>Perry;
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>Hard for me to say that older people are less willing to learn new things. I am in that class of "older", at least age wise. I stay on top of things and teach the “golly gee whiz kids” how to make things work. I have had to learn job specific tools and have had no problems doing so. However, I have a complaint about age. It is very difficult to get a job in Silicon Valley if you are over 40, in electronics engineering or software development. Perhaps they are being kind to protect the health of us old timers, as working till you drop seems to be a requirement at some establishments.
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>When I was 48 I worked for a company that required 20 hours a day seven days a week. After I completed my project (hardware design, software and prototype development) I quit. I even did the sheet metal work (stainless steel) as I have training in sheet metal and as a machinist. I can chase threads with the best of them! (A joke for machinists.) That combined with both areas of my professional training – electronics engineering and software development allowed me to deliver a successful product.
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>The trend here is to not attempt to train any older workers using new tools regardless of your track record. They would rather hire an H1B and have a warm body. It has to do with perception and the bottom line. It looks better to have a young warm body even if it does not know how to be successful.
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>I worked at Ampex, and we invented many things one of which was digital video. I worked very closely with the design team on this project, both D1 and D2. These are the digital video standards used by the world. I wrote the specifications, which today are international standards, as I was the Metrology/Standards Engineer for Ampex.
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>I applied for a job with a new digital video company after Ampex laid off 16,000 people in one day, and was interviewed by a 25 year old HR Director. He told me, “You old timers are tied down to analog video and know nothing and cannot learn anything about digital video”. I said, “thank you for the interview”, and left. I did not want to work at an establishment with individuals with such a mentality in charge of departments and policies.
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>I have had many such interviews and they get disgusting. At my present company, my manager and supervisor are my age. Five people have been married over 30 years, and I lead the way at 36 years. We are the “older generation”, and keep Toyota and General Motors cars and trucks moving on the assembly line at our plant. Most people in my department have been here since the company went into business in 1984. Unusual for Silicon Valley! We are hiring while the rest of the auto industry is firing. Most of the people at this plant (5000 people) are older workers. We all do some interesting things to manufacturer our new models (2003) that are being released this year.
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>There is a new Pontiac called the “Vibe”, which is our new product. GM designed it and Toyota engineered it. It uses the Toyota Corolla chassis and will be a very nice car. We will build a right hand stearing version called the “Voltz”. This will be the first time Japan has allowed an American company to manufacturer a car for Japan. This is not the same as selling a car. We have to meet the quality standards of Japan which is a different story.
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>So, I cannot speak for all “older workers”, but just the people I know and myself. If I did not learn something new everyday I would be bored. Perhaps that is why I have many interests.
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>Perhaps it is more an attitude that an age factor. I have met people of all ages through out my life that could not, would not or were not interested in learning. Tell me, at what age does someone become old and less willing to learn? I am interested! :)
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Tom,

< wild applause > As someone who qualifies in the "older workers" category (I'll be 54 this coming Sunday), there's not much more to be said but: "Thanks"