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Does Age Really Matter?
ageless asks: "At my current job, age seems to be a major factor when it comes to listening to what I have to say and believing that what I say is true. I've done so many different things, like filling bosses' requests to build an online app that does something complex in a short time, building and maintaining servers and security, and act as a consultant for authentication code and security on various platforms. Yet, none of them respect me because I'm still in school and because I'm young. It's very frustrating. Does anyone else see this as a problem? Does anyone else have this problem?" I think it all should boil down to experience, however many people mistakenly believe that experience is proportional to age. This belief is faulty, however, when you consider that tomorrow's computer professionals start gaining experience in their teens, not in their twenties or thirties.
As an industrial psychologist (translation: HR guy; translation: Catbert), I've got a few observations you folks might find helpful:
1) According to federal law, it's illegal to discriminate on the basis of age against people over 40. If your company fires its older workers because they're older, your company is asking for a lawsuit. (Many states have similar laws, and some states probably prohibit age discrimination below 40 as well, but I'd have to look them up). As far as federal law goes, if you're under 40, you're fair game - You can legally not be hired because you're too young (I know of VERY FEW companies that follow such a practice).
2) However, discriminating against potential or current employees on any basis other than job qualifications is STUPID and IRRESPONSIBLE, ESPECIALLY TO YOUR SHAREHOLDERS. Your company SHOULD concentrate on getting and keeping the best possible people for each particular job, period. Your company SHOULD NOT make employment-related decisions based on age, race, religion, curly hair, shoe size, or any other non-job-related criterion, even if you can legally discriminate on that basis (e.g., sexual orientation is not yet a federally protected class).
3) On average, older workers and younger workers are good at different things, but they rarely differ in intelligence per se, at least according to the scholarly literature in psychology. Older workers typically have more experience, and will do much better than younger workers at tasks related to their experience (e.g., an older C++ programmer will write better C++ code faster than his younger counterpart). Younger workers typically are much better at acquiring new skills quickly (e.g., a younger C++ programmer will pick up Java much faster than his older counterpart). Generally, it balances out in terms of job performance.
4) As far as these comments go, take it under advisement that A) I'm not a lawyer, and B) Especially with advice, you get what you pay for. Don't blame me if you do something moronic!
In your whole description of the situation I noticed there wasnt much mention of the "soft skills" that come with age. You speak of your technical excellence but not of your social grace. Mental Judo is as important as coding Kung Fu, when it comes to respect in the business world. Maybe, see if a change of attitude gives the respect you seek.
IMHO, an amount of age-ism derives from the individuals concerned. It's a question of attitude, most young people are idealistic, and can be prone to being confrontational. In management, people skills usually win over technical ability, and direct confrontation is not a good way to make friends or influence projects. When you go in you see this antiquated system, you know it sucks, but half the people you work with have been involved with developing that system over the past 10 years. They know it sucks, but they know they can't throw it away - it's not just pride, it's guaranteeing the business continues.
Likewise, if you are older then being cynical because you've been around the block a few times doesn't win any favours...being open to the latest "silver bullet" counts for a lot.
When dealing with management types "How to win friends and influence people" has some merit - not telling people they are wrong outright, steering people around to new ideas, etc... When dealing with techies, it#s important to be honest and constructive. Leaving references that say you are personable, persuasive, and technically flexible are (in many cases) worth just as much as skills with the latest whiz-bang silver bullet.
- The younger your boss, the more receptive he/she will be to your age.
- The younger/trendier/more-newage the company, the more receptive they'll be to your age.
- It has also been my experience that Government/Education jobs can be good for youger persons - they can't pay as much, so they're willing to work with you regardless of age. (Not to mention the fact that often times you get much more hands-on experience at these places).
I've also learned that keeping your mouth shut about your age can be extraordinarily helpful. At my last job, everyone thought I was in my mid-twenties. Once I told them my real age (huge mistake!!!), I was never looked at with the same amount of respect, and I was given the "grunt work", even though I was far more qualified than the way I was treated. I've no idea how old they think I am here, but I guarantee you they'd be shocked to learn of my real age.The way I see it (and the way most people my age do), if you've got the knowledge and experience (not just technical, but also business) and are the best-suited for a particular task, then you should be placed in charge of that task and be held responsible for it. Unfortunately, in the business world, you are often times not used effectively because your age is looked upon as a detriment, as opposed to an asset (which is what it really is). There are some forward-thinking managers out there (I've had the pleasure of working for one or two), who couldn't care less about your age, but the majority would never dare take a chance on someone under 25.
In short, yes, age discrimination exists. No, it won't go away easily. Over time, it may become less of an issue, and depending on where you work it may not even be an issue. In the meantime, it would be prudent to not make light of your age and/or lack of education. People make assumptions all the time - most of them are wrong and misguided. Let them make assumptions as to your age. It has certainly worked well for me.
One final thought:
I tend to think that it would be useful to establish a website as a sort of clearinghouse of information (including 'cool places to work at', of course) that would be of interest to young technology professionals. I have a feeling you'll see the average age in technology get lower and lower as time progresses, making a website like this especially useful for information, tips, and news on topics of interest to the younger technology professional.
Good luck in your future endeavors!
Sean
seanhagan1@home.com (when Comcast decides to let me have email... =))
www.seanhagan.org
Just ask anyone over 30 working for a small startup. Just because I don't know the names of the members of the latest crappy rock band doesn't mean I don't know shit about the Internet.
I'm under 25 and I work in development team where I also feel like what I have to say is not worth consideration because it doesn't come out of a book or doesn't parallel the experiences of others.
If I were to follow the advice found in these posts I would grow a beard and buy a new kenneth cole wardrobe. But instead of solving the problem I would be perpetuating it. I'd be saying that it's alright to treat young looking people as young unexperienced losers. I am young but I've also been programming since since I was 8. That doesn't make me the king of the world but it means I know what I'm doing. You're only solving the symptom of the problem (the discrimination) when you should be a part of the solution to the problem (the idea that it's okay to discriminate in the first place).
This might sound weird but be yourself and if this discrimination continues just take it. The world is not fair by any means and no matter how much we think it should be it won't. Instead use those dinosaurs on your team for all they're worth. Sponge away all their experience (note: I'm not stating that old = necessarily experienced). They are a valuable resource for learning. And most importantly when you get to the top of the team remember what it felt like to be the junior and make a difference in your corner of the world.
While I am in total agreement that age should not matter, looking back I realize I often thought my self more mature/knowledgable/experienced than perhaps I really was. It is not so much that I couldn't do what I thought I could (I did), but rather I now understand many things I didn't even know existed. I have a sneaking suspicion that often when older person acts in this manner it is because of how they remember themselves. Since it is impossible to force respect out of people, somtimes it is just a matter of proving (not through computer skilles), but rather social skills that you are trustable/respectable. Don't forget, half the time the person you are talking to has no understanding of what you do. If that person is under the impression that any 'teenager/tweenager' can do your job, then getting respect will be even that harder to gain.
How odd. I've heard or read dozens and dozens of stories like yours, with the same "I totally blew their socks off and changed how they think of younger people". Not once in my entire career have I seen anything like that actually happen, or spoken to anyone who did. Do you know why?
BECAUSE IT DOESN'T HAPPEN!
OK, maybe that's not quite true. Maybe such awesome displays of total technical mastery by some kid have had such an effect once or twice in the history of the computer industry. However, I'll bet your interpretation of these events is probably about a thousand times more dramatic than any other participant's...if, in fact, any of this happened anywhere outside of your own daydreams. My gut tells me it's far more likely that you're just jerking off in our faces.
The older programmer who got the promotion was always in early and turned in work early, well-documented, completed timesheet, etc. He put in his time and left at 6pm to take care of his kids at night.
This kid WAS in fact a genius and he did GREAT work, but... he missed staff meetings, missed client meetings, was unreliable, came in anywhere from 8am-10:30am on a given day, would work all night to finish a project and then was asleep at home during the workday when the errors and exceptions came back from quality control, he documented nothing, which didn't matter until 6 months later when someone else was trying to read his code. He could barely spell or write a report or communicate effectively and claimed he was "hired as a programmer, not a writer" (some things, like literacy, are just expected of high school graduates and not part of job requirements). He would call in "sick" with a hangover without realizing that after doing that a dozen times in a year our insurance required us to send him to a substance abuse program (in his defense he didn't drink more than your average 20 year old, but they're in school not in an office). He would sleep at the office overnight without a change of clothes. He would come into work unshaven, without clean clothes and unwashed. He met with clients in a t-shirt and jeans. He never got his hair cut until he looked homeless.
He played music too loud, he responded in client meetings with TV catchphrases and statements like, "It's all good, chill." He downloaded porn and kept it on his company computer and our server. He called one of our coworkers a "goth chick" to her face.
He cost the company one uptight client due to some of the above behavior and he never even apologized.
And he quit the company, complaining that "he knew more about programming than anyone else in the company" and that he "should be a millionaire by now." The worst thing is that I think he really believed it.
The other bad thing was that he thought his really good computer skills could excuse his bad behavior or somehow rate him higher than a less-skilled, but more RELIABLE programmer. The amount of trouble he caused was not worth his flashes of genius.
Does anyone who is a young programmer see some of themselves in the above?
Don't forget that people like myself were teenage contractors in 1984 and 1985. I was a "desktop publisher" (remember that?) and nonrelational database dba (ha!). But without the big $$ (well $10 per hour wasn't bad in 1985) I didn't get the big ego nor expect to get the promotions just because I'm a good programmer.
This thread is filled with giant egos.
"Does anyone else see this as a problem? Does anyone else have this problem?"
Umm.. yeah, like every day. I'm 21 and have been programming (professionally) since I was 16. The people I currently work with are generally pretty respectful of my experience and knowledge... except one guy who always second-guesses me, questions nearly everything I do, and generally treats me like I'm not trustworthy (asking me if I was on a conference call that I know I was supposed to attend, asking me where I've been, shit like that). Whenever I ask for his help he starts off with the most ridiculous assertions as if I just started programming a week ago which ends up just wasting my time. I rarely ask anybody's help anymore since it's easier to just spend more time by myself figuring things out. The thing is, I've never done anything that would warrant such treatment. I've always finished my work on time (if not early), I write clean code, step up whenever I know I've made a mistake and fix it, etc. I guess I'm lucky that most people dodn't realize how young I am, but this specific developer does so I don't know if that has anything to do with it. Any ways, I don't let it bug me too much cause he knows that the team needs me. In less than a year I became the expert on installing, configuring, and general use of the thirdparty servers our app uses, as well as developing clean and efficient code.
The reason they do not respect you is because you do not have any experience. You are still in school. Once you graduate, things will change a great deal, but they will still not respect you very much because you are young. And yes, experience does come with age. Someone who has been working in the industry for 40 years obviously has much more experience than you.
However, in another year, I'll be going to college. While in college, I will most likely still be working for this company. I have no problems with that. After college however, I will more than likely move on. What I want to know is, will my 8+ years of on-the-job experience superceed my age? When I am fresh out of college will I be back to square one?
Sean Hannan
This comment is brought to you by the drug caffiene, and the number 5.
I'm a high schooler (12th grade) with no formal computer education (besides half a semester of a Cisco class) that works at a RTP, NC company's communications algorithms department as a programmer. Before I worked on large scale UNIX projects on their IS/IT team, but I enjoy programming and wanted to get some professional programming experience. I've been coding in C/C++ since 12 or so, but before I was too unsure of my programming abilities, and stuck to IT. (My real passion is games programming, which I do at home, I admit that I'm a geek :)
:) You may want to read up on ways you could gently confront certain people about it, as straight-up confrontation seems to anger insecure people.
Anyhow, my experience seems to differ from yours. I work with a team of engineers, the vast majority of whom who are very nice, and don't try to shelter me from what's going on but at the same time don't hesitate to help me if I need an explanation of something. Some may say that I'm just lucky, but much of the time, this respect has to be earned.
When I joined up I got very little respect from a few (only about two) people, but as I proved to them that I could handle what I was given without any hand-holding, this changed. People were truly impressed. Maybe your situation is from people that are intimidated by what you are doing at your age, and in their jealously seem to suppress/normalize you, to make themselves feel not as normal. Remember that it's average not to think you're average, and most people like to think of themselves as somehow special. However, I tend to keep my mouth shut with things I don't fully understand, and am rather humble (I don't ever remember bragging to these people I work with). If you are not like this and are not getting respect, perhaps your problem lies there. No-one likes a big-mouth or a braggart, and that's exactly what many of these "child-geniuses" are.
One qualm I have is seniority-based payment. I've turned out products that seem to be rather valuable to the company, however I get payed very little, judging from what others with more age and/or formal education get paid in this field. Merit-based pay seems to be more appropiate to the fast-moving/dynamic computing market. My boss, while nice, isn't exactly realistic at times, and as such I've been held to a few deadlines, which IMHO, no intern should have to do. However, on the good side, they've put me on all-expenses-paid trips to Finland and Silicon Valley, which were absolutely *great* experiences.
It sounds like you could be treated better, but remember that formal education does go a long way, and companies view an older/more experienced person with a degree or degrees to be a *much* safer investment than throwing their money and resources at a student/child prodigy. I myself only got an interview because I knew someone, and as I've found, "knowing someone" is the key to getting a good job in most cases, for better or worse. As far as the lack of respect, some people are like that (especially academics, from my experience), as it sounds like you've proven yourself in many situations. If you're sure it's not your attitude, or something about you, then it's probably due to others feeling insecure around you, like I mentioned earlier. However, if this disrespect was with everyone in the company, then I'd say you were a jerk.
In any case, I wish you the best of luck, and most importantly, don't forget to have fun at your age, because you will be working for the rest of your life and youth only comes once. Too many people our age jump head-first into this stuff, and get burnt out in no-time. I've come really close to burn-out at times. It's one thing if you really enjoy this stuff, but it's another if you're just doing it for the money. It sounds like you know what you're doing and like doing it, but too many people these days live hour-to-hour in jobs they hate, just so they can go home in their BMW, don't become one of them.
So did I. Helps if you are part owner of a company :)
It could be that you are so young that you are coming off as a flake.
Remember that old people like it when you talk slow. And in complete sentences. Try to keep your voice down.
Don't use hand gesters. This can frighten them because of all the bad press about anyone under 25 on cnn.
Present all ideas as flow charts. or Powerpoint presentaions. The use of Powerpoint ( I must stop here and say that I refuse to sit thought a powerpoint presentation. Not because of my dislike for Ms. But because I find that Powerpoint takes alot of the excitement out of the person that is doing the presentation. If you can't get excited about what your are pitching then don't break out power point. On the other side of the coin. Powerpoint makes me think that you are not really excited about what your trying to pitch to me. So Don't use Powerpoint to show your excitement.) This method of Powerpoint is a great way for old people to understand just what your talking about. the colored backgrounds and nice scenes are soothing to them.. Allows their minds to go into neutral. And why not. They dont' have to read instructions or techical books. They just sit back and enjoy the scenes and tell their boss that "It was a good presentation". Remeber idea's are easy to except if you are almost asleep.
Pretend that you don't like techno or Rap. This will give you a common cause. Playing FreeBird with your headphones just loud enough to be heard by others is a sure sign to old people that you are ready for responsibilty.
Besure not to talk to females at your work. Talking to females says to your bosses that you are not afraid of a Sexual Harasement law suit.
Join the bosses Church. This is sure to show everyone in the company that you are a kissass and that your on your way to the top.
I hope this helps you out. I know this information would have helped me when i was your age and just starting out.
Last one in jail is a fascist.
I think the haircut and general hygiene is a good thing. And one should dress appropriately for appropriate scenarios, especially the first while at a job.
but once you've proven yourself over the first 6 months, I find one gets *more* respect for standing out from the crowd. This means having that sense of humor, liking cool music, etc. This isn't an easy path because it intimidates many people -- but it's a path that's worked for me (and I'm still young, but I consult for the banking industry, about as fuddy-duddy as one can get)
-Stu
I think the problem you encountered there was that someone gave HR the description of the job, and they had no idea what the technologies were, but knew they wanted to fill a senior position.
These job descriptions are not that important once you get to the engineers who interview you.
-Iffy
Run a pencil-and-paper RPG campaign with your far-off friends: Gametable!
Perhaps it's also a bit of the age that they perceive themselves as. My former boss was almost twice my age (I was 22-24 at the time), but he seemed to respect me and my abilities, and give me appropriate tasks. Of course, I think he perceived himself as a youngster: he whupped my arse many times snow-boarding down the double-blacks at Vail and Breckenridge, amongst other places. He also tried to be the last one out of the bar, or the one to run the furthest or hardest, especially when the competition was younger.
Two things:
1) As a guy who came up when teens didn't have access to a PC because they didn't exist yet, it's understandable that an older boss might not "get" how much experience a young guy can have. I was finishing my associates when the first PC came out. If you had access to a computer before that it was probably because your father was an early hacker or worked somewhere that had a dial-up into a PDP or something. So there *were no* teenage hackers, really.
2) There are a lot of smart people out there, but if they can't present themselves right they'll get no respect. You have to take a good look at yourself and how you interact with people. Do you whine when you don't get your way? Nag? Act like a "kid"? Act like everyone else is old and stupid? Sometime it takes a few years to know how to tell someone something without mentioning that if they had a clue they'd know it already. You'll see a lot of that on SlashDot. Overly critical, people here will say you're an idiot if you forget to close a Bold tag like another poster did today. Of course the people complaining about his idiocy will often have typos in their own posts, but still they felt they had the "moral authority" to say they'd never work for someone like that. Woof.
I once worked with a guy about 22, very bright, who complained bitterly to the VP because I had opined that what he was trying to do probably wouldn't work. (Make huge mods to a program 2 hrs before a demo.) He said "I've been programming since I was 2 yrs old." I said, "Yeah, I've been programming since you were 2 years old too; I was working for Princeton U. at the time, who was your client?"
Was he bright? Yup. Was he a pain in the ass? Yup.
The revolution will NOT be televised.
+1 insightful. this same thing bothers me all the time.
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a funny comment: 1 karma
an insightful comment: 1 karma
a good old-fashioned flame: priceless
this sig limit is too small to put anything good h
There is talent and there is experience. I'll take a brilliant newbie over a grizzled veteran idiot any day.
I have made the observation that experience is trading off talent for knowledge -- as you get older the brain slows down. I was much, much sharper at 18 than I am now, but I am a lot smarter about where I spend energy now. I suspect that a person's overall effectiveness is something like ((T+1)^sqrt(E)) -- at first experience rapidly magnifies raw talent, but past a certain level of experience, when competing with other people, it's talent that matters most.
And as you age and your brain slows down, eventually you start losing overall effectiveness no matter how much new experience you get. But if you start with a sufficiently high value of T, even at 75 with one fourth T left you may still compete well.
And I think most people who are *really* good at computers (instead of just pretending for the money) know this on some level.
I'm male, so this may not be quite what you wanted.
:-) )
:-)
When I'm involved in hiring decisions (don't generally do them myself yet, I suspec that will start in the next year or two) what I look for mostly is brains, competence, and drive. I love people who really grok technology and I don't care about their age and/or gender. Some people are just meant to be working on computers, and it's those people I'm looking for.
At my last place we interviewed a lady in her middle 40s (I suspect) that I wanted to hire. She really impressed me. But I wasn't able to get anyone else to look at her seriously. I suspect it was unconscious age/sex discrimination. So I don't think you'll have an easy time of it. It would have been better if you had started last year -- the market is cooling off now and people aren't as desperate for trained technical help.
Keep in mind that you may not want a job in IT anyway. Usually it's long/weird hours and a lot of gruntish boring work. There are times when it is wonderful, but getting senior enough to get mostly the interesting projects is non-trivial. If you really want to get ahead in IT, you can pretty much count on giving up most other things in your life -- there's not time otherwise to learn all of what you need to know. It will take five to ten years of intense focus to get really expert.
Personally I do it because I'm not suited to anything else -- I'd do this work if I was paid half as much. (which I have been
If you are just interested in learning more about stuff like this without giving up your life to do it, I'd suggest checking into volunteer work. Get hooked up with someone who is implementing a small network for a charity somewhere. Be useful and listen. Most good computer people like to teach -- the knowledge was hard to get and it's nice to be able to see that effort pay off more than once.
In general, what I tell most folks who ask me about IT jobs is this: if you're not already tinkering around with this in your spare room/basement/whatever, if you're not interested in it enough to be doing it anyway, you'd probably be better off in other fields. If you have three machines at home and they all have the covers off because you are constantly fooling with them, then chnaces are you're a pretty good candidate for IT/MIS. If you're doing it anyway, you might as well get paid for it.
One more thing -- don't bother with a degree. Get a technical certificate instead (something like MCSE.) A formal degree is very useful for a young person but by the time you got one you'd probably be 50. You'd likely be better off taking a short accelerated course and getting into the job market immediately.
I've even gotten to the point where I refuse to state my age when dealing with my employeer and/or recruiters.
(luckily for me I started to bald early, making me look older then I am)
The best thing I've found is that if your current employeer refuses to take your advice, document it for future reference. If they are passing you up for promotion and/or pay increases, leave. Federal law only covers age discrimination for employees over 45 years old...
Leave, and write up a very good resume describing all of the great accomplishments you've done at your current Job, and make sure you leave on a good note so that your Boss(es) will be friendly when recruiters and potential employeers call for recomendations. When they call, they may ask 'Did he do the following things under your employement:', and your boss (unless they lie through thier teeth) will have to say 'yes' to all of the things you did.
Keep in mind, however, that in many states your emplyeer needs no good reason to fire you, and calls for references could start the ball rolling. On the other hand, calls for references can also start the ball rolling on a nice raise...
An impressive resume and a mature attitude when dealing with potential employeers and recruiters will get you a lot farther then grey hair - I know this from experience. I once, after accepting a job through a recruiter, ended up informing them of my age - it was too late to stop anything, and its not like its illegal for me to work - they were quite surprised, and impressed. Experience and ability are your allies - use them to impress. If your age is known before your abilities, people's eyes (and brains) tend to glaze over...
man is machine
This IS a problem, regardless of what discrimination laws may say. I'm 19 years old, and currently I work for Sun Microsystems. Its a really hard thing to overcome, and I usually dont tell potential employers my age unless the issue is pressed.
:)
My current employer didnt find out I was 19 until I had to go to Boston for a class and I wasnt old enough to rent a car. I know what you're going through, theonly option is to convince your employers that despite your age, you can compete at a comparible level. Some employers may even be partial to younger people, because that means they can own you for longer.
Regardless, best of luck in your employment, feel free to drop me a line if you have any questions.
--
Dave Brooks (db@amorphous.org)
http://www.amorphous.org
On the flip side, perhaps a technically great young person lacks the business "chops" that come with old age and treachery. Just because you are technically superior does not mean that you have the life experience to be capable in other (non-tech) parts of a more responsible job.
there are 3 kinds of people:
* those who can count
there are 3 kinds of people:
* those who can count
* those who can't
It might not seem nice, or may be frustrating, but that's generaly how life works. You'll see it everywhere.
Not only that, some day you get old, and have the problems that come with being "out of date" or "not in touch with the pulse of the youth/technology"
You just have to learn to deal with it and be the best you can.
Remember, your older boss could have started getting experience even younger than you did.
Ach
Knolwedge and experience are different things. Experiece ONLY comes with age.
If you have expereince and knowlege at 20 - imagine what you'll have a t 40. Do you think everyone who is 40 just sat their brain dead waiting for your arrival?
Ruben
http://www.mrbrklyn.com/amsterdam.html http://www.brooklyn-living.com
... they keep you sharp and give you exposure to new and different ways of doing thigns.
OTOH, I find younger folks can be more easily suckered by vendor hype (or am I just a crusty old man?). Also, younger folks (or, actually, those with less experience with different companies regardless of age) tend to let their passion with a single project cloud their judgement regarding their personal needs.
If there were anything I could tell myself as a younger man, I would say 'stop for a second and smell the fucking roses!!!!' Don't let a single-minded devotion to work turn you into an asshole. Your sanity is worth more than any job, and finding personal happiness should still be your first priority. Hopefully coding, testing, hacking, building hardware, testing clock settings, etc are things that make you happy, but try other things and don't let the fun you have with computers cloud your best interestes and don't let people take advantage of you... Or not. Do what you want, I guess.
I tend to have more sympathy for them, especially lately since this is probably their first economic downturn. And this one looks like it won't even be so bad.. Read a little history now and then, it'll do you some good. I recommend 'Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds' by Mackay, and 'The Reckoning' by David Halberstam for some fun reading in these strange economic times..
Ehh, just some gross generalizations from a 28 year old codger...
Your Working Boy,
With only a few exceptions the clients I've worked for have all treated me very professionally often taking what I say about technology as if I'm some sort of oracle of truth. It's been that way since I was 12, now being 22 I am rarely questioned by the people who hire me and when people do have concerns they are usually just misunderstandings where I have not adequately described something.
Best of luck to you.
Ashley Clark
I'm 20, and I work for a company that writes software for the Medical Industry... I'm the youngest developer, and the youngest employee in the company. At first, I think I was often overlooked, but as I slowly made a name for myself, I find myself in a very respected situation. From my experience, people my age seem to think we can do it all by ourselves, without anyone else's input. Sure, there are lots of times we probably can, but overall, it gives us a bad rap. I try and play the quiet role, helping out as much as possible, accepting as many challenges as possible, and being a nice guy. Then when the time comes for you to speak, people feel they should listen.
Maybe I'm just lucky to be a company where the demographic puts most everyone in and around the 30s, but either way, I think my tactics have benefited me;)
I am 4 years old , with 7 years of comp sci college and about 15 years of unix experience. close to 8 years of unix security. I am pulling down 240k a year as a sr unix admin. I like riding my Hot Wheels, playing Nintendo and cracking NORAD. Nobody gives me any respect, which I deserve, despite the fact that I just wet my pants.
Its, I say, it's a joke, son. Lighten up.
ToiletDuk
Protector of the Wastes
ToiletDuk
Protector of the Wastes
If you are of a similar age to your superiors, especially if you are both young, you can communcate better because you feel like you are peers. I worked for a startup of 20-somethings where I regularly called the founder an asshole and vice versa, because we got along well.
ToiletDuk
Protector of the Wastes
Given, I am probably the exception to the rule, however it does go to show that your "under 20 == idiot" theory has its flaws. Yes I'll be smarter when I'm 40, but that in no way means I'm an idiot now.
ToiletDuk
Protector of the Wastes
I got the keys on the first day. :P
I don't know how many times I have to say this, but if you don't let people think of you as a woman, then they won't. If you act like "a girl" then they will treat you like one. You may need to work a little harder at first to convince someone that you are every bit as good as the men around you, by taking initiative, but you need to do that to succeed no matter who you are.
I really think people would just rather think they were passed over for a promotion or ignored because of some quality they cannot changed, rather than one they can. Get over it, change yourself.
-Alison, who is getting really annoyed at all of these "I'm discriminated against because I belong to group X" Stories
How do we figure out whether a consultant claiming to know FreeBSD actually has a clue?
The same way you find out if an NT consultant or Cisco consultant has a clue. INTERVIEW them.
There's no certification path, there's no paper to back this up, nothing
I think hordes of paper MCSE's have proven that having a certification is not the same as knowing what you're doing.
This message brought to you by the Council of People Who Are Sick of Seeing More People.
But it's also true that the geeky females (the ones that did their homework and didn't date in school -;) tend to end up with the geeky males.
I'm not so sure that it sucks to be clever in high school, but there are certainly some areas of interest that aren't considered cool. For example, if you're interested in things like computer programming and math, you don't stand much of a chance of being considered "cool".
I certainly ran across this quite a lot over the years, it's getting better now (just turned 21) but not quite what I would consider always respectful. On an up point, after three years of hell I'm working with a team now, where I'm one of the Sr. members on the staff, and treated as one throughout the company. Well as much as anyone on our team is ever treated with respect anyway ;)
:) I wouldn't want to either. I also in one interview, which I breezed through, was getting along great with the staff I'd be working with, had the recruiter, congratulate me on the good interview, and turn around and attempt to bribe 'em to hire me, right with me standing there. So much for that.
:)
:) Plus outside of current day-job I've managed to get a few contracts personally with companies who frequently have staff younger than I, with more individual responsability to that company. The industry as a whole after the whole dot-com thing, seems to be a bit more aware of younger people providing real resources to.
The main reason I have this job is cause my previous job was at this same place (minus a few mergers and buy-out's) and one of the help desk tech's at the time is now a manager and knew me from back when. So wasn't overly concerned about my age.
Before getting this job though, and after having left before. I spent 3 years, from 16 to 19 trying to get a job elsewhere. Got a few short term contracts, but nothing much. I got a lot of consulting agencies literally walking into companies with the catch phrase of "we've got this boy genius with computers, just like Doogie Howser was with medicine!", which, not unexpectedly would frighten companies away. After all, who wants to hire some snotty little boy genius. I can't blame 'em
The other main problem was getting recruiters to follow through at all, they frequently didn't, even on jobs I had interviewed on. I'd call, daily to see how an interview went, and the recruiters would literally just never call the company to check.
Only one time did I get turnd down because of what I was asking, and that one, the whole team wanted me, we'd already covered that. Walked in to meet the director, and he had the most obvious look of "I am not gonna hire some kid at a sallery almost as much as mine" on his face. Ahh well
On an amusing note, I also went from being an admin (previous job, this job) with a rather large company, to a lot of interviews with people trying to play mentor or surrogate father figure "Really, I think talking to us is a good choice, and will really help your career if you get hired here." As if I'd never held a job before in my life. Anyway, things are definitly picking up now
Its probably not just your age, though. How you present yourself makes a difference as well, though that's often a factor of how old you are--doing the Voice Of Authority takes some practice, and practice takes time as well. A firm, controlled presentation can haev a big effect on how your ideas are perceived.
Ask your mom.
-
I am 100% in agreement with that statement. You do have to earn the right to be treated "like some sort of paragon of computing". You shouldn't have to earn the right to be treated like a human being. I work hard to be respected for my ability - I work to improve my skills, read to improve my knowledge. (I am however totally smart-assed and sarcastic). I expect to be judged on my ability and results, not on how old I am.
I have worked with 17 year olds that were worth more to a company than the 35 year-old who was his boss. I've also worked with 17 year olds I wouldn't trust to wipe their own ass. Merit comes from a great deal more than age.
I hope that your company has something about it that makes it worth it for recruits to go through some 'tear-em-down-then-build-them-up' corporate bootcamp. Myself, I've taken enough shit over the years to realize that somethings are worth it, and others you just walk away from. Gee, that sure is a broad open job market out there, ain't it?
Could you please email me the name of your company so that I may submit my resume? I am young, fresh out of university and am seeking experience and guidance. I realize that with my B.Sc. in computer science I have a great many opportunities open to me, in open-minded, progressive companies desperate for my skills, however, I would really like to "have a man made of me".
Please allow me to check my mind at the door, and assume a demure, unappreciated presence in your offices. I assume that self-flagellation, and a suitable dominatrix will be provided for remedial self-esteem adjustment.
This comes down to the culture of an organization. I've worked at places where my opinion was discounted because I was young, and I've also worked at places where anyone over fifty was mistrusted. Some organization value experience over ability, others seem to believe that experience with old technology isn't relevant (perhaps missing associated ability).
Myself, I'm a big believer in meritocracy and rewarding individual ability and results (regardless of age, sex, ethnicity and sexual or editor preference). Get yourself into an organization that rewards competence and ability. (Unless you're incompetent).
I know exactally what you mean. I am 20 and have a 3 years of work experience under my belt. At my last job I was a Sr. Solaris/Linux Admin and had 4 Jr. Admins under me. They were all 30+ years of age and 3 of them have their Solaris cert. But now I'm looking for a job, but I don't have enough Solaris experience, only 3 years. ...
But hey, it's what has to be done, I can't be tested on every interview I go on, a cert it good enough... but i can't get a good job to get money to get a cert in anything!!
I don't see why you think he'd ask those questions of a girl only. That's the sort of question I always start with, because the obvious is the thing that gets missed the most often.
Common sense is what tells you the world is flat.
They were dumb for hating me because I knew more about the newest technology. Why would people hate you for knowing something they dont? I was willing to learn from them and show them what I new. They wouldnt hear of it. Nope, SMTP was not thrown in. There was 1 admin there who knew how sendmail worked. The entire network was TCP/IP. I dont know many UNIX networks that speak IPX. Sorry dont know what ecn is guess I am going stale myself. =)
Microsoft aggravates my tourettes syndrome.
Got it, pops.
;)
Microsoft aggravates my tourettes syndrome.
Actually I am well respected at work. Because I demonstrated my skills early on people realized I knew my stuff. I think in most places if you keep your cool and act mature, do your work well repect will come your way. If not just get another job, you will probably get a better salary anyway.
Microsoft aggravates my tourettes syndrome.
I think this pretty much hits the nail on the head. The reality is that your success/respect in the workplace depends more on your communication and political skills than your technical skills. I can already here everyone whining, "But I hate politics". Unfortunately, as soon as you put more than one person in a room you are dealing with politics on some level, so you might as well accept it and deal with it.
I don't have much of an issue... but I look older than I am (I've been guessed as high as 25)... the knowledge issue also helps. There are two techs where I work who are just getting ready to leave their teens (myself and another) and two older adults. Often I find that users react with a bit of negativity until we've dealt with them once or twice, but our department treats us just like the older adults. This is IT though... it might be a little different.
"It's a whole Idea caused by the lack of childrens rights, it starts with children getting no form of representation, Parents should get more votes if they have more children. "
If this happened then children would have even fewer rights. Why? Because parents tend to be overprotective towards their offspring. When I hear about a law passing that might affect childrens' rights, I can look at from the perspective of, "What would I have thought of this when I was that age?" Parents look at it from the perspective of, "How will this affect my children when they are that age?"
"We have a couple of students interning here at my $orkplace,..."
How is that pronounced? "Sorkplace?" "the variable 'orkplace?'" "Dollarsignorkplace?"
Age does matter -- I'm a 22 year old sysadmin -- been a 'computer professional' for seven years (started out as a PC tech and moved up). Most of my coworkers don't know my age, and that's largely because I've learned that little good can come from my coworkers knowing how old I am.
Some suggestions on dealing with it (this, btw, should not be construed as supporting the idea that young people should be treated with less respect because of their age. I don't believe that at all, but there's few things you can actively do to improve people's respect of young people until they respect you, so..)
1. Be extremely responsible. 'Out responsible' your coworkers whenever possible
2. Don't give anyone your age if at all possible.
(HR needs to know, but most people don't -- Keep it on a Need to Know basis -- don't lie, just don't bring attention to it)
3. Look older -- Consider how your coworkers and bosses dress. Consider how they do their hair. Consider how they carry themselves. Imitate this to the extent with which you are comfortable. This alone saved me a lot of trouble -- when I was 20 most of my coworkers thought I was 30 or so...they were rather surprised when I told them I coudln't join them at the bar..
4. learn from my mistake -- if your coworkers are in the habit of going to a bar, scope it out beforehand. In general, your odds of getting carded are lower if you're with a group of coworkers than by yourself. Remember these white lies "I have plans" and "I forgot my driver's license" -- repeat for any other activity that might give away your age
5. Never forget where you came from. If you're in a position where your co-workers respect you regardless of your age, challenge them when they refuse to give others the same respect they deserve (when possible -- don't chew out your boss) Always give others that respect, regardless of their age.
I worked for my high school during the summers after my Junior and Senior years (1999 and 2000). During my first few weeks, my supervisor really didn't trust me, but I seemed to prove myself after writing a few basic shell scripts to save them many, many man hours. It seems that I just had to prove myself to him (it also helped that the consultants put the same amount of trust in me that they put in my boss's assistant). Another thing that I've found is that many people assume that I'm about eight years older than I really am. You've heard the phrase "dress for success," right? Don't overdo it, but neaten yourself up (tuck in the shirt, shave, etc. I always tried to keep a professional demeanor around my boss, and it worked. We didn't have a dress code, but I always tried to wear business casual my last summer, since I was meeting with cabling contractors, and a consultant while my supervisor and his assistant were at training sessions.
BTW: My supervisor was 55, his assistant was 25, and I was 17 during my last summer.
--
Mike Hollinger
Michael C. Hollinger
These are the people who know me, and where my skills lie. Others just see a 21 year old kid, scribbling away at his notepad during meetings and punching away at his keyboard other times.
More than once I've been mistaken for the visiting son of an elder colleague. That can sometimes be fun. Especially when visiting a remote facility, and I have to produce picture ID (in addition to the photo badge I have to carry) to prove that I do, in fact, work for the company.
AdamL.
I'm 20 and work for a company that develops online e-commerce packages. I'm the second lead developer and know our software like I know my own family. Being 20, I still get the raw end of every deal and don't get a lot of the credit I deserve. I have 4.5 years of professional programming experience behind me. When I talk to clients I try not to give my age away and I always try to advoid face to face meetings because the client always gets the wrong impression based on my age and starts to take me less seriously. Experience and skills may be a lot of the issue, but age still matters. I remember working part time doing programming for an online catalog and the client asked to be switched to another programmer because he wasn't confident in my skills. He didn't see my portfolio or the work I was currently doing. He saw me face to face and didn't want to work with a 17 year old. At the time I was the best cold fusion developer for the company.
I do have to agree with the argument about "How old your boss is" however. At one point, I was working for a company where all the employees were 27 or under. All the developers were 23 or younger. (I was 18 at the time). We built very robust online catalogs (including nice design, functionality and administrative backend). The team worked very well together and the trust was incredible. A great example of a young team working together. The marketing experience got us and we were soon bought out however.
In other words, yes, age matters. Something I have done in the past is, give my ideas to a co-worker I got along with and he would pass them on. It's foolish, but if you want your say in your work, you have to go around the politics.
-Ryan
I understand that you may hate mathematics, I know the field scares the hell out of me (I have no idea how I made it through the calculus series), but it really is a the open source framework/language of the universe. Most anything can be explained by mathematics. As for college, I know folks who have gotten through even their doctorates without so much as having taken a single mathematics course. Of course that is going to be next to impossible if one is interested in compsci as the logic of mathematics certainly helps one understand the nature of code (especially Fortran).
