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I remember the times just before I retired that the youth were beginning to feel their oats with regard to their wanting the senior positions, often they approached management with their accusations of the geezers being incompetent, slow, and generally unproductive. These younger people were the folks who had attendance issues, took every family leave they could conjure an excuse for, and in general focused their energy on "getting ahead" rather than doing a good job.
Many were immature, still acting the spoiled child when they didn't get the attention they wanted, most lacked the critical thinking skills necessary for leadership roles and instead became yes men to the equally clueless upper management. America's greatest corporations were revived from the depression, after WW ll, my dad's generation was in the drivers seat when most of America's companies were rolling in the money, they were making stuff, they were part of our every day lives, they were inclusive of a vast majority of America's labor force, the boomers came into that environment and furthered the success of the post war American economy.
Today we have mostly let go of the reins, and in many of the most currently successful tech companies, we were really never there in large numbers anyway. I don't know what the youth may contribute to the future America but my guess is that they will mature and change this country, for better or worse. As for anyone advocating for some kind of forced "age turnover," I'd have to say, get over your ignorant self and find something constructive to do..
The BIG Elephant in the Room A little off topic but necessary to put out there is all those youngsters out there waiting for those employed geezers to retire. Get out of the way. Take a hike.
Don't blame it on the Geezers. Why are the young waiting and not creating? They find dozens of reasons not to start low and work up. Get into a job, find or define a need or a problem and make yourself the solution and you have a path forward, probably for as long as you want. It really helps if you can do more than one thing.
Some of the best advice I got as a young person in school was to be ready for change, to be resilient, and to realize that the job and the career field I had in mind while in school wasn't going to be there by the time I was joining the workforce. Opportunities are often made.
Maybe just let people decide what is best for themselves? The opportunities available to young people vastly outnumber those available to older people. A young person blaming an older person for failure to progress or prosper is simply using the existence of older people as a lame excuse. There is no guarantee that if all those awful, "worthless" old people disappeared tomorrow the young people using them as scapegoats would magically become successful and productive.
All of the responses to this thread have been pro-senior employment for one reason or other.
But (as PeeWee says, there is always a big but) it depends where that senior is employed.
Let's see, there are 2.1 million federal employees, 640,000 postal workers (who are not federal employees), and an unknown number of state and municipal employees. These positions hold just a certain number of job slots. So retirement age individuals could and do retard employment and employment advancement in these positions.
Some employers discriminate against their older employees, put them on a greasy slide, in an effort to hire younger, cheaper, more healthy, more easy to manage, new hires. So there is wide spread discrimination against older employees.
We have broken down this discussion into senior and non-senior,(on an age basis), but that isn't true. The Tech industry would rather hire a recent STEM graduate for the reasons mentioned above and because advancements in technology are moving so fast that if an engineer is 5 years out of school, without continuing education courses or advanced degrees, that engineer is old school.
It's complicated.
I'm 71 now and still working full time because there isn't anyone to replace me.
I design fire sprinkler systems for buildings and to say we are heavily regulated is not an understatement.
Qualifications are high school degree and passing a series of written examinations that takes about four days and I don't think they are easy for anyone. For advanced hydraulics we need to solve head loss through a series pipe grids using the Hardy Cross Method which you can see here isn't high school math.
Certification isn't just a lot it's EVERYTHING. Certification is earned from the National Institute for Certification in Engineering Technologies which is a Division of the National Society of Professional Engineers and these guys deliberately make the test hard as all heck.
To be certified it takes a minimum of five years verifiable experience and ten years to obtain senior level certification. It recently came out the failure rate for advanced hydraulics is 85% and when I took it I barely passed but passing is the only thing that counts.
Senior Technicians salaries aren't bad and from what I have seen they generally fall between a bachelors and masters degree.
Problem is to many out of college today believe they deserve more money with a bachelors degree in social studies.
They will not put in the time it takes to achieve. Problem is finding someone that wants to and is capable of doing it. When I hire I could care less about a degree it's all about the math... can you do it?
Our industry has a real huge problem coming up because the median age of senior level technicians is 62 while the median age of all certified technicians is 55 years old. There is nobody to replace us which is why it's easy for me to find a job even at 71 years old because I can do it. Here is a federal specification for a project at Wright Patterson Air Force Base and there are not that many licensed professional engineers the qualifications.
It's a good place to be, if you have the certification you will never be without a job for more than 24 hours unless you don't want a job and age discrimination does not exist.
Find me someone that can, that wants it and is willing to put in the 10 years it takes to get it and I can find them a job. Perfect job for ladies too... trust me, a lady with the qualifications can write her own ticket.
The BIG Elephant in the Room A little off topic but necessary to put out there is all those youngsters out there waiting for those employed geezers to retire. Get out of the way. Take a hike.
Geezers hanging on in a job because they can get their wrinkled old a**e* out of bed and out the door is not reason for them to block everyone "below" them from advancement.
"From a geezer."
From your "signature" as "From a geezer", I assume that you are a Geezer. Then my question for you is did you get out of the way voluntarily for a younger person to take your place?
If I did not assume you were a geezer, then someday you would be one. And at that time, you would know how it's like when the youngsters think and treat you the way you wrote in your OP.
I believe lots of geezers have very good work ethics; they are experienced and can work much more productively than the youngsters who have no work ethics at all, are being snob because they think they have degrees, they know it all. And many of them feel they are entitled for many things they have not yet worked hard to earn them. Many of those geezers used to have higher degrees than the youngsters nowadays. They were smarter, working harder. They built the foundations for the youngsters. And now many youngsters who got degrees because their parents worked their butts off to support them, but in return, they are ungrateful, they think they are smarter, they think they deserve more. They have the entitlements in their heads.
Many geezers would love to retire early, to enjoy life when they can, not to wait until the day they are old, tired and sick with lots of diseases and pains all over here and there, but unfortunately they cannot afford it because the governments (in many countries) set the retirement age is 65, and maybe 70. I don't know what they [the governments] are thinking.
Smart employers/bosses know who can contribute more and produce more profits for their companies.
You don't have a right to tell people to get out of the way or to step down for the youngsters to get in and take over. They will have their turn when they work hard to earn experiences and to be intelligent enough.
The BIG Elephant in the Room A little off topic but necessary to put out there is all those youngsters out there waiting for those employed geezers to retire. Get out of the way. Take a hike.
Geezers hanging on in a job because they can get their wrinkled old a**e* out of bed and out the door is not reason for them to block everyone "below" them from advancement.
It is possible that the Geezer is your boss and has been covering you're backside or been your champion. He/she's also told everyone above you, your positives and yes, your negatives. Don't think for a minute when the Geezer leaves the door will be open for you. They could also eliminate the Geezer's job and hire 3 more younger competitors for you to worry about.
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