Which age makes an IT professional old?

[Jesus Angeles]

Just want to add (and I hope it is like this)

An IT professional is old when he loses 'it'.

If I am an employer, given that the skills are there, and the pay request is fair, I wouldn't mind hiring a 120-year old person.

[Jan de Boer]

chris webster wrote:I think this may be partly a cultural issue e.g. we grumpy/cynical Europeans are generally less inclined to believe in the benefits of a relentlessly positive attitude than some of our colleagues across the Atlantic

Ah yes, been to a tech seminar a few months ago, a guy from the USA comes in the room, calls out something like "Are we all ready for the exciting new features of our super mega product?" We all look to each other like: "Shall we call docter for that guy or?". And silence totally not the expected response.

By the way I am 47, getting a job is somewhat harder then at 32, but still a lot easier then other people with less education.

[Jayesh A Lalwani]

Joshua Mccartney wrote:I don't think so. For me 50 above because they have some problems when it comes to their eyes and ears. They will have a poor eyesight because of the radiation coming from the computer.

Speak for yourself. I'm 37 and all the 50 year olds that I know of are healthier than I am. I am much healthier that I was at 35. Physically speaking, I am almost as healthy as I was at 22. I expect to be much healther in my 40s than in my 30s. A lot of people in their 50s are crazy fit. Yesterday my neighbor (who is like 52 or so) got out a jackhammer and started drilling a hole in his front yard. That, my friend, requires a lot of upper body strength and coordination. I don;t think I could have done that even in my 20s. It's impressive for someone who is a desk jockey to be able to do that.

[Tim Holloway]

Call me grumpy and cynical, but I think that you'll probably find a sheen of desperate sweat on the happy-smiley American workers. Or in some cases, fever sweat, since if you call in sick you risk being noted as non-essential. We've been winding up like a watchspring tighter and tighter in the pursuit of ever-greater efficiency to the point where I doubt it can go much longer without something snapping. I really, really enjoy my work. I just don't happen to have anything near the energy levels being demanded, never did, and too many of the people who do seem to spend a lot of that energy uselessly. I had a workaholic boss with a cot-in-the office. She'd sit around re-arranging icons on the desktop just to be "productive".

You definitely don't want an artificially high level of optimism at work on IT projects, because even the most cynical of us suffer from AYHTDI syndrome. They set a goal, then say "It's easy! All You Have To Do Is...". Which would be bad enough, what with non-technical people glossing over the stuff they don't realize has to be done. But the developers suffer from the same delusion - "All I have to do is...". And it isn't. We forget that computers are really stupid and calculate our estimates based on what it would take to get a person to do something. With a generous dose of pressure from management to shorten the estimate even further. In actuality, that doesn't even allow for all the times when a mis-placed semicolon costs a day's worth of detective work.

I worked in a micro-measurement shop once. One of the most interesting things I saw on the reports was that the developers had a pretty accurate idea of how long it took them to do a given amount of work, but a lousy sense of how much work was really required. Typically, they thought they'd only have to do half that much.

I live for technology. But I also live for my kitchen and garden, occasional forays into music and creative writing, and a heavy-duty reading habit. Variety is the spice of life.

Oh yeah:

http://www.gocomics.com/pearlsbeforeswine/2012/05/06

[Deepak Bala]

I live for technology. But I also live for my kitchen and garden, occasional forays into music and creative writing, and a heavy-duty reading habit. Variety is the spice of life.

Oh yeah:

http://www.gocomics.com/pearlsbeforeswine/2012/05/06

Thanks for the smiles. Nice cartoon. I think folks can relate to some of what you said regardless of what age they are.

[Jan de Boer]

Jayesh A Lalwani wrote: A lot of people in their 50s are crazy fit.

Ah, well, ah. That is not because of work!

It's called mid life crisis, and more evolves desperately trying to date girls that are 20 years younger than you. I am having it too!

[Jayesh A Lalwani]

Jan de Boer wrote:

Jayesh A Lalwani wrote: A lot of people in their 50s are crazy fit.

Ah, well, ah. That is not because of work!

It's called mid life crisis, and more evolves desperately trying to date girls that are 20 years younger than you. I am having it too!

Yeah, everyone has differrent motivations. However the common point I have seen with most people in our industry is that around the time they reach 40, they realize they need a change.

[eileen keeney]

Joshua Mccartney wrote:I don't think so. For me 50 above because they have some problems when it comes to their eyes and ears. They will have a poor eyesight because of the radiation coming from the computer.

What about our arms and hands, from all of that keyboard work?

My arm is going to give out before my eyes or ears.
I do get stronger glasses every few years, but so far that completely eliminates any decreased productivity due to my aging eyes.


Ideally a company would have a healthy mix of experienced and younger employees (to become the experienced employees of the future).

[Joshua Mccartney]

Not all 50+ ITs are good, maybe a few of them are better and very professional. It's really hard to find a job if you are older whether you have all the experience needed the employers will be hesitated to accept you. They will choose the younger ones to work for them.