Yeah, that young person is gonna leave you in 2 years, while the old one might stick around longer before retiring. Or they might not retire at all. I worked with a genius until he basically had to retire for health reasons, I think in his late 70s. The guy could analyze a core dump like nobody else I know, and that wasn’t even in his job description.
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This person is early in their career - they are more likely to be interested in taking on more responsibility and moving up in the organization.
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This person is late in their career - they are more likely to just do what they’re told and not go above and beyond to try and advance.
Are either of the things I said there an example of problematic thinking?
You could say the exact same thing I just said and substitute “old” for “late in their career” and “young” for “early in their career”. How does that turn it into something problematic other than the fact that it’s against the law?
I’m over 40 myself and I don’t disagree with the generalization exactly. I know older people are generally less technologically adept.
However the problem is when generalizations turn into discrimination at work.
And I don’t think this generalization holds true in the tech field. You really can’t make it a few years in tech industry if you’re not already very technologically adept So IBM firing old people due to this is nonsensical.
Just because some generalizations might be based in truth doesn’t mean its OK to discriminate based on them. Consider: women in their 20’s are likely to get preggers and preoccupied with babies so maybe we shouldn’t hire any of em… I mean you can’t refute that women in their 20’s are more likely to get pregnant than men or older women. but this doesn’t make the discriminating OK.
THe discrimination is problematic when generalizations cost people jobs unfairly. Like I said I know people in tech over 60 who are experts worth every penny of their salary who work hard. Unfair generalizations that turn into discrimination could unfairly cost those people jobs. Sure if you know those individuals you won’t lay them off based on merit. But some layoffs deccisions are made at higher levels of management or by people who are not directly familiar with the indiviuals losing their jobs (like finance or HR or something) So if someone is deciding old people aren’t as good and not writing it down we could see good people laid off for no good reason other than being older. Sure they can claim its to cut cost but it could be based on simple age discrimination Cause everyone with a brain knows you shouldn’t write it down if you fire somoene based on age then it could be happening when decisions are made in conference room behind locked doors. Plus some managers are outright idiots.
Statistically my company keeps laying off older people at higher rates and this is common across tech. It might just be conicedence but you really gotta wonder as it happens over and over for decades across an industry.
OTOH my employer likes to lay off people for other bad reasons too… Honestly I think they just do it to cut cost and give them an excuse to hire cheaper people. The reasons they choose for getting rid of some of us seem inconsequential…
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But it’s also a function of the company being a going concern; [all things being equal] a younger employee will be around to grow with the company, while an older employee is much closer to their expiration date and will soon need replacing anyways.
I had the same issue with another type of senior. Being a seasonal employer hiring mostly student employees, I tended to skip the high school (and especially college) seniors who’d soon be going on to bigger and better things, and hired more of the really young teens, who I could keep around for most of their high school years. When I did hire an older one, often by the time we got on the same page as to how I wanted things done, the season was almost over and they were heading to college/moving on to a year-round job/etc/etc - and I was back to square one again. While the younger ones were more of a blank slate I could mould easier, and most would then come back for 4-5 seasons. This despite the fact that when walking in on their first day, the older ones were almost always much better at the job.
It’s different with older people, but it’s still the same basic principle - do you want to invest a couple years into training and developing the 60-something who you know is just going to turn around and retire? Or do you want the 25 year old who, yes, still may chose to quit for whatever reason, but doesnt have that built-in shot clock quickly approaching zero? Regardless, it isnt particularly fair to the older person, but it’s plenty understandable and even reasonable.
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And for more senior employees, there is often also a tendency to coast rather than being a real go-getter with ambitious goals. In terms of productivity, the former attitude is nowhere near as beneficial for the company as the latter. It’s not always the case but it’s definitely a trend.
Amen to that. Coders don’t get any worse at coding as they age, especially since, unlike many other jobs, it doesn’t require physical agility, good hearing or eyesight, or other things that usually decline with age, as long as the brain stays sharp. I bet the average old coder is better at coding than the average old plumber at plumbing. 
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Along what lines - age discrimination? race discrimination? sex discrmination? non-sex discrimination? Holy crap - shouldn’t that be legal’s job?
Really? I don’t know how else to respond to such a (clueless, to me) statement. But, I’ll give it a shot 
- If the DOJ-BLM notes that you have dismissed 32 percent of black employees, BUT the black portion of the population is only 13 percent, do you not think they will jump on your throat with both feet?
