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Personally, I'm just as sick of old curmudgeons coming along dictating to young people how they should run a career just because said old fogie had to go in a d
by nupark2 16y ago
Personally, I'm just as sick of old curmudgeons coming along dictating to young people how they should run a career just because said old fogie had to go in a different direction just to get his in the world as you are with recent grad students and their "entitlement".
... and as an "old curmudgeon" who runs a small company and has been working in technology for nearly 15 years, I'm bemused and slightly weary of young graduates who seems to know everything and seem to have a very difficult time listening to senior engineers and managers when they're told differently.
The end result is that we have to be exceedingly careful to maintain a high ratio of senior to junior engineers, lest we be overwhelmed with individuals campaigning for some technology of the date -- be it NoSQL, switching the whole company to some new VCS, or otherwise -- instead of applying their experience to making carefully reasoned choices to actually getting the job done.
There is always room for change and innovation, but after you've been around long enough to see the cyclic trends in the re-invention of software technology, you become more conservative about spending resources leaping on hyperbole of "next big thing."
- rmgraham 16y agoGood examples. I was the junior at my company championing a new VCS for the entire company (5 years ago), and more recently even NoSQL (2 years ago) for almost everything. Fortunately, people change. I don't know about others, but it took me the better part of 8 years of post-school professional experience to finally realize my immaturity and arrogance.
- iamdave 16y agoI think this reflects an attitude of the world that I disagree with. Youth does not imply ignorance; they can be naturally coupled together, but the automatic assumption from older managers and developers that "He's young, he doesn't know what he's doing" needs to die a horrible death in a house fire. I'm sorry, you may disagree and that's your prerogative but I've worked with some incredibly intelligent, skilled, and forward thinking individuals who some "curmudgeons" might think are just inexperienced buffoons who defied the status quo and in a few cases have actually managed to save their department thousands of dollars. Youth is vitality, youth is energy, youth is a fresh perspective. Sometimes that birdcage NEEDS to be rattled. It's like Wayne Gretzky said, "I missed 100% of the shots I didn't take" Exactly, Wayne. You miss 100% of the shots you don't take.
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- bjelkeman-again 16y agoIt is interesting, I didn't read in his post that nupark2 said youth implies ignorance. But that is probably because you'd classify me as an old "curmudgeon" too. I totally agree that vitality, energy and fresh perspectives are important, but I have also been exposed to them being applied to the totally wrong thing. But I don't think that is an age thing really. I have experienced buffoons at every level of an organisation and at every age. I try to mix young and old, experience and fresh perspectives, energy and caution in my teams. Balance tends to work out well.
- jacques_chester 16y agoWayne Gretzky's risk for missing a shot was ... nothing. It cost him nothing to miss. So of course it was rational to take every possible shot. Curmudgeons have memories of shots taken that had high, probably still extant, negative side-effects. That's why they're cautious.
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