Reply to: Ageism and Old cruisers

[Cowboy Bob]

All because the guy though it was nancy to wear slippers.

I wear slippers. It's a practical move on my part to stop Mrs Bob moaning about my smelly feet all the time...

[tim123]

You are falling for the old relativism trick. People in their careers are often --where they are because of choices that they make. people are Black or white not through choice. Women likewise, but women have different priorities, different peer pressures than men. There is no reason why a black man cannot be as good as a white man by virtue of his colour. The argument is clear cut. With sexism there are grey areas such as child birth, but with ageism there are genuine reasons for discrimination.
.

I don't agree. There may be things that older people can't do as well, simply because they are older but this changes from person to person. I can't run a 4 minute mile (actually, I can't run a 10 minute mile). But that's because I am a lazy overweight slob, not because I'm the wrong side of 40. I couldn't run a 10 minute mile when I was 15, for the same reason. But some 40 year olds can run close to a 4 minute mile.

The problem is that people make assumptions about what a person can or can't do because of their age and filter them into the yes/no piles on this basis alone. They shouldn't do this. If they have a particular (reasonable) requirements to be able to do something, they should test the applicant to see if they can do it, not just assume that they can't because of their age.

And yes, I know that this means they are going to have more applicants to test. But (in most cases) filtering them out at this stage on the basis of age, is IMHO no less wrong than filtering them out on the basis of hair colour.

As has been said by others. I'm as good a programmer now as I was at 20. In fact I am better. I have lost none of my analytical ability, but I have gained the "Oh I've seen that before, it's because of X" experience which a 20 year old is never going to have. (It is true that I an old person might have lost their analytical ability, but I have't ... yet, and it is wrong for a prospective employer to assume that I have)

I can accept that no-one is going to want me as a permi at my point in my career. But that's because of the shorttermness of most of my contracts, not because of my age. It's unreasonable for any employer (in technology) to look further than 8-10 years ahead and I have more than enough working years ahead of me for that (just not the commitment to do it).

tim

[tim123]

Oh, and I don't smoke a pipe, or wear slippers (the wife keeps buying them for me, the dog eats them) or drive a Volvo

Why don't you wear slippers? What's that got to do with being old?

I shared a house once with a guy who insisted on wearing his outdoor shoes all the time (he might have taken them off to go to bed, but we didn't share that bit of the house).

I digress, so to continue, when we moved out after 12 months there was a very very uneavenly worn patch of carpet next to the chair that he usually sat in - we had to pay for the 'unreasonable wear and tear'. All because the guy though it was nancy to wear slippers.

tim

[Xenophon]

Not a Staffy is it? Ours like to remove your shoes and socks and then lick your feet. He gets quite insistant. Once he's done with that he likes to suck on the socks.

He's been known to lick the insides of shoes as well.

He's also partial to the odd football now and again.

I have a Staffy, DaveB. He isn't into footplay, but does like to sleep. A lot.

[hyperD]

Here here!

[Denny]

Older people are essential in the workplace. For a start they know how to spell, they know about common sense and how to use their initiative, know their times table and can work out 9x7 effortlessly in their heads without using a calculator. These skills derive from good old fashioned playground activities that allowed kids to scrape their knees without the school being sued, games that encouraged kids to exercise, such as hopscotch and skipping, and they worked off any puppy fat by climbing ropes in the gym and throwing up in the school toilets after eating vile school dinners like meat pie, cabbage and copidex mash potato - all with vitamins in them. Metaphorically, kids learnt how to suffer and how to survive without having everything handed to them on a plate. If they were naughty at school they got a clip round the ear when their father got home and sent to their bedroom without any supper.

Youngsters these days don't have any of these skills. They are brought up on a diet of Walkers crisps, sweets, burgers and KFC and sit in front of their Playstations from the time they learn to talk. Their introduction to literature is to learn how to text message and so they talk and write only in text. They are schooled in what their rights are but not how to be responsible. That's because they are educated in an environment that emphasises political correctness and civic and media studies, rather than good old fashioned subjects like history, geography, maths and physics. They can't do even the simplest sum without using a calculator. If they cheek the teacher they are routinely diagnosed as having 'Attention Deficit Disorder' and get a tax draining visit from a social worker who carries out a psychological assessment resulting in the teacher being sacked for misdiagnosing a 'problem child.' These days all of them get grade A's just for spelling their name correctly.

Older people are the natural benchmarks of excellence. At one time the term, 'grey matter' referred to brains and intelligence, now I feel it should be the modern day prosperity slogan for all corporations to have someone over 50 on their client sites.

Yes grey matters.

[hattra]

No,not a Staffy - a good old Heinz 57 rescue dog.

She's a somewhat mind-boggling Alsatian-Chihuahua cross

Socks - the sweatier the better

[DaveB]

I wish I could get the blasted thing to stick to dog food - it has an unhealthy liking for Cat 5 cabling and mobile phone chargers at the moment

and shoes

and socks

I just wish it would let me take them off first

Not a Staffy is it? Ours like to remove your shoes and socks and then lick your feet. He gets quite insistant. Once he's done with that he likes to suck on the socks.

He's been known to lick the insides of shoes as well.

