Should Workplaces Be Re-Defined To Retain Older Tech Workers? (wired.com)

rgh02 submitted this article from Backchannel which argues companies "need to work harder and more persistently to attract, retain, and recognize talent" -- especially older talent: We "elders" know perfectly well that our workplaces are by and large not about us. We don't drive how roles, functions, advancement, and success are seen. Career development options and the hierarchical career ladders everyone is expected to climb are designed for the majority: younger workers. What can be done? There has to be a systems overhaul...
The article suggests restructuring workplaces with "individual contributor tracks" which reward people who don't go on to become managers, as well as things like paid mentoring positions and "phased retirement" programs that create part-time positions to allow a more gradual transition into retirement.

Comments

No

[Anonymous Coward]

Older workers should adapt with the times, not vice versa. That's the only way progress will be made.

AC because I have a feeling the downmod from some pissed off old geyser is coming...

Re:No

[Applehu Akbar]

Older workers should adapt with the times, not vice versa. That's the only way progress will be made.

AC because I have a feeling the downmod from some pissed off old geyser is coming...

This is what happens to an old geyser that was famous for years but is now past its prime:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

His kid Strokkur gets all the attention now.

Re:No

[Anonymous Coward]

Haha just wait until you're a graybeard. You're going to be eating your words someday, trust me.

Re:No

[ZecretZquirrel]

Eating them, and maybe even spelling a few correctly.

Re:No

[mikael]

Companies working on embedded systems for aircraft, cars and other road vehicles really care a lot about performance, especially when there are so many different CPU and GPU's on the market, all priced by the core, clock speed and pixel draw rate. If they can maintain interactivity while being able to use a cheaper CPU/GPU combo, they will.

Re:No

[Anonymous Coward]

The worst changes in the workplace that I have seen, is that companies have moved from offices and cubicles to giving everyone one or two meters of desk space sitting face to face and side to side of each other, all the while making sure all the curtain, blinds are kept closed.

If that's the way the shareholders want to take things, I'm outta here.

Re: No

[Anonymous Coward]

In games and vr, speed matters.

Re:No

[nospam007]

"AC because I have a feeling the downmod from some pissed off old geyser is coming..."

At least we old geezers know what a geyser is, you young whippersnapper obviously don't.

Re:No

[rholtzjr]

So NOT true. Where do you think all those handy-dandy tools that you currently use came from? You are trolling young man.

Re:No

[ShanghaiBill]

companies have moved from offices and cubicles to giving everyone one or two meters of desk space sitting face to face and side to side of each other

Can you cite any actual evidence that open offices are more prevalent today?

My experience has been the exact opposite. I worked as a programmer in a bullpen in the 1970s, a cubicle in the 1980s, and a real office ever since. Apple is famously moving in the wrong direction, but I don't think that is typical. I am aware of several companies that switched to quiet offices with walls.

Also, as an old geezer, I have never felt discriminated against, and I have never felt that my age or experience was a handicap. I am open to learning new skills, and often start using new tech before the younglings, but I love it when a 20-something learns about an elegant tool from a more civilized age.

Re:No

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

Older workers should adapt with the times, not vice versa.

Older workers are experienced enough to know that not all change is for the better.

Also, it's tough to make progress if you keep throwing out all the people who learned lessons already, and then spend the next generation of staff learning all the same lessons again.

Re:No

[PPH]

adapt with the times

Been there. Seen too many instances of Language Du Jour come and go. I don't want to split the office into the tabs vs spaces warring camps. I don't want to incorporate some state of the art 3D gaming graphics engine into our simple engineering app interface. And I don't need every inter-office communication in PowerPoint.

Re:No

[Pig Hogger]

Older workers should adapt with the times, not vice versa. That's the only way progress will be made.

As an old fart (look at my #), yes, old farts should adapt, but young squirts need to listen to old farts’ experience.

Re: No

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm old enough to remember the boomers parents and young enough to not stare at meat. I assure you the exact same things were prevalent when the boomers parents were their age, and after millennials outgrow their narcissistic years, they'll become the productive ones. And then they'll stare at meat.

By the way, they're staring at the deli because their wife told them to get semi-sharp cheddar but they only have mild and sharp, and their wife yelled at them last time they came home with the wrong cheese.

You don't have a wife, because you're a child, so it'll be a while before you understand things.

Re:No

[Anonymous Coward]

Also, it's tough to make progress if you keep throwing out all the people who learned lessons already, and then spend the next generation of staff learning all the same lessons again.

This is the exact kind of thing managers should be doing. They should be institutionalizing these lessons so that when a decision needs to be made, everyone has ready access to past similar decisions, how they went, and why. Too many times I've seen a new manager join a company only to repeat the past mistakes of previous managers because they ignored the advice of their best workers. Usually the next step is to throw someone under the bus.

There is a better way. That way is the kind of useful value manager types should bring. Sadly they seem more obsessed with scheduling useless redundant meetings that waste everyone's time (most could be replaced with an e-mail) and playing blame games. In too many companies things get done in spite of management not because of them.

Re: No

[Anonymous Coward]

The learning curve for a programmer goes like this:

Year 1 - I got it to compile!
Year 2 - I'm awesome. I'm the best programmer in the world. Old people just can't keep up.
Year 5 - If you were as smart as me, you'd be able to read my code just fine. I'm not the problem, you are.
Year 10 - Maintainability is the only thing that's important. Any idiot can make something that works. The hard thing is adding 7 new features in six weeks and having it still work.
Year 25 - I've been reviewing code written by infants for 15 years and I'm about ready to kill myself.

Productivity increases up to the point where you're senior enough to stop writing code and start managing and reviewing full time.

With the exception that at some point most programmers stumble into the Single Responsibility Principal, misunderstand it, and write unmaintainable Enterprise Spaghetti for the rest of their days.

Re:No

[Kjella]

Companies working on embedded systems for aircraft, cars and other road vehicles really care a lot about performance, especially when there are so many different CPU and GPU's on the market, all priced by the core, clock speed and pixel draw rate. If they can maintain interactivity while being able to use a cheaper CPU/GPU combo, they will.

Which is why they're going to completely lose out to Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, just like major phone brands crumbled and fell when the iPhone arrived. We all know it sucks, but after all you're buying the car first and the infotainment center second. My bet that in not so long their self-made junk is replaced by what's essentially an embedded smartphone for when you don't have one connected.

Re:No

[Applehu Akbar]

Actually, what prompted this rant is our asking for a Bingo table in the place at the office where the Foosball game went.

Re: No

[Applehu Akbar]

Right now I'm literally in Year 52 - How in hell can I get my IT customers to not lose their passwords?

Re:No

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

More often than not in this context, we're not talking about management issues but technical ones. The way you (successfully) institutionalize those lessons is by having people on your staff who have worked with technology for more than five minutes and seen the problems before, so that when they come up again, you can avoid the mistake and educate the less experienced staff about what you're doing and why.

So many times in the past few years, I've looked at failures, sometimes serious ones, in software projects and thought that the only way you could possibly wind up in that position is if your most experienced technical employee was a 26-year-old CTO who thought that moving fast and breaking stuff was a good idea...

Re: No

[Anonymous Coward]

The reason people think of Millenials that way is that they act like it. Everything today is about instant gratification and many (by no means all) Millenials want the fruits of labor without actually putting the labor into the equation.

Re: No

[Anonymous Coward]

You can't make people stop losing/forgetting passwords. The solution is to use overpriced tokens. Then at least when they do toss them away, you can get a cup of coffee in compensation.

Re:No

[Anonymous Coward]

Make sure the boomers you're so angry with have not wasted all their money raising children, sending them to college, etc. Yeah, you get lots more cash if you never have kids or make them stand on their own two feet after 18 (or do it outside of the US), but people thought that harsh.

If and when you decide to commit parenthood, remember all you said and thought on this subject and see whether they still hold.

Re: No

[Anonymous Coward]

I have worked 5 places in the last 10 years, and interviewed with dozens. All were open office hellholes filled with the sound of jabbering

Re:No

[Anonymous Coward]

Agreed.
Young hubris full of self confidence, with what been taught by some commercially non-functional professor, wants glory and self confidence.
However, while a new set of eyes can be good, and asking questions is the mother of all learning, asking the right questions is most important.
Technological designs are always based on a set of compromises of available resources at its inception, and those circumstances will change with time, for sure. Technological obsolescences are bound to happen. Few things are ever perfect and immune from future improvements.
Geezers may seem dispassionate about changing things, which may be laziness, or maybe for good reasons.
Challenging the status quo is not bad, be prepared with reasoning. Change can be good, marginal, or really bad.
A careful study and analysis of failed projects can also be most enlightening. For every successful project there are many more failed ones.
Human emotions are rarely a reliable gauge of merit of a project, these are not objective enough.
Too much executive power leads to to big errors in judgment.

Re: No

[Anonymous Coward]

Shut up. Every generation says the same crap about the next generation (accept for their own spawn who are somehow angels). No generation in America has done more to destroy this country than the Baby Boomers. They will be the first generation to leave this country in worse shape than it was when they inherited it.

Re:No

[ranton]

Older workers are experienced enough to know that not all change is for the better.

The older workers who are capable enough to know that not all change is for the better, and who are able to make that determination, are the ones who move up to either technical architect roles or into upper management. These workers are rarely if ever discriminated against because of their age since their capabilities are easily demonstrated and they likely have hundreds of past coworkers who would beg their company to hire them if they ever needed a job.

The other perhaps two thirds of workers never have their experience turn into the type of wisdom you refer to. They just get set in their ways, spend too much time in a niche role while the industry passes them by, and then never have the drive to catch up again. These are the older workers who complain about age discrimination, and end up transitioning into project or product managers or if they are lucky find a non-tech company with horrible IT hiring practices and stagnate there for a couple decades.

When I am interviewing older workers I am probably guilty of age discrimination because I expect to be more impressed by someone in their 40's than someone in their 20's. If I can determine they switched careers recently then this isn't a consideration, but otherwise if I am similarly impressed by a 25 and 45 year old candidate, the 25 year old is getting hired in a heart beat (unless the job requires management experience). I feel it is more likely the 25 year old is in the process of improving into a much better worker over the next few years than someone who hasn't done it in their last 20 years on the job.

That said I tend to prefer candidates in the 30-60 range since most of the time they do impress me more in interviews than 20 year olds. As you would probably expect because of their experience.

Re:No

[Teun]

I think you just described why a mix of old hands and new engineers gives the best result.
Following your junior method of just throwing more memory and CPU cycles at the task is not often the best solution.
Both hardware cost and customer satisfaction might run away...

Re: No

[Teun]

Very well said.

Re:No

[thinkwaitfast]

I've worked with old engineers who were still stuck in the mainframe mindset and totally unaware of the raw computing power of a generic garage assembled PC. OTOH, they had deep hardware experience for which they earned $5000/day consulting on problems that teams of younger engineers couldn't solve in a month - because they had already solved the same problem 30 years before. This is the black magic that made Intel what it is.

Old engineering joke:

Henry Ford once balked at paying $10,000 to General Electric for work done troubleshooting a generator, and asked for an itemized bill. The engineer who performed the work, Charles Steinmetz, sent this: "Making chalk mark on generator, $1. Knowing where to make mark, $9,999." Ford paid the bill.

Re: No

[Anonymous Coward]

And yet when you're in your late thirties you'll say the exact same thing. Because it's true. And it's only possible to understand in hindsight.

Brace yourself. Learning what an arrogant piece of garbage you were when you were younger is rough.

Re:No

[thinkwaitfast]

I've worked on many "embedded systems for aircraft..." and spacecraft. Performance has never been a concern (well, since the 1970's) and it's quite easy to stay below the 70% utilization requirements. Think flight simulator without the graphics.

Re: No

[Anonymous Coward]

I committed to parenthood. I had two kids: one lived up to expectations and some. The other did not and kept underperforming even after repeated warnings. In the end we had to "retire" him, not without pain, so we could concentrate resources on the performing offspring. Now we have a young daughter too, and from time to time we take her into the woods to visit the unmarked grave of her brother. It reminds her to never fail us. She's a good girl. She got the message.

Re: No

[J Story]

Hilarious answer (and too true).

Re:No

[Anonymous Coward]

They should be institutionalizing these lessons so that when a decision needs to be made, everyone has ready access to past similar decisions, how they went, and why.

Sounds good on paper, but how would you represent all this knowledge?
Everywhere I've worked we've had a wiki and it's always been difficult to find anything after. There's only so much you can write down and reuse - having actual people on hand who know better to help make decisions is far more efficient, in my view.

Re:No

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

There's only so much you can write down and reuse - having actual people on hand who know better to help make decisions is far more efficient, in my view.

This is the thing: If you could just distill all the value of a decade or three of good experience into a few pages on a Wiki then every new graduate in a tech field would already have that knowledge and wisdom, but that's not how it works. Training and guidance can help to accelerate someone's progress up the learning curve, but there comes a point where there is simply no substitute for having experienced, skilled, knowledgeable people doing the work.

Re:No

[Anonymous Coward]

You can help an old geyser buy using Viagra. It will work for hours.

Re: No

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

"you're too young to understand" is possibly the lamest, laziest response. It requires no effort from you and gives you an unwarranted feeling of superiority.

Perhaps you're just too young to understand. :-)

Re:No

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

I am open to learning new skills, and often start using new tech before the younglings, but I love it when a 20-something learns about an elegant tool from a more civilized age.

Interesting. I'd say the biggest difference between 20-year-old me and 30-year-old me was probably was that 20-year-old me wanted to learn All The Things, while 30-year-old me was a lot more choosey about where limited time was spent.

I find bleeding edge technologies interesting, but I only rarely spend much time on something that is still in its early adopter phase any more. Consequently, I often am a little behind the enthusiastic youngsters in adopting new tech.

However, if you look at how effectively I use the new skills and technologies that I do adopt, or the proportion of the new skills and technologies I adopt that remains useful in the long term rather than quickly becoming obsolete, older me does much, much better than younger me.