At any rate, I would encourage everyone to get at least some post secondary education at some point as it makes people more prepared and less prone to be taken advantage of. As I alluded to in the previous post, education is the great equalizer. An example: One of my good friends grew up in a VERY poor area of Tenessee. As a young black female growing up in the south in the early 60's she already had the cards stacked against her. In her early teens she became pregnant and gave birth to a son. She decided to get an education both for her son and herself and worked her way through her nursing degree in a nursing home cleaning and taking care of the patients. After that, she worked her way through medical school as a nurse on weekends and now she is a neurologist.
I love that story.
Good luck.
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
EOM
Blar.
ToiletDuk You may have the largest technical skillset but that is only one part of the complete skillset needed by an employee.
having gone through a similar situation in my past. ( currently age 26 ), ive found that regardless of age, you will go though this sort of adjustment period with each new employer. you have to build a reputation through demonstration. this doesnt happen overnight or even in a few months. this is done through consistently getting the job done with minimal stress and hassle on your fellow coworkers and manager(s). as others have said, the desired solution isnt always the most technically correct. take all of the good advice here, stay low key with as minimal of an agression factor as possible. take initiative and quietly get the job done. the repect will come.
Speaking as a grown-up wunderkind, the biggest thing you can do to overcome the age thing is to keep your mouth shut. Knowing when to do that is the surest sign of maturity.
I finished my doctorate at 26 and got a professional position, but had a hard time getting the respect I felt I deserved. People kept assuming that I was a grad student or a postdoc. What turned the trick is all of the peripheral bullshit that shouldn't matter, but really does.
I've got a sense of humor, and for a long time couldn't resist the opportunity to make a joke during professional conversations because I found the pomposity of other scientists so damn stifling. What I evenutally realized was that the other scientists truly didn't know as much as I did, but the "professional demeanor" made them seem more knowledgable than they were, and a large part of it was just being quiet and nodding sagely, or saying things like, "Yes, that's one of the things to consider." Admitting ignorance in pursuit of knowledge, or trying to leaven the conversation with actual interpersonal interaction is a mistake. You don't have to act like a prick, as one poster said, but adopting the professional demeanor, however irritating, is a big key. Having the patience and maturity to go that route, to be able to bite your f*cking tounge, is one of the things that separates the successful.
Of course, wearing a tie adds 5 years to your appearance (-5 for fish ties), sporting a moustache/string of pearls adds another 5 (-5 for odd piercings), good quality leather shoes adds another 5 (-5 for tennis shoes), etc., etc.
Sorry if this is a restatement of other's posts, but it is just so very, very true, I had to testify.
The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them. - Mark Twain
Discrimination without basis? I don't think so.
I've worked with "teens" in this industry. They think they know everything because they've been hacking since they were in diapers. So what? How does that _at all_ translate into a job skill?
So you can build a server. So you can write a web page. So you can optimize the hell out of 8088 assembly code. I don't care. Anyone can do these things, or find someone who can.
Can you sit through a four hour meeting with the VP of your division and not somehow piss anyone off?
Can you accept an assignment that you have no desire to do and do it to the best of your ability because it's what's best for your company, or best for your group? Are you willing to do the shit work while those with more experience get the credit?
Can you communicate effectively with senior members of other teams and other divisions?
Do you talk bad about your fellow employees behind their backs? Your management? Are you a source or a sink of morale?
Can you write quality code? Can you follow a coding standard without bitching and moaning? Can you put out a quality functional spec that your boss is willing to send to a dozen representatives from various departments without even reading it because _he trusts you_?
Maybe you can. But in general, young people without "real world" experience are lacking in most of these areas. They think their technical expertise will get them farther than it will. There is value in being smart, and there is value in technical experience. But in terms of respect -- no, you won't get any respect for just that. Everybody knows a half dozen "smart" people that they wouldn't let near their boss, never mind an actual customer. And they know there's a half dozen more lining up at the local college.
Not representing or approved by my company or anybody else.
I've dealt with some young cow-orkers who were pretty knowledgable, and some who thought they knew it all. What I've determined is that it's more important how you present your ideas. If they're not listening to you, it's either because you are presenting your ideas the wrong way, or they don't agree and they're assholes.
Ideally, if they don't like your ideas, your cow-orkers should explain why and work with you to come up with something better.
It all comes down to what they think of you because of yoru attitude. If you're a "young punk" then they aren't going to listen to you. If you're the "inexperienced kid with good ideas", then they'll at least listen to you. (I'm not saying you're inexperienced, but that's what they'll think.)
However, there are some things you only learn through years of experience. Listen to your more experienced cow-orkers and you might learn some of this stuff.
"We are not tolerant people. We prefer drastically effective solutions"
It's a content repository with a proprietary API and caching mechanism for getting at it. Thanks, though. :)
www.HearMySoulSpeak.com
That's not "old boy's club" that's called "management".
somedays, it feels like my job is to simply cover the sales peoples' asses.
whee!
-c
I have discovered a truly remarkable proof which this margin is too small to contain.
I am a technician at a company that specializes in making military gizmos that no one else in the world really knows how to make. It is run and owned by engineers--PhD's and Masters grads. If you do not have a BS, your opinion does not count. Certianly mine does not.
....a technician who has written Linux kernel drivers for his custom IO cards on his home rig mentioned that FreeBSD might be more efficient on our server.
Our resident electrical engineer and programmer thinks AOL is a pretty good way to get on the internet, though our network is connected via T1. He made our webpage with MS Frontpage. It takes too long to load....
When one of our technicians who is well versed in Perl and PHP and has built several commercial websites offered the opinion that Frontpage was a waste of time and money and I offered that our server could serve our web-pages in-house and save us $65/mo. Our opinions were summarily dismissed. My suggestion was ignored again later when they were having hellaciuos problems with the web server provider being unreliable and unreachable. Later someone asked me why I thought I could tell anything to an Engineer with a masters degree....I don't even have a BS.
Our server was "too slow". It is a P150 w/ 32MB ram running Windows 3.1. The hard drive runs in PIO mode 3. One engineer offered that we should buy a faster machine for the server...no, too expensive. The server crashes too much.....so we installed Windows NT 4 Workstation and added 32MB ram. "How come I can't copy files when theres jobs on the print que?"
Engineer: "What's FreeBSD?"
Tech/Net Admin: "a free server OS, like UNIX."
Engineer: "oh those free programs are toys, no one takes them seriously and they aren't ready for business... Besides, no one here knows how to use FreeUnix."
Tech/ Admin: "Actually, all of the technicians here use Linux and some use FreeBSD at home."
Engineer: "None of the engineers know how to use it so we can't use toys like that here."
Tech/ Net Admin.: "Right, but we maintain the server for you guys already"
Engineer: "We just can't afford to run something that none of the engineers can fix if they run into a problem when no Tech is around"
Tech / Net Admin: "uhhhh....right, we--um--need to spend $1000 on a new server."
Engineer: "Oh well, I guess we're stuck with what we've got. Sometimes you guys come up with the craziest ideas..."
Consider a young butter-bar lieutenant. Sure, he or she's hot stuff -- in command of that platoon -- but common sense would suggest that at times they shut up and listen to their platoon sergeant. However, what the platoon sergeant has to say is only a recommendation -- it is up to the LT (and not an NCO) to make the call and give the order. To just do what the sergeant says is not good leadership. Orders come from the top down.
You, my young friend, must acknowledge that your supervisor is the one who issues the marching orders. It's their butt on the line when the fit hits the shan, and as a consequence, they have the privilege of making whatever decision they want.
Next consider a major, serving as a staff officer for a colonel or general. They are a subject matter expert, be it in administration, intelligence, operations and training, supply, or whatever. It is their obligation to provide their candid opinion to the commander. This is best done politely and respectfully. (Hint: saying the word "sir" or "ma'am" will not kill you.) Once again, whether the advice is taken is up to the commander, but you must offer your expert opinion. Once a decision is made by the commander, no matter how assenine you consider it, you must support it.
These things take maturity. I could not have done them a decade ago when I first started working. But time mellows people out, and before you know it, you'll be the person making decisions. And then you can remember to solicit and appreciate the honest opinions of your subordinates.
--
jvev atvf gurm rabs pern gvba
On the other hand, being under 20 is kinda young. Sorry, you might be a compident programmer but you are really young to be in the workplace. Deal.
I think it also depends on your posistion and who your clients are. If you're dealing with corporate clients then there's a huge problem. Corporations won't hire anyone who hasn't either had college or extensive experience so anyone you run into is probably at least in their mid 20's.
If you're working in the back room and don't deal with clients then I think its absurd. As long as you can do your job that's fine.
Still, I think the tendency of younger programmers to assume they can skip college is misguided.
Dr. Fardook drfardook@evilconspiracy.com
Some of it is about maturity. I know a number of smart young people who aren't reliable, and act as though they are in high school (showing up late, etc). It takes more than just intelligence and experience to be taken seriously; you must also act professionally.
You will also find that you will be PAID according to your age, not your ability. One of the great things about Open Source is that it is a meritocracy: the more you do, the more you are respected, and the more you are consulted. But in the workplace, salary is directly related to your age. You can produce 10 times the work as another senior programmer, but you'll find that you aren't paid as well. Same goes for vacation, by the way.
I'm sure that there are companies where this is not true, but I'm also sure that they are the exception, not the rule.
Opinions change daily as new information arrives. Stay tuned.
From my experience, maturity matters a lot more than age. I have worked with people younger than me who I truly respect and listen to. But, there are some that I have worked with whom I don't respect because they act like five-year-olds.
I had a manager 15 years older than me who through a temper tantrum because I didn't ask his permission before making a decision (ah, the joys of being a consultant). He yelled, screamed, and stamped his feet. He lost my respect right there.
Personally, I try to give everyone the benefit of the doubt. I work will all college grads, but within about a 20 year age span. The more mature people are the leaders, the less are the slackers.
Age and treachery beat youth and enthusiam.
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
What do the people you're working with respect? that's the primary question here. If it's wrinkles, then that's what they'll listen too. If it's technical knowhow, then they'll get over the fact that you look about 12, I know the people I choose to work with do. I'm in a similar situation most of the time, but when you start showing the people you work with that you're a valuable asset and resource, they should swing your way. If they don't, it's time to look for employment elsewhere...if you're as good as you think you are, that is =).
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Youngsters tend to be recognized for enthusiasm, hard work, and proficency, but not for people skills.
Oldsters tend to be recognized for proficiency and people skills, but are given lower status than youngsters when it comes to knowing who can pull the all-nighter. (Ask any 40-year-old programmer how secure they feel in their job.)
There is stuff to learn, even from people whom you are sure have nothing to contribute. If nothing else, you can learn how not to treat those around you.
The other important point is to realize that people skills have nothing to do with technical skills. Sometimes those managers are recognizing underdeveloped people skills, rather than failing to recognize technical proficiency.
Then get some suspenders ;^)
If you're female, don't grow a beard. People will just look at you funny.
I have similar yet slightly differeny experiences..
I worked for a large company where my manager was over 40, and I was just 20. They treated me with the upmost respect and always credited my work, becasue I believe they respected me as a person, and they knew I could do the work.
I think it isn't just age, but attitude. I think despite my limited education and work experience, I still acted in a professional manner. I wouldn't have been treated the same if I always stormed off whenever I didn't get my (the best) way. Otherwise, I would have deserved to be stepped on because of my immaturity.
You may have been working for 1 or 10 years, if you don't know how to act around the business, don't be surprised if you get passed by.
Bye!
>These people had been working with UNIX for 10-15 years but knew nothing about computer security, Apache, HTML, SMTP, TCP/IP, Perl,C etc.. They were dumb.
Go figure why they hated you...
Security for UNIX was concidered unsecurable for a reason 10 years back. I have to guess at the business you are in, but unless you are working for a web hosting company or ISP, not all sysadmins should know how apache, HTML, or perl works. (Perl has other uses, but not as generally used as normal shell scripts). C is for programmers, and touched very little for admins. That is what shell scripts are for. SMTP, you threw that in. TCP/IP, if your companies entire network uses it, maybe they should pick up a core protocols book, but they probably know enough to get the job done even if you think they don't know anything. PS: Upgrade your firewall to support ecn you l00ser. hehe jk.
Bye!
Document, test, experiment, and most importantly LEARN from your peers.
Never thought this topic would come up, and I thought I was nuts. I think I entered the IT field at the wrong point. I did help desk work through college, and got a job as a combination help desk monkey/network admin at 23. I've worked in three places now (I'm 25) and have noticed that (1) I'm at least 10 years younger than the next youngest person on staff, and (2) Age only matters in some cases. Let me further explain that I work for decidedly old-school companies (a bank, an insurance company and most recently in the air transport IT industry [which is a great change!!].) I never worked for a dot-com company, where even the CEO's 23. My expertise is in the networking world, specifically getting wierd legacy systems to talk to one another and to NT, Unix, or anything else current. Therefore, I'm constantly reading, busting my butt and learning everything I can. Luckily, it's added up to some excellent job opportunities. It always takes a little time, but in all three places I've worked, once the older people realize that I know about something, I'm at least somewhat accepted. It seems like the youngest workers are all developers, and the older "veterans" are entrusted with keeping the network and servers running. Seriously, did I skip a grade, or am I just working in strange fields?? The strange thing is not having a group of peers at work. Sure everyone's an IT wizard, but they're all talking about their three children and the retirement plan, and I just got married a year ago! Anyone else witness this?
It basically comes down to this:
The first is pretty easy to get, really, if you have a techie-head on your shoulders. My boss (who's not a techie) says that most techies around my age grew up on computers, and therefore have more like 10 years of experience than 1 or 2. I think he's right.
Business knowledge is harder to come by, because most 12 and 13 year olds have any direct impact on business. It usually isn't until you're in your first job (or internship) that you get a clue about what it takes to set a business plan and meet it.
Of course, both types of knowledge are relative. I work for a Web site/app firm, and there's no way on God's green earth we'd hire a 30+ year veteran of fortran or C++ to do Web work (note: I'm being more absolutist on this point than I really am).
In the same way, we'd never hire a used-cars salesman, either, to manage our teams or sell our services.
I have experienced this as well, over the years; but I have found it is an issue that fades with time and exposure to intelligent people. Men and women alike will afford you the respect you deserve if they have enough experience in dealing with you, and you continue to perform at satisfactory (or better) levels for the tasks at hand. Once you have some, it is hard to hide experience, whatever your age or gender and by whatever means that experience has been achieved. Of course, a compatible sense of humor also helps.
all to well since I'm pretty much in the same boat. While I must agree with several other posts that acceptance/credability comes easier if your supervisor/manager's are closer to your age group, also try to see things from the acient's point of view.
In their time, experience and credablity could only come from many years of doing something and while times have changed remember, in a corporate world, change doesn't come easy if at all in some cases.
I work for a large company, our location containes roughly 900 workstation and there is only a team of 4 people, myself included to support them and the 24 servers that run this building. I help to cover everything from simple hardrive replacements to installing a blade in a cisco switch and bringing it online. (not as glorious as coding applications but I like it)
As the youngest (and most experienced) on the team, my 32 year old supervisor has no problems taking what I say for thruth. However, in turn our older director that must clear all projects or change thinks nothing of reminding me of my age and that there must be some other way to do things (wether I'm saving them a ton of money on the project or not).
Similar things happen as we get older which I have also seen mentioned here as well. Add family, possible health problems, and climbing salary to keep a well experienced person, you will think your back to being young again due to the treatment.
Basicly, it's unfortunate, but it's part of the corporate world and the best thing I have found that helps me deal with it all, is firing up quake when I get home and just kill everything in sight. I find it much better then going postal on fellow employee's since it keep me outta jail and closer to my computers.
Trying to be different, just like everyone else.
Let me guess. You also think refactoring is a "waste of time."
Emancipation solves part of the problem, but by no means the whole thing. Even as an emancipated minor, you still can't vote, drive, serve on a jury, etc. Furthermore, even as an emancipated minor, you won't be able to get a credit card or a checking account, or even sell stuff on ebay. All these things are tied to age, not legal competancy.
Finally, the point that everyone goes through this is not a solution to the problem. If we instituted mandatory corporal punishment for all children, everyone would go through it -- but that does not make it a good thing.
But the point is that the basis of this law is the idea that minors are less mature or responsible.
But in a lot of other cases, the law actually REQUIRES discrimination - such as ages for driving, incorporation, drinking, wearing a bicycle helmet, getting a library card, etc.
Just because something is the law dosen't mean it's right. Remember slavery used to be the law.
In a lot of cases, yes, that's the case. In others, they use the laws with respect to legal competance as an excuse, and nothing more. Many policies are codified with respect to age, not legal competence, but the two do not go hand in hand - A minor could be emancipated, which would grant him/her legal competance, or, conversely, an adult could be mentally incapacitated, which would remove his/her competance.
Besides which, I think you are absolutely correct when you say there is no good way to codify legal competance. That dosen't mean that using age is the best way.
At my current job, age seems to be a major factor when it comes to listening to what I have to say and believing that what I say is true. I've done so many different things, like filling bosses' requests to build an online app that does something complex in a short time, building and maintaining servers and security, and act as a consultant for authentication code and security on various platforms. Yet, none of them respect me because I'm still in school and because I'm * old *. It's very frustrating. Does anyone else see this as a problem? Does anyone else have this problem?"
I have to agree with the notion that an older boss will affect whether or not your ideas are considered. However, I don't necessarily believe that having too much input from those that are young is a good thing. I am not old, myself. I'm only 26. It used to aggrivate me when I was younger as well. Quite often I was listened to, because I presented my arguments in terms that were of interest to who I was presenting my ideas to. That, I think is the key. But accepting the guidance of the less experienced, because the boss is also less experienced, just doesn't make sense to me. I had spent a LOT of time fixing things because of this kind of behavior. Inexperienced, young management taking in the direction and ideas to quickly from inexperienced young workers. How many of you have had to deal with bad programming concepts and systems being imbedded throughout your company, because some young programmer had too much input on how something should be done. Also, when a company gets larger, change CANNOT be allowed to occur to quickly or easily. It will more often be destructive. A big ship can't turn quickly, without tipping over. Anyway... young people may have great ideas. If they want to be heard, they should learn to communicate in a manner that matters to those in charge. Usually those in charge don't care if changing the mail server configuration will improve performance. Why? Because it doesn't make enough of a difference to the bottom line. Not significantly enough. And even if it did... if you don't have numbers and statistics to back it up, you're merely providing speculation, which is a watse of their time. Don't get me wrong. I like working with younger people. But having to deal with the big-corporate big-wigs in a newly acquired company pointed out more clearly what I started to see. If you want your idea to matter, try to actually find out what matters. Young people are likely blown off, because "statistically" they don't know what they're talking about, and so a higher manager is less likely to pay attention, because it's usually a watse of time. When I was an intern at Qualcomm, another intern and I pushed to get the VP of engineering to look at PMMail/2 (an email client for OS/2) as a potential solution for Eudora for OS/2. It took several weeks and emails of being ignored, which even contained valid arguments, that they would care about. Eventually, after repeatedly nagging, they decided to take a look. QC didn't buy it (developers wanted too much money), but they listened... and that was in a big company, coming from a couple of interns. So, if you want to be heard... come up with arguments the decision makers care about, and be persistent. Cheers, -Alex
You are generalizing, you cant just say that just because someone is younger they are not as intelligent as you.
I work as a developer at a web-firm and im highly respected for my talents in coding, but when it comes to marketing ideas, user interfaces my opinons even doesnt count. This is something ive accepted in waiting for more experience as i myself doesnt reconsider myself to be very experienced in anything but - coding - .
Assuming that its just teenagers / immature people that says that you should patch a certain software is stupid because by letting everyone know there is always a change that a big chunk of users will turn a feature off and that indirectly results in that no-one writes virii like that again.
ah.. but presentation is an integral part to "what I can do".. such as closing HTML braces..
I didn't feel, honestly, that his comment deserved much more thought or criticism, since it is so obviously short-sighted and spiteful.
//Phizzy
"Most European technology just isn't worth our stealing," -- Former CIA chief James Woolsey, referring to Echelon
... and while it may not make you wise, it still make you technically competent, which it the only thing you need to get a job in this industry. I don't suspect "teens" are the first ones laid off.. I suspect "people with no talent" are the ones who are laid off, regardless of age. For all your preaching about wisdom, you seem to have fallen into the most unwise of all beliefs, discrimination with no basis.
//Phizzy
"Most European technology just isn't worth our stealing," -- Former CIA chief James Woolsey, referring to Echelon
I'm a 19-year old Network Engineer at a large ISP, and I have been here for a little over a year now... I was hired 4 months after graduating HS (at 18), and haven't really had any problems because of my age.. everyone seems more surprised that I am as young as I am, and treat me with perhaps even more respect than I would get if I were as old as them... I think it all depends on how you carry yourself off, and if you make your age an issue.. if you make your work speak for itself, then no one will have any way to question your age.
//Phizzy
"Most European technology just isn't worth our stealing," -- Former CIA chief James Woolsey, referring to Echelon
Yes, yes, yes and yes. I attend meetings. I am on the frontline, so I talk to customers all day, every day. i am the primary email contact for my company during the day, and write 20-30 emails to customers and peers every day, and management _prefers_ that I do this rather than others on my shift, because I have recently taken grammar classes, and have a much better command of the language than other, older members of my shift. While younger people may not have the experience that older employees have, they do have an advantage in that their learning has all been recent and fresh in their minds..
the bottom line is that the older generation views us as a threat, and is using whatever power that they have to put down that threat, be it with management tactics, discrimination or the kind of propaganda I've seen in this article.. but if we carry outselves professionally, work as hard as we can and outperform them, we will have the upper hand.
//Phizzy
"Most European technology just isn't worth our stealing," -- Former CIA chief James Woolsey, referring to Echelon
I'm a senior unix consultant and a pretty large UNIX systems administration consulting company. I have recieved my share of comments about being a baby, a stupid kid, etc, etc. Those comments have all come from client companies though, not my own. My company treats me very well, and respects my opinions/judgement. I must say, I've never run into any problems with other technical people, they're all very accepting of my age, my problems come from project managers and the like. I'm sure its awkward for people in management positions to find people with more experience in "kids" 10 or even 20 years their junior. The best thing I can suggest to remain professional at all times, and dont ever discuss your age with people (particularly people in management positions) who do not need to know.
If you are positive it's your age, then here's a couple more questions. What's the average age of the company? Do you stand out like a sore thumb around all your other workers? Are there other people your age that also work at the company? How do they get treated?
What I'm trying to point out is that we can't jump to conclusions about the reasons why this person isn't being respected for his ideas. It may be his age. It may not be. There's probably a few factors involved.
As much as we may hate it, we all live within comfort zones that we don't usually like to step out of. This may be a case where people aren't used to letting the "kid" make the decisions, and it's not a conscious prejudice, just the way they've worked and lived. And, in a similar vein, this kid may not be used to letting others make decisions for him, and to live within that constraint is too much for him. This is, of course, assuming that age is definitely the factor here.
My advice is to continue to test the barriers in a healthy and constructive way. Try and break down the walls that are keeping these people from completely trusting each other. Maybe this kid should ask for a project that he can have complete control over in order to prove that trust in him is warranted. He should also talk openly and honestly with his superiors about this issue and really find out what's going on. No one gets anywhere by just assuming the other party is acting or thinking a certain way. It's all about communicating your needs and desires to others and at the same time understanding where they are coming from so that you can build a mutual trust for each other's skills, knowledge, abilities, you name it.
Well, hope that helps.
--
+1 Insightful, -1 Troll. What can I say, I'm an Insightful Troll.
i hate to be too logical.. but the obvious answer is: get a new job with a boss who will respect you.
-- Betting on the survival of the media industry is a serious risk. I advise investing elsewhere.
I'm not attacking you personally, just reminding people that age discrimination works both ways too.
<sigh> You're probably right, and I certainly do hope that I'll have enough of a life to not want to bust my ass 80 hpw for a crap paycheck.
---
When I'm 40, I suppose I should try to be a good 'mangler' that doesn't discriminate against the bright, young new talent. :)
Then hopefully you won't be like the 40 year olds today that can't keep pace with the 25 year olds. I've spent (wasted) a lot of my time teaching senior co-workers that are supposed to know more than I do? It's not my job to retrain these people. They are supposed to be my mentors!
Anyway, I was in a very similar position to 'ageless'. It is a problem. I solved the problem by finding an employer who felt differently. Now, I'm 21 years old, and have the respect I feel I should.
Oh yeah, and when I'm 40, I'll be damned if I treat some 20 something the way that 'ageless' and I have been.
On the contrary experience only comes with TIME not age. You can be 40 years old with 4 years of experience or 20 years old with 4 years of experience it's all the same thing. Having been alive twenty more years only shows you've not forgotten to breath.
--Malaclypse
Non gratis rodentus anus
Ah, I remember when I used to be so smart too that you couldn't teach me anything. Now that I've been at it for 10 or 15 years I look back at how little I knew then... ...business isn't all about the technical components or being able to write a web server in 200 bytes, its about businss plans, communication, team development, specifications, documentation and all the other boring crap that you don't want to deal with at 16.
:-)
Of course I can't tell this to anyone under 20 because I'm obviously wrong, but don't worry you'll learn soon enough.
Look, this is nothing special. Everywhere you go, if you are young, then you are going to be The Kid. When I was 18 I was working shipping and receiving and I was treated that way. But also remember that it is not just your age, but how you dress and act.
I do some independent consulting now and then and I can really see the difference between showing up for a job in jeans and a t-shirt and showing up wearing slacks, shirt, tie, and jacket.
Also, how you act is pretty important. If you act like a kid then people treat you like one.
I work tech jobs at a local newspaper and get plenty of respect. I sit in on meetings on occasion to give input as to how things should work and what hardware to purchase. Of course, as another poster mentioned, my boss is somewhat younger (mid 30's) so that may be part of it. I'm 19 btw. Also, i think the name "intern" has a bad connotation right off the bat, so you have to overcome that. I'm techincally "part-time" and I think just that subtle name change may have helped. Who knows,
Justin Dubs
I think that your only half right. Yes experience is key but the other part of getting respect in an office is the attitude and point of view you project to the people you work with. As a very general rule the majority of students in the work force don't have the the attitude about work or the point of view towards the office that bosses want out of there employees. The fact that your asking about this and care enough to know more probably means your the exception to the rule. Having been in that position very recently and working with other people in your position I know it sucks. However truth of the matter is its not unfounded in most cases. Employers still need to have the accountability they can only get from full time employees. It sucks and unfortunately there's a good reason it is the way it is.
Ion Frantzis
Here's a classic piece of social FUD that I just can't leave alone. Let's examine the rationale behind this statement.
When people say that someone is better at something because they're more experienced, what is it they're really saying? They're implying that because the person has spent time with something, they've gained additional knowledge about it. The thing is, it's not an automatic process. Experience isn't anything magical. Just because somebody has experience doesn't necessarily mean they've learned anything. In addition, experience is not necessarily the only way to gain that knowledge.
Granted, there are some things that can only be learned by experience. But most of the time this expression is used in reference to something that can be learned through other means. The problem is that society feels learning through experience is the "correct" way. When it comes to education, there is no right and wrong. It's all a matter of did you learn and can you apply it.
Experience is worthless if nothing is learned. Knowledge is worthless if not applied.
- Milo Hyson
I'd argue, however, that it's not my appearance that changes people's opinions. It's my behavior. Above all, you must act like a professional. Be prompt. Don't use foul language and tell offensive jokes. Don't wear T-shirts and baggy jeans, even if your dress code allows it. Don't put a South Park poster in your cube. Don't talk about the fact that you have a hangover because you were out late drinking at the Limp Bizkit show. Just do your damn job, and do it well.
Of course, that doesn't mean you have to be a stiff and not have any fun. Just try to act accordingly given your environment. If you're in a club or whatever, it's fine to act out and be crazy. But not when you're in the office . . .
All of these things seem like common sense for anyone who wants to be taken seriously in a professional environment. However, many of my peers who are in their early twenties don't get this. For example, I have a friend who is almost exactly the same age as I am, within a few weeks. However, people commonly think we're about 5 years apart in age. Why? Because he talks like a skater, dresses sloppily, and has a "I don't give a f*ck" attitude. Meanwhile, I try to take things seriously and earn my co-workers respect.
I worry about age discrimination. But I wish I had your problem, sonny boy. What I'd do is go & chat up the teenage girls whilst waiting for the situation to improve.
Of course, at the age I am now, waiting doesn't help. I don't get teenage girls either. Kids today just don't know when time is on thier side.
My Karma: ran over your Dogma
StrawberryFrog
Mmmm....Gum and nuts.
_____________
I don't want free as in beer. I just want free beer.
Well I'm 25, and been wandering in industry for a while. School placements in Engineering positions.
Young people tend to lack a lot of the other skills that are needed, the so called soft skills.
Yes you know the tech, and have the technical skills, but most likely like myself, dealing with others lacks a bit.
You haven't figured out how to explain, or talk to a person of a different skill level without talking down. You might not realize all the politi cs and interactions with each choice.
I finally realized that my reports to my boss are better recieved when I highlight with colour, and improve my formatting rather then just ensure that I get all the technical stuff right.
To those of you who don't get any respect, back off, be a bit more subtle and make sure NOT to talk down to people or else you'll come off as an arrogant little snot.
Actually, it could be said that the experience is gained before they reach the teens. Especially since computers are so wide spread these days.
At the next eco-hypocrisy-meeting, count the private jets used to get to the meeting. Should be interesting to see that
I've been a consultant since i was 17, and a full time developer since i was 19. I'm now been a consultant, system admin, and developer for over 7 years, and i still run into what is essentially, age descrimination especially when i come into contact with older companies.
I've worked in fortune 500 and 50 companies for the last 5 years, and management consistently ignores me, though i've seen the same mistakes over and over and over....
It got too a point at a previous company that i was working at, where a co-worker recognized my ability, and championed my ideas... they were mutch better recieved from him...
It burns my buttons hard core.
oh well.
-T
Old truckers never die, they just get a new peterbilt
After my "destructive teenage" years ended, I started getting interested in C, C++, Perl, and Java.. and nowadays I've been coding solely Java and C++.. It's amazing the amount of experience these older people coming into the industry don't have.. It's really a sad story when you're hailed as one of the best developers at your company (the company I work for has ~100 people), and you're the youngest one there, and don't have a degree. There's a slight contrast though. Everyone here seems to admire my technical skills, but I've never received technical lead on a single project.. it has always gone to the people with more 'seniority' (aka age, not served job time) than I.. I'll admit that my organizational skills aren't the best in the world, but many mission critical tasks are often given to these older people, without even a thought of handing it to me.. I think it's the Project Managers and Corporate Monkeys that only recognize age, and not skill... almost all people that I've met in the in the industry that have an ounce of technical skill judge by actual "skill"..
Maybe there's something we're missing?
-------------------
arcane for life
For what it's worth...
:-)
I'm 22, and have been employed at a major (Fortune 50) corporation as a Solaris sysadmin for the last 3 years. Prior to that, I was employed as a general UNIX support wonk at a cable network. At the outset, I had definitely harbored brazen ideals of coming in and being the 'maverick' who would change the way things work. To be perfectly honest, I have indeed changed things quite significantly, and my ideas have indeed been listened to. However, I definitely had to go through a lengthy period of trial by fire to get where I am today.
At this point, I am the technical lead of my group, and Senior (heh) Sysadmin. My manager is in his 30s, and most of my cow-orkers are older than he. I would not say that aforementioned brazen idealism has gotten me here, more a willingness to understand both the technical and business sides of an issue, and weigh both accordingly. A young person can gain respect, but in my experience it must be earned. Why expect it handed on a silver platter? I've learned immensely since beginning here (both technically and interpersonally), and would admit freely that I was not ready for my current levels of responsibility at the outset.
People were skeptical, plain and simple. Conducting one's self in a mature and businesslike manner in situations which call for it almost certainly supercedes technical ability in the realm of garnering respect. I'm not saying that I changed in any specific, or 'sold out' (whatever that may mean); I simply learned to let go a bit when a battle was being fought against insurmountable bureaucracy.
...And hey, I still get to wear jeans and birkenstocks every day.
--frood
Yes!! It all depends on how objective and rational the people for whom you work are. I know 20-somethings who are infintely more mature than some 40- and even 60-somethings I know (and vice-versa, of course).
In my opinion, people who judge others by any superficial criteria, be it age, race, gender, piercings, sexual preference, tattoos, clothing, hair color, eye color, number of fingers, etc. etc. etc. are the immature ones. And unfortunately we live in a world with a lot of immature people (a favorite Bob Marley line: "Once a man is twice a child").
Just because there are so many immature people out there, doesn't mean that you, I, we, have to be like them.
If you don't like being treated a certain way because of your age, get revenge by refusing to be like them; be the exception to Bob Marley's rule. It's hard, but the rewards (self-respect, solid long-term relationships with young and old alike) are worth it.
See my blog at tomwhartung.com for my resu
I'm 20, and still in school. I have never once been the victim of age discrimination. I have been a network admin for law firm, a contract programmer for a title company, and a co-op at a pharamcutical company. And no one has ever once looked down on me for my age. Any problems I've had have been for one of three reasons: 1) I had more technical (computer/chemistry) knowledge then someone, and presummed that also ment I had more bussiness knowledge, 2) I was confonrtational about what I felt was an incorrect technical dicission mad eby someone else, and 3) I look like shit during most of my jobs (you just aren't going to get respect when you are wearing steel tipped boot with a wrinkled shirt you didn't feel like ironing, and sporting a ponytail, mutton chjops, and a goatee. Once you 1) clean yourself up (in attitude and dress), 2) learn to respect other people's knowledge as well as your own, and 3) learn how to interact with people (both assholes and nice people), then your 'age discrimination' will go away. Although there my be some discrimination, the vast majority 'age' discrimination is really 'you don't know as much as you think you do, are a pain in the ass, and don't work well with others' discrimination. Give it a rest, and grow up.
There is protection of age discremination in the workplace but it only protects the older folk. Experience builds knowledge but as a whole, wisdom and maturity go hand in hand with age. If you want the respect, develop the wisdom and maturity.
Lack of respect can be due to any number of issues besides age. Our office used to be part of IBM, and despite the fact that all of the heavy lifting is done by graduates of local schools, I've caught the ex-IBM fogeys plotting hiring/promotions based on whether or not an individual attended Big-10/Ivy schools.
I'm also pretty poor at politicing for changes like this. It's very hard for me to quantify what would be saved if this were done the right way earlier. Since making the choice means that you take a different fork in the road. Who is to say that fixing the bug earlier didn't save you a lot of pain and suffering later. I guess in the security domain the OpenBSD crew usually gets to have the last laugh when an exploit is found and they post something like - "we fixed that 8 months ago". How much scrambling and wasted effort did their proactive approach save. Impossible to estimate, but I'd rather be in their shoes.
So it's probably a complex mixture of you, your boss, company policy, time, and money that determine if they listen and whether or not they act.
After awhile you do learn to pick which battles you fight because you'll either be in constant disagreement or always fighting the battle of FUD and misinformation.
If people don't stereotype you for a "kid who knows nothing", then after awhile of proving your technical prowess, you'll be treated better and maybe as even an equal.
If your collegues are smarter than you and older, then just shut your mouth, sit back and learn as much as you can.
This is true for certain professions. Once the hiring manager sees you are older, you get higher consideration than if you a nipper.
"Rocky Rococo, at your cervix!"
Heh... I'll be 40 this month.
"Rocky Rococo, at your cervix!"
Actually it is against the law for prospective employers to ask how old you are in an interview. True, you resume could give away some things, but after having a couple of jobs on there the education portion of your resume becomes the less important part and amazingly, they most of the time won't even bother to do the math to deduce your age from when you graduated (which nowadays is unclear sometimes anyway, you can't always take 18 + years in college and get the right age).
Oh and as to getting a good boss, don't stop looking for one until you find one. Then learn as much as you can.
The "nobody-listens-to-what-I-have-to-say sindrome " happens, to a certain extent, under every business or organization.
However skillfull one can technically be and thus perform high-quality delivery under such scope and circunstances, one is nothing but informative (as per the Slashdot moderation guidelines, if you allow me the comparison).
Insightfullness is paired with certain not-so-technical abilities like sensitiveness and awareness, broadness of visison, maturity, lead-, present- and argue-capabilities, etc, etc, that, inevitably, you develop as you live throughout your life; not only as a professional but most importantly as an individual.
Fortunatelly, living takes time.
I know pretty well my stuff. Once I applied to a job as a sysadmin and I was rejected for being too young (I am 18). I later applied at another company and my bosses are very happy, I am kind of a project manager and I am really happy at my job. Is people without vision that does not understand that age does not matters.
Humans survive by stereotyping, and age is an indicator of experience. Just like a Harvard MBA is an *indicator* of somebody with decent business sense. They might well be a moron, like our recently elected president, but the indication is there.
Until an individual earns the respect of a boss or peer, there is no reason to discontinue use of an age stereotype.
Just because somebody has a lot of knowledge (especially specific knowledge) implies nothing about their level of experience. A frequent shortcoming of [young] people in IS/IT industries is the notion that knowledge is a substitute for experience.
Smart people make dumb mistakes. Experienced smart people make fewer dumb mistakes.
I used to have this problem, and then I grew up. I'm 28 and have been working for computer companies since high school. Though I'm not perfect and I don't pretend to be either. The following is just my experience and opinion.
Forgive me for even suggesting that anyone might not see your genius, but I've had some experience with this and I would like to suggest a possible scenario. Even if the original person doesn't have this issue, I've seen this a lot in the tech industry and hope this will help someone out there.
There is a large population of young hyper kids with amazing talents and no social skills. I used to be one of them. When I realized it was the way I was communicating to others, trying to influence their decisions and show them why my solutions were better, the tone and delivery was just as important as the content. After this discovery, things got a lot easier. Learn to manage yourself and be helpful, not aggressive in countering them.