He's also partial to the odd football now and again.

[hattra]

But I feed the dog on dog food coz it's cheaper...

I wish I could get the blasted thing to stick to dog food - it has an unhealthy liking for Cat 5 cabling and mobile phone chargers at the moment

and shoes

and socks

I just wish it would let me take them off first

[Gibbon]

"Old age and treachery will triumph over youth and skill"

[Troll]

Interesting snippet from todays Times

Of the 2747 directors of the FTSE 350 only 77 are under 40

More than a third are over 60

Is their age a barrier or an asset to the companies performance?

[hattra]

Actually the sports comparison is forced, but there's another one which works better, namely high flyers in academia - eg einstein. I remember reading somewhere that genius always manifests early - like before thirty or so. Einstein was actually a late starter, with his finest work appearing at about 29 from memory.

The great leaps forward like those from Newton and Einstein and others of their ilk occur before thirty, maybe BECAUSE their minds have not set in the ruts of their predeccessors. The rest of their lives are spent building on that genius - experience is a different thing than genius. Academics want to keep the Einstein's arround for more than prestige, since they still have a head start on the followers in their newly discovered fields.

"Genius is 10% inspiration and 90% perspiration". Inspiration occurs early if it's going to happen. You perspire for the rest of your life, working with that inspiration.

I think there is a more useful analogy than sportsmen.

I hate knowing that as much as anybody here who reads this, but I am clear that for myself my thinking is pretty much set. I must constantly set aside old assumptions and keep this in my mind to keep myself learning.

The academic comparison is true for maths, where they say that if you haven't made a major breakthrough by thirty, you never will (recently disproved IIRC by the chap who solved Fermat's Last Theorem), but I'm not certain it applies to all other academic disciplines. Einstein wasn't the only genius, nor the brightest (IIRC Gauss for instance was estimated to have an IQ of 200+ against Einstein's 170- 180).

And by the way DA, you say that no-one over the age of 50 is capable of improving their skills or learning anything new, well I'm over 50 & last year I did a teaching course and this year I've started another degree. I'm also learning C# (though, of course, no-one will recruit me without professional experience of using it, and you can't get professional experience without first getting a job in which you can use it, but I do it for fun) and I'll probably do some Java & VBA next year.

I was out of IT for 3 years (because of the ageism thing), and was writing code within two hours of arriving at my new contract (I had to wait for security to set up my account and read the spec first), on an application I'd never seen before. You see, after 27 years in the business, I hadn't forgotten it all within ten minutes of leaving my previous contract, and I don't lack the mental agility to get stuck into something new, and start contributing immediately to my clients business, even after a long lay-off. I'm now on my fourth renewal.

Oh, and I don't smoke a pipe, or wear slippers (the wife keeps buying them for me, the dog eats them) or drive a Volvo

[Forumbore]

the point you miss is that you cannot help:

1: the colour of your skin
2: your sex
3: your age

to discriminate against something you cannot change is the reason for all the legislation

Fair point, and maybe I have put my point wrongly. I maintain that people leave a footprint as they progress through their career that makes judging their potential easier as they grow older. Age in itself is a crude and maybe misused criteria for making judgements on people. So maybe it is someones past that points to their future potential. The more "past" they have the easier it is to predict their future.

If M & S want a CEO it is unlikely that someone of 50 who has spent 20 years in the same job several notches down the ladder will have the wherewithall to become a CEO of a major plc. It is reasonable therefore that for certain jobs individuals should display attainments of certain "waypoints" in their career that show that they are capable and ambitious enough to keep rising.

[Troll]

You are falling for the old relativism trick. People in their careers are often --where they are because of choices that they make. people are Black or white not through choice. Women likewise, but women have different priorities, different peer pressures than men. There is no reason why a black man cannot be as good as a white man by virtue of his colour. The argument is clear cut. With sexism there are grey areas such as child birth, but with ageism there are genuine reasons for discrimination.

To lump the three together under one discriminatory banner is dishonest.

the point you miss is that you cannot help:

1: the colour of your skin
2: your sex
3: your age

to discriminate against something you cannot change is the reason for all the legislation

[Forumbore]

I actually see the legislation as being a positive - like the race and gender laws you can easily audit it - i.e.how many black people do you employ =0 means you are a racist company, no females then you are sexist, no one over 35 you must be ageist.

Use the ethnic trick of sending out a c.v with your real name on it and record if you are called for an interview, repeat with a Anglo-Saxon sounding name and compare the results - they will not be the same ergo the comnpanies are racist and open to litigation - all you need to do is the same exercise with your age on the c.v. and kerching!!

Easy to argue & difficult to defend. we just need a body or group to do the auditing for us... but the only real way for companies to avoid any charges is to have a proportion of employees of an older age

You are falling for the old relativism trick. People in their careers are often --where they are because of choices that they make. people are Black or white not through choice. Women likewise, but women have different priorities, different peer pressures than men. There is no reason why a black man cannot be as good as a white man by virtue of his colour. The argument is clear cut. With sexism there are grey areas such as child birth, but with ageism there are genuine reasons for discrimination.

To lump the three together under one discriminatory banner is dishonest.