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A little ditty on self promotion and age
Old 01-20-2018, 08:45 AM   #1
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A little ditty on self promotion and age

The first PC arrived at my mega corp subsidiary and landed on a table behind my desk. It was an IBM, expensive, clunky, pre hard drive so there was lots of disk swapping and the screen was monochromatic- by today’s standards a real dinosaur.
It did what I needed it to do and I was overjoyed to have access to it. I over time I gained some invaluable skills.

I was told it wasn’t solely for my use. There was an engineer, an older gentleman who occasionally used it. I must admit at the time I thought Wow “the old guy gets it”.

I left the subsidiary a few years later and went to mega corp proper, joining a group of divisional controllers. I wasn’t there a few weeks when a tedious lots of spreadsheet (lotus 123) manipulation job came down from corporate. The Boss split the job up and sent us to our desk to get at it. No one said you couldn’t so I set about coding a solution. About an hour later I turned in the work. “You can’t be done” I explained and demonstrated my code to the crew. What took hours could be done in minutes; they were amazed. Ive been steadily employed since and got to travel to some great places.

Fast forward thirty years and Im in different part of the firm years and another huge job came up. The area we going to test had a reputation for being out of control with lots of problems. Julie the Lady running the job had been hand picked because she was smart, a great communicator, and had a reputation for getting things done. Better yet she is a great person. The specific test I was to provide technical support was assigned to a Paige a junior staffer and a nice kid. Paige was busy with closing out her last job so she left me alone. I spent hours duplicating the business processes and pulling and scraping data from multiple sources in code. Rather then a ridiculous small sample we tested hundreds of transactions. Rather then just dump the data on Paige I created the documentation. In the end Julie said as long as you do that kind of work you can charge as many hours you want.

We have a weekly process of submitting our accomplishments; The week I finished the job I spent some time to carefully write up what I’d created.

Last week the bosses boss called to let me know what will likely be my last annual bonus was. The number was terrific and he said You are being rewarded for your innovation.

Imagine that an innovator at 63. I couldn’t help but think “I guess the old guy gets it”.

I think too many of us think creativity is the purview of the young.
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Old 01-20-2018, 09:53 AM   #2
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I think you have an odd tendency to call yourself an old guy in your posts, although you are only a couple of years older than I am.

I don't think of myself as old, and I'm definitely innovative.

That said, if I'd been Julie, I would have been most impressed by your initiative and attention to detail. Those are rare enough at any age.
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Old 01-20-2018, 09:53 AM   #3
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What a nice story for an old geezer

Hey, I cracked 5K with this post, and didn't actually notice until afterwards.
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Old 01-20-2018, 12:19 PM   #4
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As an older guy, still a few years younger than you, I am clearly an older guy in the sea of 20-something programmers. This might not be "old" by the standards of possible early retirees, but it is definitely old by the standards of hot-shot high tech teams.
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Old 01-20-2018, 12:51 PM   #5
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I suspect that some (probably a lot) of your innovation comes from the depth of background you have. Try as they may, the younger group cannot have the benefit of all your experiences and therefore , you still have an edge. Maybe even a full on advantage.

I know my life changed when I hired programming/data people that actually knew the business (accountants). Without their experience, I would get - "that's what your specifications were". With them and their experience, they would just program what I wanted even when I couldn't articulate very well what I wanted. Great group of people on that team.
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Old 01-20-2018, 12:57 PM   #6
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Point taken, but Ray calls himself "old" in all his posts, even when computers are not mentioned. I find it puzzling when people do this. Probably the Mr. Spock in me coming out.

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Originally Posted by growing_older View Post
As an older guy, still a few years younger than you, I am clearly an older guy in the sea of 20-something programmers. This might not be "old" by the standards of possible early retirees, but it is definitely old by the standards of hot-shot high tech teams.
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Old 01-20-2018, 01:15 PM   #7
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I tell every young kid I get to know to learn coding - any kind of coding. It is an invaluable skill in today's world. .. even for old guys.
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Old 01-20-2018, 01:39 PM   #8
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For the last decade or so of my IT career, my design and architecture requirements and standards far exceeded my coding ability. Or, maybe exceeded my desire to learn yet another suite of new programming tools. But I did understand what the newer tools could accomplish.

Fortunately, my job evolved to be translation of business requirements to our programmers in India. There was a bit of a tendency to get back exactly what I asked for, so when I found developers who could take what I asked for and reflect back even better methods, I worked hard to keep them on my team.