Re: No

[Anonymous Coward]

And every generation says what you said about the prior generation.

How has the "country" (I assume you are referring to the United States of America) been "destroyed" by Baby Boomers? I suppose Luddites might think so as it is true that technology created by the Baby Boom generation has replaced/is replacing laborious mindless tasks so employment is getting more difficult to find for those whose specialty is doing mindless tasks that require no thought, analysis, or judgement and that require very little training.

If you check your pocket, you will likely notice a device that allows you to access the internet (Baby Boomer alert!) via cellular networks (Baby Boomer alert!) and actually place phone calls (Baby Boomer Alert). If Baby Boomers had not advanced science and technology, you would only see these things in comic books.

Re:No

[mikael]

Embedded for automotive and other industries is moving towards real-time 3D graphics like Tom-Tom GPS route planners, instrumentation and other types of sensor fusion.

Re:No

[Maxo-Texas]

It's called the Dunningâ"Kruger effect.

Same reason every war since 1918 , Air Force generals think the war can be one with strategic bombing and no boots on the ground.

Re:No

[Anonymous Coward]

There's only so much you can write down and reuse - having actual people on hand who know better to help make decisions is far more efficient, in my view.

This is the thing: If you could just distill all the value of a decade or three of good experience into a few pages on a Wiki then every new graduate in a tech field would already have that knowledge and wisdom, but that's not how it works. Training and guidance can help to accelerate someone's progress up the learning curve, but there comes a point where there is simply no substitute for having experienced, skilled, knowledgeable people doing the work.

And some lessons simply aren't appreciated until learned the hard way. A person can be warned and warned but will not take it seriously until they too get burnt.

Re: No

[Ol Olsoc]

"you're too young to understand" is possibly the lamest, laziest response.

And fairly often, it is the kindest response.

Other times, it is just getting you out of the way.

It was a metric shitload of fun when I would demonstrate to the millennial just how much more I knew than they did. It was like the difference between me starting on original Photoshop, and them starting on Creative Cloud. Like it or not millennial, there is something to be said for experience, and us olde fartes had to prove our worth - we didn't get participation trophies.

Re: No

[Ol Olsoc]

Shut up. Every generation says the same crap about the next generation (accept for their own spawn who are somehow angels). No generation in America has done more to destroy this country than the Baby Boomers. They will be the first generation to leave this country in worse shape than it was when they inherited it.

Want cheese and breadsticks to go with that fine whine?

Re:No

[mspring]

Don't worry. Even you will eventually get there ;-)

Re: No

[Anonymous Coward]

You won't be paying for shit with a mouth like that. Someone is likely to come along and throw your ass off a cliff.

Re: No

[Anonymous Coward]

Old enough to understand it's just servitude. Who cares what the workplace is like? I like to have shelter and eat so I work around younger with stars in thier eyes, but usually just have their eyes closed.

Re:No

[dcw3]

Interesting. I'd say the biggest difference between 20-year-old me and 30-year-old me was probably was that 20-year-old me wanted to learn All The Things, while 30-year-old me was a lot more choosey about where limited time was spent.

And IMO, this is a good thing because it gives the 20-something exposure and lets them see what they're really interested in, and eventually the realization that they don't know what they don't know, and never will actually know it all.

Re:No

[dcw3]

You can help an old geyser buy using Viagra. It will work for hours.

But hopefully, not more than four hours.

Re:No

[dcw3]

Older workers should adapt with the times, not vice versa.

Older workers are experienced enough to know that not all change is for the better.

Also, it's tough to make progress if you keep throwing out all the people who learned lessons already, and then spend the next generation of staff learning all the same lessons again.

You can't stand on the shoulders of giants if you keep pushing them out the door.

Re:No

[dcw3]

Sounds good on paper, but how would you represent all this knowledge?

At our office, we're frequently required to capture "lessons learned". That's the good news. The bad news is that in the 35+ years I've been there, I don't recall anyone making use of those files. So yeah, we're damned to repeat our mistakes.

It's just like in mission critical systems, I frequently see single points of potential failure. How many times do we have to relearn these lessons?!?

Re: No

[zifn4b]

Shut up. Every generation says the same crap about the next generation (accept for their own spawn who are somehow angels). No generation in America has done more to destroy this country than the Baby Boomers. They will be the first generation to leave this country in worse shape than it was when they inherited it.

Want cheese and breadsticks to go with that fine whine?

In reality you're just an apologist for a narcissistic generation that never really got educated enough to be useful to society. Somehow they faked it until they made it and got into management and they are so incredibly delusional. Sure, there may be some that aren't in this category like the hippies that settled in Boulder, CO but unfortunately, the majority are this way. I went to a Beach Boys concert not that long ago and the amount of trash baby boomers left for the cleanup crew was amazing. I overhead talk about a Weird Al concert from the previous night and they said the trash was considerably less. Sorry, but a lot of the baby boomers are indeed short-sighted idiots that concocted schemes like mortgage backed securities with bad assets and what not. Disclaimer: I'm not a millennial

Re:No

[zifn4b]

Been there. Seen too many instances of Language Du Jour come and go. I don't want to split the office into the tabs vs spaces warring camps. I don't want to incorporate some state of the art 3D gaming graphics engine into our simple engineering app interface. And I don't need every inter-office communication in PowerPoint.

This, a thousand times, this. One of the problems is everyone wants to make their innovative mark on this field. All of those are for the most part used up unless you're in very specific incubators in Silicon Valley.

Re:No

[Anonymous Coward]

What a dick comment. I know people in their 60s and 70s that do not want to retire because a) they contribute to their work environment and b) they enjoy their work. Not everyone that is working in the 60s+ are doing because they cannot retire. Many do it because they do not want/need to retire. Just because you ache to be able to sit on your ass does not mean others do as well. If you are so skilled, then you should not have a problem competing. Obviously your mediocre skills have kept you were you are.

Re: No

[Anonymous Coward]

That's funny, I'm in year 11 of my career, and your year 10 statement is fairly accurate.

Re: No

[Ol Olsoc]

Shut up. Every generation says the same crap about the next generation (accept for their own spawn who are somehow angels). No generation in America has done more to destroy this country than the Baby Boomers. They will be the first generation to leave this country in worse shape than it was when they inherited it.

Want cheese and breadsticks to go with that fine whine?

In reality you're just an apologist for a narcissistic generation that never really got educated enough to be useful to society. Somehow they faked it until they made it and got into management and they are so incredibly delusional.

Well, the offer still stands

Re: No

[Stinky Cheese Man]

Every generation says the same crap about the next generation.

And every new generation says the same crap about their parents. We all do the best we can, and we all come up with imperfect solutions to the difficult problems of our generation. And thirty years from now, your kids will be saying the same thing about you.

Re: No

[zifn4b]

Well, the offer still stands

Declined. But you're first in line to go into the nursing home. Just think about who is going to be wiping your ass when you get there. Hope you enjoy that thought. When you whine about that let me know, I'll bring you some cheese if you even have any teeth left. Cheers!

Re: No

[Ol Olsoc]

Well, the offer still stands

Declined. But you're first in line to go into the nursing home. Just think about who is going to be wiping your ass when you get there. Hope you enjoy that thought. When you whine about that let me know, I'll bring you some cheese if you even have any teeth left. Cheers!

Negative. Unless I'm completely incapacitated by a stroke, and cannot perform the act, I'm exiting this world on my terms. So rejoice in my eventual demise.

Re:No

[Anonymous Coward]

...a 26-year-old CTO who thought that moving fast and breaking stuff was a good idea

I worked for someone exactly like that. He was trying to make me share that same viewpoint, but I'm a person who takes a little longer and gets it done right the first time. He was never happy with how fast things appeared to be moving. Status updates twice a day, constant interruptions for "quick" things which could be taken care of. Obviously had no clue about quality and about staying in the zone to get real work done. Anyway, thankfully I'm working for someone now who values my attention to detail and high quality work.

Re:No

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmm... wasn't that the bad guy in The Usual Suspects!?

Re:No

[Contract Gypsy]

Older workers should adapt with the times, not vice versa.

Older workers are experienced enough to know that not all change is for the better.

Also, it's tough to make progress if you keep throwing out all the people who learned lessons already, and then spend the next generation of staff learning all the same lessons again.

Back in the late 90's, employees right around 50 would be trained, lets say for a black belt. When they were done with training and returned to work, HR would call them in and explain to them that they are now overqualified for their current position and didn't have a position to put you in, sorry old chap, I'm sure you'll find a job elsewhere. This was the trick at Eaton. I was younger so I didn't fall into that trap. Then there are companies that will only bring you in as a Contractor with no chance in hell of going full time. As someone mentioned above "just make wiki page and store the old knowledge. Sorry, doesn't work that way, the teaching comes through on all levels when the ancient works with the fresh outs. Its about helping them adapt, to an extent, what is expected of them, tricks of the trade, and things like its easier to seek forgiveness than asking for approval. Some times it is just that simple, other times, it may take months to help them tweak their personality to fit in properly with the machine and figure out the life/work stuff. I'm mid 50s grey hair and beard, along with a cane. The folks I'm working with are fresh out of College, full of ideas, but not knowing how to apply them. In the end, it is a mutual learning opportunity for the greys and the young ones, even when it comes to things outside of work. Its a little difficult to start being a mentor to them at first, the main thing being that you are not there to judge them, and yes, ICs are made of smoke since once you let the smoke out they no longer work. I know, old guy, old jokes.

Re: No

[dcw3]

Right now I'm literally in Year 52 - How in hell can I get my IT customers to not lose their passwords?

By not making them 14+ random characters that they have to change every 90 days.

Re: No

[Applehu Akbar]

Of course, but that's not a policy that I control. I keep telling retired people who never take their computers out of the house to write down their passwords and keep them in a place they know. Still, there have been many occasions when I have to sit there waiting for the customer to thrash through every possible hiding place in the house for her list of passwords.

Re: No

[dcw3]

It was mostly an attempt at humor. That aside, be careful what you wish for...all of those calls are keeping you and other IT folks employed.

Re: No

[david_thornley]

Yup. Just like every other new generation. We like to remember ourselves like we are now, only younger, but that isn't the case. We used to be very much like the Millennials, back when we were the new generation.

Re: No

[Gr8Apes]

Well, the offer still stands

Declined. But you're first in line to go into the nursing home. Just think about who is going to be wiping your ass when you get there.

Likely a robot, designed by someone before millennials got their hands on it. (Don't need an anal appendectomy because wipe #3 was misprogrammed!)

Re:No

[Gr8Apes]

Unfortunately, the 20 somethings seem to have issues understanding they don't know everything, instead railing against "procedure" and "rules".

Re:No

[david_thornley]

There's one thing I'll tell you: the current system was not created by millennials. You need to blame its problems on earlier generations. (BTW, would you care to guess how many Boomers are tech-illiterate? I'd guess more than half.)

Re:No

[Talderas]

The other perhaps two thirds of workers never have their experience turn into the type of wisdom you refer to. They just get set in their ways, spend too much time in a niche role while the industry passes them by, and then never have the drive to catch up again. These are the older workers who complain about age discrimination, and end up transitioning into project or product managers or if they are lucky find a non-tech company with horrible IT hiring practices and stagnate there for a couple decades.

This isn't limited to tech. It's all ranges of employment. I've seen plenty of older individuals who are not managers constantly complain about every change saying the "Old way worked just fine." They fail to understand the problems inherent with the old way, typically scalability with regard to company growth. If these individuals are lucky then they are identified and then they get excised from any projects to change aspects of their job because their participation is more or less pointless since they fail to accept the flaws with the old method. They are then forced to accept the new method.

manifesto

[Anonymous Coward]

Elderly people (>65 years old) make up 14.5% percent of the population in the US, yet approximately 2.7% of the workforce (http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/06/20/more-older-americans-are-working-and-working-more-than-they-used-to/ ).

Clearly the underrepresentation of elderly people in the workforce needs to be compensated for because of our collective bias and discrimination against them.

Thoughts, Sundar Pichai?

Re: manifesto

[Anonymous Coward]

65plus is ancient, not old. I'm 42. I go with the flow. This article is damn stupid. If you don't keep your skills updated, then you've made your choice.

Other than that, adapt to what? Retard. The ever change office, desk, and keyboard?

Your dipshit article is: should workers keep thier skill sets updated? Yes. End of story.

Re: manifesto

[__aaclcg7560]

Other than that, adapt to what? Retard. The ever change office, desk, and keyboard?

I traded in the mouse for a Logitech Trackman at work and at home. Less wrist movement, more exercise for my fat fingers.

Re: manifesto

[Anonymous Coward]

Less wrist movement,

There goes your sex life...

Re: manifesto

[Anonymous Coward]

Other than that, adapt to what? Retard. The ever change office, desk, and keyboard?

I traded in the mouse for a Logitech Trackman at work and at home. Less wrist movement, more exercise for my fat fingers.

If you want exercise try walking, swimming, moving around, playing a sport, something substantial. If there's some reason you want to focus on your fingers try playing an instrument like a guitar or a piano. Back when I decided to lose 50 pounds I discovered that the key is to find something you really enjoy. For me that was trail hiking.

Honestly you seem more concerned with posting your Amazon affiliate links than anything really related to exercise. Yes that's cute how it annoys some of the ACs and everything, but it also makes you come across as a spammy douche. Nothing personal -- I would come across as a spammy douche too if I did the same thing.

Re: manifesto

[Anonymous Coward]

You're a coward. Shut up.

Re: manifesto

[__aaclcg7560]

If you want exercise try walking, swimming, moving around, playing a sport, something substantial.

The fat finger reference was a joke. A bone toss to the trolls to chew on since they're so fascinated with my physiology.

Yes that's cute how it annoys some of the ACs and everything, but it also makes you come across as a spammy douche.

I used to enjoy reading and posting on Slashdot. But the trolls have made it a living hell over the last six months. So I turned Slashdot into a business model to make coffee money. It's not personal, it's just business. ;)

Re: manifesto

[Anonymous Coward]

"But the trolls have made it a living hell over the last six months."

