Everyone I know is laid off by age 55

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DH just got a new job (new company) at 58 which is good since we have a 8th and 8th graders. Can't retire yet!

Are you the grandparents?

That is such a mean question. My DH is 61 with a 16 yr old high schooler (I’m younger). There are many older parents here

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DH just got a new job (new company) at 58 which is good since we have a 8th and 8th graders. Can't retire yet!

Are you the grandparents?

That is such a mean question. My DH is 61 with a 16 yr old high schooler (I’m younger). There are many older parents here

Haha. I'm 56 and I have twin 3rd graders. Yeah, there are people like that all over. Not my problem.

We had children in our 40's. But we were both well settled into our careers and had the financial means to make the best choices for our family and not be limited by money. Yes, we are the oldest parents, but we have several other parents who we hang with who have children the same ages as our children who are within 5 years of our age. And it's fine.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am in sales. I am 40.
Rest of sales team -
F - 58
M -61
M -63
F -65
M -51
F -50

Sales manager - M -60
COO F-63

3 of the sales people including the oldest one have been there 18 months or less. All clear 150-300k

What do you sell?

Architectural rep.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am in sales. I am 40.
Rest of sales team -
F - 58
M -61
M -63
F -65
M -51
F -50

Sales manager - M -60
COO F-63

3 of the sales people including the oldest one have been there 18 months or less. All clear 150-300k

What do you sell?

Architectural rep.

Oh that makes sense, construction still works on a bit of a guild philosophy in the trades, and older people are assumed to have experience and wisdom -- and home technology doesn't change THAT quickly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We just interviewed a 50ish woman for a position that currently is filled by people in their 20’s. She was stressing out big time about how to use the computer software, her current job isn’t teaching her etc. This is why we are reluctant to hire older employees. She could be good at her healthcare job but can’t handle the basic computer skills.

I'm 50ish and I could use your software.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We just interviewed a 50ish woman for a position that currently is filled by people in their 20’s. She was stressing out big time about how to use the computer software, her current job isn’t teaching her etc. This is why we are reluctant to hire older employees. She could be good at her healthcare job but can’t handle the basic computer skills.

I'm 50ish and I could use your software.

I'm 50 and I usually end up teaching younger people how to use the software. However, I realize that I'm just much more tech savvy than a lot of people, including some young people.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We just interviewed a 50ish woman for a position that currently is filled by people in their 20’s. She was stressing out big time about how to use the computer software, her current job isn’t teaching her etc. This is why we are reluctant to hire older employees. She could be good at her healthcare job but can’t handle the basic computer skills.

And this is funny because at my agency, the majority of the really good cybersecurity, system and network engineers are late 40's on up. These are people who have 20+ years of system, IT and security experience. In our area, the Tier 1 and Tier 2 people are frequently the younger ones, but the Tier 3 folks who do a lot of the design work or fix problems that the Tier 1 and Tier 2 people can't, are all the senior staff with many years of experience.

And we are the people that folks come to when they don't know how to do things on their computers. Yes, I am one of them. I've been a system administrator for over 30 years and have worked in IT security for about 15 years of those years. There are many others like me in their 50's that are the go to senior IT folks in our agency.

Isn't that also because some of the government agencies' software is kind of old and established?

I'm old enough to remember the Y2k bug, and how many organizations had to bring back the old timers to backport old code written in pascal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We just interviewed a 50ish woman for a position that currently is filled by people in their 20’s. She was stressing out big time about how to use the computer software, her current job isn’t teaching her etc. This is why we are reluctant to hire older employees. She could be good at her healthcare job but can’t handle the basic computer skills.

And this is funny because at my agency, the majority of the really good cybersecurity, system and network engineers are late 40's on up. These are people who have 20+ years of system, IT and security experience. In our area, the Tier 1 and Tier 2 people are frequently the younger ones, but the Tier 3 folks who do a lot of the design work or fix problems that the Tier 1 and Tier 2 people can't, are all the senior staff with many years of experience.

And we are the people that folks come to when they don't know how to do things on their computers. Yes, I am one of them. I've been a system administrator for over 30 years and have worked in IT security for about 15 years of those years. There are many others like me in their 50's that are the go to senior IT folks in our agency.

Isn't that also because some of the government agencies' software is kind of old and established?

I'm old enough to remember the Y2k bug, and how many organizations had to bring back the old timers to backport old code written in pascal.

