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Ask Slashdot: What's the Best Way to Retrain Old IT Workers?
A medium-sized company just hired a new IT manager who wants advice from the Slashdot community about their two remaining IT "gofers":
These people have literally been here their entire "careers" and are now near retirement. Quite honestly, they do not have any experience other than reinstalling Windows, binding something to the domain and the occasional driver installation -- and are more than willing to admit this. Given many people are now using Macs and most servers/workstations are running Linux, they have literally lost complete control over the company, with most of these machines sitting around completely unmanaged.
Firing these people is nearly impossible. (They have a lot of goodwill within other departments, and they have quite literally worked there for more than 60 years combined.) So I've been tasked with attempting to retrain these people in the next six months. Given they still have to do work (imaging computers and fixing basic issues), what are the best ways of retraining them into basic network, Windows, Mac, Linux, and "cloud" first-level help desk support?
Monster_user had some suggestions -- for example, "Don't overtrain. Select and target areas where they will be able to provide a strong impact." Any other good advice?
Leave your best answers in the comments. What's the best way to retrain old IT workers?
Firing these people is nearly impossible. (They have a lot of goodwill within other departments, and they have quite literally worked there for more than 60 years combined.) So I've been tasked with attempting to retrain these people in the next six months. Given they still have to do work (imaging computers and fixing basic issues), what are the best ways of retraining them into basic network, Windows, Mac, Linux, and "cloud" first-level help desk support?
Monster_user had some suggestions -- for example, "Don't overtrain. Select and target areas where they will be able to provide a strong impact." Any other good advice?
Leave your best answers in the comments. What's the best way to retrain old IT workers?
Seriously, what's the point? The company moved to Mac and Linux, and these two did nothing to keep themselves relevant? It ain't hard to learn how to install and maintain OS X and Linux, FFS.
They're likely going to be doorstops now matter how you train them.
In the military, these two would be referred to as "Retired On Active Duty".
And yes, I hope those two "workers" read this.
If two employees haven't been used effectively for the entirety of their careers, whose fault is that -- theirs, or management's? YOU owe THEM for sticking around through decades of shitty leadership.
People honest enough to admit their shortcomings, are probably quite able to tell where they can still be a good contribution. This late in the game, they must have ownership of their tasks, or they will hold everybody else up.
Sounds like they are well liked and have excellent people skills. Use that. 1st level help desk, training new employees, vendor contact, IT intranet, etc.
Seriously, this is going to be about as balanced a discussion as the previous systemd thread.
You're Fired! Oh, do I have your attention now?
ABC - Always be Closing your tickets.
Coffee is for ticket closers.
I think it is best to pose the problem and ask for suggestions on how to solve it, directly addressing them.
Let them help improve the system instead of just maintaining since that likely understand what is needed. Retraining implies that you have a new plan. It is a lot easier to train someone that is familiar with the environment than to bring in someone new. What you did not enumerate is how the old system works (possibly nothing) and how the new one will work.
Plenty of those too. Keeping up with technology has very little to do with age.
Look, it's very unlikely that senior admin staff has not bothered following the evolution of the IT hardware of its own company. Because, how can you actually do your job if it does not happen?
Maybe you have another situation on your hand, such as a team of people who were working on something else and have been relocated to admin. They're probably not super happy about it, too.
Then your job is probably not to retrain them (IT staff can train itself), but to remotivate them, if that is actually possible. How to do that, I don't know. There must be a way to give value to their experience (you don't seem to feel they have any but really you don't spend a full career in a company doing nothing), to put their current skills to good use. Assess those skills, find a way to put them to good use, and only then, think of how you can get them to fit the positions they've been relocated to. Maybe the problem will sort itself out when they realize their new position has moved away from punishment, to something exciting. IT people even old enjoy new challenges. It's just you have to get them into that mindset.
Cheers,
a manager
Ask them what it would take to retire. Invest up-front in paying enough severance to make them retire. Hire some entry-level admins who already know what you need. This will be cheaper over the long run.
I'd relish a change - jobs like ours is very boring and monotonous and being required to learn something new and the having the luxury of learning on the job would thrill me to death.
And folks need to remember that aside from the fact that those folks aren't keeping up - it's now a performance issue - the EEOC is very easy to get around. And I once heard of someone who actually won an EEOC suite. They got a whole $50K to split with their lawyer - after 7 years of court battles.
Old farts like the above give us other old farts a bad name. Soylent Green them.
A thing with people that's often overlooked is that different people have different values. The main ones are
traditional authoritarian
individualistic achiever
egalitarian community
and systemic integrative [1]
For example, the traditional mindset is happy so long as there is a hierarchy which is dictating what needs doing, with a sense of loyalty and appreciation. So change for change's sake is not welcome, but change in the context of stability and loyalty, can be welcome. The core point is, safety and loyalty and conforming to the norms.
Whereas, the individualistic achiever is happier being able to do independently driven, the typical "modern thinker", the self-made man, etc. Here you might be more concerned with, asking people what do they want? Where do they want to go with this job? What are their interested? What do they personally want to develop? And then just letting them get on with developing any opportunity which appeals to them and which is useful for the company.
The egalitarian community type is motivated somewhat differently to the first two. This is anti-hierarchy and is looking more for meaning and purpose in the job. This person want to work for a charity which is devoted to a good humanitarian cause. They have a need for personal meaning and a sense of being equally valued as everyone else. Their own voice matters. The group is important, and so it is about helping people to voice their own experience and do so in a way which helps them relate to the group more, in a more meaningful way.
So that's three main "values" and there is one more crucial point: people's values change over decades. So you might find that, people who were happy in the same job doing the same standard thing for 30 years -- which would suit them if they were traditional authoritarian ie. they valued stability and being told what to do -- may by now be in the achiever value or the egalitarian value, simply because as individuals, they grew as people and now have new needs.
So part of retraining isn't just swapping out one set of work tasks for another -- that may be done perfectly well, yet kinda fail -- because as a person one may now wish for a different kind of expression of values in their work, and in their training.
Another way to out this is that as people grow they tend to become more complex and have more complex aspirations.
Actually my reason for writing this is that the article description suggests that the "problem" is how to deal with people who seem stuck in old patterns and unable to change... so I thought it worth mentioning that the people may have indeed changed... they have become more complex individuals, but the work itself hadn't changed... so the opportunity here is to tap into whatever new complexities these individuals may now be capable of. Older may well mean wiser.
I know it's harsh, but there is very little I see (from a company's perspective) to keep them there:
a) not a clue how the new system works: training required... OSX and Linux are not precisely new systems, so the employees have had not the will to simply keep up to date / learn stuff. Seems lazy to me. Will they learn anything during the training? Not so sure.
b) they are near retirement. Meaning, whoever replaces them will need training. You keep them, you train twice.
c) you mentioned (new?) systems are currently unmaintained. How much would they cost (not just money, but information lost) if anything happened to those? if paying them whatever they're due is better than the consequences of anything happening...
They're probably nice blokes, but with the data you give... there is very little to make me think they deserve a chance.
One word: old people. Yeah, I know. They want me to work with them.
We all know they can't be trained or communicated with.
How do I phrase this question like I will actually take any advice?
I would not attempt to train them yourself. Because now, their success or failure is yours. Just find a good training vendor, and run them through it.
8 of 13 people found this answer helpful. Did you?
I'm probably going to get downvoted for this, but why the need to retain these people? If what you're saying is accurate these people are almost useless in the current IT environment for the simple reason that they've refused to update their skills. What value does people like this provide the organization?
If they're also required to maintain some legacy system or have knowledge about company IT systems that hasn't been properly documented I could understand the compulsive need to retain them. However as this does not seem to be the case, all of the options I can think of are likely to have the same effect as rubber room-type solutions. First of all there's just getting them to quit them using something like a rubber room, then there's just creating busywork for them which is likely to cause similar results, and finally there's re-training, which is in essence busywork considering the limited time they have to take advantage of those new skills and will probably have a similar effect to just plain busywork.
"Why should I want to make anything up? Life's bad enough as it is without wanting to invent any more of it."
Seriously, what did the company do during the last 10 years? No training?
I'm 65 and have skills with Linux, OpenBSD and OSX. I can set up nameservers and mailservers with OpenBSD and Linux. I have also been trained on industrial aircondition and installing fibreoptics. All due to industrial training and personal training.