CLOSE! creimer, this is the correct version:

But my rolls have made it a living hell.

Re: manifesto

[Anonymous Coward]

More affiliate spam from APK Creimer.

Re: manifesto

[__aaclcg7560]

But my rolls have made it a living hell.

I don't eat rolls. Too much bread is a bad thing.

Re: manifesto

[Anonymous Coward]

You're a coward. Shut up.

Sorry if it makes you feel shame when you learn that some people actually did whatever it takes to control their weight. It does create doubts about why you haven't done the same. Instead of getting upset, entertain those doubts and view it as a worthy question. What is it really that's holding you back? Calories in vs. calories burned is simple to understand so it's not a lack of knowledge. Are you eating your unresolved emotions? Are you using food to offset stress? It's good to ask these quesions. You may even find some self-respect in the process.

Here's a free bit of advice: as long as you think you're some victim of random chance, you will not be able to change anything. I find most fatties have this sort of victim attitude, as if they think excuses are virtues. The truth is, you control what you eat, how much, how often, and how active you are. I lost the weight rapidly and kept it off (two decades now) once I acknowledged this fact. If I can do that, so can you. It's so much more dignified than getting upset at facts.

Re: manifesto

[Anonymous Coward]

The fat finger reference was a joke. A bone toss to the trolls to chew on since they're so fascinated with my physiology.

You really will feel better and be happier if you reach your ideal weight or something close to it. Back when people started calling me "fat" I realized they had a point. It doesn't matter that they did it maliciously. That was their problem (it was clear they had little or no joy in their own lives). Facts are facts even if small-minded people want to be assholes about it. Now I've lost the weight and most of them are obese.

I used to enjoy reading and posting on Slashdot. But the trolls have made it a living hell over the last six months. So I turned Slashdot into a business model to make coffee money. It's not personal, it's just business. ;)

That spammers are spamming because they hope to make money was never in question. You once posted a link to a product I wound up buying. I started a new browser session, logged into my Amazon account, searched for it myself and bought it that way so you didn't get any credit for it. That's also not personal, it's just that if you feed a thing, it tends to grow. Since I disdain spam I refuse to reward it.

I agree with you about the trolls. If you want to do something about it that might actually work, contribute quality discussion yourself. You might be surprised at the momentum it can gather. The way you do things now just feeds the trolls by giving them easy access to the cheap shots they prefer to take. That's why they keep referring to things like your weight.

Re: manifesto

[PopeRatzo]

Back when I decided to lose 50 pounds I discovered that the key is to find something you really enjoy. For me that was trail hiking.

For me, it was hiking the block and a half to the Italian beef stand. Had to take an Uber home, though.

Re: manifesto

[__aaclcg7560]

That's why they keep referring to things like your weight.

Let's not forget references to my full legal name, email addresses, my parents' names, where I live (someone posted the wrong floor plan yesterday), and parts of my credit report. I've never seen this on Slashdot before and I've been reading since 1999. My trolls have a serious hard on for me.

Re: manifesto

[Anonymous Coward]

Whoosh!

It was a joke riffing on the recent stories about Google's supposedly anti-discrimination hiring policies, which seem to assume that because women make up half the population and they aren't half of their tech employees, that the problem is solely down to discrimination.

N.B. I'm not arguing that there isn't discrimination, but that the discrimination isn't the sole cause of the disparity.

Re: manifesto

[Provocateur]

Smart; let RSI be a threat to your co-workers, not you. At the very least, you can teach these young uns to practice good ergonomic habits, and how to keep off your lawn.

Back on topic, I say, no but proper attention too should be given to their workspaces. Keep them far far away from open floor plans or youthful amenities e.g. pingpong table and let the younger set use their headphones instead of piping music through the speakers. If you can manage it, let them have four walls and a door/two to an office. That shows everyone that the firm respects the skill and/or intellect and places a premium on keeping the smart brains working within.

Re: manifesto

[Anonymous Coward]

" references to my full legal name,"

When your "pen name" is your real name, what do you expect, you pudgy failure? Your profile on Github and the State of California are enough to get all the rest of the information. Dumbass.

Where you live? It's easy to find that out too, and the website has all the floorplans for each fucking unit! So are all the other residents there freaking out too?

"parts of my credit report"

That is your paranoid interpretation. You've never googled yourself? ALL THAT INFORMATION IS ALREADY PUBLIC.

"I've never seen this on Slashdot before

I've never seen someone post their weight and diet tips incessantly either.

"My trolls have a serious hard on for me"

And your ego LOVES IT.

Re: manifesto

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, you just east more of everything else!

I just meant the rolls on your body!

Re: manifesto

[Anonymous Coward]

so fascinated with my physiology.

Consider us Jane Goodall to your gorilla.

Re: manifesto

[__aaclcg7560]

ALL THAT INFORMATION IS ALREADY PUBLIC.

This is why your attempt at INTIMIDATION by posting my personal information on Slashdot failed.

Re: manifesto

[Anonymous Coward]

creimer won't sleep with you unless you marry him first.

The reason we pick on creimer is not his weight, I'm fatter and shorter than he is, we pick on him because he's STUPID.

Hell, even I managed to find a girlfriend in my grotesque condition!

Re: manifesto

[Anonymous Coward]

But the trolls have made it a living hell over the last six months. So I turned Slashdot into a business model to make coffee money.

As you anonymous financial adviser, putting up with "a living hell" is not worth is to make a couple of dollars a day.

Christ, work retail for one weekend day and make $15/hour if you're so hard up for petty cash.

Re: manifesto

[Anonymous Coward]

You post more personal information about yourself already, unprovoked! What's the reason for that? I've never seen that on Slashdot before.

Are you mentally defective?

Re: manifesto

[Anonymous Coward]

Jane Goodall works with Chimpanzees not Gorillas. Your thinking of Dian Fossey (who is dead my the way)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dian_Fossey

Dumbass. Look shit up before you post.

Re: manifesto

[Anonymous Coward]

How can you be intimidated by information you yourself make accessible?

Re: manifesto

[Anonymous Coward]

If you want exercise try walking, swimming, moving around, playing a sport, something substantial.

The fat finger reference was a joke. A bone toss to the trolls to chew on since they're so fascinated with my physiology.

Yes that's cute how it annoys some of the ACs and everything, but it also makes you come across as a spammy douche.

I used to enjoy reading and posting on Slashdot. But the trolls have made it a living hell over the last six months. So I turned Slashdot into a business model to make coffee money. It's not personal, it's just business. ;)

Well six months ago is about when you became such an annoying spammy twat.

Re: manifesto

[Anonymous Coward]

Affiliate-spam-free links:

Logitech Trackman

Amazon Dot

You're welcome, Slashdot!

Re: manifesto

[__aaclcg7560]

Well six months ago is about when you became such an annoying spammy twat.

Six months ago I was falsely accused of threatening to shoot someone. I haven't heard from that asshat in several months. I'm still waiting for him to file a complaint with the governor of California and the IRS.

Re: manifesto

[__aaclcg7560]

You post more personal information about yourself already, unprovoked!

Except for the information available in in public records.

Are you mentally defective?

What kind of pervert goes out of his way to find public records and then post personal information in a public forum?

Re: manifesto

[Anonymous Coward]

Creamers a retard. He claims to eat only 1500 calories a day, that he is a power lifter, weighs 350 pounds of "solid muscle", only comes to Slashdot to troll while at his government contractor IT job in SV where he makes $45k/yr. He's insane. Like actual Chemical imbalance insane.

Re: manifesto

[Anonymous Coward]

"Except for the information available in in public records."

Well, it's public, so what?

"What kind of pervert goes out of his way to find public records and then post personal information in a public forum? "

The same kind of pervert that endlessly tells us his weight, his name, his diet, his weight loss, his endless anecdotes about his personal life, about his uncle having sex with trees, links to his personal website full of personal information about his therapy sessions, pictures of his "office", and on and on and on...

But freaks out when a link to his apartment building's floor plans is given. The apartment he himself crows about about every other day.

Go talk to the management of The Grove. Maybe make a DMCA takedown of the artist's rendering of "your" apartment.

You RENT, fucktard. You can't complain. You don't own anything. And nobody owes you shit, Jumbo.

Now go froth at the mouth some more, you morbidly obese middle-aged failure.

Re: manifesto

[Anonymous Coward]

...What does the IRS have to do with gun threats? Is your mind failing again?

Re: manifesto

[Anonymous Coward]

But the trolls have made it a living hell over the last six months.

Cry me a river, tubby.

You were getting the same shit over a year ago - just go refresh your memory of this thread:

https://science.slashdot.org/s...

You love the attention, because it's the only type of attention you get. You're a fucking joke.

Re: manifesto

[__aaclcg7560]

What does the IRS have to do with gun threats?

I was falsely accused of not reporting income from my side business to IRS.

Re: manifesto

[__aaclcg7560]

You RENT, fucktard. You can't complain. You don't own anything.

Just because I rent my residence doesn't mean that I don't own anything. You just haven't found what else I own in the public records.

Re: manifesto

[__aaclcg7560]

You were getting the same shit over a year ago - just go refresh your memory of this thread:

Last year it was normal shit. This year asshats falsely accused me of threatening to shoot them, created fake accounts to mock me (five user accounts got deleted by management), posted dick pics with my contact info on Russian image websites, and sprinkled my personal information from public records in comments. That's six months of a campaign of harassment that failed miserably. I'm still here and still making money. :P

Re: manifesto

[Anonymous Coward]

Your former "associates" and employers have had some VERY interesting things to say!

Re: manifesto

[__aaclcg7560]

Your former "associates" and employers have had some VERY interesting things to say!

They were all wishing me well for my recent job anniversary and birthday on LinkedIn. When you have 800+ connections on LinkedIn, it's a non-stop tidal wave of messages for a month.

Re: manifesto

[Anonymous Coward]

Yup, those aren't automated messages at all. Man, what the hell were you doing in that kitchen? Damn dude, they don't ever want to see you again!

Re: manifesto

[Anonymous Coward]

Still whining about the "hell" you've been put through, and still trying to claim you're making money.

None of us believe that bullshit for a second.

Re: manifesto

[__aaclcg7560]

He claims to eat only 1500 calories a day

True.

that he is a power lifter

That was for a one-year period over ten years ago.

weighs 350 pounds of "solid muscle"

True.

only comes to Slashdot to troll while at his government contractor IT job in SV

I play with the trolls from my side job as well.

where he makes $45k/yr.

That's $55K per year.

Re: manifesto

[__aaclcg7560]

Christ, work retail for one weekend day and make $15/hour if you're so hard up for petty cash.

I don't think you understand. I don't need the money from Slashdot. It's just my way of pissing off my trolls by laughing all the way to the bank.

Re: manifesto

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh yeah, with reviews like this, you can retire now!

I like the reader's suggestion about contacting the Hell's Angels. You see, they might want to protect their copyrights, or they might risk losing them.

The review:

"1/5 WTH?
This is barely even about the funeral, the murder, the Hells Angels, or even bikes for that matter... Not even worth the $0.99. I'm surprised the Hell's Angels lets this guy collect money capitalizing on their organization and two of their fallen brothers..."

Re: manifesto

[Anonymous Coward]

"Christ, work retail for one weekend day "

What retail business would want this on the floor?

Imagine his reaction when someone calls him by his name, written on his name tag?

"WHAT KIND OF PERVERT USES PUBLICLY AVAILABLE INFORMATION! PLEASE BUY MY SHITTY EBOOKS!"

Scare off the customers, traumatize the kids?

Re: manifesto

[__aaclcg7560]

Oh yeah, with reviews like this, you can retire now!

You obviously don't understand my business model. I suggest you read "The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business Is Selling Less of More" by Chris Anderson.

Re: manifesto

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, but you're selling less of less. If they were on paper, your eBooks wouldn't be fit to line a bird cage. You're a shit writer.

Re: manifesto

[__aaclcg7560]

You're a shit writer.

So what? I make money.

Re: manifesto

[Anonymous Coward]

No scruples, no qualms, no ethics. You're a fucking piece of shit, tricking people out of a few dollars because you're unable to do better.

You're a rectal smear on the underwear of life.

I pity anyone who has to interact with the half-human you are.

Re: manifesto

[__aaclcg7560]

No scruples, no qualms, no ethics.

News flash... Literature doesn't sell very well. Without bestsellers by "shit writers," publishing literature would be unprofitable.

You're a fucking piece of shit, tricking people out of a few dollars because you're unable to do better.

I don't know about other ebook retailers, but you can always get a refund at Amazon. Some people go through my entire catalog by buying, reading and returning my short ebooks. One of many reasons why I pulled my ebooks from Amazon.

Re: manifesto

[Anonymous Coward]

"News flash... Literature doesn't sell very well. Without bestsellers by "shit writers," publishing literature would be unprofitable."

I have no idea what that word salad is supposed to mean.

" I pulled my ebooks"

Don't stop there. I'll try my best to warn people about you, your morality, and your shitty god-awful moronic writing.

Re: manifesto

[__aaclcg7560]

I have no idea what that word salad is supposed to mean.

I figured you were clueless about how publishing works.

I'll try my best to warn people about you, your morality, and your shitty god-awful moronic writing.

I appreciate all the free advertising that you can provide. Thanks!

Re: manifesto

[Anonymous Coward]

"I figured you were clueless about how publishing works."

I know how publishing works, I just don't see what it has to do with you. You're barely literate, not fit to write soup can labels, creimer. I certainly don't see what "bestsellers" have to do with you either; you're not qualified to provide the perforations in toilet paper, never mind putting words to paper.

"I appreciate all the free advertising that you can provide. Thanks!"

Don't worry, I'll link to your "So what? I make money." comment and let people decide. When the critical mass is reached, you'll be a laughing stock.

Then you can masturbate away your evenings making bee videos and re-arranging your "home office".

Re: manifesto

[Anonymous Coward]

You're an awful, juvenile, childish writer with nothing worth saying, and you find a way to say it poorly.

