[Ipg-smz] [Ipg-l] Quartz is hiring a technology editor (reply to BobR, and moving to SMZ)

[Bob Reselman]

+1

On Feb 28, 2019, at 10:51 AM, Tom Henderson <thenderson at extremelabs.com<mailto:thenderson at extremelabs.com>> wrote:

This group is older, contextually. I hired many Young Turks and spun them onto their destinies. They uniformly are doing well, these interns in my lab. Youthful energy is a marvelous thing. Harnessing this energy is a time-tested business model.

I and my colleagues are now approaching or are past "retirement", whatever that means. The human condition really has no retirement years, and older folks are perceived as not having energy or an energetic approach. Some of us are perceived as being more historians than something like "in the current moment".

When I hitched my fortunes to computing, rather than the music and CE industries where I emerged as a young adult, it was both for the fun and witness of the computing revolution, to be a part of something new and evolving. I was reminded of how little the music industry changes when I went to a recent NAMM show. There were warrens at NAMM of incredible progress, and 90% was the same stuff I saw in 1976, with new lipstick.

I can make $40K tomorrow morning as an auto technician, radio installer, even car salesman. Conversely, I could go to work for computer vendors, hardware, software, pre-sales, sales, integration, security, IT mgmt, etc. working for The Man. I discovered about two decades ago when I started ExtremeLabs, that I'm a freelance researcher, and like to live from one project to the next. It keeps me sharp.

And as I'm reminded by my ex-interns, old age and treachery will always beat youth and skill. My taste for treachery is long past, so today, I try to prevent becoming a historian.

Quartz wants a younger voice. I get that. They want a Young Turk full of themselves, believing they invented and debugged all this stuff. I shrug. I still need to eat, but I shrug. Wisdom costs.

Tom


On 2/28/19 1:32 PM, Bob Reselman wrote:
I think a lot about getting old in tech, or getting old in anything, for that matter.

I’ve been somewhat fortunate in that my landscape for doing creative, revenue producing work I like is quite broad. For a while I thought about buying/making an ice cream truck and going that route (no pun intended.). I like making ice cream and the margins are quite good. The investment was around $15K.

My point is that I am willing to take some chances and do a variety of different things to make money.

But, it hasn’t always been that way.

I was having a discussion yesterday with someone about the group of older workers who played by the rules, gave their all to the company and then get dumped, left with nothing but a severance check and skills that are of use only to another corporation willing to hire a person approaching the other side of the rainbow. The odds are not in their favor.

Just contemplating their situation makes me really sad. I wish there was a way I could help such folks.

It baffles me to no end that we can figure out how to make video conferencing almost free and completely ubiquitous, and we can't figure out a dignified way to accommodate an aging workforce. I wish I know how to. I really, really do.


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