What is up with that company management? Why have incentives for employees to learn and widen their skills been dropped years ago? Have the employees already been branded as "old" when they crossed the line of 40?
That things got this bad. They should have provided the training from day one. And they should give them the work they were trained for.
Great video tutorials on anything. Amazon and ms cloud, MAC management sccm sql Linux whatever. Itâ(TM)s like $60 per user per month and works pretty much anywhere.
What I would do is to give them a machine, park it on their desks and get them to install Linux on it. Tell them you want them to install and configure something that will be of use to you running on Linux. There must be something your department is missing that is sorely needed that they can get going, and at the same time pick up some skills in configuring Linux and installing software, patching, maintaining, backing up, monitoring etc. It's important that you don't give them artificial problems to solve - it needs to be real, and useful if they get it working well so there is real payback for this investment in time. Perhaps a web service like a CMDB, or a knowledge base - install Apache, Samba etc.
.. or let them use their imaginations.
Perhaps there is a production service that you want monitored; they could install Zabbix as a service, and then get them to install the agents on servers, produce the dashboard, monitor it daily and identify and fix issues that are shown up.
Perhaps you need a backup service for all of your desktop machines. Get them to install Amanda as a backup server. Install a tape drive, create a backup regimen.
Get them to install some virtualisation software - build a test model of a production service with the same software levels where you can test changes &c.
AND get them to document everything, coz when they go you will want them to hand it over to someone else as an easily maintained service. If it sticks, and they get enthused, then let them do some simple changes on the production services, and so on. If the only cost to you is to move some existing machine that isn't being used elsewhere, and all of the software is free as in beer, what harm could it do? Give them two machines each, get them to set up clustering, HA, PostGreSQL running in an active/active configuration
Not too many years ago, IT was associated with anything related to software/programming. I was working at a highly-specialised engineering consultancy closely related to software and they were referring to themselves as an IT business. In fact, I have been using that term to describe my activity (basically programming) until relatively recently. Now, IT whatever seems to be exclusively associated with not-too-specialised staff whose work is somehow related to computers?!
A so relevant, but-completely-arbitrary evolution of the meaning of a word tells a lot about the tremendous importance of context and adequately understanding the actual intention. Although this should be quite evident for almost anyone, quite a few people working on the software (development) industry seem to prefer an undoubted-meaning-isolated-word-based (mis)understanding?!
Custom Solvers 2.0 = Alvaro Carballo Garcia = varocarbas.
Buy a Mac for each of these guys to use at home. Put the Linux distro you're using on the Mac in a VM. Task them with setting up the machine to run remotely on the corporate network under both OSs. They'll have fun learning, and will then be prepared to support others. The gift is also a nice way to reward them for their years of service.
"basic network, Windows, Mac, Linux, and "cloud" first-level help desk support" is pretty wide and vague. Specifically, what kind of issues are they unable to address? First step would be to go over all the help desk tickets and see just what tickets come up most often that these employees need to be able to address. Then, start pinning down how to fix these issues under each OS, writing up comprehensive knowledge base articles as you go along. Use this as an opportunity to implement an actual knowledge base system, that can be used and expanded on by all your IT people.
My guess is tasks like updating network settings, adding printers, and troubleshooting permissions / domain credentials would be the major issues your helpdesk encounters. Make your knowledge base very specific, copy-n-paste type of instructions (especially if dealing with the command line). Utilize the fact that your Macs are somewhat POSIX compliant, so much of the training for Mac and Linux can be dual-use at least for "under the hood" items like I outlined.
You'll need some type of lab too, with machines that mimic your environment for them to train on. As for "the cloud", your vendor should be able to provide training for this. Since these people also know many other people in the org, leverage that as well. You should probably form a cross-sectional "advisory board" (borrowing from ITIL) that includes some users too to see what issues they commonly have that need to be addressed.
First of all understand what good leadership and dedication means to you. Second, ask yourself if you need to be trained first. An experienced person reading your questions understand, you donâ(TM)t know as much as you think. Itâ(TM)s not rocket science to reimage any OS over a network, what 5 steps? You have people of integrity and dedication and your thinking of tossing that to the curb? Your a manager in training and have much to learn, consequently youâ(TM)ll understand when you reach their age. I hope...
Ask them to train in Linux and freebsd..macos
Assign these people some non-technical or quasi-technical responsibilities, like writing and reorganizing documentation, coordinating efforts with other organizations, or identifying legacy systems that are no longer in frequent use. These are tasks using knowledge they probably already have that are often neglected by IT teams.
We had a not too similar situation when we decommissioned our old COBOL system. The developers were of more mature years (50+), but instead of just letting them go, they were moved into more of a BA role. They have a lot of domain knowledge built up from years of working on a monolithic system, it transferred quite well to doing business analysis and converting it into specs for devs on the new tech. They also had better people skills than green devs, which is rather important when trying to understand WTF the business wants or means
If you are a Journeyman in the field of IT, people don't train and update your knowledge, you do it for yourself. People who are good at this trade are also good at educating themselves and learning in general. People who aren't good at it might get a little better with training but they were probably not very good to begin with.
We'll make great pets
Slap some skinny jeans and big glasses on them, Google "modern javascript framework" and mash the feeling lucky button, and bingo, up to date with the industry standard. (repeat Googling will be necessary every 2 weeks or so)
How much time do they have left for retirement? Are you sure they are willing to learn?
If it is a couple of years or more, and they want to learn, you could yet get 2 committed, dependable team members out of them with retraining. Pick one area and get them started on that first, say Linux install and admin. Challenging, no doubt, but a lot simpler than it used to be and quite teachable to get to a productive level in a few weeks. Sign them up with an external trainer / program, together, so they can help each other. The key is to get them trained sufficiently so they can start contributing and gain the confidence to use online resources to go further.
1) The company has to admit (some) responsibility for allowing this to happen. Why were these people not given training long ago when things started to shift? If they refused, why weren't they dealt with appropriately? Management done screwed up.
2) Get approval to terminate their employment if necessary. Otherwise, you may was well put a few reclining chairs in the lounge and ask them to nap through their shifts until retirement.
3) Give them a computer that meets the new standard, and give them standard tasks that the organization generally performs on that platform. Let them keep their old computer so they can google for help.
4) Give them a generous schedule to get the standard tasks completed. I'd start with "Spend a week on the new computer to familiarize yourself with the interface. Type up a report, fill out a spreadsheet, produce a presentation, browse the Internet, save your work on our cloud storage." Simplified versions of whatever the average user does, excluding any extremely specialized applications.
5) Give them standard IT tasks that you need performed on that platform. I'd give them a box and say, "Get this on the network". If they already know how to join something to a Windows domain, they already know a lot more than your summary suggests... or they're untrainable.
6) Give them a generous schedule to get the standard IT tasks completed. Don't hesitate to allow them to be mentored by whoever is doing this kind of work right now.
7) The tough bit - fire anyone who doesn't put in a decent effort.
Honestly, Mac and Linux aren't impossibly difficult to handle, but it is imposing when you have all sorts of MS-based assumptions about how things work and suddenly none of those assumptions apply. 'Cloud' is just a buzzword that for most purposes simply means you don't have physical control of the servers.
This is more about familiarization than training from scratch.
You turn them into Soylent Green!
It sounds like they still have responsibilities that need done.
If they quit/retire/fired you have a hole. How do you address that hole?
Cross training, right? So do that.
Train the "old Mac" or "old Linux" IT to do their tasks and vice versa.
Don't discount the ability to build IT good will; that is a skillsets and resource you don't want to squander. Even if their tech responsibilities are down to pushing the imager button and rebooting PCs and checking cables, odds are they have mastered the art of keeping your users happy.
I've been on slashdot so long I'm starting to get out of touch with the cool stuff if it ain't on slashdot.
Simply train them to your current needs. Mac and Linux will definitely require more IT âoesupportâ than whatâ(TM)s needed for Windows. 6 months is quite a time and remember that they had to get use to a lot of paradigm and implementation shifts over the years.
Is all they're good for?
Is that what you mean?
"Old IT Workers". It is one more stereotype. There are weak "Young IT Workers" too.
For example, one may think that workers in advance age miss work due to illness more often than young workers. It is a stereotype too. The research shows the opposite.
It is due to such managers we have got cute baby-face puppets at about any office and counter who do not have a clue, who do not have any real life experience. And as a result the production goes away from Europe and the US.
I would start with the retraining course "Prejudice or discrimination on the grounds of a person's age" for this IT manager.