You're the 21st century William Topaz McGonagall.

" He won notoriety as an extremely bad poet who exhibited no recognition of, or concern for, his peers' opinions of his work."

"McGonagall has been lampooned as the worst poet in British history."

"Scholars argue that his inappropriate rhythms, weak vocabulary, and ill-advised imagery combine to make his work amongst the most unintentionally amusing "

"Throughout his life McGonagall campaigned against excessive drinking,"

"McGonagall constantly struggled with money and earned money by selling his poems in the streets, or reciting them in halls, theatres and public houses."

"the crowd was permitted to pelt him with eggs, flour, herrings, potatoes and stale bread. For this, he received fifteen shillings a night. McGonagall seemed happy with this arrangement"

Throughout his life McGonagall seemed oblivious to the general opinion of his poems, even when his audience were pelting him with eggs and vegetables. Author Norman Watson speculates in his biography of McGonagall that the poetaster may have been on the "autism-Asperger's spectrum". Christopher Hart, writing in The Sunday Times, says that this seems "likely".

Re: manifesto

[__aaclcg7560]

Don't worry, I'll link to your "So what? I make money." comment and let people decide. When the critical mass is reached, you'll be a laughing stock.

Good luck with that. I don't see why readers should punish me for having a business on the backend. The purpose of business is to make money. I never been a fan of the starving artist syndrome.

Re: manifesto

[Anonymous Coward]

Problem: no one is punishing you for having a business. We are punishing you for being a horrifically incompetent writer, with nothing to say, and a lying louse of a human being with the ethics of a used car salesman.

"I never been [sic] a fan of the starving artist syndrome."

You may be starving because you're not an artist.

PS: I don't think you know what "a business on the backend" means. As usual, you use language in baffling and incomprehensible ways.

Re: manifesto

[__aaclcg7560]

You may be starving because you're not an artist.

If I was starving, my weight wouldn't be an issue. I've never claimed to be an artist. I'm just a writer who makes money from writing, publishing and promoting.

Re: manifesto

[Anonymous Coward]

I like the reader's suggestion about contacting the Hell's Angels. You see, they might want to protect their copyrights, or they might risk losing them.

Just report it! They have a public website, just Google it. Maybe they will issue a YMCA notice to creimer. San Bernardino isn't that far from San Jose anyway...

Re: manifesto

[Anonymous Coward]

Mister Creimer,

This is Coyote, I am VP for 81 in SB CA. Take that book off-line now and never mention our name again.

Re: manifesto

[ls671]

Good luck with that. I don't see why readers should punish me for having a business on the backend...

You have a business up there?

Re: manifesto

[Anonymous Coward]

". I've never claimed to be an artist."

You said "I never been a fan of the starving artist syndrome". If you're not an artist, why use that expression? How can anyone know what you're saying if you constantly shift, deny, and re-define everything?

Re: manifesto

[__aaclcg7560]

You said "I never been a fan of the starving artist syndrome". If you're not an artist, why use that expression?

There's a perception that creative individuals must be "starving artists," living hand to mouth on the public and/or corporations' approval. I reject that. As a business person, I'm going to make money from my talents. For this I get called a "shit writer" by the snobs.

How can anyone know what you're saying if you constantly shift, deny, and re-define everything?

I keep forgetting that some people on Slashdot require a box of crayons when discussing concepts that go over their heads.

Re: manifesto

[Anonymous Coward]

"There's a perception that creative individuals must be "starving artists," living hand to mouth on the public and/or corporations' approval."

Only in your head. There's also a perception that artists are rich. See? How is my perception wrong but yours is right?

"As a business person, I'm going to make money from my talents. For this I get called a "shit writer" by the snobs."

1) You have no talent
2) It's not "snobbish" to expect correct grammar and a coherent, interesting plot. I doubt you'll find a "bestseller" written like a brain-damaged simpleton vomited on a keyboard.

"I keep forgetting that some people on Slashdot require a box of crayons when discussing concepts that go over their heads."

It's got nothing to do with intelligence, we also don't understand a random homeless mental patient yelling at fire hydrants. You live in your universe with its own language.

Re: manifesto

[Anonymous Coward]

Starving artist living hand to mouth gives 1 million dollars to charity

So, where's your donation, Mr Talented Businessman?

Re: manifesto

[Anonymous Coward]

"weighs 350 pounds of "solid muscle"

True."

What a 5'10" 300 pound man made of solid muscle looks like.
What our creimer looks like.

What mental illness causes this kind of catastrophic denial of reality?

Re: manifesto

[Anonymous Coward]

"There's a perception that creative individuals"

But there's no perception that you're a creative individual.

Re: manifesto

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you read his ebooks? It's almost certain that's where they come from!

Re: manifesto

[Anonymous Coward]

"Jane Goodall works with Chimpanzees not Gorillas. "

With creimer, it makes no difference.

"Your thinking of Dian Fossey"

You're thinking of you're, not your.

"Look shit up before you post."

http://www.elearnenglishlangua...

Re: manifesto

[Anonymous Coward]

Asking is not accusing, you creimer.

Re: manifesto

[__aaclcg7560]

Starving artist living hand to mouth gives 1 million dollars to charity [nydailynews.com]

Except Bruno Mars isn't a "starving artist" when he's worth $39M according to Forbes.

https://www.forbes.com/profile/bruno-mars/

So, where's your donation, Mr Talented Businessman?

Starving artists don't have money. Try again, asshat.

Re: manifesto

[Anonymous Coward]

There's a perception that creative individuals must be "starving artists," living hand to mouth on the public and/or corporations' approval.

Re: manifesto

[ls671]

Starving artists don't have money. Try again, asshat.

That is pretty rude and mean from you with all those revenue streams that you have.

You could at least give the money from your "Amazon Dot" spam to charities. God will thank you 100 times.

Re: manifesto

[__aaclcg7560]

You could at least give the money from your "Amazon Dot" spam to charities. God will thank you 100 times.

"So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you." — Matthew 6:2-4

Re: manifesto

[Anonymous Coward]

"For he has covered his face with his fat, and made his thighs heavy with flesh." - Job 15:27

Re: manifesto

[__aaclcg7560]

"For he has covered his face with his fat, and made his thighs heavy with flesh." - Job 15:27

What does this scripture have to do with charitable giving?

Re: manifesto

[Anonymous Coward]

So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in their Slashdot signature, as thy doeth with thy friend's car.

You fat hypocrite.

Re: manifesto

[__aaclcg7560]

So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in their Slashdot signature, as thy doeth with thy friend's car.

I'm a hypocrite for promoting my friend's Go Fund Me page in my signature?

You fat hypocrite.

You're a morally bankrupt asshat.

Re: manifesto

[Anonymous Coward]

It's just that your bestest pal Jesus frowns upon the obese, creimer.... And let's not dance around the fact that you are shockingly obese.

Re: manifesto

[__aaclcg7560]

It's just that your bestest pal Jesus frowns upon the obese, creimer....

Except the Book of Job wasn't New Testament. In the 13 years I was a member of a church, no one ever accused me of gluttony because I ate less than the people around me.

And let's not dance around the fact that you are shockingly obese.

I'm skinnier than most obese people because I'm on a diet and workout.

Re: manifesto

[Anonymous Coward]

When you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets.

Re: manifesto

[Anonymous Coward]

Except the Book of Job wasn't New Testament. In the 13 years I was a member of a church, no one ever accused me of gluttony because I ate less than the people around me.

That doesn't tell us what you eat when there is no people around you. Typical hypocrite behavior.

Re: manifesto

[__aaclcg7560]

That doesn't tell us what you eat when there is no people around you.

I eat the same with or without people.

Typical hypocrite behavior.

You would find your life more bearable if you stop assuming things.

Re: manifesto

[Anonymous Coward]

"I'm skinnier than most obese people because I'm on a diet and workout."

So you're claiming that most obese people weigh more than 350 pounds? What about 300 pound people? They're not obese? 275 pounds?

You're on the far end of the curve. For example:

You're so fat, you're like Bigfoot, no one even has a picture!

In fact, you're FATTER than most obese people, and you do NOT "work out" (note: it's two words). As a matter of fact, you're such a terrible liar that unless you post a certified video of you in a gym actually lifting free weights, we don't believe you.

Re: manifesto

[Anonymous Coward]

"when there is no people around "

Given the smell, I assume that's most of the time.

Re: manifesto

[Anonymous Coward]

That doesn't tell us what you eat when there is no people around you.

I eat the same with or without people.

Typical hypocrite behavior.

You would find your life more bearable if you stop assuming things.

Pretty much everybody knows you are a liar and a hypocrite. Here is an example where you forgot to check the post as AC field for a spam that you had previously posted a thousand times. At the same time, you have said many times that you don't ever post as AC:

https://science.slashdot.org/c...

Re: manifesto

[__aaclcg7560]

you do NOT "work out" (note: it's two words).

It's "workout," not "work out."

http://grammarist.com/usage/workout-work-out/

You're going to have to accept my Slashdot pics. The current pic is before I started losing one pound per week.

https://www.cdreimer.com/slashdot.html

Re: manifesto

[Anonymous Coward]

you sound bitter, sweet tits

Re: manifesto

[Anonymous Coward]

That doesn't tell us what you eat when there is no people around you.

I eat the same with or without people.

I believe you, the problem is that you then eat at least twice as much, once with people and then again alone, hidden in your 3x4 "home office".

Time for a power bar and a nap to build up those muscle I guess!

Re: manifesto

[Anonymous Coward]

So.... you think a noun was appropriate there?

You do not "apple".
You do not "car".

OR

You do not "walk".
You do not "run".

Answer: VERB.

Therefore, according to your own link, which you either didn't read, or more likely, didn't understand, it's WORK OUT.

Ouch. Embarrassing for a renowned author in 30 anthologies. Can't even get grade school grammar right. Blame the ear though, not what's between them, right?

Shall I get the crayons for you, sir? Perhaps a box of "Wrong Again White"? Or "Creimer Catastrophe Crimson"? Or better yet "Butthole Brown", or maybe "Pompous Purple" and "Ego Ebony"?

You fucking bell end.

Re: manifesto

[ls671]

Being on a workout doesn't make much sense. Being on a diet and working out makes more sense. The link you posted below says that the verb requires 2 words.

Re: manifesto

[__aaclcg7560]

Can't even get grade school grammar right.

I had to go to college to learn that. They didn't teach English in Special Ed.

Blame the ear though, not what's between them, right?

That's the nature of my "disability" as a child. Glass/grass, cash/crash, doggie/garden. It all sounded the same.

Re: manifesto

[Anonymous Coward]

How does not hearing in one ear cause that? I can cover one ear and still follow the news. How does bad hearing affect reading a web page?

It's too bad you don't have a bad arm, that would at least cut your posting speed by 50%.

So about those crayons, can I get you a box of "Fuck You Fuchsia"?

Re: manifesto

[Anonymous Coward]

Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.

1 Corinthians 6:19–20

no one ever accused me of gluttony because I ate less than the people around me.

No one ever accused you of gluttony because people are generally just too polite and conflict-averse to want to get into it with you. And you may have ate less than the people around you - when there were people around. But I guarantee you're pounding the Little Debbie snack cakes by the fistful when nobody else is around.

I'm skinnier than most obese people because I'm on a diet and workout.

Right, the diet & workout plan you've been reporting for over a year, that's seen you *gain* weight by your own reports? You're NOT skinnier than most obese people - the picture you keep showing... what the fuck is that giant hump under your right arm? It's a giant roll of back fat. It's stretched out on the other side by your arm being pulled into a "flexing" pose, but you can definitely see the giant hump of fat bulging out around your right arm.

You're a fat tub of lard, kid. Nobody believes this shit about you being "skinny," "working out," or "dieting."

Re: manifesto

[Anonymous Coward]

That's the nature of my "disability" as a child. Glass/grass,
  cash/crash, doggie/garden. It all sounded the same.

It is obviously the same nowadays.

Re: manifesto

[__aaclcg7560]

It is obviously the same nowadays.

Still the same. If I had an editorial process for Slashdot, you wouldn't notice it. I just type my comments as is since it pisses off my trolls.

Re: manifesto

[__aaclcg7560]

[...] can I get you a box of "Fuck You Fuchsia"?

Why would I want an obscene garden gnome?

http://www.beeldenkado.nl/files/6995/products/10693378/stoobz-kabouter-middelvinger-fuschia-pp005fc.jpg

Re: manifesto

[Anonymous Coward]

creimer, I genuinely laughed out loud here, I think I woke up the upstairs folks. Sometimes you are genuinely funny and on point.

Re: manifesto

[Anonymous Coward]

creimer, I genuinely laughed out loud here, I think I woke up the upstairs folks...

So creimer fans are 14 year old wankers that live in their parent basement, waking them up when they laugh too loud?

Not quite, we know it is you creimer, replying to yourself again...

Re: manifesto

[Anonymous Coward]

OK creimer, you cracked me up with one, I wasn't expecting a sense of humor from you! I was still giggling this morning!

Re: manifesto

[Anonymous Coward]

If I had an editorial process for Slashdot, you wouldn't notice it. I just type my comments as is since it pisses off my trolls.

Of course, a hearing problem has zero bearing on your ability to read and write proper English, since reading and writing require your eyes, not your ears. Or will you also retcon in a visual impairment in all your bullshit?

The funny thing is, for someone who claims to be a writer, typing a proper English sentence with an occasional typo or sloppy grammar would be understandable. But every post you make is missing words, contains bizarre, invalid formulations, and nonsensical gibberish. There need not be an "editorial process" if you write it correctly the first time 95+% of the time. But you don't manage that. Any sentence longer than 3 words from you contains an error about 80% of the time.

Fuck, you've even PUBLISHED things which you expect people to PAY FOR with glaring errors and nonsense gibberish, askance. If I were an online retailer, I'd yank your books for being illegible garbage that was fraudulently portrayed as a book.