I've seen too many examples of people my age in meetings or classes tangent into soapbox diatribes about how illogical X or Y is, and then wonder why no one listens to them later. Who cares if it's wrong? Are you going to manage it? If not, let them fall over themselves managing NT. (example) If you are going to manage it then it's your right to say you don't like it for whatever reason. It's not your job to save the world or correct every stupid misguided idea. Stop trying, you will only frustrate yourself. Those ignorant people you are trying to save will only resent your effort.
I'm not going to analyze you, but stop for a moment and try to see how you might be perceived. There is a good chance your perception and theirs don't mesh. Yes, they might be wrong, yes some managers really don't know their ass from a hole in the wall. But if this frustrating situation occurs more then once with different people...it might be you. And only you can make it better.
did when they were your age. It sucks being on the bottom of the pile.. but, by the same token you're young-- and you get all the benefits of that... time will fly fast enough and soon you'll debate the wisdom of wanting all that responsability.
anyways.... what I wouldn't give to be able to recover from all nighters like I used to.
Do not spread "09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0" over the internet, thank you.
third oldest. i'm in the middle at 31.
Age absolutely matters. Some people don't realize just how much our professional work environment heirarchy depends on age and seniority. Many academic environments, for example, might assume that the oldest and most senior member (often a professor) is the most experienced and wise. Anyone who has spent anytime in an academic environment knows this not to be the case. Unfortunately, sometimes you just have to either wait for the opportunity or find it yourself elsewhere.
-Moondog
Very true. People who are prejudiced about age will, by definition, think less of you because of your youth than they most likely 'Should'. However, experience, having 'done the time', working your way up, etc. are all very important things that come with age. I am 28 now with a very young face. As as result I have had much of the prejudice. That was till I kept job-hopping up the ladder from place to place. You also learn that how young you 'act' and 'appear' may have more to do with it than actual physical youth. -Steve
My intelligence insults itself.
i bet they are modding you down because you are a girl... heh... honestly... either that or they work at your company and are all pissed that you called them 'bitter'--i wonder if 'BITTER OLD MEN' would be more fitting?
mov ax, 13h
int 10h
mov ax, 13h
int 10h
There are a lot of good responses to why older people have a tendency to have better social and political experience (not always, I've known some people older than me who still didn't know what they were doing at all).
However, I'd like to play devil's advocate for a second.
Age does not always come with wisdom. Sometimes older people are arrogant in their age. They think that because they are older they do know more. They also become set in their ways, and don't recognize that their might be a better way.
How do I broach with a manager the subject of looking at the Extreme Programming at my present job? The present programming process sucks, and lots of people would tell you the same thing. But the managers aren't aware of XP, and if I even attempt to broach it with them, they'd be insulted. I know something they don't? How dare I suggest we don't already have the best method we can possibly use!
Thanks to this stigma of age and experience (which is also tied to the life one is at a job as well as how old someone is) its not always easy at some jobs to broach someone with a new thing or a new idea because you are a young person, or a new person. Well hell, sometimes I just have a better idea! And the idea should be accepted at face value, not based on my age or how long I've worked somewhere.
All too often there is no moderation between youthful idealism and older complacancy (sp?).
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
I've been passed up for management positions, promotions, and raises all due to lack of experience. Never mind that I was clearly a better technician than my peers
.sig.
Does being a better technician make you more suitable for management?
It's a sad fact that Age=Experience in a lot of people's eyes
There should be a correlation between age and experience though, with so many people piling into the industry through conversion courses and calling themselves 'experts' and 'consultants' because they can smell money, I think our industry is one where this holds the least true.
The problem for you is the attribute that is both a blessing and a curse: youth has yet to learn its own limits. Some of the greatest works were written by people too young to know something is impossible, eg Napster. On the other hand many claim that more is learnt by failing at something than succeeding. Youth implies that you have not had the time to see as many projects through and learned how to overcome the kinds of problems projects going awry can throw up.
The solution? My advice is to obtain the same respect inside the company as you received it upon applying for the job: your CV. Put in as much detail as possible into it and then point people to it as often as possible. Put it up on your intranet. Put a link to it on your
If that fails then act like a spoilt prima donna. Swap desks with someone in a better position without asking anyone, demand loudly that the Coke vending machine be moved 5 foot closer to your desk, do a 48hr stint then don't turn up for 3 days, etc. The people around will assume you are a hotshot child prodigy and give you newfound respect. (don't really do this!)
Phillip.
PS You want to be promoted up into management???
Property for sale in Nice, France
But maturity does. I know 60yr old engineers whom no one listens to because they are immature, unable to control their emotions, and insensitive to the social dynamics of a situation.
Not to imply that they don't have good ideas; some ideas are very good, but a good idea only goes a little way. Getting people to listen to that idea is what is key.
LibBT: BitTorrent for C - small - fast - clean (Now Versio
I just turned 30 and still find my age to be a problem. I have 20 years experience writting software and currently do contract work for most of the largest engineering firms in the world. In my circle of peers I am considered the foremost expert in my field, but I still run across managers or engineers who think I'm just some punk kid who doesn't understand what they are trying to accomplish. Of course when I not only excel but far exceed their expectations their attitude changes, but its that way in every company, and since these are large companies it happens more often then I'd like. But all in all its just annoying, I still command the money I demand per my experience and as I am the leading developer in my field its not much of a damper. When I was 22 I had this problem on a much more massive scale, I was the chief developer for a semi-large company and they still referred to me as kiddo and I had to leave the company because they wouldn't pay me what my experience and skills demanded. Somebody else did :-)
But I was always treated as a child, always had someone looking over my shoulder, double checking my time sheets, yelling at me when i did do something wrong (even though the old sysadmin would do the same thing and not get in any trouble). Also I had an "Intervention" when I messed up once. I made the mistake, 10 minutes lager fixed it, the next day I had a meeting about how I should "Always double check your work" and how we are going to now "have a system of checks and balances in the IT department". So essentially now every time ANYTHING craps out on the server (even if i am at lunch) they think it is due to something I did.
I messed up once, a simple error fixed in no time, but now they seem to think of me as a pleeb. I could right now go find a job and get paid twice what I am getting now, leave them without ANY IT person (linux/sun/freeBSD boxes) and they would probably choke. But since I am 21, dropped out of college to take this job full time, and HAD long hair (down to my shoulder blades but I recently got it cut) they were/are always watching me like hawks.
Well since I cut my hair (last Sunday) they seem to be treating me better and I have a review in 2 months to get more money and accept the position officially. When that time comes you can bet I will have a job offer or two under my belt showing them what I can get paid at these other jobs. They better compensate me accordingly or I won't be around past April.
But yes I do get treated like a child even though I know what I am doing and repeatedly show that to them. They only focus on the one error I made my first week on the job. And lets be honest with ourselves here how many people have made a typo in the DNS records when you are setting up new domains. Especially when this was only my third time EVER dealing with BIND and NAMED (which I have updated to the latest versions on our servers)
Yhcrana
The voices in my head don't like you
Sounds like what I am dealing with except I am doing the systems work and getting no respect. My whole company seems to despise the programming team and distrusts us. The design team is perfeclty all right and never gets watched over, but if programming does ANYTHING wrong we hear about it for weeks and months.
Yhcrana
The voices in my head don't like you
There were two bulls standing on the top of the hill one day looking over the herd of cows. The Young bull says to the the older one, "Hey, Lets run down there and fuck one of those cows". The Old Bull just looks at the Young bull and says, "No... lets walk down and fuck them all".
That basically sums up your problem. Youth are full of energy that can be expended easily, but age provides wisdom to see the grand scale of things.
-b
This has happened to me (and still does). I'm 20, but have been using computers extensively for about 11 years. I've been building networks for 7. But still, I can't advance in my current job because of my age. If I was 30, but had only 4 years of experience, I could probably move up, but it's basically been said straight to my face that I'm too young.
So, I'm looking for a new job. It's pretty simple really. If the company you are with will not let you be responsible because of your age, then you go some where where they WILL let you. I would love to be a CTO, but I don't see that happpening for several more years. But I sure as hell could be a senior Lan Admin or Network Engineer, but am unable to in my current position.
PS: Anyone in Seattle looking for a knowledgeable network admin?
---GEEK CODE---
Ver: 3.12
GCS/S d- s++: a-- C++++ UBCL+++ P+ L++
W+++ PS+ Y+ R+ b+++ h+(++) r++ y+
I got the distinct impression, however, that no one really thought you had a legitimate complaint. Here is the skinny. The problem isn't that no one likes your (youthful) ideas. The problem is that no one likes your perspective.
Try this premise: to say, "experience matters," is to say, "experiences are known to change one's perspective." So, how do your co-workers' perspectives differ from yours? This is not very hard to answer. They've learned to "bottom line." The bottom line perspective is all about placing blame; who will be guilty for this or that failure (i.e. lost revenue). They're not rejecting your ideas; they just do know how to say, "That's a great solution to this problem, but we're not interested in good solutions, we need to sell something."
Well, that's a minor exaggeration. Your co-workers certainly think their ideas are good solutions. But, they are good solutions relative to the bottom line perspective, which youths typically do not comprehend. It's not myopia, really; it's focusing on the core problem. Your company, however, is trying to bring in revenue. This is not the same thing. So, your not really arguing about which idea is better, your arguing about which perspective is better, and that is even more important.
I just moved to industry, and one thing is clear. The culture (perspective) is based on guilt. People love to joke about getting fired for mistakes or costing the company money. They constantly laugh about how the customer has hired us to do a job and then rejects our help. Ha! That's so funny. It's just hilarious that we do hours of paperwork because our customer wants us to stream line the process but won't approve any of our procedural changes. My company spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on the software system for tracking problems and "requests" from our customers. It keeps three time stamps for every entry, but we can't get a list of requests based on the comparison of two time stamps. What's the point of recording the data if you can't run reports! Here's why: because the software is expensive, and we can charge our customers accordingly. An inadequate argument is that we receive "support" with commercial software like this. Then why doesn't it work? Well, here's why: "Support" doesn't mean it works. It means that if it ever broke down completely, we would just get to blame the software manufacturer, and recoup damages in a lawsuit if necessary. That's why we pay.
Do you want to know the secret to getting your ideas accepted? Just run the numbers. Subtract cost of materials and man-hours from the savings. This is why nothing changes; the math is too daunting to even being. Changing that function name has no cost benefit the day after you wrote it, but after decades of of complaints, and a thousands of hours lost due to syntax errors, you'll give both index fingers to re-live that fateful day of coding. In College, the vast experience of your professor is more than enough reason for you adopt a disciplined style or process. Now someone is asking you to demonstrate how making a spelling correction will bring in more revenue.
So, don't feel bad! You must take responsibility for your ideas and your perspective that defines them. You are arguing that one perspective is better than another. (Don't worry. This a well grounded principle. There are no absolutes, there is only perspective.) If it is the better perspective, then make no concessions; but in the end, it's your boss' decision. If it's not the best perspective, you will be compelled to change. Either way, you don't have to feel bad.
But, aside from all of that, don't forget the PC term of the last decade: diversity! If your boss wasn't interested in your perspective, then he would not have hired you. You were chosen, and now you need to contribute. And, arguably, it's not your job to bottom line, you were hired to focus on the problems. Your ideas are making a difference, indubitably, even if you don't know how.
In the software industry, I've never seen an opinion discounted solely because of age. However, experience and track record does mean a lot. After you've pulled a rabbit out of a hat a few times and brought impossible projects in on schedule with few bugs, believe me, they will listen to you.
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
You are correct sir....
I used to feel like this kid and think technical chops were what mattered, but you have to learn why they make the decisions they do in a large company or enterprise. Another big part is the social engineering required to work with lots of different types to get projects approved and completed. Many times what appears as a dumb move in the short term, is a genius in the long run. At the same time there are some really stupid executives out there and you need to be able to spot them too. When you do it is time to update the resume and get out.
Back when I was 18, I worked at a place that built Unix-based voicemail and fax storage systems for large customers. It was a fun job, and I got a good start learning SunOS and continuing to do stuff with PC hardware. I was very humble and respectful because everyone obviously knew an obscene amount about PC hardware (more than me, which was a lot) and Unix, and everything went well. It was, I daresay, a family environment. Then I quit so I could do college full time.
:) In the end, that company was bought by Verio and I was one of the few people in the tech crew that was promoted and asked to stay.
College bored me after a year, so I left and took the first geek job that I could, which was in the operations department at an international long distance carrier reseller. This job was even more fun because in addition to Unix I got to play with telephony switches and WANs, and got to work with people all over the world on the stuff. I also experienced a new concept: knowing noticably more than people who were older than me and getting paid more than me. It made me mad because they were complacent with their small skillsets and because, really, it would have been nice to have the money. I started getting cocky and somewhat abrasive, and although I would teach what I knew to anyone who wanted to know, I was definitely not approachable. I considered it good-natured ribbing. Anyone in my path probably considered it me acting like I owned the place and that they didn't deserve jobs. Eventually, I got set up and fired by my boss (who I had schooled more than a few times). It depressed the hell out of me, and it was a while before I was willing to jump back into being a pro geek.
When I did though (at a WAN-only regional ISP), I absolutely took great pains to conceal it if I thought that I knew more than my superiors. I started listening, and when it became obvious that I didn't have to have stuff explained to me twice, the people teaching me things respected me for being smart and would let me handle interesting tasks, some of which were boring but I did efficiently without bitching that I was "too good". I actually learned a great deal more than I had at the previous company because of it. People are very willing to teach you *a lot* if you're curious and not a dick it seems
In a nutshell, I don't know if you're being a dick or not, but you may not know either. I know that it took getting fired for me to realize it. I'm a nice guy, and it's hard for me even now to look back on some of the stuff I said/did while knowing that my intentions were good.
If you know you're not and you're still not given your proper due, you should find another place. If you actually have the skills, it shouldn't be a problem. If you don't have the skills to work elsewhere, then I guess you know why you aren't getting props.
What about people becoming "too old" for their particular fields?
However, there's a lot more to it than just what you get done. Attitude plays a big part in how people view you.
I started out working in the Internet space when I was 15, and now 9 years later I am still the brunt of lots of "you're the youngest" jokes. However, there is also respect there, and a lot of that is because I am a lot more calm and rational than I used to be. You aren't going get respect by just getting lots of stuff done and forcing it in people's faces. It will happen when you aren't expecting it to happen.
Now I'm not saying you aren't rational and 'emotionally mature' (for lack of a better term), but that is the primary reason I have problems with people working in this field who are still in their teens. There are lots of really smart young people out there who are doing great things, but if they can't play well with others then said people are going to be disappointed about how the old folks treat them.
Then again, some people are just jerks who won't respect you no matter how calm and rational you are, so if that's the case then go find a new job.
In my consulting career, I've been at many companies and have held many (and varied) responsibilities. That latter part, the responsibility, is a key. Most of the young(ish) folks I've worked with, whatever their age or experience, often don't have an adequate sense of responsibility - and they carry themselves in such a way that others know it. Immediately.
In a business setting, you've also got to take professionalism in mind. How do you respond when a project is rejected - whatever the technical or business merits? How well do you interact with your peers? Your subordinates? Your boss? And what about your boss' boss?
What about keeping in mind the business needs above all else? One example I can think of is a web programmer who kept insisting that one of my clients go with a combination of PHP on their company's intranet with a Java/Servlet back end. Technically, the ideas were excellent. But did it take the business needs into account? Not when all of the programmers were COBOL and Fortan coders. Not when the majority of the admins were primarily from the MVS and VMS side of the fence, just getting around to learning Digital UNIX and AIX.
In my experience, these are the real factors that people are judged by. For (what I feel are) obvious reasons, they tend to apply to younger people moreso than older people. Pay more attention to the so-called "soft skills" - how you interact with others and how you allow others to view you (and yes, you *DO* have a choice in how others view you) and you'll likely find a lot of these "age-related" issues disappearing.
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Welcome to the land of the easily amused...
When I worked at a local ISP I was a level 1 tech who did office work (trash duty). I could have done web design, or other such things worth my paycheck, but because I was only 18 and still in high school I was never even considered.
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Spelling by m-w.com.
Where is it illegal? To the best of my knowledge, age discrimination is only illegal if you discriminate against older people. Younger people are still fair game. If you know of a state where the reverse is the case I'd love to hear about it.
I have to admit I'm confused why someone would WANT a full time job at age 15 or 17 or whatever. You have the rest of your life to work. Take a slack job and spend a month driving across the country or go to college or something. Read books while you still have enough copious free time to do that. Anything.
cred-i-ble (kreh dih bEl)
1. believable or plausible:
2. deserving of belief; trustworthy.
Generally speaking, we are judged by others in terms of their own experiences. If you are young, dealing with older people, they will think of what they knew at your age, and then almost always presuppose that they knew more when they were your age than you do know. They will not accept that you are deserving of belief. Once can only deserve something by demonstration.
It is interesting to me that people I have encountered who are least likely to make this presupposition are those that have been humbled by the talents or experiences of those, usually the very young, that they have encountered in the normal course of their lives.
Accept the fact that one can only become credible in the eyes of another by demonstration. Demonstrate it, and if credibility still evades you then accept that the approval of those you crave is not worth anything anyway, since they are fools.
"The first thing to do when you find yourself in a hole is stop digging."
I am 32 and I still don't get respect from my bosses. I also don't brown-nose and it seems like the brown-nosers get all the respect and pay raises and promotions despite what skills they have.
A programmer that works with me that I have one year of seniority over and a degree over (he doesn't have one) got the Project Leader promotion over me. He takes longer than me to get things done, often passing projects to other developers like me, and complains all the time that he is bored. But yet, he brown-noses with the boss and gets that promition and pay raise. I'd better look out or look for a job elsewhere before he takes over for my boss if my boss gets promoted.
I write tight code, very few bugs, and what few bugs are found are fixed before I pass it on to the QA Team. But doing a good job doesn't seem to matter anymore. Politics, gossip, brown-nosing, and schmoozing seem to be the way to get promoted these days. I guess maybe the younger guys don't do any of that when they start working?
I find that many businesses work off the whatever is right more than 50% of the time. And for the most part this is why I think many businesses are like this with age. I am 25 and have run into this time and time again. I have run the gambit form .net to .com I have been a VP and director for two organizations and I see why many young people are not taken as seriously as they possibly should be. Many "young people" are to emotional in their beliefs and don't know how to convey the facts in a way that business understands. Most will simply state what needs to be done and then get mad when their suggestions don't have actions taken on them. They fail to explain fully the benefits and risks of situations and therefor are simply taken with a grain of salt. I think we all see the same actions on slashdot time and time again with the trolls who post here. I don't think it is anything new or anything that will go away anytime soon. I think the only way to overcome this stereotype is to set yourself apart by learning how business works and learning to present your ideas in a way anyone can understand. Many dismiss this as conformity but in many organizations conformity is the only way, without it there are communication issues and fifdoms emerge creating a negative work environment. If your organization still frowns upon your ideas then maybe you should review them and see if you can find anything wrong with them. Don't take it personal see if you can improve upon your ideas. If your employer does can not tell you why they don't like your ideas and you can't find any holes in it you may want to find a new job it would probably benefit you in the long run.
At the risk of sounding antagonistic, the feelings expressed in that message confirm what the previous poster mentioned. The 40something year old woman very possibly does have better people skills than a 21 year old prodigy. The 21 year old probably has never been on the other end of the phone, stuck on a tech problem, freaking out because if he doesn't make deadline he won't get his quarterly bonus and he needs it to make the mortgage payment, let alone buy his kid that new laptop he needs to become a prodigy... Her tech skills may be lacking, but a decent help desk has a knowledge base she can draw on, or a more experienced older tech she can pull in. Your admin in an 'institution large enough to have a dedicated tech support team' doesn't work alone. People skills extend beyond just the customer. There's employee morale to consider. Efficiency. There's a heck of a lot more to a valuable employee than skills. In fact, skills can be learned fairly quickly assuming a modicum of intelligence and interest. Being part of a team is a lot harder to teach. Now, none of the above precludes the younger employee, but a lot of young people (probably not the ones reading /.) aren't as responsible as they should be. Manage a few high-maintanence 20 year olds that blow off work to go to a concert without prior warning, or what have you, and you'll quickly develop a lot of caution when it comes to younger applicants or employees. That isn't fair (everyone should be judged on their own merits,of course) but its the way things can be.
(FWIW, I'm a 40 year old development manager for a small company.)
I think it's more than that.
It's like at my job. I have pretty extensive knowledge of PC hardware, Windows, Linux, Various other Unixes, Programming in various languages, etc. My boss is a guy in his 60's, he has extensive knowledge in System/36 and AS/400s and RPG.
Maybe your boss is starting to feel obsolete?
In the computer industry, if you don't keep up with things as they are happening it can get easy to fall behind and end up stuck in the "I worked on (some old tech) for (some # of years) and noone is going to tell me how (something new) works!" or the "We have always done it this way, and we aren't about to change!".
It all boils down to this: Does your boss feel threatened?
Tech, Dev and Admin experience may not independently qualify as required or desirable management experience.
You can laugh without eating a sandwhich, but you can do both if bring one.
Annie Good for you!
Yes, I experience the same problems.. I'm just happy that I'm not over 40 because then it becomes difficult to find a job. At least they will hire me (at 32) even if they don't listen to my advice. Fun problem we have with our current system...
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= - The Celtic - =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
it's called age discrimination and it's more and more frequent. in some states it is illegal and a valid ground for a lawsuit when you're looked over for things like promotions and such. though you would have to prove your case.
don't think being older is necessarily better. many companies hire younger employees over older ones because they'll work cheaper, require less benefits, work longer hours (if they don't have a family).
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
I'm not attacking you personally, just reminding people that age discrimination works both ways too. It's very hard staying on the technical side as you get older - if you don't end up as a mangler^Wmanager you often end up out of a job - who's the first to be 'downsized', the cheap 25 year old working 80 hpw or the 40 year old with a life and a mortgage?
There aren't any unemployed 40+ programmers, they're all driving busses or delivering pizza.
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I hereby inform you that I have NOT been required to provide any decryption keys.
and have been reading this discussion with much amusement.
Sounds like you work for the government..
I'm one of the two head AIX administrators for a very large chemical company, and being only 20 years old, I've seen my share of distrust and concern about decisions that I've made.
The one way that I've overcome this is to prove that I am capable of doing my job, and am capable of doing work thatis either on par or greater then the quality of work done by my fellow employees.
No matter what until you have either a degree, or are well enough known in your department, you're going to get strange looks. I prefer to surprise people with my skills, then look arrogant and argue with them.
I'm an AIX Systems administrator, and yes I do cry myself to sleep at night....
It's just how hard you can suck.
>I'm still in school and because I'm young :]
If you are under 18, it might be partially becuase of legal age of responsibility (in the USA anyhow).
Since you are below the age of legal ownership/responsibility, they might be afraid they have to cleanup anything you do.
of course they could just be bigots too..
----- The internet has given everyone the ability to have their voice heard equally as loud.. even if they shouldn't be
Right out of college into this small "web" design firm I knew I was going to have to prove myself but within the first months, I did. The company loved me and believed in my ability. But then, for no reason, this faded. And my youth, I guess, was too much for my fellow co-workers to get over. And slowly they stopped listening to me and then their projects started to fail and that's when I knew that I had to get out of there.
With some luck, I have joined a company that now believes in my talents and abilities. Soon enough I will be leading a team of designers and programmers who will have to listen to me. MOO HOO HA HA...
Basically, some companies look at the equation of youth = no experience... But they haven't learned the fact that us younger people have been born with a keyboard in our hands and code on the brain.
TW
Television is dead. Long live That Weasel Television
I've been working at my current job since i was 18, im 20 now and have single handedly revamped the website, installed and now admin our 8 servers and done general techwork and maintenance, and although i am more technically astute than my boss he insists on keeping me out of the decisions on which software is best suited for our office, which language to write such and such application in, and so on. the office and managment respects me as a person and as someone of technical merit but the decisions on how the servers/clients ultimately get run and what they run is left to an inexperienced senior. all too often ive been forced to use an application or language i know to be inferior and are often the cause of any problems me/the servers/the users incur. it seems to me that the respect is there the trust to make long term decisions for the future of the office, however, is not.
I'm 18 and I started doing Java coding when I was 17 at an internet company (www.purespeed.com). I've found the best way to get respect from your bosses and others is to make something (in my case an app) that works, and to consistently deliver on your promises. The more promises I make good on and the more apps I make, the more respect and influence I get. Thanks, Travis forkspoon@hotmail.com
I think this post and story both reflect the schizophrenic attitudes that our culture has about youthfulness, which has been amplified by the tech industry. We have all of these 40+ year-olds running around, obsessing about not looking young enough and spending thousands trying to correct the 'problem.' Then they turn around and belittle and demonize anyone who actually is young. In the tech industry, everyone seems to want to hire sr. sysadmins, sr. developers, and sr. everything else with 7+ years of industry experience, a masters, and certifications in all the latest technologies (just look at the classifieds and compare the number of sr/non-sr positions that are advertised). These requirements would seem to indicate that the company is looking for someone well over 30. But, on the other hand, that sr. level, highly qualified developer had damn well better be no more than 23, straight out of college, unmarried with near-infinite energy reserves and willing to work 70 hrs a week for 40,000 a year. When (if) this person is found and hired, he will not be listened to (due to being to young to be capable of thinking) and when things go wrong, will be blamed for not speaking up about problems he knew were coming.
If you tell someone a lie often enough and long enough, they will believe it. It might not be that you were wrong as a younger person. It might just be that you have accepted the attitudes of the older generation. You are not going to get anything accomplished in work if you say, "Well, if you had more experience, you would see why that doesn't work." It is very hard to believe something that does not have proper rationalization. And the "you just need more experience" argument can be applied to anything, so is not very rational indeed. You should explain to the person why they are wrong, without simply saying, "You are young, thus incapable of making a correct decision." Imagine if I said you were wrong simply because of your age. You would (justly) be angry. Many older people immediately think themselves wiser to the newer generation. If age indeed imparts wisdom, then they would not insultingly dismiss the younger generation. I was dismissed because of my age, and just left. I was the youngest person in the group, and the only one who knew what was going on. When I left, they were screwed. Willfully disrespecting me on nearly every issue, the manager really demonstrated the wisdom of his age there!
At my old job it was reverse. With age some people become more strong-headed, and more clueless. Just depends on the person. I was given no respect at the old job, and eventually left. Unfortunately for them, I was the only one who knew what was going on, and they were screwed when I left. You can talk "experience", and "political" wisdom all day long. But if you don't have the developer, none of it matters. You have to have the developer, but you don't have to have the management. People who forget this end up getting nothing done.
What I said was, I was able to blow the client's socks off partially because I looked a good 10 years older than I actually was. So, I didn't change how they think of younger people, because I didn't tell them I was younger.
Calling me a liar is really rude and shows why you have to make your posts anonymously.
I was readily accepted, and the client absolutely loved my work and told my boss so very vocally. The primary reason for this was that I was able to act professional and remain calm and talk intelligently off the cuff in front of a group of people, and I knew my technology very well. The secondary reason was that I looked about 10 years older than I was.
On the other hand I was earning half of what my 30-ish coworkers (who did the same work) were making, and the boss told me bluntly that he wasn't going to pay me more because I was too young. Age discrimination is only illegal here if you're being discriminated against for being old.
I later had a job as director of systems administration at a consulting agency. I got glowing reviews and did a great job with a strong positve (and quite measurable) impact on the company's bottom line. Ultimately I became severely underpaid there too, and when I went and complained that I was making half of my market value, I was told that they knew that but they weren't going to pay me what I'm worth because I was too young and my older coworkers would resent it. I left.
The point of these stories is that a young person can do a great job and know all the right information and have all the right skills, but ultimately what often happens is a person in a position of power resents them because of their age and consequently steps on their career progress. And the only thing you can do about it if they're your boss is find a better job.
Been there, done that, now 27. Now this is my view...
...) but the -doesn't- mean you have "experience" in the true sence.
You can be as smart as Richard Feynman (if you dont know who he is, then
There are many things which simply cannot be aquired as experience without age.
I started when I was 9yrs old (the ZX80 had -just- come out).
In short, keep working, dont bitch 'n moan, just work harder. Let your "reputation" become your PR front.
The old addage "You cant put an old head on a new body" rings very true.
I think you summed up my feelings precisely.
There will always be someone that doesn't respect another person for reasons other than value or intellect (race, age, religion, ability to spell :) ) However, as someone that ran a fairly large network at a young age for the company I was at (I was 21) I've learned that maybe I was younger than I thought.
:) Lets face it, alot of people that get really good at computer related things don't get very good at dealing with social and business areas at as young of an age. Their "abilities" in the field they are employed may be astounding, but their communication and teamwork abilities may leave much to be learned. We all know the old guy that kicks butt at the computer but is never in charge... He's the guy that never wanted to learn those non-computer skills, and maybe he's determined that he's happy without that respect (and associated responsibility.)
I hear it all the time, "they don't listen because I'm young." However, when looking back, I wasn't just "young" then, I wasn't as good of a listener, I wasn't as able to judge when to talk, and when not, and wasn't as good at defining value in what I did. I think I was ALOT better at those things than most people my age were too!
Saying "look at me! I did it!" doesn't mean everyone will applaud. Most often, your actions aren't appreciated until much later, as you build respect through your dealings with people. Learn to build respect by showing respect and your actions will get the attention they also deserve.
Tim T.
This just shows that age does matter. At some point, my yonge friend you'll realize that everyone is expendable, for some people this takes longer to realize for some it's a never learned lesson.
:)
Never stop being paranoid (I am 24 btw
You can't handle the truth.
of-course I meant to say young............
You can't handle the truth.
i've been noticing in this forum a lot of "i feel your pain" and "it's just that way, deal with it" kind of comments. for background, i'm a 19-year-old co-op (kind of an intern thing, and the differences don't matter for this discussion) at MITRE, a company that's been around for some time. i mean, our department secratary was hired the same year my mother was born. yeesh.
well anyway, i'd like to add that it really is a personal thing. some people have it ingrained in their heads that young whipper-snappers don't know anything. unfortunately we young whipper-snappers often don't respect the vast experience of those older than us, just because we may know some new technologies and tricks and such.
i came into my company with the respect of some of my colleagues because they had seen the work i had done on a project. management tends to be a bit harder to win over. many are under the impression that people as young as myself are expendable and unreliable. there is also a prevailing opinion that we're just workmonkeys and the *real* hard stuff should go to those with a few more years under their belts. this does change, unfortunately with time. i fear that the atmosphere is still one in which one has to prove himself consistently before people wake up and think "hey, this guy doesn't suck". after nearly a year with this company, i still get my ideas nixed simply because someone "higher up" wanted it done another way
so what is the point of this comment? i'm not sure. but give people- all people- the respect they deserve. and don't be a know-it-all-31337-h4x0r-dewd, either. let people know that you know how to do things, and do them well, but don't be surprised or offended when there are conflicting views.
finally, as you go through your technical career, treat those younger than you with the respect you ask for now. nothing at all against the current generation of programmers, but perhaps technical culture can be changed.
-----
09
'Some people believe experience is proportional to age'. Now let's see which song you are going to sing in, say, 10 years.
"I think it all should boil down to experience.." and i agree with that but it doesn't happen. I work for younger owners/bosses and i have never been able to get them to respect us (younger staff) as opposed to the Mature staff. I've had some of my suggestions dismissed by them. Sometime later an older member of our team brought out the same suggestions i had made and wouldn't you know it...they approved.
How do you think this affects the work environment? Younger, more knowledgeable people have moved on, others have learned to deal with the issue by keeping their mouths shut. Oddly enough the older worker bee's don't seem to understand why all the young people move on after a small period of employment here.
Compare AGP (alt.games.pokemon) and AGNP (alt.games.nintendo.pokemon), for example. AGP is full of clueless OE-using newbie kids, whereas AGNP has more 16 or 17 year olds.
SUMMARY: Age isn't everything, but kids tend to post like newbies :)
(being a regular of AGP and AGNP, I guess I'm just a big kid myself ;)
Visit my website at JonnyDigital.co.uk (shameless plug ;)
jd
It also depends on your boss's attitude, and also to some extent on how you act outside of direct work behavior. I happen to work for two supervisors, both of whom are old enough to be one of my parents, but both seem to respect me. Part of that is because they're both smart enough to respect ability regardless of age, but part of it is because I've been told that I act older than most people my age. If you buckle down and act like the people who are 10 years older than you are while you're at work, maybe your boss will treat you like you're 10 years older than you are.
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
Memo to myslef, "get a haircut"
tcd004
Where there's always at least a hundred different valid, feasible, workable answers to any question - and everyone tends to forward thier answer as the best. It is, after all, the answer they are most familiar with.
And when you have to choose between answers? Of course it is *always* easier to attack the man instead of the solution he offers, when trying to sell your answer. They're (too young/too old/too female/too dark-skinned/too undereducated/a foolish ivory tower intellecual/a microsoft drone/a linux fanatic/a sloppy-coding perl whiz/a wheel-reinventing c hack/a slow-coding heirarchy-building object fiend). Learning a new solution takes months. Learning the flaws in a person takes a couple hours of contemplation. Didn't Slashdot have an article about old programmers not getting any respect because your tech foundations are stale at 35?
The important thing, really, is not which answer is best, or which answer is most efficient, or which answer is the most politicially correct, when a great many answers would do. What's most important is, which solution is the team best equipped to implement? If you know the new mojo and everyone else uses the old mojo, face it, the old mojo is best for that team at that time. So learn it and be part of the team or prepare your resume, and keep all of the "if we were using X we would just Y" comments to yourself.
Maybe the state's highest function is to grind out insoluble problems. (Zelazny, Hall of Mirrors)
While it seems kinda harsh, it's true. Having a few years of experience at a particular job will allow you to gain the trust of the other employees as well as the boss. No matter how much experience you have in programming (or chemical labs or paper analysis or whatever), it'll be the experience you gain with other people that will give you an "in" in the company.
Think about how many situations you've already been in like this; for example, school. The seniors in high school (no matter how much they did/did not deserve it) garnished more respect (or more reputation of some sort) that did the freshmen. If you went to college, you know that the upperclassmen get the research chances with the profs. Even if a freshman has 20 AP credits and can recite the entire periodic table by heart, the senior, who has had experiences with the organic chemistry prof, will get the summer research position.
As you get older, you will have had more experiences. And as sad as it is, age is often associated with experience. I look about 5-10 years younger than I am (I'm finishing college and have been mistaken for a middle-schooler). It's frustrating, but I figure I'll look better than them when I'm in my 50's, 60's, 70's.
"Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former." -- Albert Einstein
I got my first programmer trainee job in 73 as a summer job in high school (I was 16). The regular programmers were pretty much sure the only valuable skill a teen could bring was typing, and that's most of what I got to do. When they finally ran out of stuff to type, the manager gave me a project to work on. I finished it in 3 weeks, and they then fired the regular programmer who had been working on it for the previous 3 months.
Keep in mind that there are a lot of incompetent managers out there. If you're doing a good job and not receiving any credit, consider working elsewhere. Life is too short to waste it working for a jerk.
"Bite me, it's fun!" - Crowe T. Robot
"I think it all should boil down to experience, however many people mistakenly believe that experience is proportional to age."
Experience doesnt nessacarily corelate to ability. u can be inexpreinced and be more capable of tasks than someone who has been doing the job for years. the fact that age doesn't always indicate experience. shows some ppl start learning earlier than others. ppl also learn quicker than others, this means expirnce doesn't show ability. and ability is what someone SHOULD be judse on.
Oh, man... now _I_ feel old... Fetch me a Geritol, junior!
It is pitch dark. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
What's worked for me (and several other talented young friends of mine), was to get a job at a small, high-tech company. A place where you have an opportunity to wear a lot of hats and have an opportunity to really shine. If you really are That Good, it'll show through. After a year or two, people will begin to understand and treat you with the respect you're seeking (or, at least, closer to that level of respect).
Learn everything, not just the purely technical stuff. Understand what your boss's job is; it'll help you to understand where he's coming from and to work well with him. Understand your coworkers. If you don't understand why someone wants to do something a certain way, ask (politely).
(by "politely", I mean "in such a way that does not imply that you think they are wrong and/or stupid and/or a disgrace to all of humanity)
In a growing company, there's a lot of opportunity to become an expert. If it's your job is X, you become the expert on X. If Y needs doing, and no one is doing it yet, and you start doing Y, Y may very well become your job. When new people are hired, perhaps they'll take on some of your responsibilities so you can work on other things. You'll need to train them.
Suddenly, you're becoming the senior person.
If your boss isn't consulting your opinion on matters, what happens later? Do things get implemented badly, causing you frustration? If so, be sure to voice your criticisms (again, as politely as is possible). If your criticisms are sound, your boss will begin to realize that it might be useful to include you during the planning stages. If you're looking for more responsibility, ask for it. Be specific; is there something that's not getting done, that you feel you could take on? (preferably while still getting done all your existing tasks) Your manager may not be able to grant your wish immediately, but you're much better off if it's at least rolling around in the back of his mind for the next time an opportunity arises.
Eventually, you may still be a bit frustrated, but you can accumulate some excellent things to put on your resume, as well as some excellent references.
(All of this assumes your boss is even a remotely competent manager, of course)
-- Agthorr
I've read a lot of the replies to this person's question, and a I see many responses by older people along the lines of "young engineers may have great technical skills, but they don't know much about x, y, and z". They list things like interpersonal skills, QA, budgets, time-to-market, user-interface, etc.
So, I must ask: what if the person posing this question has a solid understanding of such things? How would your response be different?
Perhaps he started working at age 14, perhaps at a local ISP; perhaps he's seen a company rise and fall. Perhaps he understands the importance of QA after thinking closely about how he'd really like computer game M, if only it didn't crash so much; or perhaps he's used a lot of GNU software and developed a sense of pride that it works right and doesn't crash (typically ;)).