It sounds like they have loads of experience, but not practical skills for your current setup. Realistically if you were to train them to update their skills they would be just the same as any new (and potentially cheap) hire that you make - this isn't getting the best out of them.
No, what you want to do is take advantage of their experience. I'd be looking to shift their role, and only you can know what slots you have open, or where they may be able to contribute most. If they know everyone, then liasing between departments, IT and the users for example, may be good. They have probably got management skills which are under-utilised, and they will certainly be able to provide mentoring to new and inexperienced team members.
I'd start by talking your thinking through with them (individually) explaining the potential they have, and sounding out what they think they would like to do. You may find they have ideas which you haven't considered. If they want training up, then that is an option, but this is unlikely to be the best for the business.
grind them up and feed them to the stronger workers
It's cheaper to train young workers who are getting paid less.
You were hired to manage two guys who are on their way out. And you can't fire them.
Take that as a lesson in the organizational reality rather than your stated position.
You should consider that your position is not as secure as you think it is, and respond by turning these employees into niche superstars. Help them go out on their high note and you will give yourself a leg up.
They have internal cred. You are the new guy everyone 'above' is evaluating.
It's important to know that the administrative staff and others who hold goodwill toward these subordinates of yours could be your position's catapult, or it's anchor.
Change the office to a dogfriendly office, and let them walk the dogs every day for an hour or two.
Value to employees and exercise for the old gits. Win win win
Would it really be more difficult to ask them on how and which training they need to be useful? Do they want to re-image machines until they're ready to retire? Or would they like to make some final impact, leaving a legacy by bringing something new to the company?
And do you need someone to re-image hard drives?
If we're talking about a few years left - why not offer some attractive part-time retirement? You will still have someone ready to do work while whatever tech they know is not completly phased out yet, but need to pay less and less while you're finally phasing it out over the next few years.
bickerdyke
I'd have them take an offsite week-long class on managing the systems you currently have. It's a good way to get some focus on learning the new system, and in my experience it's also a good way to keep somebody a little fresher at work - change is good, but sometimes you need a BIG change for a short period to get it kickstarted. Once they've been introduced in-depth to the new system, they can use google and stackoverflow to fill in details later, just like the rest of us do.
Have you read my blog lately?
It depends how outdated their skills are. I'm stuck working with someone whose belief system in tech is based on 70s-80s technology. I have no idea how they landed this role at a cutting edge startup. So now a portion of my time is spent teaching them how the tech world operates these days and it's a colossal waste of my time. I hope they retire within a year or two but sooner would be better.
Talk to them. They should be aware that things have changed and they likely will tell you what they would do if they had to make department decisions. Just because they are older and supposedly stuck in yesteryear does not mean they are dumb and clueless. Training in specific areas is one good option as is finding them other tasks within the company. Maybe they had enough of helpdesk service and rather want to be more involved on the production side of things. Looking for QA? UX design? Report design? Tech writing? Something else? Make it easy for them to find a new purpose within the company.
By all means, don't fire them. They obviously did not get the attention and training years ago when the changes came into play. Should they have been more proactive? Maybe, but it could well be that prior management discouraged such engagement and ran with a "do as I say" culture. In any case, if they are just a few years away from retirement and generally have a good standing within the company let them come in and do whatever they think they can do. The perceived issue will go away in the near future, no reason to sour your relationship with folks long term.
Learning is something you need to want to do.
They admit they are lacking skills - brainstorm some areas the business really needs help with and then let them select an area that interests them. Devise a plan of attack and some manageable first steps. Give them support but encourage them to identify the specific learning and where/how to get it.
Some people learn by themselves; others prefer books, CBT or training courses. They may not even know.
If Firing employees was your first idea, then instead of offering my suggestion, I'll just tell you to get stuffed, and figure it out yourself. After all this advice is the same as firing your employees.
Old workers in mid/large companies have one incredibly useful superpower: They know people and their quirks, and they know processes better than SAP and process managers combined (especially how those processes really run, not just what's on paper) and more importantly, they know how to bypass them. They know how to cut the red tape and who to talk to to get on the fastpass for resources. They can sit down with some other old fart in another department, have a cup of coffee and get a "free" test machine for you, they know the people who know where hardware is being hoarded that isn't used (and can be put to good use). And so on.
We had one such "old guy" in our team. His knowledge was dated and we mostly needed him for the ancient servers that we just couldn't turn off yet but aside of that, he was incredibly valuable whenever we needed something and couldn't go the formal way (or when we didn't have the time to wait for official channels to clear). When he retired, we lost our main source for "free" hardware, quick access and useful "connections" to other departments. He was also very useful in deadlocked meetings where he could take someone he knew personally from another department aside, ask for the real reason why they're stalling (or give him the hint why we have to) and they could hash out an "informal" solution together that both sides can work with. Saved us literally weeks of pointless meetings.
Yes, such people are poison and bane for process managers, but they're a boon for your department, especially if you're drowning in bureaucracy.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Talk to them. Explain the situation. Ask them if there are any areas they are interested in. Give them options and allow them to choose.
Just wondering.
Talk to them. Explain the situation. Ask them if there are any areas they are interested in. Give them options and allow them to choose.
If they are close to retirement, the easiest and friendliest course might be to give them a buyout -- early retirement with a substantial bonus and a gold watch. Company politics may be against that, but you could make the case to management that they would be ahead over the next few years if they take this course, considering the new (and yes cheaper) talent that would replace them.
Fiat Lux.
Agree with others this seems to suggest that because they are older and have stale skills they'll need some sort of special retraining.
The question seems to suggest the manager seems to already know what is lacking, so isn't the answer obvious retrain them in what they need. Of course there is all the stuff about not taking too big a leap in one go, and ideally you'll get someone in with enough experience to help mentor and train on the job also, but there is no difference there caused by age.
This sounds like a failing of the former manager to not let it get out of control, apparently no strategy for keeping staff skills in line with moving requirements etc. Certainly got to admit I'd be pretty pissed off if someone was moaning about not being able to fire me when the problem appears to be weak management.
Fire them for having no self initiative? WTF man. They are an inefficiency and a burden.
I realize as I age, almost 50 now, that a lot of "ageism" is simply old people that have refused to continually learn. I see these guys that stopped learning 5, 10, 15+ years ago and I don't feel sorry for them. Their laziness agitates me.
Why is this even a question?
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
They can play with my spunk log any day
"Given many people are now using Macs and most servers/workstations are running Linux, they have literally lost complete control over the company, with most of these machines sitting around completely unmanaged." This statement is 99.99% Bullshit. Most people in business STILL are not using macs, and the VAST MAJORITY of workstations and servers in a typical small to medium business are NOT running Linux... Who Told you this? LOL I've been in IT for 25 years, and wear a CURRENT skillset. Adding Android Tablets and Macs to the Tech landscape does not invalidate your older IT workers. This is an opinion ONLY an uninformed, CLUELESS, Lazy ass Millennial could have. You really need to pay FAR MORE attention to the world around you Slashdot. Otherwise the things you say cease to be, "News" to anyone.
It seems this question pops up every couple of months. Does the answer really change that often?
I am a long time "Slashdotter" from way back, but I choose to remain remain anon for this post.
The tone of the poster indicates such obvious disrespect and disdain for those he deems to be lesser than himself. How typical, Those employees have a deep knowledge of the company's internal workings at the social level, and wisdom from years of experience, and some a**hole comes in off the street and has the nerve to imply they are worthless because they aren't a Linux nerd? The poster lacks the perspective to see the entire picture. These employees, while perhaps not as technically skilled as the current crop of socially inept, self serving nerds, have skills that are going completely unused and appreciated. Their social connections within the organizational structure could be put to good use, but you will whine because you can't fire them? What a Dick! Lets put this all in perspective. The only, and I mean the only reason an organization would use Linux is to avoid paying for licensing of other products (Yet the fact that this company in this post is using overhyped, and overpriced Apple products is major contradiction). The reality is that most all of the organizations that jumped to use Linux as the end user OS in order save a few dollars have realized it to be a disaster and are struggling to go back to an OS that doesn't require a degree just to use on a daily basis. I can see the value in using Linux on the server side, as its a very capable OS, and as long as you have skilled admins that can deal with its issues you would be well off. However on the end user side, Linux is, and lets face the facts here, still useless. Users do not like it because its hard to use, and it just doesn't work. I'm no Microsoft fan boy, but the reality is that Linux just doesn't have the driver support for most hardware, and users don't want to have be computer nerds just to do their daily work. You can't collaborate with those outside of the organization because your "Open Office" files aren't completely compatible. Any accounting user who is proficient at Excel can send you a file that will completely blow up in any form of open source office software. I have seen this time and again where organizations have tried to move to open source (read FREE) software.