Actually, what seems even more fun... I think I'll dick around with a Markov chain this week. Seed it with some of your greatest hits, and then let it fly... see what it comes up with, and see how frighteningly close a simple markov chain can mimic your word vomit. I'd say it would probably pass the Turing test, but then, I don't think anybody talking with the REAL you would conclude you're an intelligent, sentient being, either... so... emulating a moron probably doesn't count as AI. Shame, that... I'd love to win myself a Loebner prize.

I've been making this argument for 20 years

[bfwebster]

As noted, the problem with most organizations is that there is no technical advancement track. I actually proposed back in the late 90s at one organization that we establish a full technical track that went from entry-level coder all the way up to CTO (with a layer of 'senior technical officers' below the CTO level).

Other organizations -- such as Bell Labs in its heyday -- simply had everyone as 'Member of Technical Staff', with ad hoc organization around research and technical projects.

Sadly, though, most organizations do, in fact, force technical people to become managers to advance, regardless of whether they want to or are suited for it. It's one of the reasons IT remains so dysfunctional throughout most organizations.

Re: I've been making this argument for 20 years

[Anonymous Coward]

Coders make terrible cto and vice versa. Its different training. That's why no one listened. And 20 years later, you haven't figured it out.

Re:I've been making this argument for 20 years

[Anonymous Coward]

As a newly minted grad student, I was hired as a Member of Technical Staff (MTS) at Bell Labs. People with many more years experience had the same title (or less - Associate Member of Technical Staff, or AMTS). At the time, the only next career step was to be a Supervisor. That resulted in some less-than-stellar supervisors, engineers who really just wanted to stay engineers.

After I left, Bell Labs created the position of Distinguished Member of Technical Staff (DMTS). Other companies have "distinguished" engineering positions, or corporate "fellows". I think that's a fine way to reward the best of the engineers without forcing them into management, where they very possibly would be unhappy and unsuccessful.

Re:I've been making this argument for 20 years

[Anonymous Coward]

Where I work, they actually do have an "individual contributor" career track established, and plenty of bright people working productively into their 70s with no attitude of "you're still not in management yet, so you must suck at what you do". It's really remarkable seeing what kind of stuff gets done with a combination of kids straight out of college, people in the middle of their careers, and a few fossils with upwards of a half-century of experience, all working together. Everyone gets along really well, with the kids eager to learn from the more experienced staff, and the older folks picking up newer ways of doing things from them, and remarkably few clashes of ego or prejudice anywhere. It's the one place I've worked in 30 years where I can expect fair and objective code reviews (occasionally scathing, yet always friendly and polite), and there's literally no one in my group (ranging from 22 to 68) that I wouldn't pick as a reviewer. In a neighboring group, there's one guy that's retired four times, and says he's leaving for good later this year after more than 45 years with the company. We keep telling him, "uh-huh, you'll be back".

Yeah, it means you shell out more in payroll and benefits, but ultimately you end up with a much better rounded staff that gets more done, from what I've seen.

Re: I've been making this argument for 20 years

[Anonymous Coward]

A well functioning organization requires both the steady hand of experience and the flexibility of new ideas. Otherwise you get stupid outcomes like using c or c++ for a website or using JavaScript on the server side.

Re: I've been making this argument for 20 years

[Anonymous Coward]

This is why I overwhelmingly prefer to work for companies whose reason for existence is the development of software or hardware. If you work for a bank, there's exactly one track for advancement: management. If you work for a company like Google or AMD, you can advance as a non-management subject-matter expert.

The HARD part about being a SME is REMAINING a SME. N
Seven years ago, I was a fairly experienced Android developer, but ended up taking a side-trip into ethical hacking for a couple of years. Eventually, I decided I was happier creating cool new shit than tearing shit apart & destroying it, so I went back into Android development... and got my ass totally *kicked* for almost two years before I felt competent again.

When I dropped out of Android development, ICS existed... but *depending* on it would have literally eliminated ~94% of existing devices as a market. So I had to get up to speed on things like Fragments. Then there was this "ActionBar" thing, which somehow involved AppCompat-v4. And learning how to use Android Studio instead of Eclipse. Plus, there were lots of things related to threads & IPC that you could get away with in older versions of Android (e.g, using Java's TimerTask instead of Android's AlarmManager, or abusing BroadcastReceivers instead of using Loopers & Handlers).

And... right around the time I started feeling competent again, Google threw Gradle & Marshmallow at us. Gradle was the worst one, because it single-handedly broke pretty much every older project on GitHub & SourceForge that wasn't being actively maintained (making learning by interactively playing with existing code ENORMOUSLY harder, because Android Studio deprecated non-Gradle projects at a point when its ability to autoconvert old non-Gradle projects was still badly broken). For a formerly-experienced developer still getting back up to speed with modern Android, Gradle was a *major* roadblock. Marshmallow compounded the barriers by making radical changes to the old permissions model... especially if you'd formerly danced around it by just storing everything on /sdcard or /sdcard-ext.

Meanwhile, elsewhere in the development universe, Java 8 pulled Lambda expressions seemingly out of nowhere (thank sweet black baby JESUS Android didn't support them until I'd gotten back to the point where I'd already gotten back up to speed with Android... being forced to deal with lambdas simultaneously with Android 4 & 5, Android Studio, and Gradle would have probably pushed me over the edge & ended my career in Android development.

At the web-dev end, I just had to concede defeat & scale back by professed skills to "web services". CSS-1 existed and was used 15 years ago, but CSS 2 & 3 were something that largely existed only on paper... not even Firefox supported more than a meaningless, tiny subset of CSS 2. CSS 3? You're dreaming. Ajax went from something used in exotic, niche apps to something a fucking blog page was expected to use (and IMHO, was generally used excessively & inappropriately... but try telling that to employers who only know "it's the new big thing"). Struts 2 was killed dead by intractable security problems, and Struts 3 got shoved aside by Spring (god HELP anyone trying to newly get into J2EE & Spring NOW... it makes Microsoft MFC circa 2006 look tame & approachable by comparison).

That said... the changes to PHP were pretty nice. It's a proper OO language now, and MVC doesn't feel like something awkwardly tacked on with staples & duct tape.

My point is to illustrate just how easy it is to fall off the cart, and go from "expert" (or at least, "tolerably-competent") to "commerciably-unemployable without major, wholesale re-learning" in just a few years... especially in areas (web development, in my case) where you're more marginal to begin with.

Once you fall off the cart, it's REALLY hard to get back on. When you're a junior programmer, you tend to pick projects that are within

Re:I've been making this argument for 20 years

[pauljlucas]

Bell Labs also had Distinguished Member of Technical Staff.

Re:I've been making this argument for 20 years

[Applehu Akbar]

"...you're still not in management yet, so you must suck at what you do"

Why is this the secret clause in every corporate policy manual?

Re: I've been making this argument for 20 years

[Anonymous Coward]

Coders, like everyone else, needs to learn certain skills on their way from entry level to executive. But coders are at least as capable of it as anybody else. It's just that not all coders put in the effort to become good managers and then good directors and good executives.

If they want to focus on code, great. But some want to pepper in people skills and execution skills. Those ones sometimes do very well.

But a CTO with no technical skills is a disaster.

Re:I've been making this argument for 20 years

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, indeed -- maybe there are some parallels with the article, but maybe not either.

I became a DMTS in the 1984 after having been an MTS for seven years. It was alleged to be a parallel track to management, but the next step was Bell Labs Fellow, and one had to be world famous to get into that club -- something like a Ken Thompson for developing Unix and the late Amos Joel for contributions to ESS technologies. Hey, I'm good, but I'm not that good.

DMTS always seemed to me to be treated as a kind of consolation prize -- sort of the "you didn't make it to technical supervisor this year, but be patient, maybe next year if you want it." So, yea, I got into management after a couple of years. Thinking back on that it was a way of keeping staff but it wasn't really a career path. It said to people what they wanted to hear about the value of their skills, gave them a private office an secretarial support and similar perks to management, but in retrospect it was a very clever device to keep from losing people to non-AT&T startups that were literally exploding on the scene. Divestiture implied that AT&T had to retain staff while reorganizing themselves into a fierce new competitor to IBM. We all know how that turned out.

Re: I've been making this argument for 20 years

[WalrusSlayer]

This, a thousand times this. In the current software world, it is basically a cardinal sin to actually spend time developing and deploying a product using a specific technology. Because by the time you come up for air after actually accomplishing something, the landscape is completely changed, and now you're behind the curve again. God forbid you actually spend enough time on a product to maintain it. It's freakin' ridiculous.

I'm continually wondering when this unsustainable situation finally stops being sustained, and what it will take for that to happen.

Re:I've been making this argument for 20 years

[Paul Fernhout]

Pray tell us please where is this Nerdvana? :-)

Re:I've been making this argument for 20 years

[Tony Isaac]

This idea works to a point. The reality is, however, that no matter how good an individual contributor is, he can only increase the value of his own contribution to the company by a low multiple. In my experience, a really great programmer might produce 3x or 5x more than a less skilled one, but despite the literature, probably not 10x.

By contrast, an effective manager can make the difference between total failure or brilliant success for an entire team, or group of teams. The potential value to the company for such a leader can be much greater than an individual contributor.

There are probably exceptions, but as a rule, a good manager simply is worth more to a company than a talented individual contributor.

Re:I've been making this argument for 20 years

[aaarrrgggh]

Many organizations have the title "Fellow" or similar to reward technical achievements and long term contributions. Unfortunately they can also be very politically driven titles, but it is something.

Re:I've been making this argument for 20 years

[david_thornley]

A couple of years ago, HR was giving a presentation on the new advancement track (including Team Lead moving to Manager etc.) and I asked "What about advancement for those of us who never ever want to get into Management?". I got a "we're working on that" response, and haven't seen anything since.

Muslims are a danger to the world

[Anonymous Coward]

Can we stop dancing around the issue? Islam is a threat to civilization. If they have their way, we'll end up in the middle ages. The West needs to wake up and address the threat.

Re: Muslims are a danger to the world

[ShanghaiBill]

You would be fighting back too if bombs were ripping through your village for no fucking reason.

This is not supported by evidence. American drone strikes are widely unpopular in the muslim world. But the drone strikes are supported in the villages actually getting bombed.

It is easy to oppose the drones when you live in safe suburb of Karachi or Islamabad. It is much different if you live in Waziristan, where the Taliban forces girls out of school and boys into war. Most people there see the drones as a benefit.

Re: Muslims are a danger to the world

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah. So Muslims have no agency – you're saying they just respond like, erm, animals, rather than as thinking, feeling human beings.

And of course, you're not a racist at all.

Re: Muslims are a danger to the world

[drinkypoo]

You would be fighting back too if bombs were ripping through your village for no fucking reason.

This is not supported by evidence. American drone strikes are widely unpopular in the muslim world. But the drone strikes are supported in the villages actually getting bombed.

Both things can be true at once; every drone killing does represent another chance that people will be radicalized, and there can simultaneously be people grateful that it occurred.

Agree in some part

[sunking2]

Most of this is garbage, however the phased retirement is something I've always believed in. I work in at an engineering space orientated firm that has been doing this since pre Apollo days. More often then not people work until the day they retire and 6 months later are back as contractors because they don't know how to do the transition to non working and more importantly the transfer of knowledge didn't happen because nobody wants to pay to have it done. A slower transition both lets people start to enjoy a bit of retirement earlier while they are a year or two younger and allows companies to see where the knowledge is actually lost and adjust.

the problem with is is your hours worked doesn't really show your salary. It becomes a mess from an insurance and overall compensation perspective to institute such a thing. Things that are hard for HR and financial planny typically don't happen. They don't like things that are hard.

Re:Agree in some part

[Anonymous Coward]

Simply put, people are machnery to be used and disposed of - that's why it's called Human Resources. They are managing resources - not human beings.

We have a cultural mentality that we need to serve the economy and subsequently the corporation - we live to work. And when the work is gone, so is our meaning to life. Work work work, buy buy buy! That's the American economy at it's basest. Our social lives have turned into shallow meaningless interactions like facebook.

Try to be different - I work to live and I want to make as much money as I can for as little time in the day as I can - comes across as some sort of "slacker".

THE biggest drug problem in our society is NOT opiates, meth, or pot - it's alcohol. And when many folks are kicked to the side (most don't find contracting work after retirement), life's meaning is gone, the boredom sets in and here comes the the easiest and cheapest and most damaging drug of all: booze.

Re: Agree in some part

[Anonymous Coward]

If work is your sole reason for life, then you lead a sad life full of exploitation. There is no honor or respect to be had in serving a master.

Re:Agree in some part

[Anonymous Coward]

When I was working, a necessary employee would retire, start taking his pension, come back to work on a contract with a pay raise and work until the necessary project was completed.

Everybody was happy. Head count was down, employee/contractor got a big raise, all the managers were making upper management happy. The ideal win/win situation.

I hung around for Y2K and retired that June at 55 and never looked back.

Re:Agree in some part

[aaarrrgggh]

It is funny just how hard it is to do (from management perspective). You need to become a non-exempt employee typically, because at 10h per week you might not meet FLSA definitions for exemption. You also have inconsistencies with HR policies on how many hours it takes to get benefits.

We usually take the lazy way out and make people 1099 that want to partially retire, unless they are more "seasonal", working a few months full time and then taking a few off. Legal compliance is poorly defined, which makes it quite hard. The legal issues likely need to be simplified or codified.

Re:Agree in some part

[Anonymous Coward]

rather than cut back on the listed hours to work, just give them more vacation hours, thus keeping their records proper in the bookkeeping system while giving the flexible work schedule.

Re: Agree in some part

[david_thornley]

There is honor and respect in getting something done. My code is in daily use in more than one place right now, although there's nothing the users can do to find out it's mine.

Simple Solution:

[Anonymous Coward]

Only have people that are qualified and CAPABLE of performing the tasks you need them to complete working for you. TA-DaaaaAAAAA!

I'm a fucking genius.

Oh, and yeah, if someone is old and they can't do their job, fire them. But if they can outperform someone that is willing to work for less money, keep them. It's really simple, if you think about it.

