6 ms·

Why is there no discussion in this article that this behaviour by companies is rational? As an aging dude I know my productivity and adapatibility is declining

Why is there no discussion in this article that this behaviour by companies is rational? As an aging dude I know my productivity and adapatibility is declining and I am not worth paying as much to employ as 10 years ago. Rather than trying to hold back the tide by government fiat, why not prepare people for an income path that peaks in your 40s and slowly declines with your mind and body.

LorenPechtel 8y ago
There's another factor here--it's easier to abuse and overwork younger people. That 20-something working a 60 hour week is more valuable than a 50-something who can't maintain that pace. They shouldn't be asking for the 60 hour week in the first place, though.
- danieltillett 8y ago
  Yes this is one of the factors behind the differing productivity of different age groups, although it is not the whole picture. Those in their 30s and 40s will generally run rings around those in their 20s no matter how many hours the 20 somethings work.
remarkEon 8y ago
Because up until recently this wasn’t the social contract we’d made for each other. I understand, and largely agree with, your logic, however I’m left unconvinced that is the path we should put people on. Your obligations tend to increase with age, and telling someone that they only have ~20 years to make enough money to last the rest of their life sounds rather dystopian. It’ll accelerate what’s already become a rat race in the US job market.
- danieltillett 8y ago
  Actually until very recently you had your family to fall back on or else you starved to death. When most work was hard physical labor there wasn't much choice in retiring in your 50s as by that point you we either dead or clapped out. I think it would be better to be upfront with everyone that employment after 50 is going to be non-existent or paid at a lower rate and let people adjust their spending to match. It would certainly be much better than lying to people that they can work until 65 with an ever increasing wage.
  - remarkEon 8y ago
    Better in what way? That this labour arrangement is fundamentally unsustainable?
    - danieltillett 8y ago
      Better in the sense that people would match their spending to a realistic lifetime income.
  - LoSboccacc 8y ago
    Then we should be paid a lot more during our thirties and fourthies but that's unrealistic since we're under the competition of cheap fresh graduates. But the real issue is a failure of the welfare state to protect the elderly and with retirement age ever increasing the problem will only worsen.
    - danieltillett 8y ago
      Well maybe people are paid pretty close to what they are actually worth already in their 30s and 40s and the problem is their spending doesn't match their income over their lifetime. If you know you are going to be facing a declining or no income from your 50s onwards you might save more and spend less when you are younger.
      - LoSboccacc 8y ago
        Seriously that's your solution? There are load of people that get by month to month and aren't doing exactly a lavish existence already to be able to cut back spending. What you going to tell them, "though shit now go be homeless somewhere out of sight?"
      - tchaffee 8y ago
        The real problem is that people in their 30s and 40s don't know their real worth and let company owners keep most of that generated value.
coldtea 8y ago
>Rather than trying to hold back the tide by government fiat, why not prepare people for an income path that peaks in your 40s and slowly declines with your mind and body. Why not just dispense with that altogether, and just execute anybody over 65 that doesn't have spare money? They wont be a burden to society anymore, and we could even make them something useful like some kind of meat or leather goods. The primitives tribes that just left them in the jungle to die, or threw them to the woods, had it right. /s
- vram22 8y ago
  >The primitives tribes that just left them in the jungle to die, or threw them to the woods, had it right. There is actually a community in India (so I've read - not sure if true) that does that - the Todas. They leave (or used to leave) their elderly in large urns once they are unable to work and help themselves. Been to Ooty (in the Nilgiris, a mountain range in South India), and seen some of them when I was a kid. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toda_people https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toda_people
gaius 8y ago
As an aging dude I know my productivity and adapatibility is declining and I am not worth paying as much to employ as 10 years ago. Sorry, but that’s nothing to do with your age, that’s on you. The rest of us leverage experience to work smarter not harder. The ageism we face is prejudice and bigotry, not a rational reaction.
- danieltillett 8y ago
  No it is purely ageing. I am very lucky to start from a high base, but I am still not as good today as I was 10 years ago. I have leveraged my skill and experience so I earn far more today than I did 10 years ago, but being honest with myself I know I am past my productivity peak. I wish it was otherwise as there is nothing good about getting older.
  - scarface74 8y ago
    I’m 45 and I can’t crank out code with the focus I had when I was younger. I also have a lot more on my plate - wife, kid, trying to stay healthy, etc. But, I definitely work smarter and have that breadth of knowledge to know how to leverage preexisting technology, use managed services and outsource the “undifferentiated heavy lifting” to outside vendors.
  - gaius 8y ago
    No it is purely ageing. I am very lucky to start from a high base, but I am still not as good today as I was 10 years ago Well, I am better that I was 10 years ago, and I look around me and see experienced guys are vastly more productive, since the industry is cyclical and we have seen it all before.
innocentoldguy 8y ago
This hasn't been the case for me so far. I don't know how old you are, but I'm 50 years old and don't feel I'm winding down. If anything, I feel more focused. In fact, I'm often frustrated with the younger crowd for wasting time at work playing video games and grooming their My Little Pony dolls.
mark_l_watson 8y ago
I agree. I am 67, my current job is managing a machine learning team. I don’t have as much energy as I used to, but I still have strong curiosity and desire to keep learning. I accepted my job that earns less than I used to earn because I think it is fair. Off topic, but in the US, fixing the health care for excessive profit system (this being unlike most other prosperous countries) would go a long way to giving older workers, and everyone in general, more flexibility to keep doing useful work.
- vram22 8y ago
  I have a friend (not near retirement age, but he was thinking about it early) who did his MS in CS in the US, worked a while there, came back to India, after working for a while here, decide to leave again, but instead of going back to the US, he got permanent residency in Australia. While talking with me about it before he left, he said the main reason was health care cost in the US.
- danieltillett 8y ago
  The same for me - if anything I am more interested in everything now and I am still learning totally new fields. I think the problems with The US healthcare system is more than just excessive profits - its extreme complexity and the sheer arbitrariness are bigger problems. Add in a system where you have to be employed to have coverage and you would be hard presssed to design a worse system if you tried.
akudha 8y ago
Because: We aren't living in a jungle where it is every man for himself. Older people might not be as fast as they used to be, but they do have experience and wisdom. Profit margins aren't the only thing in life/business. The best societies are those that take care of their sick, elderly and the disabled.
- danieltillett 8y ago
  This is why we need to prepare people be keep them employed rather than pretend aging doesn't happen and throw them on the scrap heap when they hit 50.
solidsnack9000 8y ago
Prevailing wages have adjusted over time with inflation, but not to a reality where people over fifty are eased out just because they can be. What would wages be like, if everyone acknowledged that you could work until 49 and that's it? Companies would pay quite a lot more for younger talent than they do now. Employees are stuck with pricing that evolved under the old model of lifetime employment, while employers are operating under the new model of at-will employment.
ineedasername 8y ago
Nearly every older person I've worked with has an increased value due to their long experience. If there's a degradation of other skills, it's more than made up for. The older folks I've seen where this does not apply don't appear to have ever been all that great a worker.

