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Why Ageism Never Gets Old

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271–272 of 272 posts

Re: Why Ageism Never Gets Old

#271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're capable of picking up new technologies and languages with ease, then why don't you? For example, learning a new programming language every year for fun is a decent exercise that makes you better with your "current work tool" as well, keeps your tech stack perpetually up to speed, and isn't that hard - the second language takes significant time, the 15th (for 15+ years of professional experience) brings lots…

Because it would be nigh impossible to learn every tech/language for every job you are considering interviewing for. Would you spend a week learning a new tech stack for an upcoming interview, with the knowledge that they might not hire you? Only to restart the learning process again next week when you interview at another shop?

You don't need to learn every tech/language that the interviewers want, you need to learn a language that the interviewers want. If you have learned 5 languages in the last 5 years, at least one or two (unless you've been really weird in selecting them) would be fresh and popular, and there would be a bunch of different employers that are recruiting for one of those 5 languages.

The big problem is putting all your eggs in one basket, which is bad if that one technology goes out of demand (as the grandparent painfully experienced). It's not something you do for hiring in a week before interview, it's something you do all the time in the years before as a part of your natural interest and "sharpening the saw" - if you spend the last 5 years working with technology A, a person who is "capable of picking up new technologies and languages with ease" would have picked up technologies B, C, D and E during that time anyway, and can go out to employers who want B truthfully claiming that they learned B back in 2015.

Re: Why Ageism Never Gets Old

#272

If the tech industry wasn't mostly located in SV with all it's housing problems it wouldn't have nearly as much ageism. Of course the 20-something who's running a rat race to pay overpriced rent on a poorly maintained dump with no hope of ever owning real property resents the 50-something who owns the place. Of course that trickles down a little resentment for all "older" people.

This is utter baseless speculation. Who thinks about how old their landlord is? Why does ageism exist outside of CA?

Ageism flows both ways.

I recently had a landlord demand that I get a guarantor for signing a lease even though I make well over 40x the rent (the typical requirement). It's clearly because he (an elderly man) considers me (a young guy in my 20s) untrustworthy/unreliable.

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