Perhaps he even started his own business at one point. Perhaps he realizes the importance of an intuitive interface; perhaps he has a friend or relative who he realizes is never going to understand: find -type f -exec grep -il foobar \{\} \;
Perhaps he feels strongly about getting his code used by real people in the real world, and so he pays close attention to all these details.
What then?
-- Agthorr
(age 23, started programming in 3rd grade)
There is a difference between your average antique techie and your younger techie. The main difference is that the aged techie has usually been in the industry for some time and is not nearly as aggresive (they think they know it all) On the other hand your younger techie is a little more aggressive, resourcefull and a quicker learner. This is threatening to the antique techie, they feel insulted when you are right about an issue that they are wrong about or when you make a decision that improves the company that they can't take credit for. Bottom line is that although the daily harrasment about not being able to buy you a beer, or take you to a casino is annoying. The reality is that they know you have the technical skill that they don't have and like every other threatening situation find a way to disregard that fact based on a personal trait (in this case age)
It is not a lack of business knowledge or a lack of office politics (that's what the old managers are for) It is simply that they feel threatened and human nature takes it's course
Your just jealous because I hear the voices
When in my twentys I felt the same way as most. I had amazing confidence in myself along with the belief that I knew most everything. As I have gotten older I realize that age does bring you some things that you may not deserve yet are valid. One of those things is respect and history. WIth those two things on your side a company would be foolish not to look at you first for answers. Being the best is not enough. It never has been nor will it ever be in a situation where you deal with a group of people.
As long as you're right, then anyone who ignores you is wrong, and, if they're wrong, their managers will get upset at them.
On a final note, anyone making comments like "Go Play with Your GI JOES" will probably get frustrated when their box is rooted, and all they know of it is that when they type 'pico', 'vi/emacs' gets run instead... :)
Score:-1, Funny
When I was in college I worked a student job as a programmer on campus next to full-time, salaried employees. Most of the people I worked with respected me for the work I had accomplished and the capabilities I had. They listened to my ideas and I felt I was an equal part of the team.
Occasionally, I had to work with other campus employees (either getting things from them, or getting them to do something). I can remember several phone calls: after finding the person I wanted to talk to and explaining the premise of my call, the first thing I heard was, "is this a student?" I knew what they were getting at but could never understand how such a question would help them to solve the problem at hand.
The implication is that there will always be people who use age as a way to guage experience. They will either hit or miss. Fortunately, there are also those who will wait to make a judgement based on some rational criteria.
-- yawn. --
I've seen many young candidates with good technical experience lacking in business experience.
For what it's worth, managers tend to respect the latter.
Anyway, most of the "technical" jobs I've applied for (mostly in IT) were really business positions. When you have to write a scope of work or interview the customer, that's business. Sadly, there are relatively few opportunties available in pure computer science.
Sometimes, when you know you're right, your presentation can suffer (especially if you absolutely hate to be ignored). I've also dealt with people who are sure they are right when they aren't. A lot depends on how you let someone know that you know you're right without coming off like you're just trying to tell them how wrong they are. Some people think they can get away with being total jerks because of their skills. That may work somewhat, but there are others who will undermine that person's efforts, right or wrong, based on presentation alone.
--
As a matter of fact, I am a lawyer. But I play an actor on TV.
It is really obvious from the crashing and burning that we've seen in the past few months that in depth knowledge about a technology does not a success make. If people disrespect younger workers, it is because the vast majority of younger workers have proven time and time again that they are full of themselves and utterly devoid of common sense.
Your position or ability may get you some *initial* respect, but real respect has to be earned - not only through technical accomplishments but also through inter-personal relationships with your co-workers. Your age may initially color some people's perceptions of you, but only your actions and reactions will define you in the long run. As a sys admin in a school setting, I can't even begin to count the number of technically gifted students we have that are constantly inquiring about "helping around the server room". Invariably, I'll have one of them bugging me for root access because they want to improve something or other on the servers. Do they know more about certain technologies and programming than I do? You bet! Do they know how to handle themselves when a psycho webmaster (long gone by now) uses them for political in-fighting? Hell no! This is why I don't give them root, but I do allow them to do work under supervision. Don't make the mistake of thinking that lots of technical knowledge=guaranteed respect. If that were the case, no one would respect your parents becuase they are not your technical equals. FYI, I hope you remember this experience enough to NOT pass it along to others. Women have endured this same lack of respect for their knowledge and experience for generations - and it only worsens with age. At least you can look forward to outgrowing your youth. Gender is just a tad more difficult to "grow out of". :-P
Want a job?
noughsaid.
this is true-
So many people piss and moan about their careers- after I go home, I can hardly remember where I go to work. If they are paying you fairly and you are not being brutalized, than forgetaboutit. Who cares what your co-workers think about you.
love is just extroverted narcissism
Remind me not to buy software from your company until you add step 101...
testing!
Quis metamoderunt ipses metamoderatores?
Well, I can relate to you; I'm a senior in college, C.S., and have been working in the computer industry for about 5 years. I'm 21 years old, and have done lots of work for my father at a nuclear power plant, and then moved on to my own stuff at assorted technology companies. I could never convince my boss, regardless of all the cost-analysis and benefit analysis I did, to implement an idea unless he removed my name and stamped his on it. Also, on a more recent note, it's even worse today since I was just working for an online adserving company (I know, the evil ones...). They just laid off tons of people because they suck (the company, not the people), and said they wouldn't touch our group. However, since I'm the college part-timer, I must not be worth keeping around, so I got laid off to. Little did the management know that I installed and configured ALL the firewalls in our global network, set up countless numbers of boxes, and did tons of web programming (php, cgi). They didn't give a damn. They figured someone else could do it because they were older, and I was younger. Now they are calling me asking questions, etc., and I'm telling them to go screw. So dude, I completely understand, and I'm sorry it has to be that way for us.
>I am one of Thatchers children, and in my day we were keen, fit and angry.
>We were out to change the world
Yeah and as a Regan punk I can tell you you're being a frickin' ass. If you ever were anti-establisment you've now definately swallowed its line about 'slacker youth'. Some of the edge and hungriness of the younger generation radicals makes me envious. Though it too does have its share of snot-nosed trust fund punks who couldn't change their diaper let alone the world. And since we're on the subject, why the hell are you perpetuating the system you sought to change?
* We dance where angels fear to tread *
It depends more on who you work with/for and on your attitude. I've been working for my current employer since I was 19 (I still had a year and a half of school left when I started). I'm now 21 and I've never had a problem with people "not respecting my opinion"... but, then again, I try not to act like I know more than anyone else and usually only speak up when I'm sure about what I'm saying and/or it's something important to me (save your words for when it really matters).
What's more, age does matter. It's usually considered good manners to respect your elders... or at least that's what I was taught when I was growing up. You get what you give.
What your boss is probably forgetting is that he has to ask his 9 year old son to program the video recorder for him when he wants to record his favourite old black and white movie. As someone who is now 22, and started out life as a Technical Director for an ISP at the age of 17, I know what you mean and couldnt agree more, it's to do with your level of experience and professionalism, not the amount of miles on the clock. Craig
-- Perl Hacker, Linux Specialist, Internet Conultant.
There are some young people who garner respect and even run their own industry. They are exceptional, but if you can accomplish the goals you get the respect. It's not just about age.
Just keep in mind that you are not out of school, just in the real one. Shut up and listen once and a while--if you don't respect others or act immaturely, they're certainly not going to respect you. And you're going to have to prove you can handle the mundane and ordinary before you get the respect of your colleages and allowed to tackle something dynamic. It costs the company (at least initially) money to follow through on ideas. They want to know you'll finish what you start. Think of it as an apprenticeship.
The hardest thing through all this is not to lose your enthusiasm. But hold on to it--you're going to need it. Certainly offer ideas, even passionately, but respect those who been in the industry for those 15-20 years. And don't get so caught up in yourself that you don't listen to their suggestions. They're ideas may seem old, and they may have even grown cynical, but they know more than you do about what's really going on in the company. You can learn a lot from them and even sometimes gain a valuable ally.
I don't think the original question is necessarily about knowledge, but more about skills. That said "all" is a 100% inclusive term, and I can offer a counter-example - I like it when my young coders demonstrate superior knowledge. It is my hope that they will all some day exceed my skills.
On the other hand, there are also those who think they know better. Some of these will come and ask for feedback on their approach to something, and even after being told where their approach is defective will go and take that approach anyway, and surprise, surprise, along come some defects. This is not, however, confined to the young.
If people knock back an idea, get them to explain why. Sometimes they won't be able to do this effectively, because with experience people often get a good gut feel for whether an idea is good before they can explain all the consequences. Sometimes they will be able to explain in great detail why an idea is bad, and if they can, you will most likely get a great deal of benefit from their experience.
Finally, there are people in the industry who are highly skilled and 20 years old, and people who have no skills to speak of and are 50 years old. Age is no guarantee of skill level in either direction, but somebody with a higher skill at 20 will still continue to learn and improve over time, and will have a higher skill later on in life.
I'm 36 now, when I got out of college C was the big ticket, so I played with some 4GL's after that, went to C++ and started early on working on internet related technology, moved to Java and somewhere in between got hooked on linux, but have enough winnt knowlege to get by. Point is you have to be willing to learn. I know guys I went to school with that decided they new all they needed to know with C and DOS 5. Needless to say they are NOT still in this field. You have to be willing to constantly learn whether you are 16 or 61.
So Long and Thanks for all the Fish.
The solution is to be a contract programmer. I will be 60 in March and have been working as a contract programmer since 1996. My income doubled, and in one year it tripled, and they are reluctant to have you work more than 40 hours as they have to pay for it. Great for us guys over 50. Probably the main reason that young people are "looked down on" is that they don't have the experience yet to know that the first solution is usually not the best. They don't have the experience to know that there are typically many "solutions". And they are eager to have the first solution. My advice: Slow down and accomplish more.
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darueber muss man schweigen. Ludwig Wittgenstein
Have you not recognized the difference between smartness and wisdom? Wisdom comes with experience, experience comes with age. Please tell me that you have at least learned that bit of information. I could never expect, at 25 with 3-4 years experince in any field, to be as wise in my profession as someone who is in their 40's with 10-15 years experience. THAT'S WHY THEY GET PAID MORE NUMBNUTS!!! I don't by any means believe that someone 17-25 cannot be "smart". My younger brother is one of the smartest people I know and he is only 22. However, lacking experience in life, business, and his field, his is not yet wise.
Of course, that's just my opinion, I could be wrong.
It is obvious that you just haven't hit the maturity level at this point in your life to realize that you don't know the best solution in every case. If you haven't gotten any smarter since you were 18 the one of two things is true, you are 19, or you are too proud to admit that you may have something to learn from someone else. Get a job, a life, grow up a little, and then write me back. I imagine I will never hear from you...
Of course, that's just my opinion, I could be wrong.
While this varies from company to company, for the most part, the "Upper Management" has put in a lot of time and a lot of effort for the company to get where it is. I'm sure they will come to you for questions in a technical matter, but when it comes to running a business, younger people (including myself) are better served to sit at the table and pay attention, listen, and offer advice when asked an opinion. The more you learn at the meeting table, the more you will have to offer. In all honesty, in most situations, someone who is 17-30 will not have the experience on the business end of the company to offer great advice. Just my opinon, i could be wrong.
Of course, that's just my opinion, I could be wrong.
I have seen (in the field) instances where people actually look for the stereotypical geek/hacker/nerdy/kid for a technical job. They start to expect that this stereotype offers the most knowledge in technology these days. I have seen people that don't trust IT guys in suits, and would rather work with a kid wearing a "I read your email" t-shirt. On more than one engagement I have worked on over the years, I purposely dressed down (jeans, sneaks, t-shirt) to make the person who hired me feel more comfortable.
"My mother never saw the irony in calling me a son-of-a-bitch." - Jack Nicholson
Ok, minor nitpick here: you seem to have a bit of circular logic in here. You seem to be saying that more experienced people should get the respect(~= credit) in part because they are willing to let more experienced people take the credit. That in no way proves that more experienced people *deserve* the credit or respect. Or maybe it's a Zen thing; in order to get the respect you deserve, you must accept that you can't get the respect you deserve?
Also, you mention having the trust of your boss, which again is exactly what we're discussing here.
That said, I must admit I agree with many of your points; however, I don't believe that it's actually impossible for a young person to have these qualities. Certainly I lacked them at 18 (or even 22), but that doesn't prove anything about others (which is the main agrument against discrimination in general).
One interesting technical point:
We know that the average person reaches (physiological) intellectual maturity at around 16 years of age. But one fairly recent study suggested that judgement and/or emotional maturity doesn't fully develop (reach its final form) until maybe age 22.
If this is true, then it's possible that the "experience" people talk about is only part of the reason why older individuals are (or are perceived to be) generally wiser than younger individuals. There might be a biological change going on which affects people's ability to make optimal decisions under certain circumstances.
Obviously, this still wouldn't totally override the effects of environment, but it's something to think about.
umm... no, it's not unprofesional. It's high quality management.
What they are trying to do is help you learn. Too often in today's workplace there is no patience to take a young person with promise and help them learn... we instead say "perform or die!"
The manager that is willing to help you learn from your mistakes rather than to simply get angry at you is pure gold -- pick their brains while you are there! And learn from their people-management skills for when you're older and have people you are mentoring or managing... you'll be glad you did.
jim
Last time I said something like that to someone, they asked me how much I cost.
--
ALL YOUR KARMA ARE BELONG TO US
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
First of all, let me open by saying I'm 23 years old. I'll be 24 in March. I've been known to be pissed off by ageism.
However, recently I've come to realize that one's age really DOES make a difference. You can't use age as the ultimate arbiter, though.
The first point I'd like to make is that age really DOES have a very significant impact on experience. Saying otherwise is wishful thinking. The years tend to mean less as they go on, however; The five years you spend between 50 and 55 are dramatically less important than the five years you spend between 20 and 25.
I'm a pretty smart guy. I was in a school for so-called "gifted" children. I've always been strongly driven to learn, at least when I'm interested in something. But there are certain things that I've only really learned in the last few years - Mostly things about myself. They're all things for which I had all the data, but it took a while to integrate.
The thing is, learning these things about yourself can help you relate to other humans and work with them more meaningfully. I don't mean to say that someone who's 35 will always have learned these lessons better than someone who's 25 - I have a number of examples near me of that. But one has had more chances to get those things down by that point. Whether they've taken them or not is up to the individual.
There's another issue, which is perception. It doesn't matter if the 25 year old has better management skills than the 35 year old, if the people they're going to be managing are also 35; They're not going to want to be taking their orders from a "punk kid". It doesn't matter if you're better qualified in every way other than how people perceive you; That is (and will continue to be) important.
--
ALL YOUR KARMA ARE BELONG TO US
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I am taking a MCSE class in high school (It is called networking, which is what I wanted to do, but instead it is about Windows 2000 which angered me). One lady came in because she needed help at her office. My friend and I said we would do it and it was sounding like she would let us. Then one of the older students shouted out, "Are you sure you want freshmen helping you?" She kind of shook her head and asked if anyone else would want to do it. It pissed the hell out of me. I know more then 3/4 the class (who just come in and surf the web), yet when I was going to put my skills to use they went with someone older. That is my story,
Andrew
Ask me again in a couple years.
forth ?love if honk then
Your personal situation is not difficult to fix if you are willing to change your personality to conform to the ideal promoted within your organization. I have known people that changed themselves to become respected, and others that have clung to their own style.
I recommend keeping your own style and not worrying about being respected until either:
I used to be an automechanic (in a previous life)
so when I started working on my Mechanical Engineering Degree,
I was already older than some guys that had already
earned their BSME degrees.
For me, it's worked to my advantage.
Also, keep in mind that most people are looking for experience. Ever been to a job fair? If not, guess what the first thing is that headhunters look for when they start reading your resume? (no, not the 12 years of reading Slashdot). They're looking for experience. Without a resume in hand, people just make assumptions about your ability.
I'm willing to bet that people in the computer fields have this problem more often since their skills are less easily estimated by age.
What you talkin' 'bout, whippersnapper?
As a child of the Eisenhower era, I must tell you, your ideas are most out of place.
*I'll* make a man out of you. Let me tell you, life doesn't begin until you are retired. Come here and I'll teach you a little about REAL LIFE.
REAL LIFE was when you had to weld stuff together and get burnt every day. In REAL LIFE we didn't have those stupid computers taking everyone's jobs.
You're saying you make your office boy the TEABOY? TEA? In my time we got our boys to get us beer. And we drank 'em on the way to work too. Damn whoever put seatbelts in cars and stopped drunk driving. Freakin' hippie Kids.
Pasty looking? I'm willing to bet you are looking a might bit pastier than the war verterans ten years older than me.
In my days we didn't even all have electricity for light, never mind Air Conditioning. Every morning my parents got up and lit the gas lanterns. You people in the 70's and 80's have it damn easy, what with your electronic adding machines and TV.
Selfish? I've never seen such a selfish bunch of youth than you Thatcher children. My parents told me all about their stories when kids were going hungry without their rations, and you go and suggest your 70's hippies and 80's wall street kids aren't selfish? My God, the impetousness of youth!
Weak? I bet one of my veteran buddies could snap you in half! And as far as being a slacker is concerned, well, you got to laze through all your college years with a calculator and a biro. *I* had to use a slide rule and a fountain pen.
How can you be fit when Thatcher stopped giving milk to you young kids? What a great way to ruin your bones. I'd be angry too if my government was too cheap to give me a $0.02 carton of milk to keep me healthy when they aren't even at war!
You hippies certainly changed the world alright, just look at how horrible it is now. All this convenience -- it's like all kids do is just wander from street to street with nothing to do!
When I worked for a company it was for life. Pension schemes were just a sideline... never much cared about 'em then. You hippies just spent your life bitching about everything, and now you say you "took the difficulties leveled at us with spirit and character." Well, excuse me if I don't find that a little contradictory. But that's the style for kids of your time.
>I never thought ten years would make such a difference.
Neither did I. Kids killing kids. Kids with guns. Oil Crises, Vietnam, Gulf War. People putting the screws to the education system. Crappy music.
P1/1--END SARCASM--DJ--Date:02/07/01
*** BURST SHEET HERE ***
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
>I got this idea in Japan.
/. because the technophilic community fascinates me, and is at odds with my slightly technophobic tendencies."
Oh please GOD use the right word. KAIZEN.
And it has NOTHING to do with what you're talking about. It is ALL ABOUT empowering workers and taking your power to bootcamp employees away.
For cryin' out loud, you can garner that much by watching that import car commercial where the junior worker pulls the emergency stop because of a defect, with later praise for following their Kaizen attitude.
The fact you had no clue that "That idea from Japan" is in fact Kaizen shows your management skills were found inside a cracker jack box.
>When they first come they are awfull, weeping moaners, like you.
Slashdot is nothing more than a moaner's outlet. Why are you browsing here if you don't have a beef with something? Or did I misread it and you mean _you_ have a beef with stuff, and everyone "below" you (which is the entire world, I gather) should be your yes men?
Well all you gotta do is watch an episode of the Simpsons to see what your managerial attitude is going to get you. You know, the one where Mr. Burns loses all his cash because all he hires are conforming yes men.
You sound like a whiny old asshole who thinks that his age makes him wise, and not his experience. Just like that 50 year old I saw waiting for the bus the other day bitching how he can't get nowhere in life, even though he's twice as old as the people getting hired in his old company.
>You earn that sort of treatment
Right on. You learn it through experience, not age.
>Its these no nonsense techniques that have made my company grow 500% in 24 months.
And you prove I'm right. You've been in business an entire two years (and, might I mention, the hottest two years ever for all computer business growth) and you think you have your shit concrete.
Well, let me tell you, come recession time, you're going to be shitting those moulded bricks of employees you have when it comes layoff time.
From your Bio:
"In my spare time I create Art and compose Music, but my main profession is as a Graphics Artiste & sometime poet. I am sometimes paid for the latter."
You sometimes get paid for being a manager? Now that's fresh!
"I enjoy challenging my conceptions."
Then why the hell are you sending your employees to a bootcamp so they can all conform to your every whim?
"ADDENDUM: I do not troll Slashdot, and I shall remove this when I do."
I think you forgot to remove it this time.
"I am interested in
That says PHB to me. And everyone else here.
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
>Face it, if you're under 20, you are an idiot. Under 30, stupid. Under 40, average. Under 50, better. Under 60, great.
Must be hard to be 19 and an idiot, stupid, average, better, and great all at the same time. Now THAT'S a world of experience.
How come your above average intelligence (or do you admit you're under 20?) didn't pick up on the fact that under 20 + under 30 + under 40 + under 50 + under 60 == anything under 20?
An average is what's between above and below 1/2. So, yes, Ike is a fool to suggest that that statement was in error. That would put him in that "below average" category.
And, for the record, I'm 22, or so I'm told. The universe didn't explode, after all. And I'd suggest my 55 year old father wouldn't have gotten that 'joke'. Not a slam at him, I respect him more than anyone else, but just the truth.
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
I'm in the same boat as you are in some regards. I'm 21, working full-time and going to school full-time. I find I have problems regarding my age more with customers than with my coworkers. Once my coworkers learned I was competent, they were fine. I believe that's true with any new employee, regardless of age.
But with customers, age definitely seems to play a part. For instance, my company is the developer/solution provider for our document management and workflow package. I was on a customer service call one time regarding the document management piece. There was an error. I knew for fact that it was a problem with Word they were having, not our software. I told them repeatedly, showed them proof, etc. The customer never believed me. So I paged our lead tech, a guy who's about 35-40. He came over, said it was Word, and they immediately said 'Ok' and thanked him profusely for helping him, and suggested they train me more! It really pissed me off. After that, I pretty much swore off customer service calls, and switched to Web development only.
BigCat79
BigCat79
"The dead have risen and are voting Republican!" --Bart Simpson
i got the same problem, i work in a place fixing computers, and i'm 16. whenever i go to people's houses to fix their computers, they always give me funny looks, and ask me how old i am. inside i just laugh at them, because i know i make more money than them ~phathack~
It can also happen that older workers with knowledge and experience can find themselves treated with little or no respect when they are working somewhere with mostly young people, so if you're unlucky you could find it hapening to you all over again!
The point is that colleagues should behave with respect to each other, no matter what their age, gender, race, creed etc. That said, respect is something that has to be earned.
"Experience is something you get right after you actually needed it"
Bah, I'm 25, and I make 115k a year plus 100k stock options for a startup in the Valley. If you're getting passed over, or treated as a child, then perhaps you should consider that you aren't nearly as qualified, talented, or experienced as you think.
Hard to believe, I know, but I started in this industry when I dropped out of college at 16 in 1992, and I've never once been regarded as anything less than what I am.
In truth, your employer will reward you with responsibility and money if you are experienced and mature, regardless of age. What you are penalized for is immaturity, and I suspect that is the true root of your complaints.
JDaemon
I hate to say it, but except for a few very high-tech industries you've got many more years of this to go. I'm 28 and my age is still a major problem in my career.
So sit tight and be patient -- some day the company will decide that you're ready to move onward and upward. If you've got a reputation for having a positive attitude and are as good at your job as you claim, you'll go far. But if you've already got a reputation for complaining about being "passed over" due to your age you'll find it hard to ever progress.
---
Unfortunately I have to agree with this. When I started working for my present company, I was 21, and still kind of green. After A year and a half of not being taken seriously, I decided that no one was going to respect me for what I had done. At this point I started getting a serious attitude. As soon as I ripped some people apart techincally, I started to garner respect among my co-workers. After a year and a half of this, I no longer have to be quite as aggressive about defending myself, but I do still have to be ready to become aggressive at a moment's notice.I am 24 now, but I expect that when I move to another company, I am going to have to be cocky and aggressive throughout the interview process, and in the subsequent years at the company. I can only hope that this will get easier as I approach 30
....There is nothing a Cattle Prod and a foot length of 7/8" satellite coaxial can't fix/
No, and that's the real bitch. I'm 34! I just can't believe I'm this old already, I thought sure I had a couple of more years before I had to buy supplemental Medicaid!
The peach-fuzz wet-behind-the-ears slashdot children start moaning about how old they are.
ghods, let me just find my coffin.
I've had that experience in the past too although it is starting taper off a bit now that I'm at the ripe old age of 24. I've held a senior position for the past 2 years and yes it is hard to get some people to listen to you sometimes even when you have authority over them; I still encounter it now. I think that it becomes most apparent when someone older is arguing with you about something they know nothing about and you have experience with. It is frustrating but I think as the industry grows and younger people take higher positions that it will slowly decline as more people will be able to relate to what they knew at that age and I think that that's the largest problem is that there aren't as many people who in their teens were writing programs as opposed to doing whatever else now as there will be in the near future.
Hmmm, quality and breadth of experience counts for a lot. The right combination of technical, commercial and personal maturity will normally be recognized and rewarded in any reasonable environment. Detailed technical knowledge alone may not be sufficient to earn you the trust and respect of management in the general case. They will want to promote individuals who understand their (probably fscked) commercial "vision"; who can help directly develop relationships with customers etc. Such individuals may have demonstrated these skills in other contexts (which is perhaps why they were hired in the first place). Some of this stuff may not be apparent to all on a day to day basis but is important nevertheless. IMHO the important thing is to work closely with key decision makers; to consolidate your success; and be realistic about your failings. Also accept the fact that the best way to get on may be to change jobs every 18 months and to rack up the time.
They must respect you in some sense or they wouldn't entrust you with major tasks as they have. Is it that you're not appreciated? That happens to everyone. Without more information it's hard to pursue this question.
When I was 20, I felt a little like this. I knew the answers, but wasn't given the due respect. When I got to 25, I looked back on the 20 year old and thought how clueless that guy was. When I made it to 30, the 25 year-old was clueless and the 20 year an embarassment of ignornance best forgotten. At 35, I realised just how much the 30 year old had to learn, and as for the other two guys, well, they were callow and arrogant and hard to believe that they were even related. It's an interesting lesson. It doesn't mean that the 20 year is not worth listening to, but it may partially explain the attitude of your boss if he/she remembers their earlier years the way that I do.
Dye your hair gray!
Go here for teh [sic] funny.
I just turned 21, and I've been working at a big 3 consulting firm for almost a year. Before that I worked at a global ad agency. I don't exactly broadcast my age.
(Unless you look 12) respect really boils down to attitude and reputation from my experience. I loved the looks on my co-workers' (and clients') faces on my birthday when I said we should all go out after the meeting for my first "legal" drink. ;)
If your skills are right up there like you've said, I would venture to say that your best bet will be to create your own company and contract your services. I think you'll find the tone changes a whole lot when people are paying for specific projects to be completed and you're able to blitz the other firms who have done work for the company in the past.
If you're just an employee, you'll almost never get the respect due to you because too many companies see their IT staff more as the "hired help" than highly qualified professionals.
I'm almost thirty years old, and with over six years experience in the industry but no formal qualifications, I'm actually finding it hard to compete in the job market with the teenagers and just-twenty-somethings who have been toying with systems and programming for as long as I have, and are leaving high school with more experience and more skills than I have now.
The advantage they have over me is that they usually don't have a wife and two kids to support, and so will work for less than I could afford to, and so are more attractive to an employer from that perspective.
This difficulty that I'm having is a good thing - it's a wake up call to me to get certified, get qualified, get any piece of paper that I can wave in the air to get a little bit in front of these "kids", because if you don't have a Piece Of Paper (tm), it can be difficult.
More power to ya though, mate! Get out there and use all the skills you have to the best of your abilities! Get in there early and go hard so when you're my age and trying to support the wife and two kids you've done most of the hard work already and it's not such an issue!
Cheers!
/* Linus is The One
And here I was going after boys all this time! If only I had known!!
I agree with this, and allow me to add to this. With experience in the workforce, you gain experience on how to present your solutions. There are techniques on making it appear that your boss came up with your idea. That way your idea will take shape. But are you willing to allow your boss to take the credit for the idea?
You see, usually the problem is that people want credit, not their solution solved because it is good for the company. You may not fall into this category, but it is a very typical problem. If you have the frame of mind that makes you want your solution to be implemented for the good of the company, and not for the credit of the idea, you'll be a step ahead on getting your solution implemented.
--
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
How exactly does one go about picking up these skills? I could sure use them!
I think O'Rielley(sp) needs to write a book on ass-kissing/socialization for geeks!
It also depends on the type of company. A lot of comments are coming from the context of a high-text employer where recent exposure to new technology and a gung-ho 80hr week attitude is everything.
In the government consulting/services companies I think there is a greater prejudice against youth since so much of the contracts (and therefore profits) come from professional contacts and friendships made at previous government jobs. It doesn't matter how technically proficient you are, if Col. Joe (ret) doesn't get you the contract you're not going to be coding anything.
Why do you think V.P. Cheney got his multi-million dollar job in the private sector? Mad Java skillz?
Waltz, nymph, for quick jigs vex Bud.
In my youth, I thought I deserved more respect, but the lessons taught by time have impressed me that there are many many things that youth doesn't yet understand. Wisdom, worldliness, experience come only with time. And you can't see yourself as other, more experienced older farts can. It is not to discount the value that younger workers have; they have new knowledge, but they don't have any old knowledge, i.e., wisdom/experience.
It takes years of discipline and training to acquire this, and nothing else will substitute, so rather than bemoaning what you perceive as a lack of respect... wait, strike that... being pissed at the elders because they don't respect you as much as you think you deserve is exactly what you are supposed to be going through right now...
SDMI: Finally! Music that won't rip or burn! Brought to you by the fine folks at RIAA.
I got my first job at 16, tutoring college computer science classes. I'm now almost 24, and I've found that while people may be influenced by your age, they're more likely to be influenced by a mature, professional attitude. I'm now working as an Oracle developer and OpenVMS sysadmin - in this field, anyone under 40 is young! Yet I've proved myself, and I'm confident in my abilities, and I rarely have any trouble getting people to accept my opinions. Yeah, some people may just refuse to listen to you because of your age, but most people are pretty accepting when they see that you really do know what you're doing.
Most of the problem is, people remember when they were 20, 18 or whatever age. They werent sharp on computers when they were that age. Hell, none of them had computers. They had to go through college to even hypothoisize about how they would program an 8 bit processor to add 2 + 2.
What is fun is when it really hits them that you can run circles around them in multiple operating systems when they can barely understand why 30 open word documents on their windows 95 computer causes slow downs and blue screens. What you need to do is just wait for the first situation where they run across unknown territory, and your experience covers it or your go ahead aditude and researching capabailities severly skunk them, you will then shine.
If you were to meet me in real life, you wouldnt have known I ran an internet server serving shells and web service, and know Im a co admin in a serious virus removal channel on the undernet (#dmsetup). I am also a committie member of Millennium Fortress a venue for christian underground PX, rock, ska and rapcore bands. I also work in the capacity of head sound tech and lighting tech (im trying to teach another guy to become the head light tech so I dont have to pull double duty all the time). I am also construction advisor and help on the construction team. The people that started Millennium Fortress are in their 40's, Im only 20, yet they realize my capabilities and flexability and my limits.
At work I have earned my respect by saving the database system 3 times after my boss has either botched it, had a computer crash while editing the tables or have the server crash. The third time the database went out, I had it back up in under and hour. I have also been able to replace 2 computer hard drives upon failure before the next buisness day in a pinch. (mind you IT and computer repair are not my only job) My posisiton in the company is a Truck Dispatcher at a Truck Brokerage. During a typical day I answer phone calls and dispatch trucks, resolve problems with loads and such.
I really have to say respect is earned not owed. You wont get respect till you can do the same work or better than the most respected worker doing the same job or a higher up job (Bosses dont count, cuz we all know they dont know much about actual work, just managing people)
Consider yourself blessed if you are sneezed on by a dragon and only get wet, it could have been a fireball.
Being humble is important. It doesn't mean you have to just sitting back and watching up all the time. It also doesn't mean that you don't have value. You have to find value in yourself and self-satisfaction in your work. You can't always wait for recognition from others. Sometimes you have to pat yourself on your back, because no one else is going to do it for you.
Understand that what you do know has value. You noted specific ways in which you contribute to the company you work for. These are important. But these are only part of the picture. Equally important is knowing what you don't know. Put yourself in somebody else's shoes. What is the Manager's perspective? What is the customer's perspective? What valuable contributions do they bring to the table? Learn from them.
The world is not a perfect place (unfortunately). Developing software is not a perfect process (especially if you've got to sell it and make a profit in competition with others). Compromises need to be made. It is best that they be informed decisions. You can contribute by providing some of that information. But, in all likelihood, the final decision is going to be made by somebody else with priorities different from yours. Respect that they know things different from you. Help contribute to the reaching the goal. Be humble. People will respect you for it.
But after "paying your dues" you will find that the most important lessons in the business world (be it big corporation or small dot-com startup) only come from years of experience... and what might look like a "no-brainer" solution to a wild-eyed Young Turk will often present a lot of real-world, non-tech related issues to a seasoned member of the Old Guard.
In other words, no matter how many servers you build or databases you have gotten your hands dirty with, your opinion will "matter" a lot more when you have spent a few years learning the business culture. When you have a full grasp of the money side and people side of the corporate landscape, your input on the tech side of issues will carry a lot more weight.
Sorry, but there are no shortcuts to credibility.
If you don't like it, and are so sure that you know better, go start a company (or two). Then, if you succeed, you can retire and not worry about what people think. Even if you fail, you will re-enter the workforce with the wisdom that can only come from clocking IRL business experience.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
You're in a field where you have much more respect than you would in a different one. That is unless you were a widely acknowledged prodigy. But as a young worker, IT is the field you'll be treated with the most respect in. Now in law you'd start getting respect at about 50, in banking you'd get respect at about 55, in the military at about 45, etc. And if you're getting dissed in your current workplace, isn't there a chronic shortage of IT workers...
This really boils down to patience on your part. It hurts when you look at your peers and your superiors and it is blantly obviously that you are far more intelligent and skilled than they. But as far as they see it, you will work for them and do what they want because they know the alternative is that you could give up your glorious $12/hr out of frustration and work at Taco Hell for $6.25/hr. Patiently overcome that. Build job secuirty. If your coherts are all MCSEs, push and push and push to install a linux web server or to do the things they cannot do. If the company relies on you and truly can not get by without you (this doesn't mean taking an twice as long as you to install another copy of NT), i.e. their infrastructure could collapse without your creative lack of documentation, then you are powerless. For if you are easily replaceable by another local teen found in the same way as you, shut your trap and deal with it.
If you are in a big company or intend to work in big companies for the rest of your life, I suggest you get used to it now.
My story goes, "I was two days past 18, my CS teacher in HS asked a friend who owned a small computer company if they needed any interns and thus began my quest. Second semester my sophmore year of college I took a full internship and my pay when from $12 to $21/hr. Now I'm excepted as more permanent and full time and demand such a salary. I get out of school and come work full time (turned 22 yesterday) and I'm making just under 60k."
Use patience, don't get too arogant, and build job security, then what you say and do WILL matter.
Every boss I've ever had has been more than 30, and I've always gotten respect from them. For me it didn't happen, I had to earn it, but once I did the respect has always been there (even when I was 16 and getting hired for the summer at a petrochemical company).
My advice would be to look around and find a boss who gives you the respect that you deserve. I've so far found 2, and the second one I follow loyally when he moves.
Yeah, age also seems to be a major factor of getting a job in the first place .. here, 16 is the legal working age, but the vast majority of places refuse to hire until 18. So how is it possible for a teen to gain experience in the first place if they can't get hired? Fry's Electronics, for one, is one of those places I assumed wouldn't be so prejudiced toward age .. until I tried to apply there. Sometimes it's understandable that a particular place might not want to hire someone younger due to materials that shouldn't be viewed .. but really, restocking shelves is something anyone could do.
--
Its related to capability; if you really understand what you are doing you will ALWAYS be ignored, no matter your age.
Get a career that enables you to benefit from your own native talent, not dependent on someone else's view of you.
Otherwise, prepare to fight the rest of your life for what you know is right.
It doesn't hold true in my company. In my company people get respect according their skills and experience, regardless their age. It's true that older people are often more skilled and experienced. But if some young person is exception and is better than others that he gets respect, promotion, etc.
I became boss and I'm the youngest person (24) in my team.
And it's working. I'm working in very successful department of one top dot-com company. It's good motivation to know that your success really depends only on you.
Kamzik
Ages does play a role, it defines who and how you interact with in the company. If you're a 22 year old interacting with a bunch of 40 year olds on a project, chances are you can get the job done, but the joviality associated with a well oiled group may be missing, just because the age difference is so large, you wil have disimilar intrests. Age should not play a definition in the ABILITY to do a job, you are correct about that. It does give the immediate reinforcement of how much experience you may already have. After all age = experience. The perception of that in classic business, will immediately put you in a position where you have to prove yourself. Younger people in important positions will generally have to work 3 to 4 times as hard to prove themselves, before they will gain acceptance. This is how business is. It is changing, very slowly with the advent of hi tech business, but you still have to deal with structure like this. In my case, I am very lucky. I have been with my current company for just about 3 years now, and I have moved into a very senior positions. I started on a help desk, moved to broadband installation and support, then into a research and development role, and finally, I just got promoted to the lead product developer. For a guy of 22 years old, I had to work to prove that I had the skills, maturity, and responsibility to do this job, and I had to work man times harder than some of my more senior counterparts. The lucky thing is, that the average age in this company can't be over 27. The senior operations manager is 26, and most of the managers are in their 30's to 40's. My co-workers range in age from 21 through 33, so we are a tight knit group that share similar lives and intrests. A company that has a diverse range of ages, and backgrounds, coupled with a good employee comradradry program, will ease a lot of the tension, and go a long way into letting you show your skills, and decrease the chance of people pre-judging your by your age and apperance.
-Misao Little Weasel Girl
You are fortunate! You look older than you are. When I started programming professionally I was 18 and looked 15. It wasn't until I was 24 that someone correctly guessed that I was over 18.