Although you say it’s wrong to generalize, you then generalize. Then, in comments that are sure to be applauded by legal, you then add a cya “disclaimer”. I’m pretty sure that a jury would read between your “very wide” lines and know exactly what you were saying.
P.S.: Disclaimer, I’m biased because I’m tired of dealing with a certain number of idiots who think that breathing qualifies them for a job, a raise and/or multiple promotions … and/or because someone 200+ years ago abused them, and that they think they are due a payday today, regardless of anything.
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This may be true for tier one/two employees, it is NOT what I’ve seen from people who enjoy their jobs.
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I logged 117 hours last year assisting group members with technical issues. My group has 21 people aged from 25 to 74. 2/117 of these 117 hours were spent assisting 7 people (1/3rd of the group) aged under 40. 89 hours of these 117 hours were spent assisting 5 people over 60 (1/4th of the group). Statistically speaking either these 5 are impossibly cursed by the tech gods or I think I’m entitled to making some statistically-significant conclusions on this data.
But hey if you’ve never noticed a similar trend in your work, I’m really happy for you.
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You’re more than entitled. However, the DOJ will feel entitled to the outcome of your conclusions as discrimination. It doesn’t matter the evidence, if the outcomes lean against one VC, you’re guilty and will have a more economically feasible outcome by agreeing to a re-education camp than fighting. Sad, but true.
The trend does not surprise me at all. However, people shouldn’t generalize from that–as people age I see an increasing percent that can’t adapt to new things very well, but it’s not a uniform decline by any means. Some are still flexible, some are not. The ones that still have the mental flexibility should not be tarred by the ones that don’t.
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Is 5 people actually statistically signficant ?
I could find 5 dumb people under age 40 …
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You would not think it a statistically improbable coincidence that among 21 people, most of whom are under 60, all the computer illiterate happen to be over 60?
If it was contradicting trends observed elsewhere, maybe you could write it off as coincidence. But unfortunately, this does not seem to be an isolated set of circumstances.
But are the 89 hours of help distributed evenly between those 5 people? Is it really “over 60”, or just a couple of people who really struggle?
And as jerosen said, with a sample size of only 5, your results are as much the luck of the draw as anything replicatable. You need 100 groups of 5 that all produce similar results, before claiming statistical significance.
I dont think anyone disagrees that those over 60 are more likely to have problems, it’s painting everyone over 60 with that same brush that causes problems. It’s one of those things where you need to let each person demonstrate their illiteracy before you label them illiterate.
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The bulk of the tech help was to 3 out of the 5. I’m not claiming it’s statistical by itself. It’s just repeating a pattern that is observed in virtually every business unit.
It’s a bit like if you have two kids who are absent-minded and lose stuff at school. It’s not statistical by itself to say that all kids are more absent minded and lose their stuff often. Until you hear the same from neighbors and friends, and you notice the size of the lost-and-found pile at school. Are there kids out there that are not absent-minded? For sure. It does not however invalidate the trend. And recognizing the trend also does not make you automatically decide that every kid has this issue. But it may make you label their stuff more carefully. Just in case…
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When were talking about hiring, and often people are hiring one person for one position, yes it is. Because if you take a risk on an older person that says they are good with computers and it turns out they aren’t, 100% of your new employees are going to gum up the works.
This isn’t a case of the CDC putting out data on whether a booster is useful for 18-49 year olds in general, it is a case of, does it make sense for me, myself, with the available data, to get a booster.
So, give them something they haven’t done to deal with in a job interview, see how they cope with it. Test, don’t just discriminate!
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Ok, that makes sense.
But that kind of thinking then leads logically as well to never ever hiring anyone over 60. Why take the risk?
Then HR telling people to keep quiet and not write it down… I mean we don’t want to get in trouble.
So basically just systemic illegal discrimination based on sterotypes.
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If some older people have difficulty with tech then is maybe just due to lack of experience and training?
Most young people learn to use computers much earlier in their lives and come into thee workplace with multiple years of experience with basic computer use. Thats not true for older people a lot of the time.
If you could time travel to the 1920’s and hand ipads to a random 20 year old and a random 65 year old will one of them need more handlholding than the other??
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If the intent is to hire someone who knows how to use the technology and your prior experience tells you that a person that is more advanced in his or her career has trouble with the technology, there is nothing illegal (or immoral) about giving preference to an applicant less advanced in his or her career.