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Ask Slashdot: Old Dogs vs. New Technology?
xTrashcat writes "I am 22 years of age and have been working in the IT field for over a year. I try to learn as much about technology as my cranium can handle; I even earned the nickname 'Google' because of the amount of time I spend attempting to pack my brain with new information. Being 22, it is, I speculate, needless to say that I am the youngest of my coworkers. If there is a piece of software, hardware, a technique, etc., I want to know everything about it. On the contrary, nearly all of my coworkers resent it and refuse to even acknowledge it, let alone learn about it. For example, we just started buying boxes from a different vendor that are licensed for Win7. A few months later, we decide that a computer lab was going to get an XP image instead of Win7. After several days worth of attempts, none of our XP images, even our base, would work, and it left everyone scratching their heads. We were on the verge of returning thousands of dollars worth of machines because they were 'defective.' I was not satisfied. I wanted to know why they weren't working instead of just simply returning them, so I jumped into the project. After almost 30 seconds of fishing around in BIOS, I noticed that UEFI was enabled. Switched it to legacy, and boom; problem solved. My coworkers grunted and moaned because they didn't have to do that before, and still to this day, they hate our new boxes. So in closing, I have three questions: What is the average age of your workplace? How easily do your coworkers accept and absorb new technology? Are most IT environments like this, where people refuse to learn anything about new technology they don't like, or did I just get stuck with a batch of stubborn case-screws?"
That will prove you are qualified.
Actually, they call you Google because we have to wade through a lot of garbage to get to the relevant data when you speak.
(That summary was 3 times as long as necessary.)
Just keep doing what you're doing. Your coworkers will appreciate all of the amazing talents you bring to their table. You'll be the toast of your workgroup and your team will celebrate your successes. That or you'll never be asked to come along to the after work beer.
As someone who has, many times, been told I was turned down for a position because I was "just too young," I can promise you that people under 65 enjoy no such protection.
FTR, I'm still under 30.
That means you lack experience, not that you're too young.
Now go refill this coffee. No cream, no sugar.
This space for rent.
I'd rather have you work for me... most people here are idiots. They don't give two shits about the work they do. I love my job. I'm also the boss and CEO though! GOD I hated the 2 month Internship I did at a company I liked. All because they were umm fucking idiots working there who couldn't get jack shit accomplished. The company is gone now.... and well... I'm doing what they should have done. We are the success and they well... failed.
Not only that, you would be amazed at how good a 3 month old can be as a sounding board. If you just show a little enthusiasm when you say it, they will listen to whatever technical challenges you have, giving you the outlet to hear your challenge out loud so that you can figure the problem out yourself. They never offer up bad advice, or lead you down the wrong technical path. Oh, and hand puppets help too!
Nah - he sounds like the 20-something MIS interns that we get... the running joke in the technical departments at my company is that if they lost access to Google they wouldn't know how to breathe, closely followed by the belief that if we cut off their Facebook access on the corporate network we'd get an immediate 50% drop in network traffic, followed by a brief spike in productivity until the withdrawal symptoms became too severe.
Old people tend to ask you (and not usually politely) where something is when they're actually standing right in front of it.
I worked retail in a bookstore. At the time of this story I was the bookbuyer for the store I worked for. I was out at the customer service desk looking up something in a source that was kept there. This took me about 15 minutes. While I was doing this a young man 16-18 was standing looking at the shelves next to the customer service desk. He appeared to be reading the spines of the books. The section he was looking at was the Science Fiction section. Since I love Science Fiction and am a voracious reader, when I was finished what I was working on, I asked him if I could help him find something. He asked me where the Science Fiction section was. I thought he was joking since he had just spent 5-10 minutes apparently reading the spines of the books in the Science Fiction section. He wasn't. He was just standing there pretending to read the spines until someone offered him assistance.
In short, age has nothing to do with it.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
Yes, but what was it you poured over the core dumps?
http://www.glasswings.com/
If you feed them they'll give you a core dump.
Dunning and Kruger rated themselves way too high.