The reality here is, that no matter how much the Linux fanboys would like to see a world where every end user can write their own drivers, it just isn't going to happen. Not in this lifetime anyway. I have high hopes for Linux as Microsoft has gotten way too big for their britches. Linux has its place, but currently, as an end user OS, its still useless. Any end user given the ability to speak freely will back this up. The fact that this IT manager would exhibit such disdain for these employees, and have such limited vision as to not see the potential value they could bring to his group is just deplorable IMHO.
If they've been in the industry that long, they at least know command prompts and batch files. Seems like those skills can most easily be transferred to Linux or Mac CLI and scripting rather than anything else.
Anywhere else you can map analogs from Windows to the systems and applications that actually need support would be good candidates..
We are the 198 proof..
You mean you don't just take them out behind the barn and shoot them?
if you have to ask here, how the fuck did you get this job?!? sounds like you're the problem, not the tenured employees. might as well resign now and save getting fired.
Assuming they aren't interested or management isn't able to pony up a package to talk them into an early retirement (this is probably the route I would lean for at least one of them, then focus on the remaining person to retrain). Getting one of them to retire allows you to double up your training money on the one person. I would probably send them to onsite training, given their age most folks in that generation prefer in-person training. But depending on the person, if they prefer online stuff then I would allow them to take as much training as they could handle and still get their job done.
This sounds like (backwards-ass, isolationist) academia. When I worked there I was stunned and amazed that people said "if you are trying to learn something in my area, you are trying to take my job and get me fired". It is an actual paradigm there.
If you try and educate yourself there, you grow a truckload of ill-will. Academic IT is anti-intellectual, who knew?
It is dirt cheap to get some decent skills on coursera. They have a 6-course certificate in data science for $300 (ish) being taught by professors out of Johns Hopkins. They have "self-driving car engineering".
Why not give these folks skills that give them a life past retirement. George Burns said "you can't live to be 100 if your life ends at 65" so you might be saving their lives as well as their careers (and your job) by giving these gents something with a future.
I think customer service for non-customer folks, is just a shortcut to getting fired. If they aren't people-people, then it is a bad fit, and it can lose a lot of friends. Folks from the outside who have a brain-cell or two would see it as you just staging them for failure. It is going to be a bad fit. It is going to result in poor service. They are going to be disenfranchised. You might still get organizational blow-back for doing it.
Get them credentials that actually get hired. Heck, ask them to do research in the job market, and tell which credentials an individual can get in 1 year, that are best for opening doors, and would be most valuable for your organization. They might surprise you.
They might give you some insight you didn't have.
Here, try this:
http://www.kornferry.com/media/sidebar_downloads/From_Inclusion_to_High_Performance.pdf
https://www.kornferry.com/institute/download/download/id/17591/aid/1053
Korn-Ferry is where Fortune-100 executives get trained. Learn it and reference it. It is good for your career. It will help you make better decisions about their careers. Find their fundamental motivations, and speak to those. Those carrots work. Work to maximize their level of contribution using four-stages. Document the process, and communicate it to your organization. Done right, that is good for your future leadership prospects.
-EngrStudent
My guess is that nobody has challenged them recently...i bet they could adapt if asked...many say that staying relevant is up to the person, but what's the motivation? In this case they are comfortable...give them something challenging to work on.
You need to do at least three things.
First, you need to provide them with direction. They need assurance that they need to know specific skills and that the time spent learning won't be wasted.
Second, they need the time to learn. Perhaps set aside a week or so for classes or self learning. Something structured would give better results.
Third, they need the materials, be it machines, books, or classes. For vendor specific skills vendor provided class may be the best choice.
It seems strange that the company has brought in new technologies without IT ever getting involved. Are there some territorial issues at play? Sometimes when new technology is brought in there is resistance to IT getting involved and interfering.
You can't say it or do it because they're old. You will get sued.
Ask what their interests are, and build from there, leading them into "new" skills that relate. For example, if the given the summary of their current activity is their interest, see if you can leverage what they are currently doing into what's the currently fashionable term for it: Dev-Ops, but using cross-platform tools. They may not have interest in much command line work, so tools like Chef and it's heavy use of Ruby programming may not work, but their are tools like Ansible Tower that provide a GUI that they could start with to monitor and manage what Windows systems you have left, then slide that familiarity over to basic Linux systems monitoring, and management.
Due to the good will they have with other groups, I'd sit them down, and tell them that they've lost control of the network. I'd get them each a Linux workstation and a Mac and make sure they don't have a Windows system on their desks. Then set their goals/project to "getting the Macs and Linux boxes under control". I'd write 'em up if I saw them doing any of their work on a Windows box. Then make "getting the other devices under control" the 1st topic at every meeting.
Regardless of all this commentary, please come back to us in a month of so and let's us know what happened to these two guys. Did they stay? Go? Get kicked out? Get upgraded? Or maybe you, as a new manager, suddenly realized you somehow DID need them for exactly whatever it is they do?
I'm also curious to find out the perspectives and follow-up from these two employees. It seems we have everyone-in-the-world's opinion here except theirs!
You sound like you want to fire them, but don't because it's "impossible". There's a LOT more reasons you should't.
....for political reasons. To characterize older workers and inflexible.
In reality, a good worker evolves with the tasks his company actually does. When you stay abreast of business you figure out for yourself what new things need to be done.
It's not just a sudden thing that you don't know how to do anything.
When exactly did these people in this story start sitting around doing nothing? That's when they should have gotten fired and given the signal to wake up.
My karma was manually wiped by site staff https://slashdot.org/~slshdtisctrldbysjws 18 mod up, 10 mod down = bad karma
A pizza and hooker party., ending with a diploma award ceremony.
My company actually hires older people with a background in IT, because we do a lot of "management consulting". People who have been around a long time have seen the good and bad of business decisions. I don't know if the personalities you are dealing with would do well in those types of roles, but think about their potential in doing:
- business process documentation and optimization
- corporate standards development
- new product/service development
- agile project management for small initiatives
- etc
I'll bet your two guys could make a big difference to the overall health of the company by looking at your processes (they've been there long enough to know everything that is wrong with them). Make them project-oriented and give them more strategic longer-term corporate optimization tasks.
Hope this helps.
I am not interested in articles about life extension advancements.
Get them Pluralsight accounts and allocate several hours a week for it.
Then you can track their progress.
Take whatever wealth they acquired over their life and transfer it to the young virile Mexican quest workers that will be replacing them. Their houses can be turned into low income housing for Mexicans. It is their fault they got old and not producing enough children to compete with the Mexican hordes invading from the south
An immigrant adopts the language and customs of the host country. An invader forces the invaded country to adopt HIS language and customs. Know the difference
Just let 'em die in the streets!
An insulting, oversimplified, and steaming pile of ageist bullshit. Millennials are going to wish they listened, one day, and there won't be anyone around to save your asses.
"how can I best use your experience as a senior worker/staff member, who probably has forgotten more than I'll ever learn?"
The easiest way to train an experienced worker is to give them unrestricted Internet access and leave them to do their job. They know more and are far more capable than you are. What they possess is ability as opposed to a dictionary of buzzwords and memes. P.S. They are talking shit about you behind your back.
I can't imagine not learning new stuff as it comes out.
I have however been employed as a temp between good jobs at places like power plants and government facilities and met people who've done tech jobs while not actually knowing how to do them. Turns out the government prizes people who can follow written instructions from actual techs but not understand them.
If they've been there that long and can't do much more than plug in USB mice, which replaced the PS/2 mice, which replaced the RS-232 mice they never knew anything to start with. Even imaging, I've seen trained monkeys do imaging and wiping, I've helped to build the stations they can use without understanding how they work. If a computer failed to network boot when plugged into one of these stations or had the wrong kind of connector on a hard drive they were at a complete loss. Literally in 2007 I heard one of these people refer to SATA as "a drive I couldn't wipe because it had a proprietary connector".
