After 50, ageism, competition, and health concerns become paramount. And that’s if you’re lucky.

The other night I was rewatching Jackie Brown. Quentin Tarantino’s 1997 low-key urban crime classic based on the book Rum Punch by Elmore Leonard, stars Pam Grier, Samuel L. Jackson, Robert de Niro, and Robert Forster.

After the massive success of ’94s bombastic Pulp Fiction, audiences were left slightly jilted by the quiter, subtler Brown. Less discerning audiences, anyway. Brown is a great film with nuanced performances, a smart script, and a dark, twisty plot. If Pulp is a colorful cocktail, Brown is a whiskey neat.

The film, set in 1995, might have left some viewers sour because of its unsexy themes regarding the occupational and romantic desperations of middle-age. In the story, Jackie Brown (Grier) is a lowly 43-year-old flight attendant working for a “shitty” Mexican airline, making all of $16,000 a year, plus benefits. That’s only $33,000 in today’s money. On the side, she runs cash across the border for Ordell Robbie (Jackson) a smooth-talking low-level arms dealer thug who murders problematic subordinates the way one takes out the trash. When she’s caught by police with one of Robbie’s packages, and two baggies of cocaine, she’s forced into making a deal with the feds. But Jackie Brown concocts her own scheme to turn the tables on everyone. At stake is a half a million in cash.

About mid-way through the film, Jackie sums up her station in life and her motivations for risking everything by setting up her crime boss:

Well, I’ve flown seven million miles. And I’ve been waiting on people almost 20 years. The best job I could get after my bust was Cabo Air, which is the worst job you can get in this industry. I make about sixteen thousand, with retirement benefits that ain’t worth a damn. And now with this arrest hanging over my head, I’m scared. If I lose my job I gotta start all over again, but I got nothing to start over with. I’ll be stuck with whatever I can get. And that shit is scarier than Ordell. (Jackie Brown, 1997)

Goddamn, did that articulate a lot of fears and concerns that many middle-aged people have about work and life and just trying to survive. Jackie Brown might be classified under the crime genre, but it’s a horror story in some ways, too.

There are many people on YouTube 50+ talking about their struggles in the workplace, finding employment and meaning in life. Recently, I found a channel called TheFadingMan, which features a guy in his mid-50s talking about depression, getting laid off, and other older worker issues.

In other videos, TheFadingMan talks about getting the run-around in interviews, job scams, misrepresented job ads, trying to lose weight, getting ghosted by employers, and being broke. Recently, the guy finally got a job after almost a year of looking.

TheFadingMan is brave for putting himself out there and letting everyone know how bad things can get for gray hairs. Especially when you’re overweight, unhealthy, and don’t have particularly useful skills or an advanced degree or connections. People at all ages are struggling to find work these days. But for those over 50 it’s like gravity is three times harder on them.

TheFadingMan is not alone. There are tons of channels like his, run by both men and women, talking about the same things. They are a sobering reminder of a cold, hard truth. The modern corporate system is largely hostile and can be especially harsh toward older workers. While ageism is discriminatory and illegal, that doesn’t mean companies won’t find ways to sneakily work around it. Aging by itself is tough enough. Health problems begin to arise in your 50s, or earlier, depending on your genetics and overall fitness. Life often drags with family responsibilities, debt, expenses, and other things.

Which is why it’s important to try to make enough by 50 to secure the bag for retirement. What does it mean to “secure the bag.” Basically, it’s making enough to likely secure a comfortable retirement with the help of compound interest. Even if you’ve only saved up $100,000 in retirement accounts and investments by 50, if that compounds at 10% a year, that will grow to over $400,000 by the time you turn 65 without further contributions. Saving $200,000 by 50 means you’d have over $800,000 by 65. That combined with Social Security will likely keep your head above water.

Everyone means to keep contributing and investing, of course. But the reality is that after age 50 you might not have a choice. Your employment prospects might become shaky and unreliable. You might suddenly develop health problems. You might have to start over after a divorce. Or you simply might lose interest in a career and want to try something else. There are a number of disasters and disruptions that can occur as you get older.

Even though you may not have to finagle a bag filled with $500,000 like Jackie Brown does in the movie, you will have to come up with a scrappy masterplan to survive. You’ll have to outwit your own metaphorical Ordell Robbie.

Take advantage of your youth and your prime working years to set yourself up best not just for retirement, but when you’re older, and when employment and living itself might become a slog. Even if you’re one of the few who lands a dream job or obtains a high status gig, that doesn’t mean you can’t be knocked off your lofty perch with one stroke of a manager’s pen. It’s tough out there at any age. But old age, as Samuel L. Jackson might say, can be a real motherfucker.