Some consolation

My good friend Mark, in Missoula Montana, said something to me that I will never forget. I was, y'know, highly under-employed at the time, like I still am, and I was on my way to a reunion. I was uneasy about going, sure that everybody there would be well, y'know.... "successful" because the non-successful ones probably wouldn't go. I had other powerful emotional reasons to make the long journey back to a place where I used to be, besides just seeing those people or I would not have gone myself to expose my lack of so called worldly "success" in front of them anyway.

Mark said, "hey you know, those successful people would trade places with you in a heartbeat. You look awesome. Most people our age are physically pretty pathetic." I thought about what he said. He had a point.

I was just looking at myself in the mirror the other day. I actually do look pretty goddamn awesome. My body is my #1 asset. I honor it as a creation of my God by keeping it clean inside and out, nourished with good chow, and fit. So it's not just superficial. Oh sure, something usually aches, the knee, the back or what-not, but I weigh what I weighed at 18, I routinely run 7 miles, I can do a full ustrasana, everything is functioning adequately... ya know.

When I went to this reunion, I discovered a curious thing. With one notable exception, the women in the group were no more "successful" than I was, at least not on their own. Some had married money, and some had not. And I must say, every last one of those women was HOT, I'd say they were on a par with myself. The men had not fared so well physically. Some had broadened considerably in girth, and there was evidence that some of the boys habitually drowned their stresses. Some had done well financially, some had not.

I am glad I went to that reunion. We spent the evening swapping stories, and I found that each of these people, with whom I'd shared something 20 years ago, had come along in some way as a human being, and that in that group, so-called success took a back seat to the memories we'd all shared from when we were all young. I wound up being glad I'd splurged and taken the trip down memory lane.
# posted by Nonny Nemo @ 7:49 PM

Tech Republic Post.

There was a post in my Tech Republic stuff today. Here it is:

'IS IT AN INDUSTRY ONLY FOR THE YOUNG?

FEATURED DISCUSSION: AGEISM? GOOD IDEA?
TechRepublic member ROBB is advocating a controversial hiring practice:
"Do we really want to have old geeks in our industry?... The oldies
struggle to keep up with change... They prattle on about how important
understanding DOS is, when no-one gives a toss about DOS anymore and
90% of current IT folk don't even know what it is! If you were
interviewing a candidate for a job in network technical support, would
you employ a 55 year old? Truthfully please! It is for the
young...isn't it?"
http://ct.techrepublic.com.com/clicks?c=169001-26402483&brand=techrepublic&ds=5'

ROBB eh?

I know that's what they're all thinking. ROBB at least is honest
but I strongly suspect ROBB is a figment made up by Techrepublic
just to get some action. And "prattle" is not a word young people
would typically have at the tip of their vocab. But Robb is a brit
so maybe that's a difference.

Interestingly enough the link didn't work when I tried to follow it to
view the storm that that would inevitably arise.
Can anyone be so clueless as to actually
say such a thing in public.

Well the link was restored. Turns out my suspicions were correct.
Although Robb apparently is a real person, the posting is in fact a shill.
Robb replied to the torrent of responses (virtually of which said duh what an asshole--
age is an asset), look what he said:

"Hi Everyone,

My name is Robb and I wrote the topic 'Ageism? Good Idea?'.

I wrote this topic to provoke debate about a very important issue in our industry.

I am 55 years old and many of you will have egg on your faces over that bit of knowledge. I have been in the IT industry for more than 15 years and I am now a sage-like soul who now teaches IT technologies to people who want to work in my industry. One of the questions that they ask me, is "Can I get a job at my age in IT?". Because the majority of my students are military Resettlement folk, they are over 35 (in most cases). I always calm their fears by telling them just how tolerant we IT folk are and how age is a real asset. But, to be truthful, I am not sure that this is correct.

To Test this I made myself 'unemployed' and applied for 100 IT jobs. I wrote out a 'proper' CV/Resume and placed my current photograph on it. I stated my age and my qualifications correctly and I also made sure that any referees I stated would respond. Out of the 100 vacancies that I applied for over a two month period I did not received ANY offers of an interview.

I then changed my age and placed a photo of myself taken when I was 30 years old, on the CV. I sent the CV to around 25 companies (some of the original 100 too!) and have received 12 offers of interview and one direct offer of a job. 3 offers came form three of the original companies that did not respond to my 'truthful' CV.

This was not a scientific piece of research, I know that. But I believe that despite the laws about ageism and so on, in my country (UK) and in the USA, the fact remains that ageism is practiced, if not blatently, then in the minds of many of us.

I was intersted to note the many responses to my original article. May I thank all of those who took the time to respond.

I plan to take this issue further, but right now I have to start to earn a living again.

Does anyone have any vacancies?

Best regards - Happy Trails

Robb"

Am I good at spotting a fake or what?? So we have a disconnect here: If the IT industry really is so fucking tolerant as all these posters claim, and as Robb himself was claiming to his students, how come his 55-year old persona scored ZERO interviews? and he nearly batted 50% when he lied about his age? Answer: the people who answered the posting were self-selected, and passionate about the issue. The ones doing the discrimination aren't passionate about it. They make assumptions and generalizations and they didn't hire the guy because he doesn't know "".