Nah, these people should be put out to pasture. I know the situation the original poster is in however. The thing I've found is long-term gofor people tend to be great at the paperwork needed to get the job done. I would do my best to give them all the paperwork and procedural stuff I didn't want to deal with, they're good for projects as long as you can write step by step instructions, which often takes more time than doing it yourself. Nah, this dudes is a near hopeless pickle, his best bet is to hire someone young who can write procedures for the other two.
The preceding post was not a Slashvertisement.
if the worker cannot keep up and self train his brain for the workplace and needs his hand held to setup a training routine then he is old and beta not worth the time to retrain. fire him/her and hire a younger generation with modern skillet and more alpha self training functionality
First off, start with having them fill out a skills inventory. Just put together a spreadsheet with every IT skill you can think of with a 1-5 rating and have them fill it out. And ask them to give an honest assessment. That is the first test - to see if they are honest. If they lie and tell you they are an expert at this or that it won't take long to find out. If they fail this first basic test then you give them the shittiest most mundane job you can think of and give up and wait until they retire.
If they pass the test then on we go...
Ask them to take the same skills survey again but this time instead of skill substitute area of interest. The objective is to found out what they are good at and what they like. It doesn't matter if they rate themselves a 1 out of 5. As long as they have an interest in it you have something to work with. Aptitude is something you can deal with later on.
It sounds like these two have had shitty management along the way. Your job is to convince them that you are not just another shitty manager and that you actually care about their careers. This will not be easy given how long they have been around but you've got to try. If you don't get their buy in the whole exercise will be pointless.
Next, get a training plan put together. Your bosses seem committed so they should not balk at spending money to get them trained. Work with the two employees as you put the plan together so that they have some skin in the game. Set goals and measure progress along the way. If they are in a bonus plan they tie at least part of the bonus to the goals you set collectively. Money talks.
From your standpoint you have nothing to lose. If all goes to plan you will have two newly productive, motivated employees. If it does not at least you can tell your bosses that you tried. There is only so much you can do. Your job is to provide the tools. Their job is to learn how to use them.
The focus on "old IT workers" is frankly disgusting. These are human beings, just train them like you would any person for goodness sake!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Yup. Also note that these people have "60 years combined experience" and have worked there for "their entire careers". Even allowing for a degree and some time looking for work, this means they're at the grand old age of... 55 at most?
Ooooooo 55, that's soooo old! That's not even a Baby Boomer, that's early Gen X.
I'm having difficulty with the entire premise of the question. I'm pretty sure 55 year olds can figure out their way around a Mac. Anyone that wasn't brought up on Unix might have problems with GNU/Linux systems, but TBH look at the threads on Slashdot concerning SystemD: A lot of people who have that experience are scared of pretty much any version of any distribution that's come out in the last few years because of change. Nonetheless, I think most get the hang of it.
My advice to the submitter: send them on some courses and give them some time to play around with whatever distribution of GNU/Linux your office uses. And stop being a patronizing git.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
You know what they do with engineers when they turn 40? Take em out back and shoot them.
With just a few weeks left in 2017, this thread comes along to take the lead in the 'Arrogant Thread' category.
What's next? How to turn 'Old IT' employees in to the Soylent Green Committee for Much Re-Education?
m
In the immortal words of Socrates, who said; 'I drank what?'
I mean, look at how badly people are stuck in their ways when it comes to init system.
I wouldn't put the two gentlemen in the same group. While they are both older, they are two different people who have just worked together. They may each want to learn/do different things but based on their workload, family, etc., may not have had the opportunity for additional training. This is something I understand well. Life has a way of making one irrelevant and I am sort of experiencing that now. I work on legacy systems that are in production. My day is filled with stress of keeping old shit working while also adding new features. The younger guys work on new projects that aren't yet in production so they have the luxury of low stress and have time to learn.
Give these guys the time to learn. Carve out times where they can be isolated or trained without interruptions. However, you have to make a list - together - of technology that they need training on. In other words it has to be something relevant to the business. Encourage both to become resident experts on different things too.
Don't discount them. Make the relevant again and they will most likely perform above expectations.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Do the exact same as you would do if you came into a situation with people whose experience was no longer completely relevant to the mission of their team, and they were 25, or 30, or any other age that you consider to be not a problem.
Because their age is not a problem, and you are violating federal law if you act in a manner which makes it apparent that you think it is a problem. If you do in fact believe age is a problem, it is you, not they, who needs some additional training. The condescension in your post suggests to me that this might be the case.
To answer your specific question, if there are no tasks to assign to them which use their current skills, then assign them tasks that require them to learn new skills, and give them the time and opportunity to do that.
If you have reasons other than their age to suppose that they are not willing or able to retrain themselves, and yours is a company which fires people instead of retraining them, and you move to fire them, you had better be able to prove that the same actions would be taken, irrespective of age, with any employee in the same situation, or your company will (and/or should) have an age discrimination lawsuit on its hands. You will be the one responsible for it.
I doubt the article is about a real company, but let's pretend it is.
So you have these two guys that don't know anything but Windows desktop support, and now you want to train them to be admins for Linux servers?
I call bullshit. What is going on here is that you have Windows server and domain admins that don't want to learn Linux, so they're trying to escape that duty by dumping it on the Desktop guys.
You claim to be a medium size company. Are these two guys clearing their calls and keeping busy for 40+ hours a week or are they sitting on their butts all day? You did not say, but If they're putting in over 40, then adding Linux server support to their jobs means you're being a jerk. The correct thing to do is hire an another admin to manage the servers, or more likely, you need to make your server admins do their jobs.
The two desktop guys do indeed need to be able to do OSX desktop support, and probably smartphone email integration. You'll have to buy them each a OSX box and a book to learn, practice and troubleshoot.
Server admin job is a different job than desktop support (except in small business). It is a different mindset for the most part, and it's not a good idea to mix the roles.
+1
Their new "IT-manager" ask /. for advice... Were you a manager at a fast-food place until now?
Wo! - Thank you that's good advice. :-)
At 42, I'm pretty much mid-career, and have spent a large amount of effort trying to stay flexible and skilled up. The problem is when you get into environments like the one described. Outside of family businesses, I've never seen private employers who can't fire their workers. But friends of mine work for the state university system and do experience this. The key factor here is that you're not going to get new workers and you have to play the hand you're dealt...and this is where that whole management thing comes in.
I guess my question would be whether they are even interested in retraining, or whether they want to coast the last few years into retirement. If they have any sort of interest, then feed it by all means. It's super-easy to get pigeonholed into one task or get so specialized in an arcane corner of technology, then wake up and realize the train's leaving the station. Those "old" people probably have a lot of institutional knowledge along with that departmental goodwill. One place where I worked had thousands of PCs in remote locations and we were replacing them with thin clients...there was a whole group of PC techs that would have a severe cutback because of it. What we did was offer them training in basic administration for XenApp and other subjects...those who took it wound up getting better jobs being our application support people and those who didn't want it had to find work somewhere else or were kept on the now much smaller PC tech group.
One thing I'd say is that there probably are plenty of people who just want to coast, but among us oldies there are plenty who would love the chance to learn another skill and do something different.
I came here to post exactly the same thing, and you worded it even more clearly than I would have. Since I don't have mod points I'll just add another voice in support of your idea...
I kind of think the original question was a bit demeaning.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Hire some additional, competent employees to the team. Seeing how out-of-date their own skills are compared to the new-hires' might be the bit of motivation they need to get their own skills up to par. The new folks could even help train the incumbents.
This is really a simple economics question. Task them with the functions they know and can do best. Make them own it. While someone else might be able to do those functions better or quicker, the better-trained people are freed up to focus on tasks where they are more productive than the old guys. It doesn't even matter how much people get paid. Productivity increases when you force specialization.
Ya...I am very skeptical that these people had been there for 30 years each and didn't learn anything except installing drivers and Windows reinstall.
More likely the Tool that submitting the question has no real clue as to what they do.
"Reinstalling windows" Does he mean creating standard images that include the latest patches, implement company policies regarding installed software, access rights, etc and then loading that image on new computers and refreshing older computers? Not to mention periodic patching, etc.
Maybe these are the guys who people know they can call when something stops working. And when customers say they need help with X, these guys know what X is and know how to fix it.
Desktop support is the Red Headed stepchild of he information industry, but with out it, especially in a company with strict standards, you are doomed to be spending all your time addressing hose issues instead of your precious scripts trying to cram as much functionality as you can into one line of unsupportable code.
Ya... I be the submitter is just another asshole management puke who brings preconceptions and bias to his job.