Not at our agency. I specialize in Linux and custom engineering software that is currently in development. This is all current technology. In our agency, you essentially have to keep abreast of current technology because the agency changes with the times.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We just interviewed a 50ish woman for a position that currently is filled by people in their 20’s. She was stressing out big time about how to use the computer software, her current job isn’t teaching her etc. This is why we are reluctant to hire older employees. She could be good at her healthcare job but can’t handle the basic computer skills.

And this is funny because at my agency, the majority of the really good cybersecurity, system and network engineers are late 40's on up. These are people who have 20+ years of system, IT and security experience. In our area, the Tier 1 and Tier 2 people are frequently the younger ones, but the Tier 3 folks who do a lot of the design work or fix problems that the Tier 1 and Tier 2 people can't, are all the senior staff with many years of experience.

And we are the people that folks come to when they don't know how to do things on their computers. Yes, I am one of them. I've been a system administrator for over 30 years and have worked in IT security for about 15 years of those years. There are many others like me in their 50's that are the go to senior IT folks in our agency.

Isn't that also because some of the government agencies' software is kind of old and established?

I'm old enough to remember the Y2k bug, and how many organizations had to bring back the old timers to backport old code written in pascal.

Y2K shows how young you are. I worked at MasterCard in operations and I was a microfilmer, we later moved to microfiche, later optical scanning.

I actually did not use a computer at work or at home till I was 30. I got my first computer at work at 34 which is when I sent my first email. I got my first cell phone at 40!

Over last 25 years I was involved in massive software and hardware implementations. Most recently a two billion dollar release.

Way back at start of career I really enjoyed working with older employees you learn so much. I worked with women who led a large team building fighter here during WWII, a few men in WWII. My favorite I worked with a chalkboard girl. In the 1920s she would at 14 or 15 stand in front of a huge chalkboard and update ticker prices every 15 minutes.

Honestly since windows 95 not much has changed at work. Almost nothing. In the late 1990s I had high speed internet, email, Microsoft word etc.

I say 25 years ago in 1996 work is pretty similar computer wise. However 1971 vs 1996 a huge leap forward.

I think the younger folks meaning under 50 really don’t know how things work. They never had the opportunity.

I currently work in a high flying fin tech start up looking to do an ipo. The new IT people are lazer focused and know ten times what I do about that little slice they do. But they don’t see big picture.

For instance we took one trillion dollars worth of physical securities in a vault the size of football field and make then book entry. The days of seeing the actual thing is gone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm old enough to remember the Y2k bug, and how many organizations had to bring back the old timers to backport old code written in pascal.

Side bar: do you remember the Excel 97 flight simulator?

[Anonymous]

For what it is worth I got hired for high tech job at 58. My smart thing I did was transition to federal area 2 years prior. I was once virtually laid off before that so I knew I needed to find a new area to focus. Federal is much less age conscious. DH got laid off, got a 9 month contract and then they offered him a full time job. Another Avenue. He is 61.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DH just got a new job (new company) at 58 which is good since we have a 8th and 8th graders. Can't retire yet!

Are you the grandparents?

That is such a mean question. My DH is 61 with a 16 yr old high schooler (I’m younger). There are many older parents here

Haha. I'm 56 and I have twin 3rd graders. Yeah, there are people like that all over. Not my problem.

We had children in our 40's. But we were both well settled into our careers and had the financial means to make the best choices for our family and not be limited by money. Yes, we are the oldest parents, but we have several other parents who we hang with who have children the same ages as our children who are within 5 years of our age. And it's fine.

This is such a tired refrain. Plenty of parents were making plenty of money well before their late 40s, for Pete's sake.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We just interviewed a 50ish woman for a position that currently is filled by people in their 20’s. She was stressing out big time about how to use the computer software, her current job isn’t teaching her etc. This is why we are reluctant to hire older employees. She could be good at her healthcare job but can’t handle the basic computer skills.

I'm 50ish and I could use your software.

Wow. Thanks for sharing. What programs are you referring to?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We just interviewed a 50ish woman for a position that currently is filled by people in their 20’s. She was stressing out big time about how to use the computer software, her current job isn’t teaching her etc. This is why we are reluctant to hire older employees. She could be good at her healthcare job but can’t handle the basic computer skills.

I am certain you think you are so smart. But you are a mean person to comment on this person's age. I hope she she's you for age discrimination.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm old enough to remember the Y2k bug, and how many organizations had to bring back the old timers to backport old code written in pascal.

Side bar: do you remember the Excel 97 flight simulator?

You mean the special keystrokes that revealed this? Yea. Dang.. I feel old.