Proven or not I had a terrible time commanding respect when I was 23 (and still looking like I belonged in High School). Even with a great track record, people wanted to dole out responsibility based on apparent age. I had to wait until I was 27 before I would openly be allowed to provide technical leadership to a team - Having finally gained the appearance that it was possible I could have at least graduated college.
Education is a better safeguard of liberty than a standing army.
Edward Everett (1794 - 1865)
In my previous life as an aerospace engineer, no one was looked at for a management position until at least 35, and usually 40, except for literally a handful of alleged "stars" who were picked early on for grooming. I had no management skills at all, but I saw others my age who were talented get passed over. That's what happens in a lot of organizations, and that's when it's time to walk.
Women are hypocrites. They whine about how fucked up men are, yet hang out with the most fucked up testosterone filled assholes of them all. They shun the lonely geek who would treasure a women and treat her like gold if he ever got one, but he's not "cool", so off with the jerk she goes. Then she gets treated like crap, cheated on, and acts surprised. She must like it. Eventually she figures out that "being cool" doesn't pay the bills, buy a car, nor provide a home to raise the kids in. She ends up battered, eventually divorced, living on crap wages at a crap job in a crap apartment and goes on Oprah to say how it's society and "the man" that's always oppressing her.
The lonely geek, on the other hand, makes good money, can afford a nice home, drives a comfy car, has loads to blow on quirky hobbies, but has long since given up on women as totally unfathomable, and has forgotten how to deal with them evermore. He grows old, and dies alone. Then the gov't takes his assets because he had no one to leave anything to nor share anything with. All that love, down the drain, down the crapper. No legacy. And no one cared that he was gone. No one noticed. Just another for sale sign on the block. Yawn.
Yes sir. This "coolness" is such a great thing indeed. Souls get sacrificed to it. And only pain is returned.
For God's sake, take a geek to lunch. You may find he is a real human being you enjoy being with and with whom you will BOTH be better off.
The age of your peers (at the office) will have an effect, as well as your boss's age as mentioned previously.
I'm 22 and still in college. I am one of the younger guys in the office, but I probably have the most wide-ranging knowledge of topics... so I'm the first one asked when someone wants a quick answer. My age is less of an issue, though, because my boss specifically hires younger employees.
Another consideration is your understanding of businesses and how they operate (or, "understanding management"). Do you speak up for yourself when you succeed at a project? Sometimes you need to make a bit of noise even if it was a small project. Not too much though, or people will dislike you; but make sure you take full credit for your successes.
You also need to realize your position in the company. If you're the janitor, it's unlikely that the CEO is going to want to hear your opinions on whether or not they should expand production in Southern California. If you're as smart as I'm sure you are, you shouldn't be in that janitorial position... when you're too smart for your job, it hurts you and it hurts the company. Maybe you need a promotion, a transfer to another division, or a new job.
If you can get a job somewhere else where people will respect what you have to say, you might as well go for it. You're young and you can afford to take risks like starting a new job just because you don't like where you're working.
If you find a new job, you can sit down with your boss and flat out tell him/her that you enjoy your current job, but don't feel your opinions are respected. You are prepared to leave this job and go to XYZ company. See what they say. If they tell you to get lost you probably didn't want to work there anyway...
I am 28 and look and dress like I am about 20, mostly becuase I can at my job. However, when I need to create a certain impression on someone, I dress to create the effect that I am older. Pretty easy to do. I have worked with some people who were as young as 17 but IN THEIR JOB carried themselves as if they were 30 or older. However, outside of that, they seemed to be 17 again. All depends on how you choose to act, dress, and behave. You can create the impression of age and maturity if you are willing to work at it.
Scott Plumlee
From my experience this is untrue.. I think it is all in the presentation and your general attitude.. I started working as a developer when I was 19 with no degree.. I was the youngest developer by far but everyone listened to me when i had something to say.. Because i said intellegent things in a proffessional manner.. and.. it turned out that most of what i said was true.. so I built a reputation of being a reliable source of information..
u sh00ld j|_|s+ r3sp3c+ y3r 3ld3rs. 0ld p30pl3z 0wnz j00!!!!!!
I work in a company now as a coop through school. I'm 20, a junior in college, and when I first got here I had just finished my freshman year. I had NO skills that pertained to my job, but I learn fast, and by the end of my 3-month internship I was already heading a few small projects. When I came back 3 months later (with improved programming chops thanks to a couple of C++ classes), people were actually looking forward to my return so I could tackle a couple of interesting tasks. Two years later, I'm head diagnostics engineer for the company (despite the fact that six m onths out of the year I'm only working 2 days a week.)
The point of all this is not that I did anything impressive, but merely that by seeing your youth, people will immediately (and most likely inaccurately) mis-judge your skill level, but that doesn't mean you can't get past it and make something of your time with a company. You'll get responsibility and respect when you earn it.
Personally, I haven't had problems with my age in any of my jobs (all with bosses who were >35 years old).
In my last job, I landed a $2 million web development contract for the company.
In my current job, I'm head sysadmin for a small call center (yes, I spend my days surrounded by telemarketers, but it gets me experiance to put on my resume).
I mantain 40 workstations, a $100000+ digital recording system, and several servers.
I am implicitly trusted by everyone there (except they have trouble believing my age =] ) with any piece of equipment.
And for christmas, I bought myself an 800MHz ThinkPad. Not bad for only being 16, eh?
Legally of course one cannot consider age in hiring practices. One can only consider experiences and how the candidate presents themselves. This is an abstraction because every manager that makes hires has many underlying assumptions about candidates.
In my case I hire technical trainers for a multimedia firm in NYC. I look for people who match our image, a cool hip place that focuses on high quality and excellent design. But I must also have 100% reliability... we can't simply say "sorry" to 12 corporate clients waiting to learn Flash because their instructor didn't show up. So I hope for some proof of reliability, that comes with job experience which often becomes an age issue. On the other hand, a "mature" candidate might not present as being hip enough for our target audience- primarily multimedia designers.
At 37, I was the oldest person in my company for a long time. I don't want to exclude an individual because they are too old OR too young. Hiring is incredibly difficult... probably one of the hardest tasks a manager must undertake because all other successes and failure flow from good or bad hires.
Would I hire a 20 year old? Yes, in fact I did last summer. He was very successful on the job, and only left me after he was arrested (hey, it's his personal life at issue....)
The more complex issue for me is instructor credibility. People don't respect very young teachers. Which reinforces the original poster's point. So I sturggle to teach my young instructors how to establish their credibility in the classroom.
Hip to be hired, geek to get ahead...
No, it is Size that matters, you got it completely wrong.
http://dtum.livejournal.com
In other words, "discrimintion" is largely determined by your perspective.
I started my first programming job at age 15, back in 1977. None of my bosses gave me any respect; it pissed me off, but I kept plugging, learning as much as I could as fast as possible. In the end, some quarter-century later, I'm doing quite well -- and now that I hire the young'uns, I try hard to respect them and listen to their views. If they *are* wet behind the ears, I don't crush their ego -- I hand'em a towel... ;)
--
Scott Robert Ladd
Master of Complexity
Destroyer of Order and Chaos
All about me
You are *such* a loser.
Go Kathryn Thurber!
When I was young(er), I was up for just about anything, programming-wise. Long hours of coding and debugging didn't faze me, and I rarely considered the farther future of what I was doing. I really didn't care that much as long as I was having fun (i.e., programming).
Now that I'm approaching my dotage (I'm 36), I've realized that I can be extremely productive doing nothing at all. At a small scale, this means I spend a lot more time thinking ahead, planning, designing, and quite a bit less time coding and especially debugging. I admire the wisdom in Linus' quote "Intelligence is the ability to avoid doing work, yet get the work done".
In the larger scheme of things, it means that I can watch a software project for a week or two (sometimes just a few minutes) and have a pretty solid idea of whether it will succeed or fail. If it's doomed, the most productive thing I can do is find a different project to work on.
Call it wisdom or call it cynicism, but it's valuable.
(I do have sympathy, and envy, for your position. In my early years, I had a lot of difficulty getting bosses to even take me seriously enough to hire me to do programming. In my late teens/early twenties I was digging ditches and flipping burgers.)
--Mike
"Not an actor, but he plays one on TV."
--Mike
"Not an actor, but he plays one on TV."
Adolescents and young adults must conduct a similar proof. In the past such young people were considered as cheap labor and relegated to the mailroom or some other such position to 'work their way up'. Today it is perhaps not necessary to force people to start from such an analogous menial jobs. Certainly many young people would rather be making the big bucks than learning a company that they may fire them tommorow. Perhaps technical skill is sufficient.
This is true to a degree. There is still a level of maturity and knowledge integration that must exist. These are important attributes, which are somewhat correlated with age. If I am allowed to be a bit ageist, I will say that there are few teenagers I would trust to on a high-risk project. This is not because they are not technically capable of handling the job, but because they have not lived long enough to understand the fragility of life or develop appropriate stress dissipation mechanisms. In other words, a mature person understands that life is not a party, that other peoples jobs depends on their performance, and that a two day delay does matter.
We must be open to the fact that our metrics are imperfect, but there is no reason to a priori decide that they are usually wrong.
don't sweat the petty things and don't pet the sweaty things
I used to run into the same problem...
My advice is grow a beard...it worked for me
:-#)#
It was a little disappointing getting alcohol on my 21st. No one asked for my ID, since I looked 25.
Younger types are more mobile, more willing to change cities, more willing to take a better offer from somewhere else, more likely to install Quake on your servers...
Moving on isn't going to help much - we're not just talking experience ( and, please, GAMING experience is irrelevant ) we're also talking maturity. I seriously doubt he's being ignored - he's just upset that he's not be treated with the respect that other people are - probably people that have been there many years longer than he has. It's that typical reaction from the very young - I can do the same job so I should get the same respect.
GROW UP - Respect is EARNED. And there are a LOT more ways to earn it than just getting the job done.
I'll just ignore the race card for what it is - boring and over used.
The Game Guy
See - this is the typical response - you think knowledge is the only factor in respect. There's a LOT more to it - when I was in my early twenties, I got a fair amount of respect. You have to EARN respect - and there's more to that than getting the job done.
If anything, letting people 10 years older than you realize just how much more you know (or think you do) is going to put them on the defensive or just be irritating.
The Game Guy
It's not just age - it's attitude - and it's obvious you have a bad one. I mean, WOW, you had, what a WHOLE YEAR, MAYBE TWO with SUN? So what. That person hadn't used a mouse until his twenties because there WERE NO MICE, moron.
Incidentally, in my experience with people, what you did in a NON-work environment is largely irrelevant. Sure, it's great you programmed when you were young (Whatever on the 8 years old thing) but all that did was teach you the basics. Real world programming with deadlines, working with other people and such matter. When I hire, I look at what they've done, what kind of teams they've worked in, and what REAL deadlines they've had to deal with. And, yes, experience matters - there are 20 million people out there just as good or better than you - no matter what your age. Cop an attitude of arrogance - well, that's probably what's caused you problems in the past. You might be as good a coder as I am - you might not - but I have over 10 years of contracting experience in real world environments dealing with multiperson teams in multiple languages. You can't even start to touch that. There's a LOT more to getting a job done than just the coding. 58K ain't bad for 19 - stop whining. Think how good you'll be in five years. I envy you that you HAD those tools available to you when you were young. And are you happy with what you've done? Naw - whine and complain, whine and complain. What, you think you should be making 100K at 19? LOL - keep dreaming - there are a ton of people just like you, fresh out of college, that will take 50K (which is VERY good for starting pay) and be THRILLED with it. Attutude alone is a reason to hire them.
I'm sure this will do nothing to help change your view - actually, I expect it'll piss you off, given what you've already written here. If you didn't _act_ like a spoiled 19year old coder that thinks he knows everything, people might treat you a little better.
The Game Guy
a better coder than I am.
I humbly bow to your incredible typing skill.
The Game Guy
It's probably more a matter of experience. The old folks know you have the inteligence, but experience is a big factor. They like it without the learning curve.
Both times, I started out with next to no respect, being the one to run errands and menial tasks, not at all what I signed up for. But once people realized that I actually knew something (and in most cases, knew more on the subjects than most of the other employees), I started getting a bit of respect.
For most employers, I've found it comes down to proving your worth. Show them that they need you, and that you're worth more to them being productive than being stuck doing small stuff, and they'll let you take the wheel.
This, however, brings up the problem of getting them to notice your contribution. Many employers have the age prejudice so deeply engrained in their skulls that they simply refuse to acknowledge the work of someone based solely on their age. After all, if it too them this long to get where they were, some young upstart can't possibly do it in any less time.
Unfortunately, defeating this prejudice is a much harder task. Gee, wouldn't it be nice if people were logical?
-InsaneFolder
My other char is '!'
Perhaps also you are the one that is lacking wisdom by making false assumptions regarding age and immaturity. The company I work for has dozens of workers under the age of 25 in all jobs. We also have older people because my company does *not* discriminate via age. And btw, my company is doing perfectly fine.
Also look at google. They are certainly not doing poorly, and are pretty much the stereotypical startup sort of company with a chef and young workers and a quirky environment.
Age does not denote wisdom; wisdom denotes wisdom.
I would like to propose that this is because, 'back in the day', IT peoples were all geeks. now, it is in large part people who see IT purely as a lucrative career move ;)
The above was an attempt both at being mildy amusing (probably a failed), and at complimenting m'self:) In no way a reflection on any views I might actually hold.
what hump?
Let me first give you some background:
./ it's at least a little more fun.
I'm 26, I'm married and I've got 2 kids. I was a network administrator at 18, a software developer at 20, and I've been doing software consulting since 21. I'm now considered a 'senior software developer' just about anywhere I go, and I've been a lot of places, including M$, Intel, and Bank of America.
Let me be frank (without being TOO redundant -- I've seen a lot of posts that have a lot of these ideas, so I'll summarize): You'll find a$$holes anywhere. It's all about how you carry yourself, how you present your ideas, how you find grace under pressure, how you always come in on time and how you're the last to leave. It's also about selling your skills, your experience, and your ideas -- and being persistant about selling them. Even to wiennies. Even when you don't want to.
Nobody said this business was easy, or free from wiennies... but with a little help from
The amount of experience one has is directly related to the age of that person. You're in college which means you're most likely >22 years old. You've probably got a couple of years of higher education and a couple of years of on-the-job experience. Most older people in your workplace most likely have completed their degree and 5+ years of IT/programming experience. You're not being limited because of your age, but because you don't have as much experience as older people in your workplace. You also probably like sitting around in yo' low-rider drinkin 40's with some bitches 'n' ho's.
Just my .02 cents.
-atrowe: Card-carrying Mensa member. I have no toleranse for stupidity.
Hi, what do you think is the oldest acceptable and reasonable age to get a degree in CS/IT for a woman ?
I have basically given up and not started, because I don't see it making sense anymore. Strangely enough I have worked in my twenties and thirties exclusively with men (in science) and have never felt in any way as an outsider or slightest uncomfortable (was not U.S. though), but twenty years later trying to imagine to work in the IT field here, having a boss who is may be 27 and imagining to take a job away from a youngster kid (who is definitely smarter, so it would never happen anyhow) has me completely turned around and I discard the IT field for me aside from self-study.
Imagine you didn't have twenty years of experience on your back, would you start at age 45 and up ?
Don't give me sugar-coated, inspirational, coachy stuff, I want a blunt, honest answer from a woman, who knows the industry. Thanks.
If I had experience in a scientific field (I wish!) I would probably look at the hybrid IT roles and try to find a path in that way
Right, I found something just last week, which brings me back to Europe, but is a nice thing for me. They have some very interesting new curricula combining programming, documentation technology and science (chemistry).
If they could just give me a place in the University, that would be really cool. In Europe (Germany), I could never find a job without a degree, but then it's not that expensive either.
Thanks for the answers, MsMarple and Malor.
A formal degree is very useful for a young person but by the time you got one you'd probably be 50.
:-)
I am beyond "that fifty-ish chicken age".:-)
No chance with some certificate to cut a job, if no work experience is there. The problem is a twenty year gap between my old scientific education and work experience and no work IT work experience in between. Hey, someone had to get those wizard kids, mocking us oldies, toilet trained. Not only my fault... So...
And I have to admit that I am a lousy golden girl for "volunteer work". I always get upset about the policies, which made those volunteer task forces necessary in the first place. And getting upset is just not the right thingy in my age...and then, if I work, I want to get paid, I think I deserve that...:-) Thanks again for your feedback.
The best line I ever read from some elderly man to some younger guy.
From your complaint, it seems that they do respect your ability to do your job. If you have built and implemented an application at work at their request, the very fact that they made the request and used your app means that they respect your ability.
But you can't expect them to respect your opinion on other things just because you can write some code. Your boss probably won't ask your opinion about solving marital problems, etc. and probably wouldn't respect your opinion on it anyway. And that's perfectly normal and reasonable.
The same goes for other business related things... a person who has experience in business probably won't care about the opinion of someone who doesn't when it comes to how to run their business. Sometimes that even seems to cross areas, meaning that their choice of system, or encryption, etc. might have more to do with business concerns than IT concerns. There is often a lot more to those decisions than whether "X" is the "best"....
My advice: Be satisfied that they actually respect your ability to do your job.
I am a high school student and do contract perl/cgi programming among other things and I am yet to have someone not listen becuase of my age and they have trusted me with some major decisions. But it may just depend on the boss.
:-P
Yes I know my spelling sucks
-- Tyler >+++++++[-]++++.---------.+.++++.++.
This whole experiecne thing is a bunch of crap... I know so many cases when young (better) workers are sad cases of age descrimination, although they are trainers to employees which are twice their age, have 1/4 of their knowledge, weren't supposed to occupy that position to begin with, and the company's justification for that is that "they bring sooo much more to the company..."
I don't care if they can manufacture nuclear weapons and are as the wisest of the wise, if their job description is 'BLAH' which includes duties 'blah1', 'blah2' and 'blah3' but NOT 'Nuclear weapon manufacturing' and 'Wise advice' then they DON'T bring squat to the company.
Age discrimination has been a very subtle way to make good profit off capable young people by mentally engineering them to believe that age is a factor in judging their wages.
But when you think about it, though: Who decides these wages? A bunch of old farts who have been with the company for 150 years and they think that seniority is the thing. Well, it's not. In fact, the talent core of most companies sits in their young, oppressed, discriminated against employees.
Stop age discrimination. Don't be a vegetable!
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$_='hfflbwfsbhfzp vs';s/(^.{4})(.{7 })(.+$)/$3 $2 $1/
Is it possible that the reason you're not being respected is not your age per se, but the way you behave? Or that people don't believe what you say not because you're wrong about it, but because of the way you say it? I don't know you at all, of course, but I've had employees before who made similar complaints about not being respected (not necessarily because of age) and simply weren't aware of the things they were doing that undermined their ability to earn respect. Respect isn't just about how well you program, it's about how you conduct yourself with co-workers -- do they perceive you as someone honest, trustworthy, positive, reasonably humble (nobody likes a know-it-all), mature, a team player, open-minded, and so on. Sometimes well-intentioned and competent people have negative traits that they're not aware of, or that they're aware of but don't think influence other people's opinion of them -- for example, they may be predisposed to whining when the work is hard, or they may be condescending when asked to explain how to do something, or make assertions (even if they're correct) without being able to back them up with evidence, or they may finish projects quickly but skimp on quality. Certainly these problems aren't exclusive to youth; I've known 35-year-olds who could make your average 16-year-old seem mature. But in general, people who have been in the workforce for a shorter time may not be as diplomatic and have as much perspective; they may also just not be aware of how much they don't yet know.
Second, you need to do a frank assessment of whether the things you've done are really worthy of respect. This is really important: You don't get awards just for doing what you're expected to do as part of your job. Doing your job, and what your bosses ask you to do, is the minimum criterion for remaining employed. If you want to get promoted, if you want respect, you have to go beyond those expectations.
Third, make sure you really understand the business you are in. A common affliction of developers is to do the thing that seems logical to them, which is not always the thing that's right for the business. If the real power base in your company is the sales force, for example, you need to make sure that you are not screwing up their lives, because they will use that system you set up and be unhappy and complain to your boss that it's not what they wanted, and he will blame you. (I'm sort of oversimplifying here, but I'm sure you get my drift.) You can decry this as stupid office politics if you want, but what it's really about is understanding that different people in the organization have different priorities, and you need to consider how you look through other people's eyes, not just your own.
Again, I don't know you personally, and it's certainly possible that you are a model employee and the people you work for are just a bunch of ignorant buttheads. If that's the case you probably should consider working somewhere else; my pesonal experience has generally been that talented people are in high demand in the tech industry and that those people will get recognized regardless of race, religion, sexual preference... or age. But you should really make sure that the problem is with them and not really with you -- take some time to do an honest assessment of your performance, make sure your expectations are properly calibrated, and then go do great stuff.
"Biped! Good cranial development. Evidently considerable human ancestry."
I think this particular problem seems to be reflected, certainly in this country (Ireland) in college work placements.
I am as old as personal computing (22) and am about to finish University. But last summer when I was on work experience with a major telco software house I was given 5 weeks productive work out of 24. The rest of the time I had to amuse myself. I didn't *waste* my time - I worked on some HP-UX ports and got to grips with Debian linux for the first time, installed a nameserver, built my own computer and a coupla other things. But considering I've spent the last 5 or 6 years in system adminsitration it seems unfortunate that I was consigned to a dark corner of the engineering dept and forgotten.
I do think that some start-up companies have the right approach....everyone regarded as a peer, regardless of age. That doesn't mean that older people get less respect, jsut that younger people get the respect they deserve.
However the average age profile of startups is generally mid-20-something so this is hardly surprising.
I'm 44 my boss is younger than me and I am about in the middle of the age group with my co-workers.
One of my most valued co-worker's is a teen-aged intern. He is efficient, smart, unfailingly polite, and interacts well with everyone. His plans are different or I would love for him to be my boss.
I've worked with other younger co-workers who have been good, and many, many more who have thought they were God's gift but were in reality insufferable. There are few ways to earn respect but many, many ways to lose respect. Once you have lost respect, it is very, very hard to earn it back. Paitence, hard work, and giving a lot of resepect are the best ways to get past that.
As I have gotten older, I have come to understand that older people do not have the same tolereance for annoyances that younger people have. I don't appreciate hyper-activity, loud music (in the workplace), or any sort of attitude. People that exhibit this stuff or interupt me while I am doing my job lose my respect and pay hell to get it back.
The culture of a company is very important to the people that are there. While bosses may cultivate the culture, it is the people that make it. Observe the culture, never try to change it and go along with it every way that you can. If you can not fit in to the culture, find another job.
Been there, done that.
Built my own computer (6502/4K RAM/8K ROM) at age 15. took a degree in Physics. Designed hardware for DEC. Designed software for the DoD, various telecom companies. Now doing software at a startup.
What I can say after all that is that:
0. Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose.
1. Things never change. The programming problems faced today are bigger than the ones of yesterday, but tools are improved, so complexity remains pretty constant.
2. Things really do never change. We're trying to get data into, and out of, a machine. That's really all there is.
3. Things do change. The tools we use today are far ahead of what we used to have. Perl may have elements of sed and awk, but it's lots more than sed and awk. Likewise Java.
4. Things really do change. The things we expect computers to do today are way more than we used to expect.
Now, as to the actual ageism thing. Well, personally, I treat all my co-workers of all ages as if they have the same or higher competence as me. I never turn away questions and I'm always willing to learn from my mistakes. I spend lots of money each year upgrading my skills. I never stop learning and I never stop looking for the next challenge.
And that's the most important thing. In this world if you stop, you sink without trace.
So, my point? Age isn't a factor *with* *me*. Your mileage may vary.
668: Neighbour of the Beast
A few lessons from way-back-then, though:
Anyway, enough old-fogginess.
There's more to respect that what you know or what you can do, especially when it comes to things involving tools. Humans are still primates, and that means there's a dominance hierarchy. No one your age, regardless of talent/intelligence, etc, will get any respect from the older males, especially the dominant males, and probably the more dominant females in the group. You want respect, you're going to have to physically bulk up and defeat the alpha male in some form of contest. Or better yet, when someone disses you, call them on it in those terms. Tell them they're obviously wanting to maintain/establish primate dominance over you and you're going to make it easy on them by performing a submission gesture. Then bend over your desk and stick your ass up in the air and tell them "mount on up!" It'll work, it worked for me once. The hard part is waiting for a chance to use it.
O~ Him that studies revenge keeps his own wounds green. -- Francis Bacon
When I was 18, I used to work as a software engineer in a small company. I started as an intern in the company at age of 16 and worked my way up from tech. support. That summer the company hired a couple of interns and I was assigned to give them work on various projects.
Working with those guys and seeing how they interacted with their other managers was an experience. I think that was the time when I realized how much I learned in those two years at the company.
- No matter how beneficial is your suggestion, managers will never accept it if you present it in a manner that says "I am the smart ass, I know this better than you do and that is why it should be the way I see it."
- There are plenty of good ideas that excite the hacker in us, but for any company the first and foremost is profit and the projects that interest a programmer aren't a priority. If you want to enjoy your work, join a company that works on the things that spark your interest.
I think that only experience can give you the sense for politics and economics within the company and any ideas that are really true for this frame of reference and are presented correctly will be accepts regardless of age.
Age DOES matter in many respects, irregardless of experience. It does depend on what you are after from the individual, however.
Maturity is very much related to age. It is biologically demonstrated that people in their low 20s are still not fully mature in their brain development. The younger you go, the less mature, and this DOES affect judgement and respect. I can easily respect someone's skill but have absolutely no trust in their judgement.
I have never found a person in their teens who is truly logical, systematic, and MATURE in their thought processes outside certain technical tasks. It is also rather rare to find a young 20-something with emotional maturity.
Annectdotal evidence of those older than their 20s being "immature" is not scientifically and objectively relevant. You cannot argue the scientific, biological evidence.
Like it or not, until one reaches somewhere into their later 20s, their brain is NOT fully developed and they are NOT emotionally mature. Their ultimate judgement is suspect until proven otherwise. If you are in your teens, then you are so addled with rageing hormones that your logic and emotional sensibilities are simply outa wack. Biological fact.
In Bushworld, they struggle to keep church and state separate in Iraq as they increasingly merge the two in America.
I've seen managers ignore the sage advice of geeks of all ages. There is a bias that an MBA is a inherently smarter and cooler than those of us who work endless hours to make sure we know what we are talking about. I think this is based on 1) insecurity - otherwise why would we techies need managers anyway, it's not like I can't use a spreadsheet and make up a budget. 2)Marketing/Media hype (buy this Microsoft/IBM/Cold Fusion/ whatever and vault to the cutting edge of the business world).
It's nota my planet, monkey-boy - Dr Lizardo.
I know quite a few companies that would be more than happy to hire females rather than males and quite frankly would rather hire females. It's all about how you present yourself and can do your job. If you aren't getting the respect you think you deserve maybe it's not because you are a girl. I don't get the respect I deserve and I'd be hard pressed to find anyone in the IT industry that does and it's not due to gender, age or even ability. Generally IT workers are underappricated by management because management doesn't understand what we do.
Are you lonely? Hate having to make decisons? Meetings, the practical alternitive to work.
My GOD what the topic! The notion of "Once you hit X age, something magical happens and you can do X!" is bullshit. I mean, I know people in their EARLY THIRTIES that shouldn't be driving! But some stupid politician says 16.5 is magical and means you can drive then. "16.5" you say? Yeah. In Pennsylvania, about 2 years ago some girl who had just gotten her license went and got drunk, and packed 6 other drunks in her little compact car. Totalled. So, now you dont get permit til 16, then 50 hours driving, and 6 month waiting period. And then, I can't even get a checking account until I'm 18! What the hell? When I turn 18 I guess I'm suddenly smart enough to not sign my life away. They should do away with the age thing and have a test. Boycott driving and contracts!
I'm a 19 year old programmer, the company I'm with hired me right out of High School. My big problem is that every top level exec. at the company treats me like I'm their son.
It gets annoying, and when I do something wrong, they talk to me like I'm an offspring of theirs. I think it's COMPLETELY unprofessional, but hey.. I need the work expierence.
Well the problem is two sided. Yes, older people tend to think that young people cannot handle responsability. On the other hand young people tend to assume that oldies are stupid and don't understand the new, cool technologies and are basically neanderthal. It's very difficult to be on both sides of the fence: ergo young enought to be responsible, and not old enought to be considered stupid.
But honnestly,I think the problem is much older than computer science...
When it comes to *nix users, hell yes. The grayer and longer the beard, the better. Anecdotes of running programs off of punch cards also help.
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
Another part of the age factor is stability. True or not, older people are perceived to be more stable, especially once they have their own family. Maybe if more middle aged men go postal, this stereotype will fade...
For the most part at my job (programmer in an IS dept) most of the "working employees" are around my age (22). I see very intellegent people get ignored when they are correct. But I am a recently hired employee that was hired because I have 4 years of experience at client-server development. My supervisor (same age) was recently just hired back after working at another company for the past few months. Because we are more knowledgable then anyone else at the company at what we do, we get the respect we deserve. And, we make sure the people working with us are treated the same. It's sad to see such a double standard, but if I was one of the ones getting dumped on, I would just quit and find a better company. (actually this company is much better then my last one, which is why I am here now)
-nite
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
It all depends on the position but when I am hiring - I am not looking for someone who lives for recompiling his linux kernel at night - I am looking for someone who can get the job done. With one exception - the best bosses I have ever worked for have been female. Its been my observation that they don't let biases get in the way of getting the job done. Men seem to do this all too frequently.
Even asking such a question is a sure indicator that the questioner has neither age nor wisdom.
This is the sort of thing young people have been rending their breasts about since time began for humanity. It's a silly question, and asking it only demonstrates the very reason people do not take you as seriously as you wish to be taken.
In order to posit such a query, you must:
Assume that wisdom is genetic - i.e. you were born with it, rather than aquiring it over time, proving your immaturity and ignorance.
Assume that you are smarter than the other, possibly more reserved, people you are competing with for attention - meaning you are arrogant, and immature.
Assume that you have the right to expect equality with people who have put in more dues than you have - and prove that you are without common sense, foolish, and immature.
Assume that you understand each issue from every angle, despite your relative lack of experience in comparison to your older peers - demonstrating that you lack judgement and ignore the obvious.
Can't recognize the accomplishments of your elder peers - making you selfish, and proving you lack perspective.
While it is a fact, that not all older people have gained maturity, wisdom, or perspective, it is also a fact, that few people gain these virtues without putting in their time.
You'll know you're well on your way towards earning your own spurs, when you stop being jealous of those who have already earned them, and start trying to learn what they already know.
No matter how old or young the world may see you, we're all 17-year-old dorks on the inside! :-)
--
--hongpong.com
Didn't /. post something from an old guy (I mean like 45 or something) complaining about the same damn thing 3 months ago? I didn't realize this guy was a teenager until he revealed his age a couple lines in.
I have been denied jobs because of my age and years of "professional" experience. Never mind that I have been programming since the vic 20 was using a tape deck for storage. I just never did it professionally until 3 years ago. These companies want 5-10 years experience to be in any kind of leadership position (i.e., someone they have to listen to). What it sounds like you have is knowledge developed outside of your resume. In other words, you spend your off-time tearing stuff apart and know more than some MCSE flunky who has been scraping by for 10 years. Don't lose your bite. If you know something should be done a certain way and someone won't listen to you, screw them. Don't be mean and nasty about it just realize that the old way of doing business meant more about your years in a job or field than about talent. If your company doesn't see that, then look elsewhere or suck it up until you have enough experience to look elsewhere.
Shawn Fanning and Sean Parker could come lecture me about file sharing when they were 15 and I would have listened.
Are you serious? Do you honestly think that programming is something that takes 20 years to learn? I mean, a few years maybe, but 20? If you're using the same knowledge that even existed 20 years ago, I don't think you're talking about the same kind of programming that the rest of us are.
This is stupid. I've been coding for 10 years. I'm 21. So am I half way to being intellegent because I've programmed for 10 years, or am I still 20 years off just because I'm not old?
And if you read magazines like Business 2.0 and Wired and Red Herring, etc., it's clear that the business press, too, worships at the temple of the cult of youth. So I have not really seen situations where youth is a significant disadvantage, assuming, of course, that the young person is qualified. And of course, while not always true, the latter is often the kicker...we should expect younger people to be less qualified and be pleasantly surprised when they are not.
So I suppose businesses just give keys to anyone off the street.
I send you this message in order to have your advice.
Thanks for the advice. I'm always willing to take it into consideration. I have never really considered myself to be a prodigy, nor do I tend to glorify the fact that I'm smart. I do continue to learn and grow and spend a good deal of time helping others who want to learn about things I know. I've considered going to university but for my extreme dislike of mathematics and school in general. I prefer to teach myself at such time as I need to learn something in order to solve a problem in real life. I enjoy the world outside school. I might pursue post secondary but I'll just see where life takes me at the moment. It's all going well for now. Thanks for the reply.
I send you this message in order to have your advice.
It's all good. The fact that they actually trusted me enough to give me keys gives me enough respect for them that I wouldn't dare to do anything to put that trust in question. It's a good thing.
I send you this message in order to have your advice.
Sure, but there are always other jobs. I have a hope and a hunch that I'll be around with this company for a decent length of time. I get along well enough with the management that I know even if they did have to lay me off it would be on reasonable terms. Worst case scenario, they'll go bankrupt in a month and I'll get a glowing letter of recommendation from the boss. =)
I send you this message in order to have your advice.
I agree with you here to a point. I am the youngest developer at my company, but have been made the most senior developemnt position. So in my experience age is not the greatest issue.
It may have somehting to do with the way you conduct yourself, but, on the other hand, it can also have something to do with your employers.
I work in a very open minded atmosphere where my employers are not bogged down by stereotypes. I htink that this makes a big difference as well.
"Me and my girl named bimbo . . . limbo . . . spam" - Captain Beefheart.
It may be a case of appearances, more than actual age. I've never looked my age, and this has caused no end of happy mixups in several career fields. Older coworkers have offered helpful advice on 'dressing older'. More makeup and a somewhat severe business suit would help in business meetings.
It is much more difficult to carry that off in the more casual atmosphere of the technical fields, unfortunately. So, other than appearance, what else helps? I've listed a few ideas below which have helped me:
1. Documenting your work in email or writing, in a knowledgable and businesslike manner.
2. Always paying attention to business ettiquette and decorum. It impresses the older workers with your level of maturity.
3. Asking someone higher up in the food chain to put in a good word for you. For instance, asking for an introduction during a meeting that includes some of your accomplishments. This is incredibly helpful in setting a tone towards you and your level of expertise. What others say about you creates a 'halo' effect that follows you in whatever you do. Many managers will do this, especially when clients are involved.
Hope this might help, and good luck to you!
Sincerely, Kathryn Aegis
I have been in that same situation for 3 years. CAD drafter at 17, Mech. Engineer at 19, Network Admin at 20. Still having that problem. Another Network Admin here is about 27 but looks young, he also has that problem.
I do far more than what I ever thought I possibly could, being the only computer person working in the company, yet the only things I ever hear about from my 'superiors' are the things that I haven't accomplished.
I think that's got less to do with your age than you think. It's probably much more related to being the only "computer person" at your company.
If you think management is clueless at tech companies, try being a developer or sysadmin for, oh, say, a construction company. Might as well just stick your head in the toilet and flush repeatedly.
Hello pot, this is kettle.
You sir, define snotty. Or is it "holier than thou". Not sure.
And get over your own self besides. The Universe will soon sort you out too. Then look where all your chest-pounding will have gotten you. Six feet under just like the rest of us.
SHEESH
The LEXX
"Gold still represents the ultimate form of payment in the world." - Alan Greenspan, 1999
I've been working as a programmer since the age of 15 when I wrote a DBIII+ app for a local hospital.
Now I'm 31, still get carded for cigarettes if I'm clean shaven, and I'm the LAST person they will listen to at my shop, I feel primarily because I am the youngest by 20 years.
Two of our guys are over 60 and guess what? They are currently in the process of rolling out a SQL "conversion" of our Visual Fox app, that serves no purpose other than to be able to point at it and say, "Look! It's SQL! Geegaw!", and to (hopefully) keep these old farts in jobs for the next five years or until they die. Seems our new owners aren't too keen on Fox, but SQL they trust, even though we have no problems with Fox tables. The system needed to have MAJOR internal cleanup and overhaul work done to it (in dev since early 90's) during the conversion, none of which was done. No use of any SQL functionality or anything. Simply a port of tables from Fox to SQL with the minimum of code changes necessary to accomodate it. What's worse is that these old bastards don't even know what a design doc MIGHT look like if it came up and kicked them in the nuts. Two weeks to roll-out and they just yesterday agreed on a directory structure, there is no documentation of any security or system file changes, nada you would expect from 'professionals'. All they know how to do is regurgitate what they pick up in books on MS software and somehow that makes them gods. I just spent three days converting a hard-coded, cell by cell six page carpal fest of Excel object calls which build a spreadsheet from Fox to be table driven. Now it's 1.5 pages of code, reusable in other reports, and you don't have to do shit like change "D:D" all the way out to "AQ:AQ" by one letter BY HAND if you want to change the format. Incompetent idiots, but do they listen to me? Hell no. Do they pay them twice as much as me? Hell yes. Don't forget, I look at the code these guys produce EVERY DAY. Our boss never actually looks at code. Hello.
Anyone with job openings at a company which respects good design AND preferably doesn't "Seig Heil!" everytime BillG announces some new vaporware, I'm interested!
Disgruntled LEXX
"Gold still represents the ultimate form of payment in the world." - Alan Greenspan, 1999
Factors such as a large/small company, age of company, seniority/experience/background of co-workers (and others I can't think of) are missing.
Anyone who's been in a company or managing a project wouldn't immediately show RESPECT to the new people regardless of their background, but they should at least listen to suggestions. If not, then that's an indication to get out of that department or company.