In other words, a shitty manager.
What does this word mean, anyway?
It sounds like it primarily means nearing retirement, which in standard economic theory means that retraining efforts have a narrow window to return value on investment.
If by "old" you think "mentally slow", that entirely depends on the person in question. It's not a useful generic term.
I'm surely old, but the only important thing that's changed in my learning capacity is that I no longer like jumping into bleeding edge technologies that are 80% rough edges. Navigating through the glass vines of all those rough edges places a demand on short term memory I just can't support incidentally any longer (I can still do it, but at the cost of setting aside my 30-year map of the IT industry; I can no longer run both of these systems at the same time—which is, of course, easier early on in your career when you haven't even got a map).
My advice would be to consider how much brokenness is intrinsic to the skill you are teaching, because the benefit of a mature mind is compromised if they end up faffing around with some ridiculous "slam it out the door" product misfeature.
Let them eat cake. Give them software that actually works as documented.
Project and Risk Management could put their experience to great use. They know what/can go wrong because they've seen it all. Also, cost management is a skill IT workers acquire throughout their careers.
There are plenty of routes to build and increase productivity with their current skillset, with very little training.
The "manager" could actually ask THEM what they would prefer to do. Duh
How is saying "It's important...", meaning as you say; "It is important..." incorrect or even worth pointing out? If you're going to be pedantic at least try to be pedantic about something that matters.
Never mind, just saw the second "it's", you were correct, pedant on...
I work for a major defense contractor. I mean big.
We had a guy that was here long before I arrived. He worked with the top level management and was very well regarded.
He did not re-install windows. He did not program. He did not configure switches, routers, or firewalls. He did not build computers, install servers, or anything else.
So what good was he?
He knew everyone who could do these things.
He knew all the policies and procedures and work flows.
He knew how all of these disciplines interacted.
He knew the right way to set up infrastructure for the best supportability and growth.
He knew how to get priorities changed to get support to your project.
If you had an outage of any kind and had 100 people on the manufacturing floor idle, he was the one you called. He coordinated all the disciplines and made sure the problem got resolved.
But he was an old guy who didn't have current skills, so what the fuck use was he, eh?
Maybe this new IT manager should sit down with management and find out why these two have such goodwill. Then talk to them and find out what they really do.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Slay them in the backyard.
These old guys are near retirement. Assuming they do a decent job, they probably have a lots of experience in areas where younger ones don't. It may be something as simple as knowing who to call when a piece of hardware fails, know which software have licenses and how to deal with them, or knowing what the server in the corner of the room does. They may know the tells that something will fail better than anyone else, because they have seen it.
They should be the trainers, not the trainees.
I'm saying it from experience. When I started working, an old guy trained me, and while he wasn't the best, and didn't know about the latest stuff, he told me where to look when things go wrong, or even before things go wrong. Later, the company started another project, the old guy came in and told the team about the flaws in their design, they didn't listen, and things failed as expected. I knew it too, having been trained by the old guy, and had I been part of the team, I would have avoided that particular pitfall. Experience is valuable, and people retiring without having the chance of transmitting it mean that the same mistakes are done over and over.
While it is easy to point the finger at these employees for obviously taking the easy road out the situation speaks volumes to the organization that let them skate. Sounds like the entire place has been skating along for quite a while now.
This is not a "retraining" issue. It is an organizational issue, then entire organization has failed to keep up.
Caution: Contents under pressure
If you're going to be pedantic at least try to be pedantic about something that matters.
If you are pedantic about something that matters, doesn't that mean you're no longer pedantic? Pedant, by its (not it's) very definition focuses on minor, unimportant details. That's like saying "If you're going to be a jerk, can't you at least be nice?"
Unless you're an idiot, training is easy, I'll give you a hint, try using Google to find the classes in the technologies you're expected to train them in.
This - sometimes people are unofficial IT project managers. The guys in TFA might just be a couple of losers, or they might be doing something useful every day. Certainly worth asking around.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
There you are spamming youtube affiliate links with yet another fake account, you revenue stream hogging disgusting fat sexist tube of lard, Christopher Dale Reimer!
You can be sure I will be watching this fake account too. I know this is you because you told me you were working on your freepass 11 file server and you are so dumb that you can't even masquerade yourself properly.
Now, I told you I was out of meds last week and you didn't even care to contact me you lazy fucker.
How many times do I have to express the emergency of the situation??????
The python click script you wrote for my pheromone revenue stream web site suddenly stopped to work!!!!!!
You fucking incompetent python script writer!!!
When it works, I get 4000+ clicks a day on my pheromone revenue stream web site but only 5 or 6 without it!!!!
Now, it seems like you dont care and that you have abandoned me you heartless fucking pig!
Bonus:
Here is a story that creimer told me when convincing me what a hard life he had:
The tree was him and the tree knot was his butt hole!
So, his uncle packed his fat ass with lard and with his cock! Not that it makes much of a difference but anyway, there it is!
Signed:
The girl that used to love you and now hates you, burn in hell where you belong you sexist pig!
The first thing you should do is stop treating them like dogs. They aren't property and you don't seem to know anything about what they actually do. Losers without skills aren't generally well regarded in a company. People know who's sandbagging and who's not. Figure out what they do, and show the company you're actually a good manager.
If you've ever gotten a Microsoft certification, you would know they are absolutely useless for teaching you anything about administering the system. If I'm charitable---and I'm not---I'd say that 90% of the exam covers stupid features that you either know intimately (because you use them) or will forget within the month.
Since I'm not being charitable, I'll go ahead and say that I lose respect for anyone who speaks highly of their MS certs. Spending an hour on the Technet is a better use of time. And that's true even if it's the forums rather than Microsoft-published content.
By all means, put the MCSE/MCSA/etc on your resume if you have it. Some places care about those things, and having that cert proves you're literate. But that's about it.
How do I know? An old employer decided that everyone with privileged access to servers required certification. The class was a joke, and the test was a joke. Microsoft certifications aren't a training tool at all---which what OP was asking for. They aren't even a good assessment tool.
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According to the latest ruleset, this post should be modded as Vorpal Flamebait +5.
CREIMER' SUBMISSIONS IMPORTANT UPDATE: /. so make sure to go to:
Note also that creimer is trying to regain karma by getting his submissions published as articles on
https://slashdot.org/~cdreimer
https://slashdot.org/~Anonymou...
https://slashdot.org/~FatCashe...
https://slashdot.org/~ILoveFat...
https://slashdot.org/~IHateFat...
https://slashdot.org/~IAteFatC...
https://slashdot.org/~ITapeFat...
https://slashdot.org/~IApeFatC...
https://slashdot.org/~IPrayFat...
and mod down his submissions as well. The great thing is that you don't even need mod points to mod down a submission, just click on the "minus" icon!
Yes, believe it or not, creimer owns all the above sock puppet accounts. It is a mystery why Slashdot management tolerates it!
creimer wrote:
I don't bother with mod points. I'm doing something much more sinister. It took ten story submissions ? I'll have to double check the number ? to move cdreimer's karma from neutral to excellent without ever being exposed to the capricious mods. Mmmmmwwwwahahahahahahaha!
https://slashdot.org/comments....
Danger, Will Robinson, Danger! Creimy is posting more than 2 posts a day. Hurry! mod down otherwise /. will go to hell again!
Note: you can mod down even if already at -1 to lower karma and to prevent lost /. users to accidentally mod up.
creimer wrote:
All you need to do is find a website with a permissive TOS, say, Slashdot, create a Python script to scrape your own comments, sprinkle Amazon affiliate links in various posts, and then re-post past links whenever possible. Won't be long before you start making "coffee money" each month.
https://slashdot.org/comments....
C.D. Reimer is a renowned Slashdot collaborator, as he puts it himself; "Because of the quality of my posts and my article submissions, I'm a highly rated commentator and moderator."
But does anybody ever wondered what "C.D." stands for? Well, it stands for Creimy Dumpty of course!
Creimy Dumpty sat on the wall,
Creimy Dumpty had a great fall.
All the king's horses
And all the king's men
Couldn't put Creimy Dumpty
Together again.
Creimy's siblings video and theme song, very realistic, especially the pants, just like Creimy's:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
With "Vice President Pence Vowing US Astronauts Will Return To the Moon", we are sure they will need miracle workers up there, here is what it would look like. Note that Creimy takes care of bringing a lot of food to the moon as depicted below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Creimy's real pictures:
Before the sex change:
https://ibb.co/cc7Ddw
After the sex change:
https://ibb.co/gVad65
Creimy's "enterprise-level" chair, he talks about it all the time on slashdot:
http://www.keynamics.com/image...