LorenPechtel 8y ago

There's another factor here--it's easier to abuse and overwork younger people. That 20-something working a 60 hour week is more valuable than a 50-something who can't maintain that pace. They shouldn't be asking for the 60 hour week in the first place, though.

danieltillett 8y ago
Yes this is one of the factors behind the differing productivity of different age groups, although it is not the whole picture. Those in their 30s and 40s will generally run rings around those in their 20s no matter how many hours the 20 somethings work.

remarkEon 8y ago

Because up until recently this wasn’t the social contract we’d made for each other. I understand, and largely agree with, your logic, however I’m left unconvinced that is the path we should put people on. Your obligations tend to increase with age, and telling someone that they only have ~20 years to make enough money to last the rest of their life sounds rather dystopian. It’ll accelerate what’s already become a rat race in the US job market.

danieltillett 8y ago
Actually until very recently you had your family to fall back on or else you starved to death. When most work was hard physical labor there wasn't much choice in retiring in your 50s as by that point you we either dead or clapped out. I think it would be better to be upfront with everyone that employment after 50 is going to be non-existent or paid at a lower rate and let people adjust their spending to match. It would certainly be much better than lying to people that they can work until 65 with an ever increasing wage.
- remarkEon 8y ago
  Better in what way? That this labour arrangement is fundamentally unsustainable?
  - danieltillett 8y ago
    Better in the sense that people would match their spending to a realistic lifetime income.
- LoSboccacc 8y ago
  Then we should be paid a lot more during our thirties and fourthies but that's unrealistic since we're under the competition of cheap fresh graduates. But the real issue is a failure of the welfare state to protect the elderly and with retirement age ever increasing the problem will only worsen.
  - danieltillett 8y ago
    Well maybe people are paid pretty close to what they are actually worth already in their 30s and 40s and the problem is their spending doesn't match their income over their lifetime. If you know you are going to be facing a declining or no income from your 50s onwards you might save more and spend less when you are younger.
    - LoSboccacc 8y ago
      Seriously that's your solution? There are load of people that get by month to month and aren't doing exactly a lavish existence already to be able to cut back spending. What you going to tell them, "though shit now go be homeless somewhere out of sight?"
    - tchaffee 8y ago
      The real problem is that people in their 30s and 40s don't know their real worth and let company owners keep most of that generated value.

