>
>> Bravo, Paul! Go get 'em. There was never anything wrong with you. We
>> simply live in a time of systemic disruption where lots of good people
>> are being let loose, and lots of companies are focused on hiring young
>> people who will work for lousy pay and no benefits. Experience is not
>> always a plus, in fact, in the face of current trends, it is a minus.
>> Go figure.
>>
>
>Sadly, you're right. They want someone who's 23 and willing to work for
>23-year-old money, but with my years of experience. It's been a long,
>frustrating journey.
>
I noticed this trend shortly after I got my first job back in 1979. It
was with a major defense contractor, and the institutional culture was a rude
introduction to what I would be experiencing through my work life. It did not
take me long to realise that there were very few people above the age of 30. I
spent some time devising a retirement plan with the goal of retiring at 50. I
retired at 51 1/2 despite numerous layoffs, firings, and a couple of recessions.
I found out the hard way that senior technical staff would regularly make
off with solutions and ideas from junior staff, then force the victim to leave.
That happened to me after spending more than a year redesigning a hopeless
TDRSS satellite receiver. The entire body of work was credited to an
incompetent friend of the general manager and I was simply told to leave at the
earliest opportunity. I easily found another job with another defense
contractor, which had it's own dysfunctional culture.
I went through this scenario a few more times, but was careful about the
details of the work I was doing. I would take my notes home daily and store
them carefully, and any design files were kept on floppies which would be
removed if I was away from the desk. Nobody ever ripped me off after that
first experience, and some of the attempts were really vicious.
Chris
When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro
- Hunter S. Thompson
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