Creimy's head, while his supervisor was talking to him, not with him, since it is impossible to do with Creimy:
http://ibb.co/mRVSaG
Creimy acting in educational resource document,
Rum, sodomy, and the lash.
You could start by remembering they've been in IT longer than you've been alive so instead of thinking of them like dinosaurs show some fucking respect. Approaching my 50s I've been in IT longer than most of the people I bail out have been alive. If this had been my IT manager he would be told to piss off and sort his own problems out had that been the attitude I felt I was getting.
I only please one person per day. Today is not your day. Tomorrow isn't looking good either. - Scott Adams
It sounds like instead of a new manager this company should have promoted one of these two workers to some sort of management or supervisory role and hired some new helpdesk talent. If they are as well regarded within the company they obviously know who they need to talk to so they can get things done. The new helpdesk talent could be trained to take on the roles these older workers were doing and be brought up to speed on the existing gaps if they dont already have the knowledge. If these guys are really so close to retirement then time needs to be set aside to knowledge transfer and give the new guys time to learn the business and build relationships within the company
Did you try unplugging them and plugging them back in?
If you're seeing a lot of Linux and Mac clients on the network, then that's what your frontline needs to support. Ideally, they would be allocated workstations for learning and testing.
FYI, both Macs and Linux machines can be joined to the domain. You can use an application like Centrify, or you can use native tools if your distro includes them. Centrify is extremely useful if you want to use domain accounts on Linux machines.
There are management applications that can control non-Windows systems; most of them also give you more comprehensive management than Group Policy for Windows as well. If you feel your environment is spiraling out of control, look into tools like Tivoli, BigFix, SCCM, Puppet, or Chef.
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According to the latest ruleset, this post should be modded as Vorpal Flamebait +5.
If the employer is paying for the certification, what's the harm? Resume candy never hurts.
"Given they still have to do work (imaging computers and fixing basic issues), "
These workers still have work to do, how much time does that take? Are others unable to also do that work or would it take others a lot longer? Don't forget that often an experiences person can make a task or troubleshooting look REALLY EASY, when a less experiened or specialized person would take much much longer and may cause other issues.
I had a group call me in after multiple people (many of them paid more than me) had spent more than a week trying to resolve a weird networking issue. I recognized it as something very obscure that I knew about, verified it, and resolved it all in less than 1 hour. Experience and specialization can often make a task look easy. Make sure you don't make bigger problems by getting rid of people that keep things running smoothly.
I call that a project manager. He may not have the PMP, but he has been doing that job.
Might see if he'd night class it and make it happen, and offer a pay bump for doing it.
"real" project managers can keep projects from failing, thou there are a lot of paper ones out there.
google "32 trillion offshore needs IRS attention"
According to HR they are not worthy of any job therefore not worthy of life if you follow the conclusion. ... semi joking sadly.
I already die my goatee to look younger when I do a job interview.
http://saveie6.com/
Sure make everyone a project manager and a chief. What can possible go wrong with that?
http://saveie6.com/
So, let's be clear here .. you don't have "IT Workers".
What you describe is a couple of people with no actual skills who have made a career out of, well, nothing actually.
I feel bad for these guys, but I'm actually shocked that a company allowed themselves to get into this situation. At no point in their combined 60 years of not knowing a damned thing did they or their managers not think "hey, maybe a book or a training course would be useful here"?
And not Apple/BSD? An idiot, that is whom.
At the 30 year mark someone "sold them" on this idea to switch to Linux/MAC.
Meanwhile 28 years ago things were chugging along in the windows world
like it is at MOST companies.
So maybe 1 year ago there was rumors this was coming.
At the time of the change they had little to no warning and it side swiped them.
I think they will find most of the non-IT workers are also unfamiliar with MAC/Linux.
I think they will have to go thru a transitional period in this scenario.
The fact that the gender of the manager changed midstream in this anonymous post
makes me think a troll needs to polish his trolling a bit.
google "32 trillion offshore needs IRS attention"
PM isn't a chief...
Wow this is EXACTLY my experience with MCSE exams
The harm is the lost opportunity. You could have gotten your employer to buy a hot certification that people respect or at least one that teaches you usable skills that you won't forget. I personally get tired of shit shit by the end of a certification and don't feel like doing it again for awhile.
You struggle so hard with the concept of "worth while"
If you get a metal detector for christmas what would the harm be of spending the rest of your life checking bushes for treasure? I mean you could find something extremely valuable! If you don't what did you lose?
Even as I type that question I kinda wonder if you even understand what I'm saying.
Meh...I started down that path.
PMP isn't about Project Management. It's about documenting Project Management the PMP way.
It isn't about how to build relationships, discover resources, understanding organizational constraints, personality driven obstacles or advantages, analysis, gathering accurate statuses, understanding how tasks impact each other beyond the concept of prerequisites, etc.
You can be a world class project manager without a PMP. But if you aren't a already a project manager, a PMP ain't gonna make you one.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
I'm in my late 60s now and still learn new things, there's no 'hard limit' on knowledge, but they probably won't absorb as fast as the kids.
So, if you're really serious and this is not a piece of 'managing out', just take them aside and spent an hour or two discussing the immediate/medium future with them. If you can find something that they'll enjoy learning (and they probably won't both be the same, they are people), the motivation comes as a side effect. I'm an old hippie and a theory Y: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... person though.
On y va, qui mal y pense!
Let them train themselves, or promote them out of the problem area. Or leverage their skills in another way. Sometimes being smart about your workers and having to re-saavy-fy people are two very different things that you;'d have to measure.
How can people who have been in the industry for so long, yet never got past the "imaging machines and adding them to active directory" first-level tech support stage?
This can't be right. Even if they didn't keep up with the absolute cutting-edge stuff, I find it hard to believe that they haven't learned enough stuff over time that they should be way beyond that by now.
I personally would go mad in such an environment. Anything I do more than 3 times in a short time period, I will figure out some way to automate, and when that's stabilized I would go on to learn something new.
If the above story is at all true, then this sounds like a potentially dangerous office politics situation and I'd be concerned about how receptive they'd even BE to learning something new. If they wanted to learn new things, they'd already have figured out how to do that themselves and this situation would never have happened.
As others have said, these works have not kept themselves relevant. So the current situation may be on them. On the other hand, the last three companies I worked for (since shortly after the beginning of this century) had no training budget and no mechanism for employees to "sharpen the saw", except on their own dime. When the company needed a certain expertise, the philosophy was "buy, not build", which meant hiring someone with that expertise rather than retraining existing personnel. In such an environment, it's difficult to get training in any product where training has significant cost, and it's nearly impossible to get certifications. (I actually had one IT director tell me that he doesn't pay for certifications, because why would he pay money to fill out an employee's resume for their next job?)
During boom.dot.bust, it was relatively easy to get training, as every tech company had money to throw around. But training received then is probably not very relevant now.
As always, your mileage may vary. Some people sink a significant part of their disposable income back into training costs, and manage to stay relevant on their own. (Companies really like this scenario.) But this doesn't work for everyone.
Moreover, it's easier to get low cost or free training in open systems software products. But that's not always true either.
The most bizarre situation I was in, two jobs ago, was being responsible for a large, complicated, expensive application, the very expensive license for which, also included free passes to all the admins for their otherwise very expensive training. The catch 22 was that the company had no training *travel* budget, so even though I could get training for free, the company wouldn't send me to the training centers or put me up when I got there. No problem, the nearest center is a little over 200 miles, and I can stay with a local friend there.
But no, that's not allowed either. Because, (as it was explained to me) if you're traveling for training purposes, the company incurs liability if you go there in your own vehicle.
So, every year when the contract was renewed, the vendor granted fairly expensive training to us for free, and we were never allowed to use it.
So, we tried to stay up on the product, but it was a struggle. A needless struggle.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
You could have gotten your employer to buy a hot certification that people respect or at least one that teaches you usable skills that you won't forget.
Basket weaving is hot. But my employer doesn't want to pay for a certification that doesn't align with business goals.
watch as they hit the doors on their way out to new jobs in other companies.
Six weeks with "Machine Learning for Dummies" should bring most anyone up to speed with the current pool of ML job applicants.