On the other hand, hiring a bunch of H1B workers that can't do their job may actually be more profitable in the extreme short term... like in the amount of time it takes you to convert your money into bitcoins and move to a country where you can literally own negro slaves and live like an Egyptian king.

Re:Simple Solution:

[Anonymous Coward]

Interesting how that was downvoted. Got a reason for thinking that life in the USA is generally worse than life in, say, Nigeria?

Re:Simple Solution:

[Teun]

What you seem to miss is we need different kinds of people for the different kinds of jobs at hand.
Yes you can use a group of smart fast thinking young ones for brute force production.
But you also need some more mature engineers for quality control and possible as mirrors for the developers coming up with new and (not always) brilliant ideas for new ways and products.

A smart company will recognise who is ready to move on to a next position, ultimately this include who you'd rather put on a less hours contract to wind down towards retirement.
Or like what happened to me, set up a Learning & Development department for support of freshly graduated engineers.

Enforce existing laws?

[Anonymous Coward]

There are existing laws that protect workers, perhaps we should enforce them?
Affirmative Action can include groups of older works, too. We'd have to enforce those, too. I'm not for degrading the quality of workers, however, just keeping some of the good older workers around, and/or hiring some.

Re: Enforce existing laws?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's illegal too discriminate based on age only when people are older. Treating workers like crap for being young is completely legal.

Companies that want to succeed shouldn't be using age in the decision making process and that includes experience. Either somebody has the skills our they don't. No more of the bs ageism.

Young people? What young people?

[__aaclcg7560]

When Social Security was created in the 1930's, there was 19 workers for every retiree. In 2030, there will be two workers per every retiree. It's going to get really hard to find enough under 30 people to support an aging society. The IT industry alone will have a 1.5M+ shortage of skilled workers as older workers retire and foreign workers go home.

Re:Young people? What young people?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why worry? I thought technology makes us all so productive that we don't need so many people working? The real problem is that we are using prehistoric brains wired for scarcity, but now live in plenty.

Re:Young people? What young people?

[__aaclcg7560]

Why worry?

I'm not worried. When a study first came out after the dot com bust predicting an IT shortage of 1M+ skilled workers in 2030, I went back to school to learn computer programming and switched from video game testing to IT Support. I'm looking forward to making big bucks in my peak earning years.

I thought technology makes us all so productive that we don't need so many people working?

Productivity can only go so far when you need people to do the work on the ground. I'm expecting young people to follow the money by going into healthcare. Some my friends did that after the dot com bust. They make more money than I do but they change bedpans and wipe asses all day. Meanwhile, some of my best paying IT contracts are for hospitals.

The real problem is that we are using prehistoric brains wired for scarcity, but now live in plenty.

Plenty of baby boomers want to live better than their parents in retirement, screwing over everyone else who has to pay taxes to support them.

Re:Young people? What young people?

[whoever57]

When Social Security was created in the 1930's, there was 19 workers for every retiree. In 2030, there will be two workers per every retiree.

That's why the USA needs more, not less immigrants. And if they have to be illegal initially, so be it.

Re:Young people? What young people?

[Anonymous Coward]

In 11 years you won't be capable of walking about and getting into a bus. How many 375 pounds men in their late 50s do you see walking about on the streets? You already pass out every night, and surely you're aware that the health of morbidly obese men in their 40s and 50s goes downhill rapidly.

Re:Young people? What young people?

[Maxo-Texas]

Adjusted for inflation, GDP and productivity growth is up just under 1000% from 1930 to 2007.

We are down to about 2% the number of farmers and they are struggling financially because their productivity is too high (ironically, President Trump killing the TPP is doing huge damage to farmers who suddenly have no place to sell their excess product).

With trends in automation and robotics, by 2040 we'll literally have too many people compared to jobs.

So sure.. it took 19 workers to support 1 worker when social security started.

But it doesn't take that many now.

This entire social security crisis could have been fixed by a 2% increase in rates and inflation adjust the cap from $106k to $250k back in 2000. It could still be fixed with a little means testing (which they are already doing in a back door way).

When we have a productivity 50x what we had back in 1900, it means 1 person can support 49 others as well as they supported themselves back then.

Having fewer workers is a problem but the main problem is a failure of realistic actions by both parties when it would have been much less painful. And plundering funds that could have balanced social security for bridges to nowhere and tanks we parked in the desert indefinitely right after they were built.

Re: Young people? What young people?

[Anonymous Coward]

Only apps can app app and support an aging society, unlike Luddite social security. Apps!

Re: Young people? What young people?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's not supposed to be a problem. The trust is supposed to be paid up and workers are massively more productive than they were then.

At least a quarter of those people were involved with food production. Now probably only one is.

Re:Young people? What young people?

[WhiplashII]

Why does no one else see this?

Personally, I think we should not condone "illegal immigration" because it sweep the issue under the rug, and enables abuse of people designated illegal immigrants.

We should let everyone in that is not a criminal, and change the laws to make that not be a problem. For example, you can't vote until you are cash flow positive. (Most immigrants would immediately be voters...)

Re: Young people? What young people?

[__aaclcg7560]

That's not supposed to be a problem.

Except that Social Security and Medicare will consume 2/3 of the federal budget in 2030. All those IOUs in the trust fund are due when people start to retire in large numbers.

Re:Young people? What young people?

[__aaclcg7560]

In 11 years you won't be capable of walking about and getting into a bus. How many 375 pounds men in their late 50s do you see walking about on the streets? You already pass out every night, and surely you're aware that the health of morbidly obese men in their 40s and 50s goes downhill rapidly.

Don't let the facts that I'm losing weight and taking naps get in the way of your narrative.

Re:Young people? What young people?

[Lordpidey]

It's going to get really hard to find enough under 30

Bullshit.

What's gonna be hard is to find people under 30 without the 50 required years of experience for an entry level position.

Re:Young people? What young people?

[ShanghaiBill]

When Social Security was created in the 1930's, there was 19 workers for every retiree.

... and the amount paid to those retirees was ZERO. SS was not available to existing retirees. Only to new retirees that had paid into the system when they were still working. Plus you had to pay in for a certain number of years before being eligible for benefits. The taxes were collected in the 1930s, but the first benefits were paid in 1940.

Because of these very restricted eligibility requirements, SS ran HUGE surpluses for decades. This had deleterious effects in the long run, because bad policies were hidden by the surpluses, and are now politically impossible to fix.

It's going to get really hard to find enough under 30 people to support an aging society.

Yet every time Slashdot has a story on AI or robotics, the consensus is that all the jobs are going to disappear. So how can there be a shortage of both workers and jobs?

Re:Young people? What young people?

[__aaclcg7560]

So how can there be a shortage of both workers and jobs?

Look at the construction trades. Older workers are retiring and foreign workers are going home. Young people are sent directly to college without ever considering the vocational trades. There's not enough young people to replace those who are leaving in construction. Plenty of construction jobs, just not enough workers. The same thing will happen to IT when young people go into healthcare because that will be the leading industry for making money after the baby boomers retire.

Re:Young people? What young people?

[Applehu Akbar]

That's why the USA needs more, not less immigrants. And if they have to be illegal initially, so be it.

And best of all, they can't complain to the government about wage/hour law or working conditions!

Re:Young people? What young people?

[frank_adrian314159]

The IT industry alone will have a 1.5M+ shortage of skilled workers as older workers retire and foreign workers go home.

Then maybe the IT industry shouldn't be firing older workers long before their retirement to demonstrate the shortage.

Re: Young people? What young people?

[Bing Tsher E]

Maybe we should send a team of experts to Venezuela to figure out how they print money so rapidly and efficiently.

Those IOSs could become cheaper and cheaper all the time.

Re:Young people? What young people?

[AmiMoJo]

So how can there be a shortage of both workers and jobs?

There is a shortage of workers to pay taxes. There is a shortage of jobs to employ workers to pay taxes.

It's from society/the government's point of view, not the corporations.

Re:Young people? What young people?

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh yes, every Mr Olympia bodybuilder will tell you that afternoon naps are critical for gaining muscle mass.... eyeroll

creimer

Re:Young people? What young people?

[Anonymous Coward]

In the 1930s productivity per worker was a fraction of what it was today, and few retirees and significant savings. The real measure is output of the economy compared to retirement income for former workers based on a combination of SS and their own savings, not numbers of workers.

Re:Young people? What young people?

[Anonymous Coward]

and are now politically impossible to fix.

People in the 1930s were willing to accept social programs after the Great Depression started hammering them all. Not so much the case today, politically or personally.

The sad part is that all we'd have to do is adjust the maximum salary up to where it should be, relative to what it was when the law was passed (adjusted for inflation). If that creates a surplus, drop it down until it breaks even and peg it to cost of living adjustments and/or inflation.

Re:Young people? What young people?

[Anonymous Coward]

You won't keep losing a pound a day, because if you had any willpower about eating you wouldn't have gotten to 375 in the first place. Regardless, even if you do keep at it, you're still moribdly obese until the end of 2019 or so.

And, your father worked hard, and slept afterwards. You're just a fat Wall-E guy with blood-sugar issues. Not the same thing.

Re:Young people? What young people?

[Anonymous Coward]

In 2030, there will be a shortage of 1.5 million IT employees, and everybody will be throwing money at 60 year old men with severe diabetes and a penchant for over-sharing.

Re:Young people? What young people?

[Serge_Tomiko]

We don't need people to support an aging society, and the United States of America doesn't need United States of America Dollars, which only it has the sole legal right to create.

Re:Young people? What young people?

[Serge_Tomiko]

How is it possible that Japan is able to manage an even older population without allowing any immigration at all?

Re:Young people? What young people?

[Anonymous Coward]

Losing weight? More like gaining, tubby.

The facts in evidence: You claim to have lost 13 pounds in the last 13 weeks, because you started eating 1500 calories a day 13 weeks ago, leaving you at 357 pounds today. You attributed that weight loss to a recent reduction of your intake to 1500 calories.

However, in May of 2016, you posted here on Slashdot the following:

My diet is 1,500 calories/150 grams of carbs per day.

So you were also eating 1500 calories a day over a year ago, and claimed to weigh *less* then than you do now. That means that, even if you have lost 13 pounds in the last 13 weeks, you *gained weight* since May of 2016, because you're claiming to weigh more now than you did then.

And if you didn't shift to 1500 calories a day 13 weeks ago to trigger this dramatic weight loss, then you either have cancer, or you're full of shit about losing 13 pounds.

It's YOUR narrative that's getting in the way of itself, tubby. You've apparently gained weight in the last year, while allegedly eating 1500 calories per day, which is far, far, below any reasonable BMR for a man of your size.

The reason you're taking naps is because of your sleep apnea and metabolic syndrome side effects - uncontrolled blood sugar, the stress of high blood pressure and kidney damage, and the systemic inflammation that comes with heart disease. If I were you, I'd get in to see my doctor soon, and ask for a dramatic medical intervention.

But you know, don't let the fact that you're killing yourself get in the way of your narrative.

Re:Young people? What young people?

[__aaclcg7560]

We don't need people to support an aging society, and the United States of America doesn't need United States of America Dollars, which only it has the sole legal right to create.

We will just need to speak Chinese and use the Chinese yuan as currency.

Re:Young people? What young people?

[Anonymous Coward]

We are down to about 2% the number of farmers and they are struggling financially because their productivity is too high (ironically, President Trump killing the TPP is doing huge damage to farmers who suddenly have no place to sell their excess product).

How is that ironic? Or is it "rain on your wedding day" ironic.

Re:Young people? What young people?

[Anonymous Coward]

Or in your case, after four hours the owner of the Chinese buffet will say to you "YOU GO NOW! YOU SCARE MY WIFE!"

Re:Young people? What young people?

[plopez]

That's OK. The US is a wealth engine. It shouldn't be hard to balance the world's greatest GDP with taking care of its people.

Re:Young people? What young people?

[Anonymous Coward]

So your solution to a flawed system that extracts wealth from working Americans to boomers is to import more people that you can abuse to keep the system propped up for a bit longer? What about when all those people retire?

Re:Young people? What young people?

[whoever57]

How is it possible that Japan is able to manage an even older population without allowing any immigration at all?

Because it hasn't. Japan has been in a deflationary spiral for decades.

Re:Young people? What young people?

[rtb61]

They are called robots, look it up. So how many robots does it take to feed people in your world, apparently none, because if the people are not workers they should simply die and as you no longer need people to be workers because the robots do all the work, than all the people can die. Now that you have no people to feed, well, all the robots can be shut down because they have nothing to do and humanity is extinct. Psychopathic capitalism solves no problems it just creates them so it can generate a profit. New solutions are required built around social democracy ie a government of the people, by the people and for the people.

Re:Young people? What young people?

[drinkypoo]

For example, you can't vote until you are cash flow positive.

How about not being able to vote until you can tell a cheeto from a president? Tying it to economic status seems like a horrible mistake.

Re:Young people? What young people?

[Anonymous Coward]

legal immigrants are the ones that pay income taxes, illegals do not pay income taxes, thus they do not support anyone but themselves.

Re:Young people? What young people?

[Anonymous Coward]

You have to account for productivity per worker, not just the number of workers.

Been there back in 1999

[Anonymous Coward]

When I was working for a big consulting firm in 1999 there was a big push at the time to create multiple tracks of "advancement" specifically for the people that had no desire to be anywhere near the line of management.

It worked to a degree, where the "Subject Matter Expert" in their field would be brought in as a tech resource - but like many initiatives it got bogged down by more and more layers of people trying to get a "piece of the pie" and hang on to the billable hours. The loudest people and the ones closest to where the money flows will always be more successful.