The easiest way is to gain the respect of the group is to gain the confidence of someone who already is respected in that company/department, spoon-feed them and leech on them to make them feel like they are your mentor (read as: kiss ass)
As years go by will see new faces and will realize that there is the potential that you will treat them as you were treated.
m.mmm..myyy
Another option too, is you might consider something more of an analyst position instead of a techie position. These people get the joys of translating specifications between technical and non-technical departments. If you've got the spunk and some logical thinking, it might be a good choice.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
I myself am a young (21 yr.) programmer working for a B2B company and luckily don't have these problems. I started programming when I was 8 yrs. old and several people here, especially developers, know that ... I'm far from being a programming guru but have experience and knowledge about things others do not have in my office (e.g. I'm the only one using a Linux desktop, which made me famous in my office ;-), and I guess that's why people do accept me here as a 'normal' developer.
So if you like to be fully accepted I guess you have to show the others that you have knowledge/experience, perhaps knowledge/experience others do not have (no one in my office knows a thing about Cap'n Crunch, for example :-)=)
But for me it's more important to have a good job with nice workmates. You can't have all of them on your side, there will always be workmates that don't like you and vice versa. If the majority of your workmates don't accept you and you have a problem with that change your employer, because a bad working environment will make you ill, mentally and physically...
Solution to this problem: I have found that you should try to be very realistic, very upfront, and assertive at the same time. Don't embarass people, but call them on things when its wrong. And be very hard on yourself. You have to be twice as good as somone who is 30. Then you might turn out like another one of my aquiantences. He is the head developer of a 30 person firm...his boss is in his mid 30's, and he is 19.
Want to see every step I took to start my company? http://www.rowdylabs.com/blogs/pitchtothegods
I've worked at at an internet startup for about a year and a half.. At the time, the company was in it's infancy, barely 3 months old. I was hired as a sys-admin/IT. I was 19 at the time. I was the only person with IT experience there... The only other 4 employees were a programmer, a web-designer and our boss. I was sefl taught, never took classes or anything. (hell, I remember taking apart my old XT when I was 7, expanding the RAM from 256k to a whopping 640k). I also never graduated from high school. I had more important things to do, like install Linux and smoke weed. I quit all the drugs, etc. I'm almost 21 now, and I hope to get my GED soon.
:)
I was the only IT person at my company for months.. As we gained more employees, I was the single point of contact for any support. We then hired a CIO, who became my boss... He was in his mid-30's.. He was really bright, just had no good managerial skills.. He was fired about 2 months ago, and the other two IT guys they hired were laid off about 3 months ago. So now I am the only IT person here. I have responsibility you can think of. I manage all our servers, provide desktop support, recommend purchases, I also just got them to hire back one of the IT guys they laid off, and I supervise him.
Everyone else in the company is between 35 and 60. Most of them have full respect for me, (except a couple of the executive assholes, but I would expect that). The CEO treats me to lunch and dinner all the time. I feel very lucky that I have this much respect at such a young age.
Some would say (and I somewhat agree) that it is because they have to respect me, because I was the only point of contact for a while. And they've put me in a leadership position now. I'm happy
-Robert
It depends, character goes a long way. Being kind of a bigmouth too. Usually it helps that your boss likes to talk with everybody. I worked in a large hospital, more than 3000 employees, still people could always talk with the directors.
Make a man a fire and he will be warm for a day, set a man on fire and he will be warm for the rest of his life
I know exactly how your feeling. Im a network admin who just turned 20 and work under an IT manager that thinks he knows everything about everything. Unfortunately the only thing he really knows anything about is programming. He questions everything I do and I have to explain every single thing to him even simple tcp/ip settings. He also recently took credit for the work i did changing over our WAN from Framerelay to a VPN solution. Its kind of funny though cause they dred the days i call in sick cause im the only one that can fix anything around there.
I recently went out to dinner with my boyfriend and two other couples. The other two men knew each other already, and started talking about their jobs. Both of them work in the IT field.
Before we even had a table, they were saying things like "It's just not a women's field" and "My boss says he's never hiring another woman"
I was horrified! Sexual discrimination is alive and well in Boston IT, and has nothing to do with man haters or respect. Even my boyfriend, who's a HW tech that learned everything he knows about coding from me, still asks me those 'just a girl' help desk questions. like "Are the lights on your cable thingie blinking?" How do you know it's a problem with the video card - is the moniter turned on?
I don't know why I'm responding to an Anonymous Coward . . .
Until you reach the "age of majority" (18) YOU ARE A SECOND-CLASS CITIZEN! - You are not entitled to a trial of your peers unless you are 'tried as an adult'. (even then, it's not your peers, it's registered voters) You cannot be sign binding agreements (including checks) and you can't VOTE! Even illegal aliens in Califoria can vote under the motor voter law.
There is a solution. You can be emancipated by the courts, but why go through all the effort. Eventually, you turned 18. Every one goes through this.
In my case, I get paid a lot more than someone fresh out of college, so I'm discriminated against, even though I can write better code in all the new languages, platforms, etc., than any new engineer. In fact, I'm always assigned to mentor college grads, so there's some value after all, even in management doesn't want to admit it!
In addition, even the smartest people (especially the smartest people) aren't the best communicators when they're in their teens and early twenties. If he's being the least bit smug or obnoxious about it when he's contradicting his peers and managers, they'll get annoyed, and his age will double or triple the annoyance factor.
I'm not saying he's in the wrong here- there are plenty of times when people unfairly disregard the input of people who are much younger than they are, or assume that just because someone's a teenager or in their early-to-mid twenties that they don't know what they're talking about. But it's probably a little bit of both (a little unfair discrimination as well as him not being as brilliant as he thinks he is).
Mostly I'm saying don't always take the little guy's side. Everytime someone posts a David and Goliath story on Slashdot (some teenager tired of not getting the respect he feels he deserves, or some big company coming down on some guy for domain squatting, or the government coming down on someone for whatever), it seems like all the posters automatically take the little guy's side, and assume that the story he tells is the Truth, and that there aren't any other angles to it.
You also have to consider the notion that maybe you're not the smartest guy in the universe. I know when I was 24 (just a few years ago, after learning lots of stuff but before having much professional work experience, and before I had much experience in dealing with a wide range of poeple), that was exactly how I was.
I think I'm a hell of a lot stupider and more inexperienced right now (I'm 29) than I thought I was at that time. Knowledge can be intoxicating and it's easy to get carried away with thinking that anyone who doesn't appreciate your genius is obviously just discriminating against you for age or doesn't consider you part of the old boy's network or some other form of unfair victimizing, but that's not necessarily the case. Basically, hardly anyone is ever going to accept anyone else at face value- there's always going to be people that you'll have to prove yourself to, either by having oodles of experience to throw in their face, or by just getting the job done and not making a big deal out of it. Just work hard and give it time, you will eventually earn the respect you deserve.
On the other hand, having experience with a diverse set of technologies can be important, even if the technologies are extinct. Knowing a diverse set of systems can mean an ability to see "best-of-breed" solutions. That is why someone who played with a Commodore 64 might bring something to the table even today, doing web page design.
But I think there is something more. For the most part, my company hires people strait off campus as opposed to people who already have jobs. This has advantages and disadvantages. In any event, several times over the summer, I see a new group of campus hires coming in the door. And, I am reminded of myself at that age (even if it was only eight years ago).
While these new folks are among the best the most competative universities have to offer, and most have excellent technical skills, there is something missing that actual, real-world experience misses. Some examples:
- Cannot handle touchy interoffice/client political stuff with approrpaite tact and diplomicy
- Some are "cowboys:" doing things without thinking it through (with disasterous consequences)
- Aren't good about documetentation, updating managers, etc.
- Require more intervention from management
- They lack project planning skills
I'm not saying that everyone a the beginning lacks all of these skills, but there is definitely a growth that occurs over the years. I can see it in myself. If you are just entering the work force, find one of those touchy-feely HR "soft skills" test (a behavoir interview. This sort of interview asks questions like "Tell me about a time you lead a team..." Fill it out today. Wait five years. Fill it out again, and compare the answers.You will see that you didn't have to strect for some answers, and have learned a lot. This, in addition to web page development and UNIX shell scripting, is experience. And it tends to be liner with age. And, in turn, generates respect, because you have demonstrated you can handle the total situation, not just part of it.
It is a common saying that "respect has to be earned." There is truth to it--you really do have to pay your dues, no matter how good you are.
I left school at 16, and now, at 17, I'm working (programming) in a university research lab. I have to say that I have had a very good experience with the people here, and everyone treats me as an equal, even though I have slightly less computer experience than many of my coworkers, and much less scientific experience. The only problems I've run up against because of my age are the laws - which mean that I can't work with the x-ray diffraction units that we use, or with any hazardous chemicals.
I think if a young person knows his/her stuff, is professional, and works with intelligent, open minded people (A lot to ask, I know), then there will be few issues regarding age.
All information in this post is true in some sense, false in some sense, and meaningless in some sense.
JA JA JA JA JA ...
BEING a 17 years old I have to say you're probably stupid. This all reminds me the false respect we gave high school drop outs a few years back. It fooled me too. I thought these kids are smart until I met a few. No. You have to finish college, work a few years, present your work in a COMPLETE and competent level then your boss will respect you. If you care so much about respect, chances are you don't have the things that make people respect you in abundant. If you disagree with this assessment then my advice would be to shoot for the money. Try forgetting respect for a while and go for something you can control...if you're really good as you said you are.
If you want to act like Nick Burns, The Company Computer Guy, then go ahead and be "frustrated". There is a lot more to working in the IT profession than just pure technical ability. IT is a service/support function in business. That means that you exist for the sake of other people. If you cannot communicate them properly, you cannot provide them what they need. Likewise, managing projects is a human activity. Most people who are excellent at technical things are much slower learners at interpersonal skills, and are very likely to discount them as being important, especially compared to "hard" skills.
You may be the tech guru that you think you are, but your post shows that you have a lack of understanding of the people to whom you are responsible. You cannot see it from their point of view -- in your mind, they must conform to you. Any salesman worth his salt will tell you that you will not sell vacuum cleaner one with that attitude. And you're trying to sell yourself -- that is what this is about, really. People are not computer programs.
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If you ever drop your keys into a river of molten lava, forget 'em, because man, they're gone. -- Jack
im only 20.. the youngest person in my newspaper (i build ads [ugh}) and not only do i have more Computer Graphics experience (formal) than everyone else, but i understand our network and systems better than our Sysadmin (ITT Tec grad, with MCDE (whatever) certification. No one littens to me, ever. My solution is simple. Let it go.. its not that important.. learn from them what you can then leave ON GOOD TERMS of course. In a few months i go back to college, then i never have to be at this paper again. I will be studying in a Tech school, instead of being the only Tech Literet (if a little forgetfull and a bad speller) in a hick town. just look to what good can come of this experience.. and try to remember that when your older.. maby you should listen to younger employies.
Hash Bang Slash Bin Slash Bash
Try being a young female to boot... I'm the technical lead in our company, but nothing chaps my hide more than having to print out web pages, probably written by people less qualified than myself, in order to support any opinion I offer to our non-technical management. While this is somewhat manipulative, here's some advice that has helped to keep my sanity: I find that if you present your opinion with two options, the one you feel is right and one that you don't, then the talking heads will be distracted enough by the dazzle to allow you to make the correct decision. Three options is too many because then they'll want to have a meeting about it, and one option makes them feel that they have no control over the decision. Hope this helps!
I'm 27 and am just getting into this field (working a total of 3 years...helpdesk). My supervisors are my age and younger and I was worried that I may have gotten into this field that changes so fast too late. :)
It is strangely comforting that even the younger ones have concerns...you know, misery loves company
I would really like you to be on my side but the side you show me isn't what I had in mind -Judybats
I got my first programming job at 15, it wasn't anything special, and doesn't compare to some of the things I've seen in the previous replies.
During the 3 months I had this job, I got nothing but praise. Ideas I brought up were always considered, and in most cases acted upon. In the 3 other jobs I've had since then I've never had the problems mentioned above.
It seems to me like it's more down to the way you see yourself and act toward others. If I had decided from the beginning that I was 'better' than my co-workers (even if I didn't make a conscious effort to show it) then I'm sure that they would not have had as much respect for me or my opinions.
One thing you might want to consider is that although your ideas may help certain areas of the business, they could also be financially unsound, or cause problems elsewhere. At a young age you are unlikely to know very much about the business side of the organization.
I realise that some people do feel threatened by those younger and better skilled than themselves. And I realise that these people will unfairly discriminate, but this is something you should be able to deal with. You have most of your life in front of you, and if some of you are as skilled as you say you are then you should become very respected with time. Why be so impatient? You're probably being well payed, so enjoy yourselves...
-t
I live this exact problem every day. However, as time has gone on and I have developed relationships with those around me, I have noticed a decrease in 'age discrimination'. More people seem to listen to my ideas and not my age, which is a major bonus. It used to frustrate me to no end when I would do something great or educate my 'peers' and then be ignored because I was less than half their age. Since my hiring, however, I have seen a huge increase in the number of younger workers in my organization, and we are seen with more and more respect. All I can say is, it takes time.
What the generation before us(Baby Boomers) doesn't understand is that we kids that grew up in the eighties and nineties have really grown up with this technology. There is no wisdom involved besides experience. Raw intelligence is so readily available now that all it takes is a little research ( an hour or two ) and you can accomplish anything by following a how-to, man or info page. That is a strange concept to our parents. What we have to remember is that we need to respect those older than us, because someday we will be in their shoes and our next generation will be ten times as smart as us.
___________
I don't care what it looks like, it WORKS doesn't it!?!
The only upside to that is that I get discounts on top of my 'prefered customer' discount.
I could wish to be older... or I could wish to go to Research Triangle Park. Mabye Hidden Mind is hiring....
"I have not slept a wink"
01101001 01100001 01101101 01101110 01101111 01110100 01100001 01101100 01100001 01110111 01111001 01100101 01110010
This is something caused by a lot of things. People won't hire you if you are under 20, I'm 15, so even the places that don't descriminate against age won't hire :-(
:-)
It's a whole Idea caused by the lack of childrens rights, it starts with children getting no form of representation, Parents should get more votes if they have more children.
Why? because I'm sure it happens everywhere similarly, down in florida the Motorcylclists don't have to wear helmets because they are adults, but kids riding bikes have to wear them! how idiotic.
Younger politions. Age doesn't ever definatly bring experience, and it shows, we need to cut that junk about not being president until you are 35, it's stupid. You can't get on the ballot automatically anyway, so why descrimiate against kids even? if the nation thinks a 12 year old can run the country he ought to be able to be elected.
Abortion? it should be illegal, it infers that women have more rights then men, and children. Why should only women be allowed to kill babies? LET THE KID CHOOSE!!
I think we will find this phase out, as we, the geek generation gets older and we respect people younger than ourselves (My 2 year old brother likes afterstep)
Unfortunately what many of us fail to realize is that we are in a service occupation position. Which means we are graded not only on our technical merits, but our social skills as well. I would even go so far as to say our social skills are more important than any technical ability we may have. Once you've demonstrated an aptitude then your employer KNOWS you can pick up a new programming language or implement a new SDK. The stuff that is hard to pick up is translating our geek speak into something the nontechnical can understand without making them feel uncomfortable about their lack of knowledge.
If you want to be taken "seriously" then age (specifically appearance) DOES matter. You need to look and act the part of someone important to be treated as such. I'm three years into the corporate life and I've shed the earring and long hair. I've upgraded my wardrobe to something just short of wearing a tie in a business casual office. And most importantly I now have a confidence in myself and my ability that others can see. This is something I didn't have when I first started and something you can't teach in school. You can gain confidence without the benefit of age, but being older allows you to wear it more casually.
I still recall the shock I received when doing some shopping after a business interview. I was 20 and still wearing the suit from the interview. Normally I was a jeans, metal-band t-shirt and earring kinda guy. The social shock I received from the store clerks and bank teller I encountered that day was amazing. They called me "Sir" and asked if they could help. They were happy to run around and fetch things for me as well as answer my questions.
If you can't blind 'em with your brilliance, baffle 'em with your bullshit.
A steaming cup of soykaf would be real wiz right now.
Yes, I agree it's unfair. But, remember this: Youths are generally only half as smart as they think they are, and twice as smart as their bosses think they are. There's a happy medium to this, luckily. It's called your 20's.
I have a similar problem to yours, so I can symathize with you. I have no college education. Can anyone relate to this situation? I contribute as much as anyone else, my work is at least as good as the average of my peers, and I my ideas still get passed on until everyone else's ideas fail.
My advice is to work as hard as you can so that you can retire young and not have to deal with any of this nonsense. The corporate world sucks...so, enjoy your life.
You can tell a college man, but you can't tell him much.
Of course, you should buy a beard trimmer. You won't get much respect looking like you live on the street, either.
---- Just another spud server.
Experience shows when you don't complain about it.
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You sure got a purty mouth...
I know exactly how that feels. I currently work at a small Computer Store & ISP in a small town, as a 15-year-old doing work experience there. My whole point at working there was to gain experience, and work for free. After I had been there for a few months, I started getting paid, then I turned 15, and they started paying me for my Friday afternoons & Saturday mornings there. I was really happy, because I was getting paid for what I enjoyed. And, they're happy that they can get me to re-write coding so the ISP users can see and make sense of their account information (PHP & postgreSQL). I've improved their security dramatically. And, I never have had any previous experience in this field before. They have taught me everything I'll ever need, and although they sometimes won't want to listen to my point of view, they are really appreciative I'm there. Although I'm only 15, in certain areas I outperform the other technician there, and in others he can run rings around me. So it's great. Basically, keep up your good work. They'll have to realise you're talented, and maybe outperform other 20-30 year olds there. You'll learn, and earn respect. And the reference in the end makes it all worthwhile. ~Rhett
I am currently 23; my first real working day was September first 1999. Right now I'm working (or better I _should be_ working instead of reading slashdot :-) on specifications for the largest cell phone (GSM) operator in Belgium (Proximus). Not just a little program but some really core stuff: the management of their entire network (Radio and fixed lines).
I go from meeting to meeting. Most of them are with people twice my age and all heaving a higher degree than I have.
There have been people asking why the "coffee-boy" wasn't leaving the room and "where the hell that consultant was".
But if someone (usually the department manager (see reason 2 below)) explains "that this 'coffee-boy' is in fact the consultant" all meetings start off very well and professionally. This project I'm working on has been lingering for months and that's maybe why I easily get credit (I've become their last resort). But than I prove by my knowledge and work that I don't need their credit.
Some reasons why I think I have had no "age problems"
1) The company I work for has already delivered some very good consultants to Proximus. Thus when my boss says to Proximus "This is the guy you need for that job" they believe him. Having such 'letters of credibility' is a good thing.
2) Within Proximus my manager will forward this credibility to anyone who might need it.
3) I always show great interest in the work of anyone I meet and try to respond to their questions as fast as possible: working a bit harder makes it a lot easier to "prove yourself". 'Letters of credibility' alone are not enough. Let's be clear about that!
4) I thought I could give many more reasons but apparently I can not *surprised myself*
Conclusion: It is not _always_ a problem to be young but it doesn't make things easier.
120 chars is not enough!
But seriously, I was a Network Engineer on a site when the PM was fired. Being the only other full employee of my company (the rest were subcontractors), I got the nod for interim PM. Bear in mind, I was 23 at the time. I will say that I had no problem telling helldesk people twice my age that they should get moving and close some calls. And they had no problem listening. It all comes down to respect. If you act like a punk-ass 23-year-old arrogant bitch, your co-workers will treat you as such. If you earn their respect by doing your job well, they are much more likely to respond to you in turn.
Ceci n'est pas un sig
Did any of this count? No.
I spent three months searching for a job. Eventually I interviewed at a company where the main Engineer actually knew something. The joys of internet startup's. No HR.
After a 10 minute interview he said I was hired.
Was that the end of the story? No!
I was paid very poorly, and bascially left alone, because I wasn't classified as "good enough yet".
Weird thing is, they were going through a Linux conversion and they didn't know much about it, but I did.
6 months later, they wake up and realize that I learned their propritary code, and was very proficient. A hard task, being it was old K&R style C. After many battles with management, I have finally arrived. But that has only been in the last 5 months. Since starting work I have more then doubled my salary.
Point is, you have to get in the door. You have to put in your time as a grunt, but hang in there. You'll go places.
I'm also turning 23 this month.
I respect a person until they prove to me that they don't deserve my respect. If that means I 'put people in boxes' then so be it.
BTW, what crap exactly, am I pulling on my superiors? Doing the work they tell me to do? Oh god, don't let anyone know that! I am a fucker aren't I!?
You're probably some angry company head that doesn't understand why the people you crap on all day don't worship you. Am I right? Would you admit it if I was? Bah!
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But, let's face it. Nobody is going to respect you that is older than you. It just doesn't happen. Unless of course, you happen to be lucky enough to know someone that was so abused when they were younger that they respect you because you are young.
I'm currently in a very similar position to yours. I do far more than what I ever thought I possibly could, being the only computer person working in the company, yet the only things I ever hear about from my 'superiors' are the things that I haven't accomplished. It would just be too much for them to ever remark on what has been accomplished. Don't get me wrong. I'm not one of those people that's always begging for an ass-kissing from my bosses, but it would be nice if when I gave them something they've been asking for I get something along the lines of a thank you. Know what I got told the last time I completed a development project for the boss?
Thanks asshole.
Pardon the anger. I'm going job searching.
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I seriously doubt that Kiss-The-Blade has any managerial responsibilites at his workplace. I also seriously doubt it has grown 500% in 24 months because even if it did then its just another overvalued and eventually worthless dot.com. The only difference is his company doesn't know how to treat the young techies who make it all happen. Another thing is this is supposedly a graphics company. Creativiity and individuality are supposed to thrive in artisitic environments. There's no way you can run a good graphics company with the attitude this guy has. So the only employees he will end up with are the unskilled ones willing to go thru hell just to get some training and something to put on their resumes. He WON'T get the hotshots and stars that can really make a company shine and last. It couldn't happen to a better company........... NDPTAL85
Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
" technically wonderful ideas that have failed or are failing, ie. Amiga, FreeBSD and even Apple,"
stupid troll
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Tres_Status
stephen
At my college I experienced that. Not with the instructors, but with my classmates: "Do you know how to move a mouse?"
I took it easy, I just answered that I was trying to learn and that they should be patient with me and help me.
As a result I got a good grade with no work and I kicked their asses. Now they fear me.
Then there's the sex thing: being in a tech school where the "Daiel : Female ratio" is approaching 1:1 I got the interests of my classmates (hey before college nobody was looking at me!)
[Usually you may use the Dave:female ratio, but in order to stick to the data I put Daniel because we really hae as many Daniel as female]
I'm not God's gift to Computing. I am G0d!!! Stinking geezers. L1f3 Suxx0rs!!!
I work with lots of people younger than me, and I've never seen or heard the kind of crying and bitching you predict. If those are your'e experiences with younger people in computing, it may be that you just bring out the best in people.
(smiley face)
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The government is not my daddy.
PREACH ON, SISTER!! My first real job right out of college was in the tech support department of a large networking vendor (who shall remain nameless, even if they do use pretty blue paint on everything...). I was 22 and a girl, and I used to get no end of shit from crusty old 45 year old IT Managers from places like Merrill-Lynch when they'd call in in a panic to get something working, and during a random moment they'd ask how old I was. After the first time I answered, I learned not to offer such information anymore. I really think that if I'd been a 22 yr old guy, they would have thought I was a prodigy. A year later, working for another network-hardware vendor, I was frequently mistaken for a first-line customer service rep (all of whom were female) when the customer would get hot-transferred over to me. It went something like this: Me: Tech Support, this is , how can I help you? Customer: Oh, can you transfer me to a tech, please (some of the more redneck customer would tack a 'honey' to the end of this request. Grrr.) Me: You're talking to one, what can I do for you? Customer: Oh. Um, okay.... Only occasionally would they apologize. On a few occasions, I got baked goods sent to me after I fixed their problem. One of my fellow girltechs got flowers once. More than once I got a half-joking marriage proposal, but I'm still single, so go figure. Point is: If you're young and getting no respect, just wait a few years, it'll pass. If you're a girl, just get used to taking shit for it. *sigh*
Why would anyone want to be a Minesweeper & Solitare Consultant / Expert?
People of my parent's age grew up in a time when "seniority" was perceived to be an asset in itself. If you were a plasterer, the unions and their members would keep you at menial positions for menial wages until you had put in so many years at the job... regardless of how good you were! That is just one example. The philosophy was not unique to manual labor, it very much carried over into the office and professional workplace. It is, in effect, a form of protectionism, or elitism. Then after 5 or 10 years, you would finally see "So-and-so has paid his dues, now we can allow him into the sacred upper echelons".
Today, people are more willing to accept competence by itself as a measure of the employee, but acceptance of this idea has been slow and incomplete. There is still an awful lot of ageism and cronyism and yes, sexism out there. Though at least today I see sexism in the workplace going both ways.
This is unjust, of course. It unfairly punishes those who are more competent, either naturally or because of their diligence. It is also extremely inefficient, and hurts the economy.
Some of the replies I have seen here have a few things wrong, though. For example, the guy who has had experience since he was in his "teens", just a few years ago... does he also have education? Does he know how to build a Quicksort from scratch (and why he would want to), or does he just know how to put buttons on a form?
"Tomorrow's" computer professionals are not any more likely to be people in their teens and early twenties than yesterday's were. It is only today's folks who have that opportunity, having been born at a time when the computer industry had just been born and was blossoming.
Tomorrow's computer professionals are about as likely to be teenagers as tomorrow's truck drivers. That is, not very likely, because proportionally, tomorrow's teenagers will have as much experience working computers as they will have driving. That is, not much. Everybody else will have been exposed to it as much as they were, and older people will again have more education and experience!
So get it while you can. It may not be for as long as you think.
HAHAHA
What I think about is: wait, you'll find the right one. I realized, that I'm the important one in the job, not my job. I switched a lot of jobs recently and finally I found something I'm happy with. If I won't be, I'll change it. IT professionals are wanted everywhere, there's no problem to find a job in this area.
Management sets the tone. Good managers and a strong sense of culture make all the difference. At my company, a big telecommunications carrier, people in their thirties seems to be the most respected. A survey last year showed that most people here believed that to get ahead, being a thirtysomething male with a wife and kids was the surest ticket. Certainly none of the managers I've seen are younger than 30, and only the tops execs show much above 50, save for some Bell tag-alongs in supervisory positions. The web team is the lone exception - young/old, male/female seems less relevant. Anonymously send your VPs Tom DeMarco's Peopleware...best book I've seen on how to manage information workers....
There is no guarantee that the content has been read or understood.
This is all about the presentation. I'm 22, less than a year out of school, and I'm already taking on design tasks on par with senior level developers (15+ years of experience).
Make sure you don't act young, that you portray yourself as someone who knows that they're taking about.
In the development world, doing is half the battle. Knowing and dealing with people is much more important in determining how people look at you.
I myself work in the IT field and I have also noted that there has been resistance to ideas spawned by us youth. The point that i would like to make, is that "most" of this fire seems to come from the older/oldest IT staff. They seem to be resistanat to the idea that there is a generation out there that can do their job or sometimes better, with little or in some cases no formal education. Thankfully i now reside in a comunity of IT workers that appreciate the insite of youth. Take heart, they cant last forever
"We deal in lead" - Roland of Gilead
Absolutley age matters. I'm 22 and work for a large company. I have 5 years IT experience, which is more that most of the people I work with. They treat me like the kid and dont take anything I say seriously, and I make less than older people who dont have as much experience as me.
The (Hopefully) Great Slashdot Blackout Apr 21-27
I work on a farm, driving tractor and doing mechanic's work on the tractors.
I know very well what I'm doing, still if my boss is having a problem with another guy around, they'll stand there and say 'yep.. maybe if we try' and I could tell them some way to fix it 5 times before they actually trust me enough to try it.
Maybe you could say: once you are old enough to be trusted, pay attention to the younger people once in a while.
As someone of the same gender, but much older, I must say, that my early years in IT were blessed with some truly excellent male colleagues/drinking partners who willingly shared a lot of rounds and technical knowledge. Such men have gotten rarer, though I know they are not extinct.
Most of the old breed of IT males that I knew had a pioneering attitude and despised illogical barriers, thus they were more accepting of anything new - like a young woman joining their ranks. They were not possessive and jealous and IT didn't have as much status. They were the real creative types.
Now I keep meeting the type of IT male that is a young blinkered advocate of some technology or other and so full of their own self-importance that no-one can teach them anything.
By far the most dangerous is the quiet, polite, corporate type - often harbouring psychopathic tendencies. Avoid suits of all genders.
Be feisty, stay gutsy, love what you do, ignore trolls and you'll go far.
Good question. I've always thought I would like to do a degree at some point, my mother got hers at 43, but I think that actually taking three years off work is now out of the question.
To be honest, I don't think that qualifications count for much when you are older. The story from a lot of late starters seems to be that the qualifications didn't open the doors they expected.
If I were you I would try trading on already established skills whilst angling to gain new ones. If I had experience in a scientific field (I wish!) I would probably look at the hybrid IT roles and try to find a path in that way - don't know what scientific branch you were in but there seem to be a lot of relatively new fields, such as bio-infomatics, that are requiring quite a mix of skills. I might scan the New Scientist job ads and write to some of the companies on spec, show them a resume and ask them what skills or qualifications they would recommend acquiring. For the cost of a few stamps you might get some advice at least.
And you can teach yourself to code at any age, if you want to. There are massive repositories of information online, get stuck in and find out how to use all that knowledge. If the industry is where you want to be, then read industry magazines religiously, learn it's history, traipse around trade shows. I think that it will require a ton of work on your part, and that a lot will depend on your self-discipline, will-power, self-confidence, presentation and ability to take knocks. The Industry can be hard and unfeeling to people of every age, as no doubt you have read here. You will also have to ignore your age in order that others will ignore it.
But don't just get into computing for the sake of it, get into something you like!
I don't think I'm very inspiring but Grace Murray Hopper was.
Why don't all we girls just wear false beards and strap on fake penii?
Why shouldn't girls be able to act like girls and still be geeks and techs?
I don't think that boys think more of you if you 'pretend' to be one of them.
You should be able to be yourself at work, tolerated whether your a girly or a tom-boy, an effeminate male or a jock, that's what 'a non-hostile working environment' means, and what we should aspire to.
Did you ever really consider the fact that while you may be a far superior technician, you just might be a lousy manager? They are vastly different skills.
Don't let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do. - John Robert Wooden
Halleluia!
:(
If you are lucky enough to be able to grow facial hair as a youngster, do it. We work in a field that is given a lot of latitude for affectations like long hair, beards, and casual attire. I find this comment interesting, also, because I spent 30 minutes talking about it today with a co-worker who wrote a dissertation on facial hair in the workplace. It does more than make you look older, so the paper theorized, but also gives an impression of strength and control, or power in the individual.
One warning, though, those who work in a conservative field can stymie themselves in a job search by doing the same thing. A starched white collar position isnt the proper venue. For these individuals, there are long established hierarchies who dont approve of people 'stirring things up'. In these fields, the pressed clothes and perfect white shirt are the displays of strength, while the closely cropped hair and shaved face gives the impression of humility or emasculation to let the boss and the bosses boss believe they are in control, etc.
My personal opinion is that we should be thankful that we work in an occupation that tolerates us to be individuals, and be solution providers vs. work providers. I dont think we need to be upset at the appearance that our superiors dont always take our suggestions.
That is all.
Macrymon
-who looked 21 at 16, and looks 18 at 29
I've had a similar situation -- at 18 I supervised Nationwide Technical support for the # one line of Analog and ISDN Business Modems/Terminal Adapters (Won't name any names, but it's an American company that doesn't make robots).... now at 20 I'm T1/T3 Installation Technician for a Major Telecommunications Carrier. When supervising, I found it easy to gain respect, and took a few snide jabs from older people under me, at the new position, I've had many a torment due to the fact that everyone else is at least 3 years older than me, but, due to my relatively high-ranking position, I've found that people are usually able to get over the age gap ('course, I've been told I look older). It just boils down to this -- eventually, people will recognize how much you know/how good you are. Prove yourself, and they'll give you the respect you deserve.
-Janitors also get keys to the building and to all the offices. That is not a sign of respect.
-If you believe they can't get rid of you easily and that you are a valuable asset let me tell you something: you are wrong, but that was to be expected from somebody unexperienced in the work place. I have seen people saving or making *millions* to companies that have been dismissed due to other considerations unrelated to their performance.
Now, don't misunderstand, most probably you have a clued boss that values you for what you are worth, but a little bit of healty sceptisism comes always handy.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
What you don't realize in your early 20's is how much experience you *don't* have.
To put this in perspective, imaging doing what you did for the last four years for the next 10. How much better will you be then? Answer: a ton.
I have dozens of hard bugs under my belt, things that take from hours to days to figure out, each one of which I now can see and prevent in the future, or recognize in other's work if I see it. (Once even solved in 10 minutes a bug that another coworker, all of 28 years old, and two Microsoft on-site contracts couldn't solve in a day and a half.)
I am for the complete Trantorization of Earth.
I got a Timex/Sinclar Z80 by saving up coke bottles and having a paper route. The next box was a TI-99/4a (Great box!). Then to the C64 then to an old 8088 I rescued. My first modem was 300 baud external. I had a mainframe account in 84 that I could dial into. 17 years later...Bean counters think I'm too expensive when my years in the business pretty much equal the rest of the IT staff combined. It's not the age so much...certain industries don't respect the IT professionals...banks for one. On the other hand, my years with NASA were a rocking good ego boost!
I completely agree. I started my first business (ie: first REAL business) when I was 16. I had the same reactions.
Because of that, I got in the habit of talking business over the phone BEFORE meeting them in person. The reason was simple. I had no problem getting them to see my vision -- unless they were already deciding against it before listening to me.
Even now, 11-12 years later, I still do that. Now I am 27 and starting my own Corporation. Everyone I have talked to has faith in what I am trying to do. The reason behind that is that I do not talk with them about it in person until after I talk to them on the phone or in email. There have been some exceptions to that. Some people see your performance and vision before you talk to them about your plans. That is where you get your most avid supporters.
But I digress. If you feel like you are not being taken seriously at work because of your age, then consider the opposite. Perhaps they are no longer able to keep up. Perhaps they do not realize what can be done because they have not kept up with the changes. When you start to realize that you are in a BETTER position than they are BECAUSE you are younger and already know what you do -- then it starts to come across. At first, they will just ask you a question or two. Next thing you know they will be bouncing ideas off of you to see what you think (will it work?)...
But the change has to come in your mindset and attitude. Success really does rub off. So does Vision. If you are inspired and doing something -- they start to notice. Especially when you are getting results and they are not.
Unless, of course, they feel threatened by it.
http://www.google.com/profiles/malachid
If you had experienced the same things your boss(es) had you would know where they are coming from, not ask the question you did and be in a different possition then you are now.
The simple answer is yes, age makes a difference. The detailed answer requires a review of philosophy and psychology on so many topics that would become a debatable term paper with the result being both yes and no, age does and doesn't make a difference relative to the topic being discussed.
Maybe if you stop being such a whiny little bitch, people will start respecting you.
It's my opinion that the real crux of this matter is not whether or not you are respected by your employers, but rather an issue of personal relationships - a different matter altogether. Its fine and large to be on-the-ball and technically able, however don't be fooled - being diligent, reliable and able to provide timely answers is only a small part of the battle, so to speak.
Have you heard the anecdote where a 7-year-old girl asks: "Daddy, what's politics about?" After some thought he replies thoughtfully "Politics is about people and persuading them to do what you want them to." A few seconds later: "I see Daddy... a bit like sexual politics then?" I suspect that you are experiencing a similar, if somewhat less dramatic problem of cultural difference. We all know that the pace of modern technological change is phenomenal - the significance of this is something a young person can easily overlook as a result of a limited historical perspective - whereas a wrinkley will have greater context for their subjective responses.
I wonder if you have (professionally) personal relationships with your work colleagues? [No... I'm not suggesting you try to bed the secretary... or maybe that would be a good idea anyhow - never mind.] In some circumstances, you might need to learn to play golf, in others you need to "do lunch" from the right place. Find some non-work related common ground and get the true size of these people. From my experiences, the disrespect to which you allude tends to result from the fears of those who expect to remain senior, coupled with the less honed social skills of the whippersnapper.
I wish you the best of luck with your job and a world of other fascinating things you need to be experience.
Age matters, the basic assumtion, by anyone, is that younger == ignorant.
It's hard for people to accept that younger people are stronger/smarter/better/*er than they do.
It's automatically assumed that older people has more experiance.
This is also often the case.
That you are in school is also a main factor.
If you are in school, then this mean that you "don't know enough", and automatically reduce your value.
There is no good way to deal with it, I'm afraid.
You can try and show maturity, and hope that your boss will learn that he can trust rely on you.
My suggestion, try and remain in your current job (if it pays well & you don't think you can get much better deal elsewhere, that is) until you are out of school.
By that time, you gain experiance, and education.
I think that you'll find that experiance matters much more than mere education.
You would get a much better deal this way.
--
Two witches watched two watches.
Which witch watched which watch?
Your mistake is thinking that your boss would respect someone older. Chances are he wouldn't respect either one.
- deal graciously with others of diverse personalities and backgrounds
- take responsibility for getting work done
- keep turmoil in their personal life out of their work life
- understand the business problem a technical task is meant to solve and see their craft as a means to that end
is worthless for our business. And such knowledge has a strong positive correlation with age.Some businesses need technically brilliant people so much that they can afford to tolerate poor social engineering and personal maturity. Most would rather hire competent grownups.
One of my managers totally ignored an issue I'd brought up to him, and a month later he asked, "Why aren't we doing this?" so I told him, "YOU told me not to worry about it!!"
In another scenario, I'd barely gotten the words out of my mouth when I was shot down by a more senior engineer ... the boss immediately took his words as the gospel truth without bothering to ask me to explain exactly why I felt I was right (I was) ... as far as I know, that bug has still never been fixed. :-(
These days, I'm 32, and have 10+ years experience ... so now folks listen to me. Over these 10 years, I've known folks older than me who knew less, and folks younger than me who were particularly sharp. *I* always judge on merit, and not on age ... but most of the world still doesn't work that way.