ML is a Gold Rush of fools; companies are hiring anyone with a statistics or mathematics or who can say "machine learning" while simultaneously walking. "Data scientists" are (one of) the hot new commodities.
Ok, here's the thing: we know from that part, that this isn't a particularly serious business, because you just proved that you have way more important considerations than worrying about productivity and minimizing expenses. Otherwise, laying off the ones who don't retrain themselves would be a no-brainer obvious thing to do.
Given that you can't fire them, I think your best option is to ask them nicely, to try to learn things. There's no point in trying to teach them yourself, because they're only going ot learn if they want to. If they aren't interested, then they are just going to waste whatever resources you spend on retraining them, and you'll have no recourse.
Another approach is that if you can't lay them off, thne at least never, ever offer a raise again, unless they retrain themselves. Carrot for good behavior, even if you have no stick.
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But he was an old guy who didn't have current skills, so what the fuck use was he, eh?
With the skills you described, he wasn't already in management?
"Big Men???" keep on turning
Carry on like boys of sin
Singing songs about the teen-girls
He rapes 'ole' 'bamy once again and He likes 'em young
Well I heard Mister Moore deny about her
Well I heard ole Roy put her down
Well, I hope Roy Moore will remember
A southern folk don't need him around anyhow
Sweet home Alabama
Where the guys have not a clue (apparently)
Sweet home Alabama
Lord, it's startin' smell like poo
In Ole 'Bamy they love the POTUS, boo-hoo-hoo
Now we all did what we could do
Now Pussy-Gate does not bother 'em
Does your conscience bother you, tell the truth
Sweet home Alabama
Where the skies WERE so blue
Sweet home Alabama
Lord, can not these people be true?
Now GOP has got Deniers
And they've been known to twist the truth
Lord they make nearly vomit
They lie and cheat and steal, now how bout you?
Sweet home Alabama
Where the skies CAN BE AGAIN so blue
Sweet home Alabama
Lord, I promise to make it for YOU!
Use them as your two-person focus group on all the newer things you want users to experience.
If they can't get used to something you want to try... it's probably a stupid thing to do.
Think about it - these are highly experienced and empowered users.
They represent something rare: users who can say "No"... and who have been there and seen enough to give no fx,
not because they're young and too stupid to care, but because they know your fads will come and go.
Once an Arch user, always an Arch user. Good luck telling that guy there's a better way to do something.
Here are some of the strategies I would consider:
- find out of anybody has any experience outside of what you've described
- figure out what the most immediate set of tasks are that need to be addressed (imaging/installation, user management, security, networking, storage management, etc.)
- organize your team into subteams of 'subject matter experts' to receive concentrated training i.e. a windows subteam, linux subteam, mac subteam
- as expertise grows on the subteams, have them train each other to get global competence
- take advantage of all of the freely available teaching materials out on the web, with some time and guidance people can learn a LOT quickly
- have your team members do weekly presentations (tech talks) to each other about what they're learning
- obviously, some paid classes and seminars might be in order
These are not ultimate solutions for everything, but I've seen these strategies work before.
If you do not have full time and dedicated security personnel, send them to SANS and some vendor training (Carbon Black, Mandiant, etc) and then make them become Splunk experts.
Could Anonymous Coward be one of the gofers? ^^^^^ More seriously.. yes this is excellent advice!
Have you fscked your local propeller head today?
If you have a good training solution like Linuxacademy, Pluralsight you can track and assign their training. Then add incentives for completing the training like Amazon gift cards, raffle tickets for prizes, etc. If that doesn't work you can use the stick instead of the carrot and lower their pay rather than fire them.
Not everyone aspires to be a manager.
Being a manager implicitly means you aren't in the trenches anymore.
You are filling out evaluations, time cards, attending endless meetings, setting priorities in your group, counseling employees if necessary, etc. etc.
I sit next to an Engineering manager with 30 people in his group. He hasn't done actual Engineering in years.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Bring in a trainer to run though a pre-certification training. ITIL, perhaps. Cream will rise.
You have no choice but to send them before the "Bobs".
and give them a MacBook Pro. Come back in a month. Problem solved.
"We receive as friendly that which agrees with, we resist with dislike that which opposes us" - Faraday
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Decided to fire them. In the managers mind they have little/no value. The problem is, How get rid of these 2. Without looking like a heartless A-hole Manager type that everyone always whines about.
;) Is the Company going to be loyal to them?
You are the Manager, MANAGE!
- If things start popping up that the competent IT staff can not handle. I guess you (the manager) were the problem!
- If things run smoother with a smaller staff, Good Call!
Of course you can carry/make good use of them until retirement. After all, they Were loyal for 30 years
Seems the real question is about the Company and Management.
But consider the outfit you work for is pretty social when seen in today's context.
So, enjoy the ride and outperform yourself in defining and achieving both business and social goals!
Also consider that most organisations have significant amounts of people doing nothing. Two more will not make a difference.
I hadn't the slightest objection to his spending his time planning massacres for the bourgeoisie... (P.G. Wodehouse)
That job role is best described as systems architect. I heard about companies who fired these "pieces of dead wood". They had to be rehired as consultants within months. Fortunately for them, they could now charge what rate they wanted.
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
Stop thinking of these guys as "older" an "on their way to retirement". These classifications are a combination of useless stereotypes and assumptions. It doesn't matter. The bottom line is that you have people who need to be trained with new skills to do their job. If you think you have to treat them differently from younger staff members then you're approaching it the wrong way. They will respond to training and taking on of new tasks just the same as anyone else would and if they don't then you can handle it when it happens, not assume it's going to be a problem before you try. Just work out what skills they need and provide them with the resources and training to get them there. As "I.T. Manager" that's a fundamental part of your job and if I was your boss and saw this question I'd be a bit concerned as to why you have to ask slashdot how to do that.
Basket weaving is not hot and you should only be concerned with getting security certifications. Your current workplace looks great on a security resume, the market is burning hot, and you already have a spoogle encrusted security exam book under your bed.
Plus your security+ exam can be used to acquire a full blown MSCE. It's too bad you didn't complete it when you got the book because back then it would have stayed good forever. The fact you work for the FBI could have made up for the fact comptia is a joke.
You'd probably have an entry level security job and be just about ready to take your CISSP. If you kept all your bills the same you'd have a half million dollars in 6 years plus whatever else you've saved and then you could sell all your shit and move to some creepy old man retirement spot like you always dreamed.
I want to do basket weaving because I work for the NSA
Come to the CIA. Basket weaving is a highly prized skill for torturing terrorist suspects.
creimer applied there but the Culinary Institute of America didn't need an IT closet cleaner.
it worked for old yella.
"Have you tried turning it off and on again?". Works on an ever expanding range of technology, and they have years of experience telling people.
H1B Visa Well drying up?
Hah. Only now you care about retraining old workers.
Try PAYING THEM BETTER. Or not fire them when they get old. Ageism. Great!
If I owned the business I would see if I could transition them from an expense to a business role. Granted I have no idea what the mid-sized company does..... Just something to think about.
It sounds like they are well liked and have people skills. They may also have some business knowledge as others have suggested. I think that others in the business would understand such a move. Obviously they have some technical skills, probably far more than the average office type worker. If they could be inspired to make this transition it could be a win all around (lower costs, higher revenue, more job security and potential for them).
Granted your fiefdom just got two head smaller......
Again, creimer is posting as AC to fake drama...just the way he posted pictures of fat gay men with his own name attached (and somehow knew they were "Russian Schoolboys.")
Give them this link: https://hiringcenter.walmartst...
I'll offer you a free certification: you're certifiably insane!
I agree. I've been seeing young-up-and-comers near me totally deferring to the older-and-cunning people (and maybe I am one) because there is corporate knowledge and "executive function" being exercised.
Looking at space, radio, science and computing from a 'down-under' amateur enthusiast perspective.
I can't tell you how pleased I am by all the positive, affirmative and supporting responses.
This is a time in a person's life when they are commonly treated like a used condom.
Gives me faith in humanity when folks can be caring and concerned about their fellow humans even when ready to put out to pasture.
Who else finds the title of this request for comments insulting and contemptuous? "Ask Slashdot: What's the Best Way to Retrain Old IT Workers?" and "gofers" Sounds like this manager wannabe is talking about livestock and is clueless to the real world as it is aptly described in other responses. "Peter's Principle" is still valid . . .
You either get it, or you don't!