The only way us "old farts" can compete is be just as nimble as the younger people and adapt to the game. Anyone who says we can't learn a new language, a new tech or whatever passes as "employably hot" never met one of us who are more than happy to come in and do what needs to be done - and we have the knowledge to Make Shit Happen. I don't need "corporate love" to keep me trained. I am a fucking geek all the way - and when I'm not writing medical interface code, I'm building/flying/racing drones, building robots, taking a plasma torch to metal sheets and building dragons for yard art, to messing with all flavors of IoT boards just for shits and giggles. It's all about attitude and a willingness to learn on your own. If there is a new language or tech I need to know to stay marketable? Then I do it. I don't wait for some employer to train me because sure as fuck if they get a client that has a need? They're not going to pay me to try and learn it - they'll hire someone else with that skill.

Just be adaptable and open to change and you'll always have people wanting to work with you and hire you to do tasks that need to be done. The only thing that is permanent in life is change - and the sooner everyone embraces that instead of whining about it the better off we'll be.

Is ageism a thing? Sure. But know your shit and be willing to eat the occasional effluvia from some corporate suit turd-hammer? You'll always make it work.

I don't bitch. I laugh about it - all the way to the bank.

Re:Been there back in 1999

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is all the PC crap you have to put up with. Knowledge is just half the battle. I think employers would rather have pliable idiots who kiss the boss' butt five times a day than have someone who just wants to sit in front of the CRT for 10 hours a day and work.

Re: Been there back in 1999

[Anonymous Coward]

PC = friendliness. Which is why I only ever hear this from assholes. Regular people can easily spend eight minutes a day being friendly.

Friendliness is a skill. You control what skills you have, not anyone else. Pick up a few audiobooks on faking it and start practicing.

Re:Been there back in 1999

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't need "corporate love" to keep me trained.

That's what the sorporations want to hear.

No company pays for training--i..e time to be trained. Time is money. I remember in the 90's companies wisk you away for 2 weeks or more to be trained and stay up to date on trends. Nowadays, you have to pay for it (off or online), study on your own time, and keep it out of your work schedule (it's no excuse)--and 9 out of 10 times don't get a reward for taking taking initiative to train yourself aside from finding a new job with some other company for a REAL pay raise...

That's the gig economy--we're all contractors, at will, and companies with their reckless CEOs have no responsibility for your wealth-fare, BUT all the power to change your career (who gets the 'spoils', fast trackers, etc...) and to some, their lives (i.e. layoffs).

Note, performance-based merit is a joke nowadays, it's either some form of bro-culture (buddies, university networking, fem-movement networking, minorities clubs, etc...) that really comes from Wall-Street/VCs--because who judges that performance, the same old execs that believe in monopolies and networking.

Re: Been there back in 1999

[thinkwaitfast]

Putting a restaurant out of business because of a name is not friendly, it is retarded.

Re: Been there back in 1999

[david_thornley]

Like everything else, a name that is cool now may be out of favor later. Radio Shack came into being when it called to mind a good radio technician capable of doing what it took in a little shack built on the deck of a freighter or passenger ship. It implied new and exciting techiness. Come the 1990s, and a "shack" is nothing impressive, with overtones of "shacking up".

Various Sambo's changed their name to something more acceptable, so that wasn't the problem. The demise was likely due to a change in management policy, according to the article you cited.

Senior living.

[Anonymous Coward]

Should Workplaces Be Re-Defined To Retain Older Tech Workers?

Of course. Mandatory canes, and colostomy bags, because we're going to ride this trend to the grave.

IT is not unique

[Bruce66423]

There are many professions that make little provision for people who don't want to become 'managers'. The classic examples are police, nurses and social workers; if you want to carry on engaging with people, you can't accept promotion. In IT being a contractor often offers the opportunity to stay coding - though at the cost of long term stability in employment. Large organisations may have the space and sense to recognise that the geek over there knows stuff that they need to have on tap, but sadly the temptation is to assume that modern technology renders the knowledge obsolete; outsourcing is an experiment based on this hypothesis...

Re:IT is not unique

[Anonymous Coward]

There are many professions that make little provision for people who don't want to become 'managers'. The classic examples are police, nurses and social workers; if you want to carry on engaging with people, you can't accept promotion.

That's mostly because of the status and perceived (sometimes even real) prestige that comes from having underlings over whom you have authority. It also comes from more readily being able to put your name on what was really a team effort. Basically it's an ego trip as evidenced from the large number of dishonorable managers who think that having a position of authority entitles them to be rude and mistreat people.

People tend to think others are like themselves even against evidence to the contrary (again, ego). So manager types who worked their way up into this system assume that everyone else should want to do the same thing. The thought that someone else doesn't want what they wanted (and worked hard for) is alien to them. It generally doesn't occur to them.

I don't know how it is in other cultures but corporate America is all about social games, displays, and politics. Every bit as much as it's about profits. It's the cause of many bad decisions which had foreseeable outcomes.

Re:IT is not unique

[Lucky_Strikez]

I work in a lumberyard as a sidejob, we have guy that made manager because he's been there ten years and the GM's like him. He didn't even want the position, they talked him into it. He's not a bad manager( I like the guy so I might be biased) but he's not good either. Another Mgr. was demoted and they promoted him to 1st Asst. and he didn't want that either. He constantly talks about how he wants to demote back to the yard(and tried but they talked him out of it.) All of the other people that have made it, management seems to be all about whether they like you and you're part of the inner circle. The more you suck dicks, the more you climb that ladder.

Re: IT is not unique

[Anonymous Coward]

Where I work management success only starts after your first divorce. Once the company has destroyed your marriage they own you and titles, pay and stock options, follow. If you want the next big promotion, find a trophy wife. Keep her for few years and dump her too. Then you're eligible for SVP.

That is all there is to it.

If you just want to be technical, love your wife and kids and don't aspire to manage people you are going to be considered useless to the organization.

Yes, yes, I work in hell, also known as banking and finance.

Re:IT is not unique

[ubrgeek]

> So manager types who worked their way up into this system assume that everyone else should want to do the same thing.

I've got a lot of years of management experience and through it all I've maintained that if I'm not providing opportunities for the folks who work for me to be prepared for their next job, I'm failing in my role. If they want to move into management, I'll work with them to get them into management courses. If staying in positions that provide more opportunities to be hands-on with the technology, I'll help them find courses they feel will help them up those skills (whichever ones they find most interesting).

I never understood the mindset of "If we train them, they'll go elsewhere." It generally takes more than just a single factor for a coworker to go to another job. Providing training isn't any of them.

Re:IT is not unique

[thinkwaitfast]

It's only social games if you want it to be. There's plenty of technical work to be done. Don't play that game.

Re:IT is not unique

[TeknoHog]

There are many professions that make little provision for people who don't want to become 'managers'. The classic examples are police, nurses and social workers; if you want to carry on engaging with people, you can't accept promotion.

Not really the best examples, because management involves engaging with people. Not quite the same kind of engagement, but not completely different either; for starters, these professionals will have plenty of the people skills that tech geeks typically lack. I know some fellow teachers who are interested in getting into management, and I don't doubt their skills.

Of course, management isn't all about people skills, and it would be great to see some of the systemic/rational thinking of techy types in management. Besides, being introverted doesn't mean lack of people skills.

Re:IT is not unique

[tigersha]

I am pretty much about to send my current employer to hell because they REFUSE to provide any training.

Yes. And no.

[Anonymous Coward]

Workplaces should be redefined to retain /good/ and /great/ workers :-)

I have never understood

[Anonymous Coward]

why young people are more actively sought out than older people. I can only see young people as being "better" in 2 respects: 1) cheaper, and 2) fewer commitments/more time availability.

Any young person I've worked with, has, at best been a few notches above useless. Being adept at searching StackOverflow does not make you a good programmer.

Re:I have never understood

[ArchieBunker]

You can pay young people way less and work them to death because they don't know any better. Try that with someone in their 40s and they will say piss off and get a job elsewhere.

Re:I have never understood

[Tablizer]

You can pay young people way less and work them to death because they don't know any better.

Indeed! Our young architect shoved every possible layer and service he could into our MVC stack. He's either a feature pack-rat, and/or trying to pad his resume with every buzzword he can.

Most the devs are young and don't know the difference and probably want to pad their resumes also with the gizmos. Thus, development is turned into a typing contest, and young fingers will probably win that one.

My only hope is to convince the suits it's bloat and bullshit, but the architect has so far been out brown-nosing me. I probably lost this round. The suits may realize its bloat a few years down the road, but that may be too late.

I suspect the architect is intentionally trying to get rid of the old people because we know enough to question his judgement. He's using buzzwords to paint us as outdated and using a bloated stack to make it a typing contest between young fingers and old fingers. Clever bastard. He'll probably trim the stack once we are gone.

Why rigid systems?

[Kohath]

Why do we need to redefine systems? Treat people as individuals instead of parts of a defined system. Keep the systems loose and flexible.

That's one advantage startups have over established companies: roles can change to accommodate the capabilities of individuals and the changing needs of the company.

unlink health care from jobs

[Joe_Dragon]

unlink health care from jobs.

That can free up people who are just there for the health care

Re:unlink health care from jobs

[Zero__Kelvin]

There are a lot of reasons to criticize the younger set and doing the job for money rather than because they love it is one of them, but even I think accusing them of being in it just for the health plan is taking it too far.

Re:unlink health care from jobs

[Anonymous Coward]

Unlink health insurance from health care. They're not the same thing.

No

[bistromath007]

If you're a Boomer, it's your fault you can't afford to retire. People my age have enough trouble getting jobs without you keeping them into your 70s. Go sit on an ice floe.

Retaining older workers is easy

[ErichTheRed]

I'm 42, so I think I officially qualify as old. Yet, here I am still doing senior-level engineering work. I'm not a DevOps ninja (yet...) and don't code 16 hours a day, but I really enjoy my job. I'm hoping for the day that more employers will see that older workers who are still contributing aren't a drag on the company they work for -- they're the adults that are needed to redirect some of the "bright ideas" and temper them with reality and experience. Unfortunately, we're a society that worships Silicon Valley wunderkinds and 24-year-old CEOs, and even boring old school companies are trying to behave like web startups. So here's my suggestions -- companies shouldn't try too hard; if they do even some of these things they will retain talented older workers:

• Like the article says, have a technical track people can move along. Before my company implemented an "official" parallel career track for skilled technical people, lots of older people were "promoted" into management. It was the only place to go if you wanted to continue up the career ladder. This works great in traditional paper-shuffling corporate work, but IT, science, R&D, etc. is work that people actually don't mind doing and some of us would rather continue doing so. Traditional corporate jobs tend to promote people out of work, and most people are happy for this because who wants to shuffle paper? But, technical work and managerial work are _not_ related, not even close. The alternative for promotion on the technical track (at least for me) is being trusted with greater responsibility and helping with developing our junior staff. This (IMO) is a much better use of my skills than a management job would be.
• Understand that older workers can't live at work. It's not a sign of disloyalty or laziness to put in a reasonable amount of hours. Most older workers don't want to continue their college dorm days and live at an office with their co-workers. The way I manage it (with a huge volume of work) is to stay reasonably productive during the actual workday so I don't have to spend 13 hours a day at the office. Many older workers have kids and families, but it's also not the 1950s anymore where the husband was the sole breadwinner and would do anything the company told them to keep their job.
• Be flexible! This is one that gets major flak from the vocally child-free crowd and the younger set who have fewer out-of-work responsibilities. I have 2 kids, and the shorter work commute between my wife and I, so I do a lot of school activity appearances and other things during the day. But, I also regularly do the odd task for an hour or two after the house goes to bed. The company I work for gets plenty of work out of me; it's just not all in contiguous blocks.
• Lay off the preschool workplace furniture a little bit. Most older workers can be trusted with a little personal space. Most of us also don't want to attend meetings sitting on orange and blue beanbag chairs against a bright white wall. Have a mix of traditional office space and Millenial preschool office space -- our company does because we tend to skew older. Not everyone is happy with open plan offices and for some people (like me) they can be productivity killers.
• Appoint older workers as informal trainers. This is part of my job, and I'm actually someone who enjoys doing it. If you can convince your older workers that there aren't a bunch of MBAs waiting to lay them off as soon as the younglings' training is complete, this is a great way to pass on institutional knowledge. For this to work though, you have to provide...
• Job security. I'm not talking union-level or tenure-level "we can't fire you for any reason", I'm just talking about dialing back the outsourcing/offshoring/layoff drama a little bit. I would (and have!) taken a lower salary to work somewhere that is more stable than your average web startup. Older workers with families want an income they can count on. Part of that is up to us (by keeping o

Re:Retaining older workers is easy

[durdur]

Some of that makes sense. But I think it is more basic. #1, don't just not hire older workers. The current reality is that once you are a tech guy over 40, you are less employable, and it gets worse as you get older. #2, have the idea that work doesn't have to mean 18-hour days at the office and there is such a thing as part-time - that is a big mind shift for a lot of tech shops.

Personally now I'm out of the workforce and doing part-time contract gigs. I am very fortunate to find some that will take me on part-time (helps if you are billing a hefty hourly rate: they think twice about eating up all your time). My other personal rule is that I don't do Scrum: I did it for years, I hated it, and two week cadence with daily standups assumes you are there all the time.

Re:Retaining older workers is easy

[Anonymous Coward]

The current reality is that once you are a tech guy over 40, you are less employable, and it gets worse as you get older.

So, like athletes, who retire by 30-35. Isn't it time programmers are paid more like athletes (like $200k) if their working career is only between the years of 21 and 45? Heck, even doctors work until they're 60 or 70.

Re:Retaining older workers is easy

[Teun]

Spot on, when I turned 60 I became a full time mentor and instructor for the newly hired engineers.
It's a win-win for all, the new guys don't have to repeat the stupidities of the past, I get exposed to some of the new tech they bring out of university and the company keeps the good parts of its proven production methods yet advances with the new hires.
The older workers can be an effective glue between existing products, future developments and management.

Re:Retaining older workers is easy

[Anonymous Coward]

Para-phrasing..... Appoint older workers as informal trainers.

This is now part of my job, and I'm actually someone who enjoys doing it. If you can convince your older workers that there aren't a bunch of MBAs (robotic bean-counters with no discernible soul) waiting to lay them off as soon as the young-lings' training is complete, this is a great way to pass on institutional knowledge.