So I tell all my younger friends, "the only plus to being old is that people take you seriously" ... and unfortunately, it's true.
Most likely everyone before your has had their plans to reinvent the wheel, the world, the company. Your older coworkers happen to know why it can't be done. It doesn't make them stupid, obselete, or narrow-minded. They just know that when trying to move a mountain, there's a really good chance it'll crush you.
He said he was on a budget, so I suggested running a Linux based network. Nope. He said he couldn't get into the RedHat server, so I did for him, then doubted that I was "actually in it. He said he needed to cut down the spending of the new boxes he was going to get. but insisted that he needed to get PIIIs. Doh. So then it came time to find a software based firewall. After i told him about SmoothWall he said that there was no way he was going to use a firewall based on free software. Then he read an article on his own (that was probably his biggest revelation ever!). I'll be installing this firewall next week on a PII350 with 128M and a 10GHDD, whatta goof.
This guy's no more than 27 years old, has a sleek lil volvo ride and dresses pretty damn hip (the later two are probably the things that got him hired), so i can't begin to believe that the age of a boss has anything to do with the treatment of the people under him when listening skills are involved.
What it comes down to IMHO is how much knowledge and forward thinking the person has. Also, how much is someone really willing to leave their ego at the testing center and be ready to learn from someone else once they acheive certificate status.
BTW Kendall will probably be looking for a new admin soon.
"From of old, there are not lacking things that have attained Oneness." - Lao Tzu
Taking the post at face value, I would tell someone like ageless that he or she is not alone, that it is a problem and that it is not always his or her fault. Furthermore, even people with a history of poor people-skills deserve to be treated with respect in the workplace, and they ought not to be assumed automatically guilty in each and every situation.
True story: When I was 17 years old, I was a full-time reporter for a small newspaper in West Virginia. I had a college degree from a good university, intern experience at a big-city daily and responsibility for all of the comings and goings in Morgan County, population 13,000.
I covered cops, courts, schools and crime. It was the bloodiest of all the jobs I've had since, including graduate work on emergency medical services. Everyone knew me, most took me seriously and I had a good relationship with my sources.
I also was barred from the main restaurant in our small town after 6 p.m. until I turned 18. Never mind that I had gone there for a month before anyone found out how old I was, or that I had never tried to order a drink or caused trouble. Never mind that the owner knew me, purported to be nice to me and knew no regulator would care if I was there unescorted, especially given my role in the community. What's more, she dropped this bombshell on me in the middle of an interview in front of my source.
It was gratuitous, mean-spirited and entirely based on irrational age discrimination. It had nothing to do with my own people skills or lack thereof. (At this point in my career, I have enough counter-examples to be able to separate those out into their own category.)
Sometimes, people are threatened, or judgmental, or just plain cruel, like middle schoolers who won't let the geeky kids play kickball. And most of the time, the rest of us sit back and watch it happen, and we rationalize 'well, there must be some basis to it.' Sometimes there isn't, and we limit ourselves and our society by accepting actions like these at face value.
There ought not to be an automatic penalty for being precocious. Other smart people, in particular, ought to recognize the restrictions society throws at its gifted and do what they can to prevent lasting damage, so that abrasive smart kids can grow into well-adjusted members of society.
Rebecca Christie rebecca.christie@dowjones.com
"So you see that I still have the urge to change the world." -Bessie Delany, age 101.
I agree with you completely. I wasn't meaning to imply that it isn't partially his fault, but that this trend will be consistent through time. Older people will generally think less of younger people regardless of how they present themselves. This isn't always the case however as I work in a place that doesn't exhibit these situations at all, but I'm over simplifying my generalization. More than likely he does have a little bit of an ego. Most students do even through college. I wasn't trying to hop onto the bandwagon of David vs. Goliath, but just trying to point it will probably always be this way regardless. How you present yourself and your ideas can lessen it though.
Khyron
I'm not necessarily referring to actual knowledge, but perceived knowledge. I agree with what you're saying, and it's similar to the previous reply. However, many times older people see themselves as more knowledgable simply because they are older. There are counter examples (where I work), but I was oversimplifying my generalization. :) Age does not necessarily determine experience or knowledge, but it does determine perceived knowledge and experience. Society tends to believe older people vs younger ones regardless of the situation. Younger people also tend to think they know more than they actually do. This could be because it's hard to get people to listen to them when they are young. Anyway, I digress. It's just how we've evolved. Someday it may change, but I don't that being too likely. Not within my life time anyway. :)
Khyron
people? basing judgement solely on age? Gee, that IS news. What's next? Discrimination based on sex or race? Sadly, this is the world we live in.
I have no doubt that many late teens/early 20s are just as, if not more, technically competent than their older peers. That doesn't mean they have the experience they need to make good business judgements. I know many programmers who come up with wonderful, intelligent, innovative, and completely unmarketable ideas. If your boss is ignoring your opinion on purely technical subjects, you're probably facing some age discrimination. If your boss is ignoring your opinion on business related issues (i.e. what operating system the company should be using) keep in mind he may be looking at things from a slightly different angle.
I work in an engineering firm where 75% of the engineers are over 40 and most have been with the company 20+ years. Once I established myself with my supervisors (took about 3 months) I never had a problem getting anyone to take my opinion seriously. Present yourself well, show that you're organized, businesslike, and that you understand the fundamental aspects of the business, and you shouldn't have a problem. If your management still won't take you seriously, consider switching companies, because there's no sense in waiting 10 years to move up the chain if you really are ready now.
It depends more on the person than anything. I had a young boss who treated me very well because I knew what I was doing. I had a younger boss who treated me like shit because she didn't know what I meant to the company (in fact, the company folded less than 6 months after I left).
I've had an old boss treat me like shit because she was afraid of change, and another old boss who treated me like gold because he realized I could do what was was asked of me.
The age of the boss does not matter nearly as much as the personality. Some people will always despise/fear those younger. Some can accept talent at any age.
I must agree here. I used to work as a Sys Admin for a pretty high tech firm. It's amazing how often someone would kick off their surge protector without realizing it, or simply not plug the network cable in tightly enough.
There will always be people who think they are above the basic questions. Unfortunately, they are also the people who's desks you have to visit in person because they refused to answer those same questions. It's amazing how much time can be saved by simply asking, "is your power strip on? Could you please check?"
However, if you can prove that you known what you're talking about, the only thing age will matter to is your jealous coworkers. A good employer will quickly see your performance and experience as you do your work.
So my question is - are you really as experienced as you think you are? I notice a lot of Linux users tend to think they are much more experienced than they really are. They seem to have the naive belief that if they've run a Linux box at home, they're completely ready to manage a high availability production environment.
Generally they aren't. So are you really all that experienced, or do you just think you are?
Ben Schumin :-)
Respect in the workplace does tend to be age-dependant, your age, the age of your boss, the age of your co-workers, and especially the length of time you have been with the company. It also depends on how your boss and peers got their positions. I had a boss four times my age who respected me, because he had done my job before. I've had other bosses ho knew nothing about the group they were managing and thought I was just another 'punk kid'. Sure, I don't have any education beyond high school, never took any classes dealing with computers, but have been working with them since my father brought home an old 8085 (remember those?) that his work was tossing out. That was about 12 years ago. Most of the age problems I have experienced, however, have been from co-workers who for some odd reason don't appreciate it when someone one-third their age can come in off the street and do the job they have been doing for twenty years as well as they can. (Application developers especially dislike that) Alot of companies are changing though as some of the younger people who have done the job are rising into management areas. Work experience and hobbies are weighing in more than education in alot of positions and areas traditionally held by older people are being infiltrated by these 'punk kids'. It would help too if alot of people would realize that somebody younger than them could have more knowledge in a specific area than they do. Maybe not more knowledge in general though :).
Completely agree. It takes time for anyone to become respected. People have to get to know you and trust has to be built. The good thing is, young people always get older, so if the respect is deserved, it will come. Patience.
You guys have no right to complain. I am new here and try to be quiet, but this got my attention. Sorry if I am breaking any /. etiquette rules. My husband, who is more into this then I am, cautioned me about your collective wrath.
Try being a young attractive woman working for a company where partially everyone has been here 20 years and is old enough to be your father. You also happen to be pretty bright but no one cares because they think you are a just another cute college hire.
I am older then I look and I have been around. I decided to go work for this company because I happen to believe they are better them most old school places. Also, they at least make a show of treating everyone equally and trying to do things fast.
I think the best solution to this problem is to be quiet and wait your turn. You would not believe what kind of information you can get because people around you assume you can't understand what they are talking about.
I know it's hard to wait and I am as impatient as you are. I have been burned before when I got too impatient. Please keep in mind that experience counts for something and there is a lot of 'soft skills' that these people learned in the work place that they did not teach us in CS classes.
Don't scoff at 'communication skills' because your boss thinks they are important, and he authorizes your pay check and raises.
Believe me, people notice that you are smart. I also hope you are smart enough to realize when to be patient.
YCH out...
Early on, I decided I had two options... I could either keep my mouth shut and let them fall on their faces in a project (software development), or I could noisily make my views known and on record, in the hope that at least, later on, ppl would remember and give my opinion some thought instead of dismissing it...
For better or worse, I chose the noisy option, where I'd tell them, and I'd find a lot of supporting evidence for my point of view...it doesn't always work, I can tell you, but its slowly gaining my opinion respect.. so now at least some ppl listen to me and hear what I'm saying, instead of seeing a 'young upstart'... (the exact words used by one of my older colleagues)...
So, my words to you are, pick your battles, don't try to change everyones opinion all at once, and make sure that you have all the facts possible.. then go ahead and do your thing... It worked for me, so I guess it can work out for anyone else... its a long slow process though.. so be warned...
good luck!!
Shut up , and stay in school boy!
Why does age matter? Well, this is quite simple. As we get older, we have the tendecy to get fatter and smellier. Frequenst bathing cannot reverse the odor, and exercise cannot debunk the weight gain. It happens, shit happens, and age happens to be shitty. Just think about it: in the time it took you to read this, you have aged. At this rate, you'll get older and older every second! It staggers the imagination.
And the worst part of aging has got to be sex. Fucking is just not the same when you're ninety-eight years old.
IMO, we should put a moratorium on aging. The punishment for all who age should be death!
News for turds, shit that splatters
News for turds, shit that splatters
I fully support respect based on merit rather than age. When it comes to listening to opinions on a specific topic, I don't really think even past performance is a good excuse for shutting somebody out entirely. Even utter idiots have their moments, so you shouldn't dismiss anyone out of hand.
That said, you should be very careful about making the age argument to anyone. Why? Simply, because every, say, 18-23 year old believes [s]he is listened to less than [his|her] ability merits, and every one of them believes it's age discrimination that prevents people from listening to them. Now it's statistically implausible that everyone 18-23 is some kind of unappreciated prodigy, even considering those who started working with technology when they were young. So before you go and talk to your boss about something like this, be aware of the possibility that you may really not know as much as you think you do.
Also keep in mind that the "today's young techies started earlier" argument is not really as compelling as it seems, mainly because the "I started young" thing is not new. I'm closing in on 30, and I "started young." So did most of my peers. So did lots of people older than I am, too. Don't think that automatically gives you a leg up. It just means you don't have to work as hard to catch up.
I can't wait until they all die off. I work for a very large and popular restaurant business and it's me (25) and another guy (late 30's) who run the website. Anything I say or suggest is taken as novelty. Anything the other guy repeats of mine is instantly a brilliant idea. He also takes credit for all of my work. Until a few months ago (I've been here 7 months) many other people here were not sure what I did because I had never been coined with a project! It's BS and I hate it. I love how this guy gets paid assloads more than I do, while he only knows how to use fucking Dreamweaver(!). Meanwhile, I port their entire website over to use php/mysql from the ground up and I'm making Burger King pay. It's all how you present yourself, I'm telling you. I show up to work in very casual clothes, he wears khakis and an oxford. I wear tennis shoes, he wears loafers. He is instantly much more respected than I am based on his appearance alone. blah
The conclusion I've drawn is that it depends largely on the culture of the company you're working for. I've worked at places where I've been given no respect, and at places where I've been given respect after proving myself.
What it boils down to is corporate culture, which tends to be something easily discerned from outward manifestations. You should be able to tell during the interview process whether or not the company is the kind of place that won't hold age against you, or, as the case may be, still being in school.
As for being in school, though, I don't think it's as much of an issue. I've seen 27 year olds working toward an undergraduate degree being given far more respect than younger new graduates.
I was 20 when I got my piece of paper. It's not fun. But when you're that age, you've got certain allowances, one of them being allowed to job hop a little bit before you finally get settled. Take advantage of that and find a good place where you can be happy.
However, I have noticed that things get a LOT better as you work for a company longer. I've been with my current company for 4 years and especially in the last year, things have improved a lot since I've grown with the company.
Keep in mind too that for a lot of us, this truly is our first real job (i.e. not flipping hamburgers or putting boxes on shelves). Yeah, I know technology, but I get hung up on the stupid things like filling out expense reports the way Joe in Finance wants to see them or filling out HR form A when I needed to fill out form B. It's those silly corporate things that you get more accustomed to, especially after leaving the relative safety of college.
Some of what we're experiencing is just what happens to any "new guy" or anyone that has only been with a company for a short while. Some of it is age related. It all stinks, but if you're with good management it'll work out in the long run.
Just be sure to keep your spirits up, work hard, don't do blatantly immature things (a former 23 year old coworker refused to park properly and regularly had his car towed, infuriating management), and it should all work out fine. I guess it's just paying our dues.
It really just depends on how you present yourself. I am 18 years old and the Technology Director for www.idsociety.com. I started consulting here and then, with full knowlege of my age, they asked me if I would come on full time as their Technology Director. I do not discrimate against the older people in the company, so why should they me? So it really just depends on the people you work for and how your culture views humans, regardless of age, color, religion, etc..etc.. But as time goes on I think that people will begin to realize that a 12 year old could do the same quality of work as a 65 year old. > My two cents. Matt Spaid
I am pretty young and in general all my managers treat me the same wether or not they know my age (or after I tell them how old I am). I have had both younger 25-35 and older 40+ and I think it has more to do with the indivdual person you are dealing with and less about what age they are (although it seems younger people are more accepting).
I tried to apply several times as a computer service technician at a computer store, Micro Center. I began working as a Computer Service Technician when I was only 15 years old. But since I was only 15 years old, they doubted that I knew enough or had enough experience about computers to work there. They gave me a total of 4 tests before I was hired, one written and 3 oral. But what really made me mad was when I found out that all the other people only had to take 2 tests, one written and the other oral. Business, should realize that the computer industry has revolutionized the concept of relating experience with age, but instead should now corelate experience with knowledge.
-------- Felipe Preciado
Respect and knowledge are two different things. What they did to me was discrimination. Just because I'm younger doesn't mean that I have to do more work to get a job than tbose who are older.
-------- Felipe Preciado
I am still in highschool, a sophmore, and I find that the only people that respect me are myself and my friends. I don't see why, ive set up my own linux network, built my own pc, and have maintained it for quite some time. My family knows about my feats but i still never get the respect. I guess everyone is right, it all deals with age. The oldies(40+) always seem to over look me.... The only differnce between a child and an adult is the adult has more life experience. I heard that somewhere and think its true.
I disagree. I am the technical director at my firm (eCommerce application development) and I find it difficult to get respect from customers. Most are ok with my age, some find it amusing, but a few others have raised flags, not to me, but to my colleagues. They usually calm the customer with expressions of trust and anecdotes involving examples of my technical prowess. However, there are times that I find it rediculous. Older generations TEND to not handle change well. The younger generations TEND to handle change well. I have alwasy been told that "You are the future, you and your friends will be the ones running the world one day" Well when does that happen? When do those in power now relinquish not power but offer respect to those who choose to step up and meet these challenges with boldness and respect. Perhaps it is an uphill battle. I know I am greatful to those who have allowed me certain chances throughout my life and career. I hope to return the chance of experience to others even younger. Maturity and knowledge is a factor, not age.
I am 14 but no more than most adults i no the only people who realize this is other tech people that understand kids no the most I deal with disrespectful people by making them feel stupid when helping 2 solve someones problem use big words and make them feel dumb because you lost them with the first 2 words
Just try listening 2 the voices
thats bull they where just around before they needed 2 no anything i have found alott of people prefer working wit someone young who knows something than some old guy who nows nutin but no one wants 2 fire
Just try listening 2 the voices
I'm 19 and I previously worked for Sun Microsystems and now work for a pre-IPO company with major clients under its thumb such as IBM, Sun, Netscape, and more. I have more experience then a lot of other people with higher salaries but because of my age I get paid the minimum for my position. Companies just assume that due to me being so young they have a right to pay me less. I am a top performer so it isn't that I just assume my lower salary is due to my age. When I was first interviewing for jobs I got a lot of people saying "We are looking for someone more senior". I would ask them how they see me as junior and they would change the subject. I would bet money that they ended up hiring some older guy with one fifth the experience. When they see someone who is 19 they think "Probably took some community college courses and thinks he can get a job." What they don't realize is that I have been programming since I was 8. The person they hired probably didn't know how to use a mouse until he was in his twenties in college. Of course my skill was so obvious that I was able to get my foot into the industry regardless of my age but why should I have to swim against the current just because of my age? You want to know something... it has made me a very strong swimmer.. so watch out Mr. Suit and Tie, doogie howser of tech is going to steal your office.
In my oppinion it isn't your age that really counts, it's your personality. If you are taken serious depends on the quality of your comments. When you often give senseless, unnecessary comments, like most young people do, nobody will listen to you because nobody wants to tell between sensefull and senseless stuff. Just try to say less. Only give well reflected comments and people will believe that what you say is true.
I started working at age 15 in the IT unit of an engineering company where the average age was at least 45. I did everything from building/repairing PCs to designing and administering networks and web sites and they were pretty nice to me but called me "junior" and sometimes seemed to discount my opinions due to my age. Then I left for a small dotcom at 19 to do systems and web site admin, the average there was about 28-30. At the dotcom I was regarded as one of the great assests of the company because of how gifted I was for my age. I walked on water to those people. Too bad it went belly up less than three months later. Now I work for a securities firm doing systems admin work. While the average age has crept up to around 40 again, the people respect me and value my opinions because I have been able to show them that I can perform in line with older, similarly experienced people. What I have learned is this: You can be the greatest whatever in the world and have it be almost meaningless. Some places will see your age as a huge asset and some will see it as a disadvantage. The only thing you can do is try your hardest, kiss some ass, and wait your turn. While it absolutely sucks to have to wait, just imagine what it will offer you. At some point your age will become a non-issue. When that happens, your experience will be so comprehensive that you will stand as the best candidate for that promotion or management position and you'll be compensated extremely well for it. For now, be happy with your $40k to $80k and keep on learning how the game is played by watching your superiors.
Uh..I'm Eleven and Getting Unix next week. I guess I'm on the other, other side of the spectrum.
I started developing software professional when I was 14 and didn't start getting the respect that I deserved until I was 19 or so and started acting like a huge prick. Mind you, you have to throw you attitude around with the knowledge to back it up, but people start taking notice that you know what you're talking about a lot more quickly when you're loud and obnoxious. Then, once you've made your point and the respect is there, you can lay off a little. I'm 28 now, I own a company, and I'm worth about 47 million. Go figure.
thank you.
I have traditionally worked in environments where I was the youngest (ok that was 5 years ago). I find it's not really the age, but that young people with less business experience are not on the same page as their older counterparts, or managers. I used to think that I could show how technically able I am and that would earn me respect. However, it never did anything to help me gain a voice. Once I learned how to relate and effectively voice how my work would relate to the individual I was talking to, or the dept., or to the entire business I was viewed in a different light. Just my $0.02 Abdul
What, like the janitor?
Casca
There's another aspect to the "they think computer skills are all that matters" issue which is just as important as the other things you describe. The young writer "ageless" claims:
I've done so many different things, like filling bosses' requests to build an online app that does something complex in a short time
This is both wonderful and also sad: here's a person that knows how to do things but almost certainly doesn't know when not to do them. Caution, cynicism, wisdom and downright bloody-mindedness come with long-term experience, and a youngster with long-term experience is a rarity. Furthermore, young employees rarely have the guts and/or self-confidence to say 'NO' to requests from their employers, and that's the true test of being of value to society rather than being just a skilled techie.
I know that's not the answer that "ageless" was seeking (everyone thinks that they're experienced enough to be respected), but here's one way of possibly understanding the problem. Look at someone even younger than yourself and ask yourself the question, "Why is he less wise than me?"
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
Second oldest, kid. I'm 39. :o)
There are probably some folks in their sixties and even beyond who've been turned on to this site, I bet.
"How many light bulbs does it take to change a person?" --BMcC-->
What they actually wanted was someone with 10 or more years of Java experience who was 22 years old and not a big drain on the company in terms of insurance, paid vacation, et cetera, but as dependent on their job as a 45 year old with 3 sick kids, willing to work 80 hours a week for less than a 16 year old gets for 20 hours a week at a burger joint. They want them smart enough to do the job and stupid enough to stay there at the same pay until such time as the company wants to kick 'em to the curb and pretend that they never existed or made any sort of contribution to the company.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
I guess things *aren't* the same as when I was that age.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
Just tell them "old enough to have the knowledge, experience, and patience to solve your problem, and young enough to have the necessary stamina and enthusiasm".
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
The main reason for this is that minors are not able to enter into binding contracts. That is, they are not considered competent to understand that which they are agreeing to. So, if a store has a "No Returns" policy, and you buy something from them when you are under 18, they still have to take it back, because the law doesn't consider you able to make the purchase.
For this reason, many businesses won't do business with minors, for liability reasons. The law protects minors from their own ignorance.
This is not something that is easily solvable. "Oh, but I am compentent, so I should be allowed to make contracts." There is just no way to evaluate that in such a way that it can be encoded into law.
BTW, IANAL. :)
Jordan
--locust
It's not about not being girly - it's about not reminding them that you are a girl. There is a definite distinction.
I can wear a dress and have flowers in my office if I want to - but if I repeatedly say "you just don't trust me because i'm a girl" or "I can't do that because I'm on my period" then you are making them think about you as being a woman.
Equality is all about de-emphasizing gender, not the opposite.
-Alison
A "refactoring" that requires what Fowler would call "shotgun surgery" lies outside the scope of "normal" refactoring, and should be approached cautiously (and the benefits should be weighed carefully against the consequences.)
At my last job (aged 19-21), I was handy because I knew a lot and I knew how to track information down. I was also very vocal, and took for granted to consideration that I was a peer to my 30-50 year old coworkers.
:)
I was in a fairly small IT group at a University, about 80 employees. I worked six different assignments over two and a half years, for 6-7 dollars an hour, which was not bad considering the local economy.
The problem was, the respect of my peers was not reciprocated. My brashness, my no-nonsense, apolitical, vocal approach to things brought serious concerns about my maturity level from my peers and supervisors. It didn't matter worth a lick that I did the job, and I did it well. I wasn't playing the "game".
I learned a hard lesson when I checked my job references and found five of my six assignment supervisors gave me bad references, basically saying I was a smart-ass know-it-all who didn't know his place. I applied for three salaried jobs, and all turned me down, despite my resume qualifications. On a small campus, the references were easy to check. The problem was, they were right-- I was a smart-ass, and I really hadn't earned my place as their peer. It wasn't as easy as I had thought.
I salvaged my sixth supervisor as a good reference, got a few letters of rec. from co-workers, and moved out of state to my hometown. I put on a suit, practiced calming myself down a little bit, and did some interviews. I took a job that I've now had for three years, with a large corporation, for a very good salary considering my lack of a college degree. I work on a project of about 20 people, and am by far the youngest of the group. I enjoy what I do still, but not because of the technology; because of my rapport with my teammates and manager.
And I can honestly say that I think any one of them would give me a good reference if asked. They treat me (overtly and covertly, I find) with respect and with admiration-- again, not just because I do what I do and do it well, but because I present myself to them with a higher level of maturity than many "younger" employees.
What did it take to get that respect? Two years of making big mistakes; then having the humilty to accept the fact that I did *NOT* know everything, shut up, listen more, and be patient. Make "playing the game" of understanding office politics, and where you stand in other peoples' minds, a foreground process. The change I made in my presentation is what has given me a successful career thus far.
Maybe it will work for others too. YMMV.
SlashSigTheorem: Humorous, Political, Critical, Constructive- If you have a
At 29, I think I am the oldest slashdot reader.
-josh
At 17, I worked for NASA. Had to put up with it there but it was the best place for it.
At 18, I worked for a genetics company. Only my boss had the knowledge of how old I was and I looked older. First time I was treated as equal.
Now, I am 20 and when I speak I am heard because I proved myself. All you have to do is this:
Prove yourself before letting those who don't need to know for you to get hired how old you are. After they know how good you are, your age becomes an assett instead of a liability.
Dacels Jewelers can't be trusted.
I am 25 years old also, with 3 years of comp sci college and about 7 years of unix experience. close to 5 years of unix security. I am pulling down 80k a year as a sr unix admin. I am finding that companies are looking for people with real experience and some college background. I have turned down an IT management positon at 90k a year simply because I felt I didnt have enough life experience to be managing people 10-15 years old that I. Plus I like the tech stuff =) I have been treated like crap before, mostly because people were intimidated by what I knew. These people had been working with UNIX for 10-15 years but knew nothing about computer security, Apache, HTML, SMTP, TCP/IP, Perl,C etc.. They were dumb. The smart ones recognized my youth and understanding of newer technologies and wanted to learn from me. I learned from them more refined Solaris skills and they learned from me how to secure a server, setup a web server and start writing in HTML. I think it depends on what type of people you work with.
Microsoft aggravates my tourettes syndrome.
Kind of a no-brainer. Of course age doesn't necessarily indicate experience, but in the absense of other information, it's a reasonable heuristic for making a wild guess: the old stranger has seen more than the young stranger.
If this guy has built stuff for his boss, though, then presumably they've interacted enough that the boss should know better. Of course, maybe the boss does know better, and maybe the boss is right too. ;-)
---
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Dude,
Enjoy your time. Seriously. But make sure that you do not spend too much effort glorifying the fact that you are so young and so capable as it can come back in life and get you. Also make sure that you keep your skills up and spend some time enjoying life because at some point you will be in your 30's or 40's and most prople around you will be equally capable regardless of how old you are.
Lots of child prodigies experience some pretty profound depression when they hit their 20's or 30's with their first or second doctorate, and suddenly they are no longer unique because of their age. They are surrounded by folks at least as capable as they are and they now have to interact as equals with the "specialness" of youth no longer a factor.
I can remember in 1981, after grade school (I was 11) I would go over to the medical school where my parents worked and my function was to be the go-to guy for all of the computer problems encompassing mostly the Apple IIs and TRS-80s, but I also got some pretty cool play time on a couple of high end Wang's and HP's where I often could figure out problems the "owners" of the machines could not. It was awesome as all of these MDs and PhDs would go looking for me all over the place, but mostly either in the medical student lounge (they had PacMan and a couple of pool tables) or my folks lab and ask for my help. My Help! That was pretty cool. I enrolled in all sorts of advanced programs for kids that were available in schools, took programming languages in the fifth grade, went through high-school, and college, and then got out into the work force. It was not that rewarding and kinda uncomfortable being the youngest around so I decided to teach, and boy did that suck. I was teaching people not that much younger than myself (which was weird in its own right) and the pay was awful. Perhaps if I could have made as much money as the guy managing the burger and fry joint (literally) it would have been better.
So, I went back to school to get the doctorate and now I am surrounded by folks who are both younger and older than me and age simply does not matter. What matters is how good you are at solving problems, helping heal others and getting grants. Your ideas and how hard you work are the great equalizer and age simply does not factor in.
To sum it up, revel in your time, work hard, play hard, love your friends and family, and respect others. It all evens out in the end.
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
We've all probably seen some level of age discrimination, or at least, known people didn't take us seriously because of our age. And I'd bet most of us will do the same to someone else sometime later in life, even if we don't realize it. When I'm working with 4 other admins, all late-20's, early 30's, and there's the 18 year old intern as well... I'm sorry, he might be brilliant, but we will probably instinctively take his ideas with a grain of salt. I'm not advocating that.. I'm just saying that's what invariably ends up happening at some point. And through my own growth in this field, I've realized that although I used to THINK I knew everything, I sure didn't... don't think that people spend a decade in this business and get stupider as they go...
In my experience, it has been younger employees who think they know it all, and older ones who have the wisdow to know that they don't.
I may be a little jaded because I've just gone through the process of hiring some people, and I had to wade through a pile of resumes of kids who were just graduating from high-school asking for $100,000 salaries, 4 day work weeks, room in our rack to host their personal Linux machines, etc.
-- It only takes 20 minutes for a liberal to become a conservative thanks to our new outpatient surgical procedure!
Age does matter, I believe the saying goes "15 get's you 20.."
This is my signature. There are many signatures like it but this one is mine..
Maybe it's not your age. I thought I was pretty mature at 17. I look back now, 10 years later, and realize I had a lot of growing up left to do. Being respected at work (or anywhere) isn't _just_ about technical expertise, it's also about your personality, maturity, people-skills, and tons of other hard-to-measure qualities.
BTW, when you get to college, take an English class. Keep your posting, reread it when you understand grammar a little better, and ask again why you were being treated differently.
[Sorry, that was harsh.]
Not representing or approved by my company or anybody else.
The reason for a lot of things having a limit of 18 has more to do with the law than anything - a minor (anyone under 18) cannot legally be bound by a contract.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
We need qualified C++ programmers at our work. We couldn't give a stuff if they're black, pink, green, male, asexual, raving queens, chinese, swedish, whatever - we just need people who can program. No we don't have any female C++ programmers (except the one), but only because they're so damn hard to come by. Believe me if we knew of one we would hire her. We have one female programmer working for us but not doing C++ yet because shes still studying, so shes still learning. I know some female coders working for other companies, and they are no better or no worse than their male colleagues. Same with the female Comp Sci students I studied with. Not once in my 4 years at university did I see any of the female students being treated disrespectfully; most of them were fairly hard workers and did quite well. Naturally, there will be a few places where there is discrimination, but I'm prepared to bet that its a small minority of places, certainly not "alive and well", which implies that it is widespread. Of course, I don't live in Boston, I live in South Africa, maybe it is really widespread in america, but something tells me that its more likely you're exaggerating and/or your perception is distorted.
And it was pretty clear to me that Annie's view of comp. sci men is (and was already) very low, and appears to be based on some cliched movie stereotypes. The majority of tech workers I know are not "dirty" and "ugly" and "dateless" and "unbathed" and all those other stereotypes Annie threw around - they're just regular people, most of them with quite a wide variety of hobbies and other activities that have nothing to do with computers. Sounds to me like Annie had made up her mind even before she started working where she is that male tech workers were like that. Her view does not correlate at all with my experience of the "real world", sorry, and I know a *lot* of comp scientists and engineers. Less than 10% of the male programmers working at my work are "dateless", none of them are "sociopathic" or "unfortunate looking", NONE of them treat women badly, and I think I'm the only one who might be "occasionally unbathed" (if that means skipping a shower on average one day every two months.) I don't think Annie's problem is with the people around her, I think its a perception problem.
Despite this story's spiel to the contrary, experience is definitely proportional to age (well, given a linear offset).
.|` Clouds cross the black moonlight,
It's just that the constant of proportionality varies from person to person - you could call it "how fast you learn" which would be fairly accurate; the problems arise from applying the same constant to multiple people.
Sure, there are 20-yo sysadmins out & about, I don't doubt it. I'm not that much older, myself. But I do look back to the days when I first read O'Reilly `Essential Unix System Administration' and had some admiration for the old beardies, not arrogance, nor a rebellious feeling that the world owed me one, but rather an "I want to do something like that" with mucho respect.
First you have to experience what it's like to be unsubscribe@, webmaster@, root@, postmaster@, and to receive multitudinous "you wanker! you're going in ORBS, the DUL, the RBL, you asshole!" complaints, then you have the beginnings of experience. Then you get on with something constructive like building a VLAN between 4 sites, rolling firewalls, kernel and software updates across dozens of servers, and you're beginning to be in the right playground.
~Tim
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~Tim
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Rushing on down to the circle of the turn
Having done projects both for a company in the real world and collaboratively online, I can safely say I far prefer the latter. No-one really gives a toss about how you look or smell or sound - just as long as you can contribute.
If you can get that attitude to spill over into the office, you'll be much better off. Unfortunately we all still make the same old mistakes and judge books by their covers.
--- Hot Shot City is particularly good.
It's a sad fact that Age=Experience in a lot of people's eyes. All I can say to try to help is keep studying/going to school, and work HARD. Eventually, you'll become old enough where they'll start to see your skills and not your DOB.
Please, don't use this as an excuse to slack off though. That just gives others iny your age bracket a bad name as well. Just work hard, harder than the rest if you must, and eventually, you'll be respected.
I should note that I've NEVER had a problem getting interviews or jobs. But once I'm IN a job, and my age comes out, it is hard to advance. Most of my pay increases have come from changing jobs until the last year or two.
It's not necessarily how young you are, but how young you seem.
Get a good haircut, wear dockers and a good shirt, lose your sense of humor, never talk about cool music, and people will stop treating you like you're young.
Is it worth it? Not really.
Just focus on being professional and have confidence in your abilities (make sure you do have abilities though). Eventually, (around 23 to 25 in our industry), people will start respecting you.
You're learning more things, faster than when you were in school, and you're all full of energy. So you may think you know it all, and you may indeed know lots of things, but when things get tough, your age may betray you. An older person, who may not have the same up-to-date information that you do, may bring some perspective to a situation, through related experience. In other words, it's hard to have breadth of knowledge when you're young.
During my 6 months there I've noticed that most of the people working there are sitting on their cans, drawing a paycheck. If someone asks them to do something, they'll do it but they won't suggest things themselves because they know it will come back to haunt them. People that haven't been there much longer than myself are still learning this and has been very useful for their insight. I don't like sitting on my duff though. That's not me.
My age gets brought up very often as a reason for me not knowing what I'm doing and the person I'm talking knowing everything about what I'm doing. It feels very degrading. I can honestly say that I now know what minorities or women in the work force have to go through thanks to racism and sexism (not that I can compare to what some have gone through). This is ageism. Instead of being told I'm too old to learn something new or remember things from day to day I'm told I'm too young to understand how things work in the "real world" or "at this university". I can't even get keys to the wiring closets and cabinets to administer the devices I'm supposed to manage. I have to check out keys on an advance notice basis. I'm sure glad network outages can be predicted days in advance. I might as well be filling out carbon copy forms in triplicate (that will probably start next week). I'm really been tempted to respond to the next age-related remark in a meeting with a threat. A threat that simply states "if you make another age-based remark towards me, I'll haul your ass into court with a age discrimination suit". A threat, pure and simple. I have been _really_ tempted to do take that step. They may say something like "that's showing your age", which it may very well be, but it is a tempting step nonetheless. If anyone has any advice on this, I would personally love to hear it. E-mail me please. I've already had better job offers elsewhere. That bullheadedness steps in again and keeps me from quitting.
A co-worker of mine reads /. (so he's not that bad of a guy obviously...). I wonder if this post will get back to the powers-that-make-my-working-life-hell... If it does, oh well. I'm ready for a good fight.
--
Q: I'm having problems with my new computer.
A: Tell me what you're wearing...
Here's another thought for you. What if the job you're trying to gain respect in has no direct or immediate reflection on the business side of company you work for? What if you don't actually have to deal with the users?--someone else's phone rings when something breaks and they e-mail you. What then? For example, a netadmin in a institution large enough to have a dedicated tech support team that fields the calls. Sure he has to keep the network alive and secure and all that, but he doesn't have to have great people skills. CowboyNeal could do that. These two simple scenarios demonstrate that age is not directly correlated with skills or the respect you deserve.
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PS==> Don't look at my grammar. I was in a hurry over lunch. :)
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Just to reference what has been said a number of times already... age and experience does matter in multiple ways, in terms of overall knowledge, social skills, and cockiness. Age does not equal experience, but generally age does determine where you are on the pecking order anyway.
That said: I think a lot of people are going the "young people aren't mature" route in answering the question, and that sucks a lot. (which should reveal my age right there... I'm 21)
It's true that younger people are more likely to make mistakes in the business world that can be resolved by maturity. But I see two problems with dismissing younger people like that. First of all, younger people are doing just as much work as older people in the same jobs, and if anything, they need more attention, training, and understanding. The idea of older people saying "Hah, you don't know better, you're young, wait another 15 years to get respect" is immaturity on the part of older people. Second, if you hire or work with younger people, and you're going to make them feel disrespected, unappreciated, and powerless, then why the hell do you even bother? Just go about your prejudiced ways and work with or hire only older people, if you can help it; they're the only ones you'll ultimately get along with.
Young people have the same problems with dealing with the older crowd, too. This is the reverse situation of something I've seen complained about a LOT on Slashdot before... that is, older people get no respect because younger people are more knowledgeable about newer technology, and the workplace strives to put them out to pasture. It's more of a problem that way, though, because younger people could actually use the maturity and experience of the older people in some situations, but at least as an example of how to act and develop in the workplace. If you have sufficently intelligent older, more experienced people around, then chances are you won't miss the young people.
Age discrimination is terrible no matter what side it comes from. Respect and understanding go a long way in the workplace. EVERYONE could learn that lesson.
Close your tags...
Best Slashdot Co
In many companies, if you don't already have a lot of experience, it takes seniority to really get management to respect you (or even consider you important at all). Remember that management usually has no clue about who does what (exactly) or who is more experienced or skilled that someone else. They cannot measure the skill level needed or used in a particular project, and usually rely on peer review and/or if your project works, and if it was on time. All that takes time to gain a reputation.
So while your peers may know you're good, management won't. After all, do you know any (real) technical people who want to be in management?
Not with my employer; I've been lucky enough to have had employers that respected my abilities (and compensated me accordingly).
