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One of my neighbors is 62 and brilliant. He's worked at Pixar and Silicon Graphics. He cranked out web sites for sites you probably go to. He lost his last job

One of my neighbors is 62 and brilliant. He's worked at Pixar and Silicon Graphics. He cranked out web sites for sites you probably go to. He lost his last job when the company went under. He now applies for jobs all over town and never gets a reply. If age is the reason, these places don't know what they're missing.

TheBeardKing 12y ago
Maybe with that much experience they don't think they can afford him?
- icantthinkofone 12y ago
  I forgot to mention that. He applied at large and small companies but, the kicker is, he's all set for retirement, doesn't need the money, and only wants to bring in about $20K to $30K so he can help fund a non-profit he likes.
  - humanrebar 12y ago
    I've wondered about this. I often do interviews and say, "This guy isn't gangbusters, but he could help us out with <grunt work that's piling up> if he's willing to work for the right price." My bosses usually wince at that sentiment, probably because I'm underestimating how much overhead is or something, but there should be a number that makes it worth it, right? And if the guy ends up being smart and reliable, you could ask him to retrain for a job with more responsibility. Am I missing something? How else are we going to get all these unemployed men retrained in another field, especially growing ones like tech?
    - john_b 12y ago
      If your company is having that discussion in the context of full time employment, the indirect costs (i.e. non-salary things like health insurance, 401(k) matching, etc) are a significant factor in the equation. As salary drops, these (relatively fixed) indirect costs become a larger percentage of the cost of retaining someone. If you measure the value of the employee by the salary you pay him or her, the ratio of total costs incurred by the company to value derived by the company for this one employee increases as that employee's salary drops. This is one of the major reasons that temporary jobs and part time work have become popular solutions to this problem: the indirect costs associated with these types of hires are lower. What we really need, in an ideal world, is a set of personal benefit programs (health & life insurance are the big ones) which are completely uncorrelated with your employment status or location. Forcing employers to shoulder the burden for personal benefits leads down a dark and dysfunctional path where the programs are not controlled and managed by those who have an interest in them for what they provide, but by those who have an interest in minimizing the costs of such programs.
      - humanrebar 12y ago
        Retraining an unemployed philosophy major to run tests and route bug reports seems feasible as well. There are armies of people that would kill to be a barrista (with benefits) or an administrative assistant. Are you saying Starbucks can find a way to make them more productive than they cost, but engineering organizations can't?
VLM 12y ago
Its hard to do primate dominance rituals on "dad" or "grandpa" and the managers are probably in their 30s. So standard employment is not going to work. He should consult, that was what my father was driven into, more or less for the same ageism stuff. I'm in my 30s and working a "regular corporate job" and I suspect its the last job I'll have for similar reasons. Contract / consultant work really isn't all that bad.

TheBeardKing 12y ago

Maybe with that much experience they don't think they can afford him?

icantthinkofone 12y ago
I forgot to mention that. He applied at large and small companies but, the kicker is, he's all set for retirement, doesn't need the money, and only wants to bring in about $20K to $30K so he can help fund a non-profit he likes.
- humanrebar 12y ago
  I've wondered about this. I often do interviews and say, "This guy isn't gangbusters, but he could help us out with <grunt work that's piling up> if he's willing to work for the right price." My bosses usually wince at that sentiment, probably because I'm underestimating how much overhead is or something, but there should be a number that makes it worth it, right? And if the guy ends up being smart and reliable, you could ask him to retrain for a job with more responsibility. Am I missing something? How else are we going to get all these unemployed men retrained in another field, especially growing ones like tech?
  - john_b 12y ago
    If your company is having that discussion in the context of full time employment, the indirect costs (i.e. non-salary things like health insurance, 401(k) matching, etc) are a significant factor in the equation. As salary drops, these (relatively fixed) indirect costs become a larger percentage of the cost of retaining someone. If you measure the value of the employee by the salary you pay him or her, the ratio of total costs incurred by the company to value derived by the company for this one employee increases as that employee's salary drops. This is one of the major reasons that temporary jobs and part time work have become popular solutions to this problem: the indirect costs associated with these types of hires are lower. What we really need, in an ideal world, is a set of personal benefit programs (health & life insurance are the big ones) which are completely uncorrelated with your employment status or location. Forcing employers to shoulder the burden for personal benefits leads down a dark and dysfunctional path where the programs are not controlled and managed by those who have an interest in them for what they provide, but by those who have an interest in minimizing the costs of such programs.
    - humanrebar 12y ago
      Retraining an unemployed philosophy major to run tests and route bug reports seems feasible as well. There are armies of people that would kill to be a barrista (with benefits) or an administrative assistant. Are you saying Starbucks can find a way to make them more productive than they cost, but engineering organizations can't?

VLM 12y ago

Its hard to do primate dominance rituals on "dad" or "grandpa" and the managers are probably in their 30s. So standard employment is not going to work. He should consult, that was what my father was driven into, more or less for the same ageism stuff. I'm in my 30s and working a "regular corporate job" and I suspect its the last job I'll have for similar reasons. Contract / consultant work really isn't all that bad.