I have to agree-ish here. I'm at the same point in my career... as the younger managers are asking me to "grow" younger employees. Part of me loves this.. mentoring my younger colleagues to grow their knowledge base, make better, more informed decisions and to use good engineering judgment to help them grow their skill set and career-base. Having said that... I've not seen the backing I'd hope for that tells me I'm not "training my replacement" as so many other workers have had to deal with in the H1-B techopolypse (TM).

And at the same time... my company has instituted a "greening effort" to reduce costs.. with HR and the bean counters only looking at labor rates. The finance department has no idea who is or isn't efficient... they only look at labor grades and salary... as they decide how to make cost-cuts to improve the bottom line.

FYI.. those of us older than 40 sarcastically call the new plan a "graying effort" as the result from the last 2 years or so.. has pretty much focused its efforts to cull employees that hired on when there was a pension.. and good medical benefits post-retirement.

I'll close with this unsubstantiated Internet rumor about senior knowledge. I can't back it up with facts... but I don't deny its possibility =)

There was an engineer who had an exceptional gift for fixing all things mechanical. After serving his company loyally for over 30 years, he happily retired. Several years later the company contacted him regarding a seemingly impossible problem they were having with one of their multi-million dollar machines. They had tried everything and everyone else to get the machine to work but to no avail.

In desperation, they called on the retired engineer who had solved so many of their problems in the past. The engineer reluctantly took the challenge. He spent a day studying the huge machine. Finally, at the end of the day, he marked a small “x” in chalk on a particular component of the machine and said, “This is where your problem is.” The part was replaced and the machine worked perfectly again. The company received a bill for $50,000 from the engineer for his service. They demanded an itemized accounting of his charges.

The engineer responded briefly: One chalk mark $1; Knowing where to put it $49,999.

It was paid in full and the engineer retired again in peace.

Peace out.

Re:Retaining older workers is easy

[Anonymous Coward]

"Preschool workspace furniture" - spot on. I work for a defense contractor who has started to put these stuff in 'collaboration rooms'. Everyone now calls them romper rooms. Good idea for some, waste of time for others.

Even Apple in their new building is getting major push back with the open space concept. Too distracting, too impersonal.

Re:Retaining older workers is easy

[david_thornley]

Personally, I found that hair dye made a very large difference in my employability.

there are coders who want to code and not BS

[Joe_Dragon]

there are coders who want to code and not do all of BS that managers do?

Staring at meat...

[Anonymous Coward]

As someone in the early 50's, the discrimination occurs during the job search and when it's time to reduce staff.

But, once in, my experience has been pretty pleasant with a lot of comradery and mutual respect.

Office office plans ARE all to popular. Used to have a private office or cubical. But, the trend in the past 5 years has been towards the open floor plan. At least we a dedicated spot (have seen the opposite...sucks). Somebody thinks this is the hallmark of a productive environment. And, they expect you to wear headphones to drown out the noise. I just get disteacted looking out the window at squirrels or staring at the cute interns.

Given the massive amount of automation going on

[rsilvergun]

and productivity increases (did you know that if minimum wage kept pace with productivity it'd be $23/hr) why don't we all just work less hours? I seem to remember hearing I'd work less than my parents. I'm working more, and my kids are on track to work more than me. Yeah, I got a bloody smart phone ($225 LG) and that's nice and all, but I also don't drink and smoke (and neither do my kids) which more than makes up for that expense.

Is it just me or are these just new fangled ways to get me to work harder and longer for less?

Wrong problem

[rsilvergun]

with automation and productivity improvements it's going to get hard to find enough work to go around. For example, with Trump & co blocking farm immigration farmers are finally implementing the kinds of labor saving practices (like growing food at waist height so it's easier to pick) that Europe's had for 20 years.

That IT shortage is a lie. I've got a guy at my job with a CS degree from a public University who's doing crap IT work instead of programming for a living. 20 years ago he would have been snapped up a day after graduation. But 20 years ago the H1-B program was in it's infancy.

There's plenty of money to go around. You're being lied to so a small group of lucky assholes can take everything. Not that I know what to do about it.

Re:Wrong problem

[Tony Isaac]

Where exactly do you live?

I live in Houston. My company has been trying to hire a DBA, offering a competitive salary, for months. We've made offers to candidates who told us they had two other offers and had to choose. As a lead developer, I myself had to look for a job a year ago. I had four interviews within two weeks, and was hired with a good salary and benefits within another two. Here in Houston at least, IT talent is very tight.

Re:Wrong problem

[Tony Isaac]

Automation isn't going to solve the labor shortage in IT. I do automation for a living. The problem is, automation is very, very expensive. It only pays to automate the most routine of tasks, or the tasks that have the most critical need for precision and accuracy.

Even fast food restaurants are having a hard time automating away the need for high school workers. They introduce things like kiosk ordering, but there still seem to be just as many jobs for human cashiers and the like.

Automation does improve efficiency, but we're not headed towards a 20-hour work week any time soon. If anything, the trend is going the other way.

Re:Wrong problem

[Anonymous Coward]

That means the "competitive" salary you are offering, isn't competitve.If you lose out to other firms paying the same, perhaps the work is less interesting, your facilities are poor, or you are less convincing.

Old peope only know one thing

[mschuyler]

that young people really have no clue about. Youth doesn't last that long. Enjoy it, because you're on the same train everyone else is.

athletes are union as well maybe we need that

[Joe_Dragon]

athletes are union as well maybe we need that for the places that can people at 35-40?

Re:athletes are union as well maybe we need that

[durdur]

Programmers are commonly unionized in Europe.

Re:athletes are union as well maybe we need that

[tigersha]

I live in Europe. This is total BS. They are not.

Re:athletes are union as well maybe we need that

[david_thornley]

Where in Europe? If programmers are commonly unionized in Europe, it doesn't mean that happens in your country. Europe's a big place.

Re:No - Older workers should start businesses

[Anonymous Coward]

The statistics show that younger workers have the highest unemployment rate. So the premise of the article is false.

Older workers should start businesses and employ younger workers. Same as always.

That is Economics 101.

As simple as this....

[Anonymous Coward]

Either the virus kills the host, or the host kills the virus.
Either way...........

Major Projects Engineering

[pipingguy]

In major projects engineering entry level tasks have become automated (much work actually is off-shored now as well) to the point where the old, expensive guys are laid off and the younger people (who are more familiar with the sophisticated software) are running the great big machines which prevent them from making mistakes. There is very little mentoring left in this field.

No

[Anonymous Coward]

We just need to retract all of the retarded bullshit created by millennials. Half of them are tech-illiterate anyway. The entire country has eaten its crazy flakes over the past decade. I personally think its time for more capable people to start forming their own companies and to mash this nonsense into the ground.

I saw the writing on the wall

[Hasaf]

I looked around and realized that there were no older workers in my position. There are always ways to push people out the door, and they were being used. I even looked at other companies and saw the same.

I decided to get my teachers license (I already had a Masters; so it was a pretty easy process). Yes, I have to deal with middle school kids; but I look at my friends who tried to stick it out and they are doing things like delivering pizzas.

Personal responsibility

[Snufu]

These people chose to be old. Nobody forced them. Hold people responsible for their decisions.

Damn nanny state.

Re:Personal responsibility

[The Evil Atheist]

You sound exactly like what's going to happen to you.

Re:Personal responsibility

[plopez]

I think you got whooshed.

Definite "yes" on the management thing

[Anonymous Coward]

I always like to compare technical skills more to music. What if they said, "Bono, U2 is really great, time to stop playing and singing. We're promoting you to northeast regional manager of Geffen". Ridiculous, right? To me the whole idea that experienced programmers are destined for management is equally ridiculous. It's nice for the manager to have some tech background and not be clueless, but they shouldn't all be tracked that way or discarded after a certain age. I've even had the whole, "we'd like to see you take the lead on some projects" thing in evaluation. Why? I suck at leading people.

Nonsense! Our Robotic Workers Will Support Us!

[Anonymous Coward]

The headline says it all

Be that as it may...

[Anonymous Coward]

Employers don't exist to keep workers happy. It's on you to convince them that you are worth the money (and perks) you are asking for. If your chosen contributions don't lend themselves to advancement, that's on you, too.

It doesn't help that every new crop of managers make the same dumb mistakes that the prior crop made. The situation will always be sub-optimal, as the lessons learned from experience get lost to churn within the ranks of management just as much as they do on a dev team.

Reality is a harsh mistress.

The problem is obvious

[MpVpRb]

Older workers aren't obsolete, they're just more expensive

Managers need to re-calibrate their measurements

Young managers who fail to do this, or who care more about culture than results, are missing out on a vast talent pool

Re:The problem is obvious

[zifn4b]

Older workers aren't obsolete, they're just more expensive

Managers need to re-calibrate their measurements

Young managers who fail to do this, or who care more about culture than results, are missing out on a vast talent pool

You get what you pay for. I've seen quite a few companies go under with software platforms written almost exclusively by recent college grads and H1B visas. As soon as they put any real load on the system, it buckles. When this situation occurs, the people who created the problem due to incompetence and inexperience just jump ship and go do it all over again somewhere else.

Being 46

[Anonymous Coward]

I see now that some young ones are cemented like some older ones and some older ones still stay on top. Most likely age has shown me that I shouldnt let the age of someone make me lazy in fifuring someone out.

Re: Being 46

[Anonymous Coward]

... or learning to check for typos...

everyone deserves a turn

[Anonymous Coward]

There are so many of the new generation coming in who are tech saavy that the older generation has a responsibilty to step aside and make room. If the millennials are going to make it on their own, they need these jobs that us gen-X and boomers are occupying. It's time for millennials to grow up, move out of their parent's place and buy homes of their own.

Boomers and gen-Xers can go on unemployment and state healthcare, because we planned ahead to make sure there would be a safety net for us. Oh wait, SHIT! FUCKING SHIT! WHAT HAVE WE DONE?

Scarily accurate

[Bruce66423]

Shame that got down modded - though it is off topic. I've a close friend whose marriage has survived his being an quite senior in IT in a major bank, but he's not top flight.

Family Friendly Policies

[zifn4b]

Older works (and I'm one of them) do not need special treatment. The problem with the workplace is that it is NOT family friendly and our birth rates are suffering from it. France and Germany are already dealing with this problem by instituting family friendly policies. America, of course, thinks it knows better than to follow their lead. When everyone is busy slaving their asses off for the whims of the corporate lobbying of the likes of the Koch Brothers, everyone is too tired and exhausted to make babies. Couple this with average wages adjusted for inflation having taken a nose dive over the past 20 years.

Prioritize policies based on family _AND_ GDP (or in reality executive bonuses) and this problem and many others will be alleviated.

Become a Scrum Master

[Anonymous Coward]

The median salary is $110,000 (USD) a year. You just setup a bunch of meetings:

* At the daily scrum, you just ask everyone what they did yesterday, what they will do today, and any impediments.
* At the scrum of scrums, just ask each team what they did last week, what they'll do this week, and any impediments.
* At the retrospective, just ask everyone what went well and what we'll do better. Then send out an email about what we'll do better and everyone will ignore you.
* Back log refinement? Just sit there. That's the product owner and teams responsibility.
* Sprint planning? Just sit there. That's the product owner and teams responsibility.
* Demo? Just sit there. That's the product owner and teams responsibility.

There is no need to keep up on technical stuff like programming languages and frameworks.

Health Insurance

[Anonymous Coward]

Age discrimination is the biggest group affected in the work place and it's mostly about health costs and does not just affect tech workers. This means you will be terminated with predjudice almost exactly at your fiftieth birthday and then will almost be never be hired by a corporation, especialy tech related, thereafter. Of course Wall Mart and Mickey D's would take you. And your and your peers will never be mentioned in large media outlets, so sad.

Management is a Pyramid

[Anonymous Coward]

Companies are shaped like a pyramid. Each level of management has a number of people reporting to them, on up the chain. By definition, not everyone can become a manager. If they did, then management would be one-to-one (e.g. each manager would have one report, all the way up the chain). And that doesn't make any sense.

So, does that mean that every worker who didn't make the cut for management is worthless and should be jettisoned once they hit 40? No, that's ridiculous.

Personally, I took myself off the management track because I wanted to remain focused on outcomes, rather than politics. And, let's face it, in mid- to large-size companies, politics is a HUGE part of management. Figuring out who to back-stab, and when, as well as who is out to back-stab you is a huge part being a manager -- and not everyone has the skills and/or desire to play that game.

People who eschew the management path should be embraced. They are the doers, the creative thinkers, the people who can keep your business humming. These people are like the seasoned NCOs in an army unit. They keep the unit effective, regardless of the officer in charge.

I don't know why tech companies can't see that.

Look to the government for innovation!

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously, the US Federal Government has been doing this in one way, shape, or form for better than 30 years. It depends where you are, but in general, federal employees in most white-collar occupations make a choice to be either a manager or a technical expert. It's often around the GS-13 level, but it varies by location and agency. There is some room to switch between them, but both tracks allow for promotion all the way up through the senior-most pay grades (SES, not ES) with the managers controlled by OPM and the technical folks controlled by the department. The intent is to retain technical talent, and allow for advancement if you don't want to be a manager. (which would generally make you bad at it)

Re:No - Older workers should start businesses

[david_thornley]

Some of us old farts aren't interested in starting our own business. That requires its own skill set.

Sounds like a plan

[whitroth]

I've been in my current job for twice as long as any other job I've had in my life. However, when I was interviewing, one of the things I always said was, "if you have a tech track and a management track, I'm on the tech track."

Not everyone should, or wants to be a manager. There are far toom many people who REALLY, REALLY SHOULD NOT BE A MANAGER. On the other hand, those folks may be really good at what they do.

Do you *really* want the manager who really knows the systems in an "emergency" meeting that runs on for hours, while a new hire who doesn't have anywhere near the experience as the manager, never mind they don't know the systems deeply yet, try to deal with the disaster?

If you think it should work that way, congratulations, here's your MBA, now get out there and destroy your company, too.