But, when I was younger, my age was an issue of constant contest. It seemed everywhere I went I was restricted in what I could do. Opening a checking account? Sorry, under 18. Trying to sell an item on ebay? Sorry, ebay users must be over 18. Trying to buy something online? Sorry, we only take credit cards and you can't get one. I couldn't even manage my own stocks! And when I did get my driver's license, I had to have a paren't signature.
I was fortunate to have had a parent who would assist me in these endeavours; My dad would let me use his card and I would reimburse him. But the feeling of having to check with someone else for simple purchases really felt like being a second-class citizen.
I realize that the purpose behind these restrictions is the idea that the older one gets, the more mature one gets. But the assumption is flawed; It may be that as one gets older one gets more mature, but as a 14-year-old, I knew of many people in their 30s or 40s where were much more childish and less responsible than I.
Age discrimination is illegal, but only if the discriminee is over 40. It's actually legal to descriminate between a 20-year-old and a 30-year-old, and in some cases it's required.
Many people say that the reason we use age as a measure of maturity and responsibility (e.g. for finances, drinking, driving, fishing, etc.) is that there is no more readily availible tool. And although I feel the sentiment is correct it's not clear to me why no one seems to be making any effort to try.
This is why I find the Internet so wonderful. The anonymity means that you are judged by skill (which I hold more important than even experience), not by age, race, gender, etc. True, most jobs aren't conducted over the Internet so it's not a good solution to the problem in the workplace, but when a brilliant young person hides behind the Internet and is later exposed as a competent teen (or any minority), it should help to dispel stereotypes. In answer to your question, yes. I've experienced the same problem, though I haven't had much of the normal workplace environment. It's a problem, but it is getting better, at least in the world of technology.
I may be young, but I know how to post and not look like a jackass.
momo.
//Phizzy
"Most European technology just isn't worth our stealing," -- Former CIA chief James Woolsey, referring to Echelon
From my experience working as an assistant janitor while in college, I can say that janitors have an amazing amount of power and they should be given the upmost respect. The same can be said for security gaurds and anyone else with keys to every door in the building. They may not be the ones who sign your paychecks or get you your next promotion, but there is a lot to be said for being friends with the right people when you need help.
_____________
I don't want free as in beer. I just want free beer.
Well I can attest to being overlooked even though I'm almost twenty-four, but the people I have to convince are all around forty. I easily have more years of IT background then all of them combined. It all boils down to the "old boys club" that has been around for a long time. If you aren't an older guy with business experience you'll have trouble getting in and being listened to.
Is it age that matters?
;-)
Having been exactly where the poser of the question stands, I sympathize with the frustration of not being listened to due to being too "young".
From the perspective of where I sit now, I don't see it quite the same way. I think it is more a matter of a perceived difference in values and perspective which can be described as "age". If you want your boss to listen to you, listen to your boss. If your boss dresses nicely, dress nicely too. It really boils down to "marketing" yourself to your coworkers and employer. Let them know that what is important to them is important to you as well. Let them know that what is of value to them is of value to you as well.
Also, facial hair does not hurt for the XY's out there.
By doing the above, you are showing them that you are the "same" as they are, instead of being "different". When you are the "same", you give them an excuse to listen to you, instead of having your being "different" being an excuse for them to not listen.
Just my two cents worth
And to look at this from another point of view, my brother just got his MCSE certifications, and was interviewing for a couple of jobs. In one tech support position, his supervisor would have been an older, more experienced, but snarly and un-user-friendly tech whose MCSE wasn't up to date.
The HR people doing the hiring, pretty much told my brother that because his boss had essentially the same qualifications but was older and had more work experience, there'd be little room for advancement, even though my brother had a better "bed-side manner" for giving tech support. Plus, the HR people hinted that his boss would probably resent him for being younger and having similar credentials (other than the experience).
I don't know if the HR people had some ulterior motive for presenting the situation this way, but perhaps they are trying to combat age-centric problems before they arise.
Given that the average Slashdot reader is about 16-25 and firmly convinced that they are God's Gift to Computing (tm), the vast majority of replies to this topic will be along the lines of, "Yeah, man. Like I'm all 1337 and stuff and they still don't listen to me! Bunch of stinkin' geezers. Life sucks!"
I always give age at least a tiny benefit of the doubt, because I am just beginning to be old enough (mid 30's) to realize how stupid I was in my teens and 20's. Now, that benefit may fall rapidly once the individual in question speaks, but that is another issue. And anyone who has any decent amount of life experience knows that some things can only be learned over very long periods of time. Patience, judgement, wisdom, character are all functions of time. Admittedly, the time component varies among individuals, but it is still there.
Oh and everything is relative. Given roughly equivalent technical skills, I will always listen to the more experienced (usually older) person when asking for things like judgement calls, especially in long-view matters like maintainability or supportability. Note all the assumptions in the previous sentence and you get what I mean...
Sure, if you play basketball the best, you will be noticed. But I have never seen this in mental athletics. I've never had a boss who noticed that my code was bug-free and on-time. But I have had a boss who remembered my code was late when it wasn't! He also remembered his friend's code was on time when it wasn't. Hence, the beginning of a nespotism as it always was and always will be. (And this boss was my age.)
I am now 33 years old and have also worked for people younger than me. I recieved the same treatment so it wasn't about being older. My conclusion is that older people "are respected more" because they tend to find ways to the top outside of merit, then reap the reward of being at the top. It's a shallow respect but get used to it. A younger person who gets there faster is no more inclinded to respect you because of his young age. It has nothing to do with age directly. Eventually you will gain promotions by changing companies or lucking out. Then you too can have false respect. (-:
As others have mentioned, age does matter. I'm still fairly young (32), but I understand that. It took me a long time to understand why.
I started programming when I was 10, like many of you. I started working in the field when I was 19 and by the age of 20, I was even consulting.
I'm a pretty good programmer and always have been. But business is something else altogether. I've had managers who are idiots and I've had managers who really knew their stuff. But one thing they all understood better than me was business.
I've recently moved into management. I'm the director of development for a software company. I got there by watching my managers and learning what worked and what didn't. I learned the skills that made them good managers and stood by quietly as people who were older, and probably more mature than I, got promoted above me.
While they were more mature and better at, say managing their time, and managing money, most didn't really understand how to manage people. That's was hard for me to understand when they were working for someone who did it so well. Surely they should have taken his/her as an example of how to manage.
What it comes down to though, is that it takes time and it takes experience and it takes maturity before people start to respect you in the business world.
I was lucky and took advantage of my skills early. I wrote articles in my field, I wrote a book in my field. I worked for some top notch people and I learned a lot. But in the end, it took maturity to get me where I am today.
One person wrote: You'll understnad when you get older. It was moderated as funny, but it's actually pretty true. I look back on my early days as a programmer, and I WAS brash. I DID think I was smarter than my managers. I DID feel under-appreciated.
That's life. Few people in school, or right out of school, really have the maturity to be respected when it comes to business. I don't mean that as an insult, it's simply a fact.
I have one programmer right out of school working under me. She's really smart and she works her butt off. She has my respect for that, but when it comes to management and business decisions, I give more weight to the older people who have more experience. In fact, one guy working under me is a year or so older than me, and I have to admit, a good deal more mature than I am. I value his opinion on almost every aspect of what our company does. In fact, I will usually defer to his judgement rather than my initial decision because he has earned that respect.
But that's just my opinion.
Pete Davis
Generally speaking, the most effective people I've encountered in any working environment are those who not only can tackle the technical aspects of the job at hand, but can also assess and deal with the human issues.
For example, as a young lieutenant in the Army, I figured I was a pretty good leader. I was young, highly trained, and smart. But now that I've been out of the Army for a few years and working in the civilian world, I've come to realize that although I did know a lot and was highly skilled, my leadership abilities are still evolving and (hopefully) getting better.
The same thing goes for my project management abilities and technical skills.
I'm in my early 30s now, and I view experience differently than I used to. Sometimes what seems like thickheadedness is actually caution born of hard-won experience. I think it's human nature to become more cautious over the years, and that translates to a lack of willingness to trust less experienced folks with important projects.
Mind you, that doesn't mean that younger people are necessarily less experienced. The human brain works by association, though, and youth is usually associated with lack of experience.
Here's how I dealt with it when I was but a young lad. Whenever I was working with someone older and and potentially biased, I watched them for a bit to discern their communication habits and how they made decisions. Does this guy decide based on facts, or on emotion? Is she concerned primarily with cost, or with performance?
Then I would buttress whatever arguments I was going to make with irrefutable facts. Find sources of information in the trade press, on Slashdot, wherever. Wherever possible, present three articles or bits of information to buttress your claims. Document everything!
. Thoroughness is not ordinarily an attribute of youth (again, a generality, but one born of observation). When you're thorough, you are presenting yourself as a professional, not just a kid with an idea.
As a matter of fact, that approach works well no matter how old you are.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
Where I work we employ about 16 people, most of whom are under 21 years old. They are all computer techs of some kind. While we have no problem listening to what they have to say, and their work is fine, the one issue that we have observed is a distinct lack maturity, a sense of responsibility (to one's self as well as the business), and the wisdom that comes with real business experience. While the youthful energy is a great thing to have in our office, it gets frustrating at times having to deal with so many people who in so many ways haven't grown up yet (hell, they haven't even moved out of their parents' houses yet) and just don't know what the 'real world' is like, or how to operate in it effectively.
Now, don't get me wrong, I think it sucks big time when the old folks don't listen to the young for no reason other than a prejudgement on the youth. But there may be good reasons sometimes to take what is said and analyze it without simply accepting it. I feel this should be done in a constructive way with constructive feedback given to the young individual, so growth and learning can be facilitated. I think that there are a lot of people though who would rather ignore or blow off the young opinions and thoughts instead of work with them and glean value from them. Unfortunate.
I think the only way around it, for the young people, is to demonstrate that which is being said. Actions speak way louder than words, especially in business, where words are disposable and not trusted.
Learn how a CPU works before you learn to program. Seriously.
Homer: Let's see.... I'm a white male, aged 22 to 35 -- everyone listens to me.
Or words similar. Somebody help me out please.
To-do List: Receive telemarketing call during a tornado warning. Check.
You know, when I was 27 or 28, I was a Squad Leader in the Army. I had some experience under my belt, and the "technical" knowledge to get in to that position in the first place...
One of my subordinates was 38 years old, a little too old (physically) for the young man's game. BUT, he had a lot of military experience, and 10 more years than I of LIFE experience. I was fortunate (and wise) enough to understand that, and I sought his advice when I felt it necessary.
I'm glad I treated him the way that I did...
We both gained something from that.
It's not about age. It's about how many girls you've banged on your way up there.
Which is why so many sysadmins get funny looks even from their parents.
Have you read fuckedcompany.com lately?
Obviously not if you think tomorrow's computer "professionals" are in their teens. I suspect "teens" are the first ones laid off or the first ones to fuck their company. FC.com will attest to that.
I mean, come on: a teenager is a teenager. And a whiny, snivelling 23 year old with 6 months of "professional" experience is still a whiny, snivelly 23 year old, experience or no.
Don't fall into the "Hey, man, I'm 17 but I know whereof I speak." trap. You don't know whereof you speak if you're 17. It's just the facts. "Experience" is more than just on-the-job experience. It means maturity, awareness, and -- get this! -- wisdom.
Wisdom don't come at age 18. Wisdom barely comes at age 28 or 38 or 48. Some are wiser than others. But just because you've compiled your kernel a few times and fielded tech support calls from a couple of disgruntled users doesn't make you "wise".
Those are wise words, which I didn't know when I was younger. In fact, when I'm trying to make a pitch for something or another (work related), and it's going nowhere, I often times say exactly that. In the long run, I think it helps build respect to have good intentions, but to back off when it's somebody else's (seemingly wrong) choice.
The other thing I try to keep in mind (not always successfully), is the question: "is this decision something technical, where my input is an expert opinion?" Most decisions involve many factors, and the choice which is clearly superior in a technical sense often times has non-technical (sometimes political) drawbacks that are of overriding importance compared to the relative difference between the technical factors. It's easy to lose sight of non-technical factors in a decision, regardless of one's age. I do it all the time, though I think I'm getting a bit better as I'm getting older.
PJRC: Electronic Projects, 8051 Microcontroller Tools
The consistent mistake that I see young people making is that refusal to let go of idealism.
Idealism plays an important, but limited, role in a production computing environment, and the wisdom given by experience is knowing where to draw the lines. In this Internet age, uptime is king. Slowness is bearable for brief periods, but "Cannot find server or DNS Error" is not. Young people don't always understand that if uptime requires them to stand on a rickety ladder holding in a Cat5 whose plastic retainer clip popped off, then that's what they've got to do.
Older people realize that they need to tie the young guys to the ladder to accomplish that.
-Nev
One of my favorite stories a few years ago (about 4 years after Java enters the marketspace), classified ad reads, "Wanted: Software Engineer with 10 years Java experience." I may be over sensitive, but that wasn't really a request for experience it was a request for an applicant that was at least 30 years old.
I've found, particularly on the East Coast, many ads are structured like this: X years of post-college work == applicant that is at least 22 + X years old. In the few interviews I've taken part in out here, there have been very little attempt to actually judge technical proficiency (through technical questions, quizes, or whatever where a younger person might actually prove their skills with only X - 2 years of experience). Age and the presence/absence of a degree seems to be the only determining factors out here.
I'm getting past the age where this affects me personally, but I still remember how frustrating it was trying to just get a foot in the door.
Waltz, nymph, for quick jigs vex Bud.
Of course, that could just be spin coming from the 30 year old CEO's of the 90's, who now have grey hair.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
I'd wager a guess that most of us who read Slashdot have experienced this at some point in our lives. I experienced it at my first few jobs. I distinctly remember one of the employees who had a major problem with suggestions I made for improving our tech support desk because a) I was young, and b) I was a summer intern. I think he also felt a bit threatened since I knew more about the systems we were supporting than he did, and he'd been there 5 years. I was lucky, though, since my boss had no such hang-ups and loved the work I did.
I think it has alot to do with fear. They (ie older folks at work) see people 1/2 their age who know alot more about modern systems and programming than they do. Granted, some young folks have this ridiculous ego that can also get them into trouble.
Of course some of them want to say: "Respect your elders." I say: HAH. Respect ability, respect experience, respect knowledge... but respect age?!? NEVER!
Portable versions of Firefox, GIMP, LibreOffice, etc
This belief is faulty, however, when you consider that tomorrow's computer professionals start gaining experience in their teens, not in their twenties or thirties.
You know, the posting discusses this like it's a new thing.
I was born March 23, 1974. I got my first computer - a Texas Instruments TI-99/4A for my birthday, March 23, 1984.
I was programming in assembly language by the time I got a used PEB and disk controller for the system on March 23, 1986.
And, within a couple of months of when I got a modem with birthday money on March 23, 1988, I was on ARPANET through a local university's agreement with my computer user's group.
Yup, I was on the 'Net 5 years before Yahoo.
I remember looking, with scorn and derision, as CPU chips began to sport first heatsinks and then cooling fans, then a grudging admiration for what they could do despite being saddled down with DOS 5.0, while my aging TI basically served as a dumb terminal to Sun box on the other end of a 1200 baud modem, as the first versions of Mosaic came out and my e-mail address gained a new and bizarre form. Dot-eee-dee-yew? Dot-com? Dot-net?
And I'm only 26.
[grinning wanly] If only I'd been smart enough to see the economic potential of it back then.
Heh. Not that it would have mattered. It would have been pretty tough to build any sort of presence with a TI-99/4A and an advertising budget derived from paper route.
Almost 17 years. Heh. I still have that TI-99/4A. And, though it's been a couple of years since I last fired it up, I'm pretty sure that I could still play a good game of Parsec on it. Or dial up a BBS. Or log into a shell on my Linux box.
Has it really been that long?
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
Quit fuckin' whinin'.... Life sucks, you can't become president until you're 35 and noone is going to take you serious because you're a whiny, snot-nosed kid that thinks the world owes him something. Fact is, you don't know anything about life so here's a tip..... there's gonna be a lot of things comin' down the pike in your, as-yet-short life, that are gonna suck worse... deal with it
If you do what you always did, you get what you always got.
the technical competence is not in question, what's being questioned is the maturity involved in a technical decision.
"Let's switch to *BSD servers tomorrow!" might be a great decision technology-wise, but the guy who's been around the block more knows to ask other questions, like "OK, that being the case, if Mike gets hit by a truck tomorrow, how fast can we get another FreeBSD guy vs another Microsoft NT admin? How do we figure out whether a consultant claiming to know FreeBSD actually has a clue? There's no certification path, there's no paper to back this up, nothing. How much is it going to cost with respect to TCO rather than just the cost of buying the software?"
I learned eventually that sometimes the value of a statement isn't made just on its TECHNICAL merits alone.
--- Jump!! Fire!! Bullet time!! - Lego version of the Matrix
A big component is self marketing, but you have to listen to your market first. Look at those SuperBowl ads, where you can judge pretty quickly which companies spent too much on advertising and not enough on market research.
In my experience, the younger crowd is too prone to believing in an idealist One Right Way. This is mainly from those that come from a strong community background (Linux users), or are just out of school (having been taught the One Right Way). They often don't understand or appreciate the compromises of business.
Of course, as you get older, you stick with what worked in the past, and often believe in a conservative One Right Way. It is the interaction of new ideas with old, with mutual respect, that generates progress. Respect often follows from understanding, which follows from humility and learning.
It's inappropriate to even ask in a business situation, and if someone does, just smile and change the subject.
If you're being treated as inferior because of your lack of experience, or immature behavior, that's something entirely different. But age, well, I know enough people who are 30 and look 18, or have grey hair at 21, to not even try to assume.
I've found that I rarely have this problem when I'm working in technical environments with other technically astute people. After a few weeks where they sort of feel you out and you prove that you're not a moron, they'll pretty much be willing to hear you out (although they'll still slag you down if there's room for disagreement--nerds can be harsh). And of course, the more technical accomplishments you show them, the higher you rise in their esteem over time.
But in a non-technical environment, I think it's very much the case of people equating age with experience. For example, right now I'm in a contract-to-hire position for an MIS Manager slot at a mid-sized real estate development company. Originally, they were planning on just hiring the position perm and full-time, but apparently they were a little nervous about me. I've only been here a couple of weeks, but already I've cleaned a lot of things up, improved performance and stability, and generally made life easier for the staff. But I'm not at all sure that they'll offer me the perm position, because I get the impression that they're looking for someone a little older who wears a tie. The pay is awesome and the job is interesting enough, but I find myself uncomfortable with the lack of emphasis on performance as a measuring stick. I'm coming out of dot-coms where you're pretty much taken for whoever you are as long as you can get the job done and I don't have much patience for the extraneous BS of corporate life. My normal reaction would be to say, screw 'em, and move on--but it's not so easy when $$$$ start popping up.
So I have some idea of where you're at. I guess that you (and I) have a couple of options. Here's what I'm planning on doing:
--Emphasize past performance that has been to the benefit of the company. If you've done things that have improved their bottom line, point them out and speak up. They're more likely to value your opinion if you have provided measurable value to the company.
--Point out that IT is not like accounting. This field evolves so rapidly that all any of us really have is a couple of years of experience. Sure, the rest is something to build on, and I wouldn't trade it in, but most of the technologies I work with day to day have only existed for a few years--remember the ads for Java programmers with 10 years of experience a year after the language was invented? Traditional yardsticks don't mean much in this environment.
--Let them hang themselves. Put things in writing. If you have an opinion that you stand behind that runs counter to what they think, put it in a memo and spread it around. If they ignore you and six months later pay for it, you and they both know that they should have listened to you. You don't have to rub their noses in it; just propose your own solution again--they'll get the message.
--Write it up. Don't just expect someone to listen to you because you talk. Give 'em a paper with citations, arguments, and examples. People in traditional businesses love that shit.
Good luck. If you give it a few months and it still doesn't work for you, look elsewhere; there are still places where what you think is more important than how you look.
No relation to Happy Monkey
There may be some truth to the notion that wisdom seems to increase with age, but age does NOT cause the increase in wisdom. Experiences do. Now, you may say how do you get experiences without age? Easy, life can cram them in sometimes. Personally, I've been through more in my life then most of my friends, and I have met people my age who make my own feeble experience seem all the smaller. Meanwhile, I have known people three times my age to have lived only half the life I have thus far. So really, age is only related to wisdom for those who do not actively seek wisdom out, and are content to merely let it happen.
-={(Astynax)}=-
-={(Astynax)}=-
"Darkness beyond Twilight"
I think, ultimately (barring, of course, the pathological case of outright prejudice), it comes down to whether or not you know WTF you're doing. If you do, and can demonstrate it, age matters not one whit. If you don't, trying to pass it off as ageism is a weak-assed copout, at best.
Of course, don't fake things. Nothing worse than fake interest/concern. Tough balance to achieve, but recognizing that other people have other concerns (What? You don't care that AMD is using non-standard caching? ;), and those are valid too, no matter how stupid ;)
A rec sports league is useful ... keeps you in shape, and co-workers tend to be less into playing politics in the field/arena/court. All of these take some conscious thought, but, then again, the subconscious cues that most people have is what we geeks tend to miss.
I started in the suited, corporate world ... put up with the tie, glad for the $$$, and went nuts in my own way after hours. Also got spectacular reviews, saved the company bundles ... blah blah blah ... which saved my ass not at all when they downsized, and the axe decision was made by one of the 'older' types.
Some people consider your personal life to be a reflection on their business. I consider that to be way over the line. But the comment about acting 10 years older than you are has worked for me. My programming skills have improved greatly, but, perhaps the most important point, at 16, most people don't have the social and political skills to thrive in the workplace. Computer geeks are notorious for poor interpersonal skills (while not applicable for all, it holds for many). Career advancement sorta requires those skills.
Jumping tracks, last place I was at had a real problem. Programmers were (almost) all sub-25, fresh from the local community college ... and generally worse programmers than I could believe. Management were all 45+. The total lack of respect both ways was stunning, even more scary because of the problems it was causing - management suits avoiding anything resembling 'coding' because, as one put it, "...That's what we hire you monkeys for." Programmers learned it wasn't getting your code working, it was getting the minimum possible assigned to you, and then getting it done before the deadline. Respect? Absent. Completely f$cked project? You bet. Programmer turnover was obscene (30-40%). Management kept hiring young people (lower salary). I fit right in the middle, age wise, and felt way out of place in such a polarized environment
The other bit of info missing is knowledge of the biz. Programming is all well and good, but it's rarely the whole job. Trying to understand some MBA who failed high school math is a learned skill. Trying to translate a specification written by an actuary into code changes is a learned skill.
I'm envious if your position doesn't require anything but computer skills, but such positions are rare. And hey, picking up new skills is vital - make office socialization/politics one of them!
Some important attributes simply require experience and maturity to develop, no matter how brilliant or skilled you may be. Like it or not, "soft" criteria such as good judgment and people skills are important elements of business success. And the respect you get at work will be based on all of you -- not just the technical bits.
I'll admit that I'm an old fart (43) but I spent a long time being the youngest of my work peers. And, looking back, most of my progression has come not because my technical skills got better but because my soft skills did.
I have to wonder though. The pasty looking kids that are being reared in air conditioned homes and eating their Big Macs don't impress me. There seems to be an atmosphere of weakness and selfishness around todays slacker kids.
I am one of Thatchers children, and in my day we were keen, fit and angry. We were out to change the world, not to get a good pension scheme. We took the difficulties leveled at us with spirit and character.
Todays generation must do the same. I never thought ten years would make such a difference.
KTB:Lover, Poet, Artiste, Aesthete, Programmer.
KTB:Lover, Poet, Artiste, Aesthete, Programmer.
There is no
My eventual solution was to leave that job and move to a company that respected my experience (and by that point I was about the age of a young-ish college grad and the company I worked for was full of young people at all levels). My point is that I got tons of experience as a young 'un and that, while you may have to put up with some crap because of your age, you're getting huge amounts of knowledge about techie stuff and "real world" stuff like human interactions that many people who chose to just go to college will lack. And that will pay off in respect given to you by your co-workers.
My brother (27, I'm 24) got me this book for my last birthday after listening to me whine about the same problems over and over. It's The 48 Laws of Power - beautifully written and a bit like an O'Reilly book for politics (hmm... there's an idea - "Politics in a Nutshell" :)
/. forces us to preview these posts, repeat in your head the thing you are about to say, just in case ;)
It seems to come down to this. You're almost certainly more up to date with technology, but you have to kiss ass, like it or not. A good starting point for me is to always make it a multiple choice, where one answer was blatantly cheaper, quicker, and more fun for me.
Also, same as
Good luck!
This is not a sig
When you become seen as "too expensive" or "raising the groups health plan costs" or are married with kids and can't work 80 hours/week anymore. Then you get fired. Discriminiation works both ways.
This kind of respect doesn't come for free. We both had to claw our way up from the bottom of the heap, but it's certainly possible, when in the presence of intelligent and non-biased management to be evaluated based on your actual capabilities.
However, there is value in experience. Being so young, I still tend to de-value age and longevity, but I have noticed it makes a difference sometimes. Even though age doesn't seem to have much of a bearing on one's programming abilities, the longer you've worked in the industry, the less naive you become, and the better you can predict the future, which is key in the business world.
When you're fresh from school, you tend to think that you can do huge amounts of work in a short time. Just because you can code 1000 lines of code a day, doesn't mean that a 10,000 line project will take 2 weeks (or even 2 months!) It's a sad but true fact that working in a business environment, and shipping product requires all sorts of nasty things like QA, documentation, maintainence, etc.. I used to look at statistics of the average engineer writing 10-20 lines of code a day as a sign that the world was populated by idiots. Now that I manage a group of engineers, I see exactly why that number is (roughly) correct. Coding really is the very last step in a 100-step process.
Now, that having been said, I've also been in an environment where my manager was so biased towards age that I never got any respect, even though I was contributing much more than my elders on the team. I left that company (Oracle) for this startup for that very reason.
In general, it comes down to who your manager is. Some people are open-minded about age, some people aren't. If you are such a hot-shot, go get another job (preferably for a small company) and find a manager who will trust you.
fairly new at the job and all hot and ready to go.
The HEIC (head engineer in charge) told me to run the test program with a specific command line format. I was 2nd shift, and a little later, when he was gone, I decided that it would be more efficient if I used a different syntax that could be entered more quickly.
My output went up and I felt 'oh-so-proud' of my ingenuity.
Until the HEIC asked me where his debug files had gone the next day. The program was setup to generate the files when the command was entered the way he had specified. The customer wanted those files, and now he had to explain that they were not created.
Was the program set up stupidly? Yes. Should the HEIC have informed me of why I needed to run the program in such a specific way? Maybe. It doesn't matter, though. It was my fault. I was told to do a job in a certain way, but being young and brash, I KNEW more than the old futz.
It's not until you get older that you realize how much you don't know. You spend a lot of time feeling regretful about all the 'smart' moves you made while younger.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
I find this to be somewhat true. I think the biggest thing is the maturity level and HOW you bring up ideas/changes. If you document everything clearly and lay it all out you'll get a good response. Being younger I think you have to do more work then somebody older but I think that's because they come accross as having more experience.
--
Free Mac Mini
Yeah, I've got the same problem. What's worse is I'm a girl, so regardless of my age, it's still been difficult to gain respect from my colleagues. I've only recently graduated so it's hard to be taken seriously, but I am slowly gaining respect. If your acheivements haven't showed them anything, maybe it's time to find a new job? Good luck buddy... ~star
Hehe. I'm 19 years old and am the head/only IT guy in the firm. I've been given a great amount of respect, in fact 3 weeks or so after I started work, I got a building keycard and keys to all the doors in our office. My boss respects my opinion and skill, and in fact enjoys the fact that someone around here knows more than he does so he can work on running the business instead of dealing with picky technical details.
I think it comes down to just being confident and proving you know what your doing with every action. From the moment I came in here, I told him plainly what I did and didn't know how to do and told him I was more than willing to learn the stuff I didn't know. I've made myself useful to the point where my company couldn't easily rid themselves of me. I've become a valuable asset.
I send you this message in order to have your advice.
It's been this way for a long time, and probably will continue to be this way in the future. No one likes to have someone younger than you show they're more knowledgable than you. You've spent a time in the work place and should know more about solving problems than some young kid. It won't matter what the ages involved are. It's the way society is. Best you can hope for is someone who isn't so egocentric. Khyron
It seems to me that this boils down to how old your boss is. If the people that are in charge are young (under 30), it seems that even teeneagers get the respect they deserve. I've work with ancient bosses and younger ones, and I've definatly gotten more respect from the younger ones.
Anyone who has gone from collge onto a job knows that in your first year at a good job you learn 10x what you did in college. We have interns in our office who range from age 16 through 23. It's amazing to see the differnt levels in professional maturity, as well as know-how that come with age. Age discrimination sucks. I absolutely hate to be ignored, especially when I know I'm right, but it comes with the territory.
If you want to escape it, find a company where the average age is as close to your own as possible.
tcd004 The Pentium 4 Revealed!
You can get the first kind of experience by working really hard. But to have first hand experience of how a software system you built evolves over ten years in the real world, you have to be there for ten years.
There are other kinds of experience that are difficult to accomplish simply through effort alone. The long-term coming and going of corporate strategies, new languages, platforms, etc. is hard to understand even if you were to become a computer historian.
Sometimes that kind of long-term experience doesn't help, sometimes it even gets in the way, and sometimes, it's vitally important. I suspect that when people don't listen to you, it's in areas where they consider that kind of experience important.
Remember, there's Age (a chronological measurement), there's Experience (a measure of time spent at at task), and there's Life (no proper metric exists).
Experience is sometimes more than "I've set up sendmail a jillion times!" Sometimes, it's more like "Our CFO hates sendmail. Rather than argue with him over the nits, I'll just install qmail."
Life is a great teacher, and life experience is very valuable. I've seen enough hot-shot teenagers who think they know everything turn into twenty-ish people who suddenly realize how little they know.
Potato chips are a by-yourself food.
When you're older, you'll understand why.
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Some things to remember when you think that you're being unfairly shot down:
- You do not get to decide what is an adequate use of your time. That's what your boss is for. Are you acutely aware of the fact that the client has already given the boss a budget, and that when you say it'll take you an extra week, that puts extra $$ into the budget that might not be there?
- Rarely does your time NOT affect other people, so consider what dependencies you are creating. If it'll take you an extra week to do it "the right way", can the people who are waiting for your code before starting theirs wait that long?
- Who needs to be trained in order for your solution to work? CAN those people be trained? I don't use JSP at work because I don't expect to train my HTML people in that syntax.
- Not everybody needs to know everything. When you're showing a demo to the boss's boss, do NOT say stuff like "This came out lousy, we could do it better if we had more [time,money]."
One of my favorite pieces of advice for headstrong young engineers who don't understand why sometimes the answer is "no". Imagine you have a brick, and you tie a piece of string to that brick. You want to get the brick moved a few feet to the left. If you yank on the string real hard, the brick won't move, and the string will break. But if you exert a smaller, but constant, force on the string, then the brick will move. Sure you won't get it there fast, but you'll get it there.www.HearMySoulSpeak.com
I'll bet that every one of the people who fails to take you or your opinions as seriously as you feel they should knows exactly how it feels because they went through exactly the same thing when they were your age. In fact, that's why some of them do it to you now; it's a rite of passage sort of thing, and they feel that if they had to go through it then you should too. Builds character, or something. I'm not saying that's right, but when you get right down to it that's what motivates a lot of their behavior.
I can also think of a few other reasons you might get these sorts of reactions. One is that here may be some issue with how you present your opinions. Like it or not, it is your responsibility to understand your audience and convey your views in a way that is convincing to them. In this sense it's not so much an age thing as a culture thing; an older person from "outside the culture" who didn't present things "the right way" would get the same reaction. Consider what happens when a sales guy or an exec walks into a room full of engineers.
Lastly, we come up against the fact that older people do have some advantages over younger ones. For example:
Despite all that, there's a lot to be said for fresh perspectives and youthful enthusiasm. Your ideas may seem flighty or unreasonable to some, but a wise man once said that because reasonable men don't try to change the world all progress depends on unreasonable men. My point here is that you can't expect them to subscribe to your idea of "merit" without some justification. Just as they have ways of doing technical things and won't change those without good reason, they have ways of doing social things and won't change those without good reason. Show them the reasons. Anticipate their objections, address their concerns, and show them in terms they will accept how things would work better if they were more accepting of ideas from "people like you".
BTW, I'm 35. I get flak from both the youngsters and the oldsters. It's like "no man's land" in the battle between generations.
Slashdot - News for Herds. Stuff that Splatters.
How exactly do you know it's because you are young? Garnering respect from your peers can be as much about how you conduct yourself as what you can do. Is it at all possible that you're just an arrogant jerk? Or on the flipside, that your demeanor doesn't show much self-confidence?
Anyhow, regardless of age, who at one point or another doesn't feel they are getting enough respect from the boss/co-workers/guy at Starbucks, etc.?
I don't know so much if its age or the communication styles that older people--relative term here--use. Young people, especially teens, tend to be agressive and absolutist in communication style. When you communicate this way with your peers in age its just the way you talk, but at least on subconscious level, most older folks tend to think you're just being young and reckless. The communication stlyes used by older, read established professionals in say their late thirties, is quieter and more inclusive. Arrgh... I hate these vague terms, but its like I know it when I hear it. Anyway, before you even communicate, take a look at what you want to say and try to find a way to say that comes off as humble and less cocky. Demonstrate in your arguement that you've thought through all the points, and avoid stating that you know what's best or 'what's best period'. Instead show the merits of your idea and consequences of the rivals. And, avoid challenging a person. I used to do this alot at work and it gained me something of a bad rep. Instead, come at the position in a way that gives ther person credit while pointing out problems with their position. Its a tough skill to learn, but it can save your butt as a young professional, and will allow you to forge alliances within your organization.
And that's another point: Young techies often have superb technical skills, superior skills at that, but seldom have little in they way of social skills. I cannot emphasize to everyone here that people skills are critical to your success as a professional. You may be right, or you have an inovative idea that will save the world, but it doesn't mean jack unless you can convince other people of that. And, having convinced other people of that, you still need allies who believe in you as a person to help move the idea along. A lot of geeks like to pretend that people skills don't matter and that its all technical prowess and experience. Hate to burst your bubble, but people have not changed all that much in the last fifty odd years that computers have been changing the world, and you still have to know how to deal with them.
Yep, seems he needs a few more years...
The bottom line is that age and experience do count. I could have been building Linux kernels from .1, but if it's my first day in a real job setting, then I should shut up and listen to what is going on around me. Business experience counts. Time on "real-world" projects counts. Overall years of experience in an industry count.
When I started my job, I quickly realized that I had a better handle on C++ than the others around me. Most were veterans, with 30+ years of assembler and Fortran under their belts. When I had to start learning Fortran and assembler from 30 year old machines, I began to wonder what it would look like in my language of choice. I could see much room for improvement in data structures, in code maintance, in comment style.
But I kept my mouth closed. I learned from my co-workers, I studied the code, I got to know machines that should be in a museum. When it got too much, I coded at home, using templates and exceptions to my heart's content.
I've been at it for two years, and I'm starting to get the respect. I can be trusted with a major project. I know the language, and how it's used. When I argue technology, I'm arguing at their level, not at the "gee-whiz, this stuff is so out-of-date" level. I don't call security holes "obvious". In other words, I don't insult those with more experience than me.
Go watch some Kung-Fu movies. They often have the young, brash fighter with natural talent, getting his ass kicked by an older man (or woman - go see Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon already!!!). Humility is a good lesson to learn, and if you can't be humble, at least fake it. If you are good, they will eventually accept you, and you will get respect.
Once you get respect, you just need to keep on your toes, so some young thug doesn't come along and get you...
Until then, growing facial hair makes you look a lot older.
I have worked in places where I thought I was being dismissed merely because of my age. And some of those times I probably was. But looking back, I can see that some of those times I definitely wasn't.
This is clearest now that I'm older (I'm 27). A coworker's teenager or just-out-of-school applicant will come out and say something so totally ridiculous that I almost can't help but laugh. From their expressions it's clear they think I'm dismissing them "just because they are young". But the reality is that they really don't understand and that real understanding will only come with time.
It may be that you are a coding (or admin-ing, or whatever) god. That doesn't mean you understand The Issues: user psychology, social norms, political balances, etc. Here's a perfect example:
From time to time, an email virus erupts on the Internet. Post after post says "if only everybody would turn off feature X". These people have an "immature understanding". It's just a simple fact that you can't get "everybody" to do ANYTHING. You can explain this to an immature (of whatever age, but often pre-20's) person but they will just stare at you blankly and then go on to explain why it would work "if only" everyone would...
If literally no one will listen to you, you should at least consider the possibility that it's because what you are saying isn't worth listening to. If, upon sincere and mature reflection, you still think your idea has merit, ask someone why they are rejecting it. And don't dismiss their answer just because they are old.
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MailOne
Non-meta-modded "Overrated" mods are killing Slashdot
(Hey Ryan! Here's your proof!)
In the meantime, pipe down junior and get me a frickin' coffee.
omega_rob
Even in the dotcom world, age does matter.
/.'ers are myopic, they think computer skills are all that matters, when in the real world, people skills, marketing skills, finance skills and networking (not LAN, people to people) skills are just as important, if not more. With just a little reflection, I can list tens of companies that have advanced, technically wonderful ideas that have failed or are failing, ie. Amiga, FreeBSD and even Apple, while companies that have less trendy technologies, but better marketing, are still beating the world, ie. Microsoft.
I think Salon just ran a piece where they were saying that 30 year old CEO's were out, and VC's are looking for a CEO's with grey hair. Perhaps it was reading business2.com on the exercycle that I read this, whatever.
Too many programmers and
So, even if your clueless, gray haired manager may not know Perl or PHP, they've been competing in the junglel of business for decades longer than you have, and no a few survival tricks that you don't. Learn from them, respect them and eventually replace them, but if you try to replace them too early, well, look up something called the Children's Crusade, or look up the history of NeXT.