize and marginalize" the work force, to deprive people of the safety nets that were established with blood, sweat and tears in the late 19th and early 20th century, to keep workers scared and willing to tolerate almost anything in the interests of keeping themselves...if not gainfully employed...at least employed. (Which is not to say I have soft and fuzzy illusions about unions; as a Teamster for 23 years, I'm well aware of the monumental flaws of people like Hoffa and Jackie Presser and Tony Pro...and the people involved in my own particular local...)What does this have to do with Bankers Life? When I got laid off some years ago after 23 years of employment, I was terrified. A day after I put up my resume on Indeed, Bankers Life (not to sound xenophobic, but it was a guy named Johnson with an East Indian accent, which maybe was a 1st indication that things weren't what they seemed) called to set up an interview. I had no experience in sales/insurance, but I felt reassured. Maybe Bankers Life had a more discerning eye, and saw something in my resume that I hadn't, indicating a heretefore unknown talent or attribute...You'd think I would know better, but terror can do strange things to a man...The 1st interview was a group interview, with about 20 people sitting in a classroom, while someone standing up front described the altruistic satisfaction of working for Bankers Life, and serving the needs of elderly clients. I had never encountered anything like this in my life, but maybe this was the way things were being done now. And...hey!...after all, I had grandparents; I wanted to help the elderly as much as anyone! Why not? A day later, I got a call for a 2nd interview, which was again a group interview, albeit with a smaller group. My slumbering street smarts, such as they were, were belatedly starting to kick in; my internal hackles were starting to rise. The 3rd interview was a throwback to the job interviews I used to go on 23 years earlier; just me and the person behind the desk, a humorless woman named Judy. After some preliminary conversational fencing, I asked about salary, and was told, "Oh, there's no salary. It's all based on commission." Plus I would have to pay for maps, gas to fuel my car as I drove to interviews in my efforts to sell old people living on a fixed income a Bankers Life policy, the license I would need to sell the policy etc. etc. I thanked her for wasting my time and walked out.That office, which was in Somerset, NJ, appears to be gone. (They still have a page on Yelp with no reviews on it; only a picture of a guy resembling Nosferatu with hair, his hand stuck out either to shake hands or to lift your wallet.)Their focus is on the elderly; like the elderly don't have enough to deal with, what with phone scammers and hyena-like parasites trying to entice them into buying $1,000 in "gift cards" and sending them on to Nigeria or Moscow or Cyprus so that their computers can be cleared of imaginary viruses. Maybe there's an honest Bankers Life/elderly client transac
