Umm… I left my IT job at the age of 45, stayed a year at home while looking for a new one and taking care of my brand-new git, started looking in earnest again and found a new IT job which I started shortly before my 47th birthday.
This was in Germany, where it’s still customary to give your birthday and a photo on your resume.
Noam Scheiber seems to be confused about geography. He keeps referring to “Silicon Valley”, but most of his specific examples are from companies in San Francisco. SF is not in the Valley, it’s an hour’s drive north. There’s a real difference. Hipsters who want night life gravitate to the city. Engineers who want hard core tech go to the Valley. So the city seems to be mostly customer-facing-app companies.
I have grey hair, and I must have interviewed at 20-odd companies in the last 15 years. Only about two companies struck me as having an obvious youth bias, and only one interviewer seemed prejudiced.
If you ignore the tech-lite companies and their hipsters, there does remain an age bias. But it isn’t a cultural bias, it’s a price bias. Companies are eventually run by MBAs, and they were taught that you should hire the cheapest employees. Their ideal would be to have everyone below Vice President be interns, or in India.
Fixed that for ya!
I’m working on a project now, and the whole outsourcing to India / China thing has suffered some severe reputational damage, to the point where my (as yet still only goddamn get on with it) potential customers are gleefully hiring people close to home so they can keep an eye on things.
I started a new business when I was about 55, in the mid-nineties, which was ultimately sort of successful, but on the other hand I wound up working for one client/customer, so it was pretty much like employment. This was in web site design and production; unlike now, not everyone and his dog did it. On the other hand the ageism thing was already pretty heavy. Web site people were supposed to be males in their twenties, have at least one earring, a goatee, a brush cut, wear jeans at all times, and be sort of disgusted with everything. There was no way I could even approximate this act, and since almost no one was interested in actual production, my portfolio was of little importance. That made progress a bit difficult. However, I had a pretty good time because I was a bit ahead on funds and I had pretty good morale. At that time I saw many, many people, my former colleagues, now middle-aged, strapped to mortgages and their kids’ education bills, getting kicked out of jobs they thought were secure. Many of them never saw it coming and were devastated. Over age 50, it is very unlikely you will get back in; one fellow I knew, a tech writer, a good one, wound up cutting meat in a supermarket. It is not just Silicon Valley; the prejudice against age permeates American culture and runs wide and deep. Unlike race, ethnicity, religion, body shape, disability, it is still a categorization for which people can be openly derided, discriminated against, despised, considered hopeless cases for any lively pursuit. Look around.
(For bonus fun, look for the “white males” comment, quickly walked back of course.)
http://www.nsa.gov/The_check_is_written_for_96,485.34
what’d I miss?
just added Dirt to my ipod playlists yesterday. saw 'em open for Van Hagar when Man In The Box was charting 
what’d I miss?
Nothing, it’s just my version of an XKCD mouseover text.
it’s more obvious in hindsight. guess the joke’s on me this time. durrrr :neckbeard:
A few years ago, tired of low-wage work, I decided to try to start over, and went back to school; on the strength of a community college training program in system administration, I managed to get an entry-level job in IT. I’d expected that I’d develop skills, build up my resume, and move on, either with that employer or another. But, that’s not how it’s played out; my job has gradually been de-skilled, and anything new technical skills I’ve learned, I studied on my own and practiced on my own equipment, disconnected from workplace experience.
At this point, I’m 43, and I’m starting to believe that when this job ends, I’ll have to get out of IT entirely. How I can start my working career over a third time, I can’t imagine; I’m worried I won’t even be able to find a minimum wage service job at my age.
And comments closed.
I wanted to point out that, according to lawyer-oriented books I have read on
the subject, any employee or subcontractor, in any category, can sue an employer.
Some of the grounds available are really quite surprising. The idea that one is
safe hiring only young white males or whatever is seriously delusional.
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