I don't think age got in the way, more depth of business knowledge that was useful. My career started with unit record equipment, punch cards and card readers. It would have been hard to compete in programming with kids coming out of university with experience in current programming tools and methods.
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Old 01-20-2018, 01:54 PM   #9
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It always helps to be at the top of the learning and experience curve, regardless of age. Congrats and good job.
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Old 01-20-2018, 02:09 PM   #10
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I wasted a lot of time taking management classes when I could have been learning C instead.
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Old 01-20-2018, 03:09 PM   #11
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Good tale, and congrats on the 5K.
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Old 01-20-2018, 05:59 PM   #12
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Well done sir. Way to represent!
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Old 01-20-2018, 06:15 PM   #13
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Quote:
Originally Posted by rayinpenn View Post
The first PC arrived at my mega corp subsidiary and landed on a table behind my desk. It was an IBM, expensive, clunky, pre hard drive so there was lots of disk swapping and the screen was monochromatic- by today’s standards a real dinosaur.
It did what I needed it to do and I was overjoyed to have access to it. I over time I gained some invaluable skills.

I was told it wasn’t solely for my use. There was an engineer, an older gentleman who occasionally used it. I must admit at the time I thought Wow “the old guy gets it”.

I left the subsidiary a few years later and went to mega corp proper, joining a group of divisional controllers. I wasn’t there a few weeks when a tedious lots of spreadsheet (lotus 123) manipulation job came down from corporate. The Boss split the job up and sent us to our desk to get at it. No one said you couldn’t so I set about coding a solution. About an hour later I turned in the work. “You can’t be done” I explained and demonstrated my code to the crew. What took hours could be done in minutes; they were amazed. Ive been steadily employed since and got to travel to some great places.

Fast forward thirty years and Im in different part of the firm years and another huge job came up. The area we going to test had a reputation for being out of control with lots of problems. Julie the Lady running the job had been hand picked because she was smart, a great communicator, and had a reputation for getting things done. Better yet she is a great person. The specific test I was to provide technical support was assigned to a Paige a junior staffer and a nice kid. Paige was busy with closing out her last job so she left me alone. I spent hours duplicating the business processes and pulling and scraping data from multiple sources in code. Rather then a ridiculous small sample we tested hundreds of transactions. Rather then just dump the data on Paige I created the documentation. In the end Julie said as long as you do that kind of work you can charge as many hours you want.

We have a weekly process of submitting our accomplishments; The week I finished the job I spent some time to carefully write up what I’d created.

Last week the bosses boss called to let me know what will likely be my last annual bonus was. The number was terrific and he said You are being rewarded for your innovation.

Imagine that an innovator at 63. I couldn’t help but think “I guess the old guy gets it”.

I think too many of us think creativity is the purview of the young.
Not bad for a kid Keep it up!
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Old 01-20-2018, 07:44 PM   #14
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Old age and treachery will always beat youth and exuberance

Congrats, Ray! Glad you're still finding professional success and personal satisfaction.
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Old 01-21-2018, 08:41 AM   #15
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Ray, you are smart and you are smart. (Solving the problem and letting the bosses know what you accomplished.)

There is a lot of satisfaction in a great accomplishment - and it is very satisfying to be acknowledged.
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Old 01-21-2018, 09:58 AM   #16
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Point taken, but Ray calls himself "old" in all his posts, even when computers are not mentioned. I find it puzzling when people do this.

Allow me to add a little little perspective. I estimate the average age in our shop to be roughly 32 but most are under 30. Many are a year or two out of college. At 63 I am the oldest my buddy Bill is 58 then there’s a couple around fifty. There are 5 of us techies and the youngest is 33.
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Old 01-21-2018, 10:00 PM   #17
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When I was 18, my dad advised me to never "fight" with an old man.

He won't fight " fare" , he knows every dirty trick to win.

Also if the old guy thinks he is about to lose, he will just pull out a gun, shoot you and claim self-defense as a helpless old man.

Took me about 25 years to fully understand his message.
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Old 01-21-2018, 10:37 PM   #18
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In the 60's my dad worked for a major newspaper. He brought home a linotype machine and I learned how to program on that. I think it was invented in the 30's. Here's a photo of the punch tape created to run the type setting machine that would print newspaper;



Used to do programming on a CRAY computer using machine language in binary and then HEX (hexidecimal), before assembly language. Then along came Fortran, C, Pascal and a little thing called a compiler. Disk drives the size of a washing machine and tape drives as large as a side-by-side refrigerator. I actually got to meet Seymour Cray. This was for the military and all I'll say about that!
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Old 01-22-2018, 07:09 AM   #19
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Well done.......but where's the ditty?

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Noun 1. ditty - a short simple song (or the words of a poem intended to be sung)
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Old 01-22-2018, 10:33 AM   #20
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I read all threads started by Ray. He seems to be able to engage me in thinking even if I don't contribute. Maybe it is his aptitude combined with his attitude? Even if there was no ditty!

(And in computers, there is ample room for a little thinking before coding.)
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