coldtea 8y ago

>Rather than trying to hold back the tide by government fiat, why not prepare people for an income path that peaks in your 40s and slowly declines with your mind and body. Why not just dispense with that altogether, and just execute anybody over 65 that doesn't have spare money? They wont be a burden to society anymore, and we could even make them something useful like some kind of meat or leather goods. The primitives tribes that just left them in the jungle to die, or threw them to the woods, had it right. /s

vram22 8y ago
>The primitives tribes that just left them in the jungle to die, or threw them to the woods, had it right. There is actually a community in India (so I've read - not sure if true) that does that - the Todas. They leave (or used to leave) their elderly in large urns once they are unable to work and help themselves. Been to Ooty (in the Nilgiris, a mountain range in South India), and seen some of them when I was a kid. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toda_people https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toda_people

gaius 8y ago

As an aging dude I know my productivity and adapatibility is declining and I am not worth paying as much to employ as 10 years ago. Sorry, but that’s nothing to do with your age, that’s on you. The rest of us leverage experience to work smarter not harder. The ageism we face is prejudice and bigotry, not a rational reaction.

danieltillett 8y ago
No it is purely ageing. I am very lucky to start from a high base, but I am still not as good today as I was 10 years ago. I have leveraged my skill and experience so I earn far more today than I did 10 years ago, but being honest with myself I know I am past my productivity peak. I wish it was otherwise as there is nothing good about getting older.
- scarface74 8y ago
  I’m 45 and I can’t crank out code with the focus I had when I was younger. I also have a lot more on my plate - wife, kid, trying to stay healthy, etc. But, I definitely work smarter and have that breadth of knowledge to know how to leverage preexisting technology, use managed services and outsource the “undifferentiated heavy lifting” to outside vendors.
- gaius 8y ago
  No it is purely ageing. I am very lucky to start from a high base, but I am still not as good today as I was 10 years ago Well, I am better that I was 10 years ago, and I look around me and see experienced guys are vastly more productive, since the industry is cyclical and we have seen it all before.

innocentoldguy 8y ago

This hasn't been the case for me so far. I don't know how old you are, but I'm 50 years old and don't feel I'm winding down. If anything, I feel more focused. In fact, I'm often frustrated with the younger crowd for wasting time at work playing video games and grooming their My Little Pony dolls.

mark_l_watson 8y ago

I agree. I am 67, my current job is managing a machine learning team. I don’t have as much energy as I used to, but I still have strong curiosity and desire to keep learning. I accepted my job that earns less than I used to earn because I think it is fair. Off topic, but in the US, fixing the health care for excessive profit system (this being unlike most other prosperous countries) would go a long way to giving older workers, and everyone in general, more flexibility to keep doing useful work.

vram22 8y ago
I have a friend (not near retirement age, but he was thinking about it early) who did his MS in CS in the US, worked a while there, came back to India, after working for a while here, decide to leave again, but instead of going back to the US, he got permanent residency in Australia. While talking with me about it before he left, he said the main reason was health care cost in the US.
danieltillett 8y ago
The same for me - if anything I am more interested in everything now and I am still learning totally new fields. I think the problems with The US healthcare system is more than just excessive profits - its extreme complexity and the sheer arbitrariness are bigger problems. Add in a system where you have to be employed to have coverage and you would be hard presssed to design a worse system if you tried.

akudha 8y ago

Because: We aren't living in a jungle where it is every man for himself. Older people might not be as fast as they used to be, but they do have experience and wisdom. Profit margins aren't the only thing in life/business. The best societies are those that take care of their sick, elderly and the disabled.

danieltillett 8y ago
This is why we need to prepare people be keep them employed rather than pretend aging doesn't happen and throw them on the scrap heap when they hit 50.

solidsnack9000 8y ago

Prevailing wages have adjusted over time with inflation, but not to a reality where people over fifty are eased out just because they can be. What would wages be like, if everyone acknowledged that you could work until 49 and that's it? Companies would pay quite a lot more for younger talent than they do now. Employees are stuck with pricing that evolved under the old model of lifetime employment, while employers are operating under the new model of at-will employment.

ineedasername 8y ago

Nearly every older person I've worked with has an increased value due to their long experience. If there's a degradation of other skills, it's more than made up for. The older folks I've seen where this does not apply don't appear to have ever been all that great a worker.