[PLUG] Apple Ousts Coder for Being Young

[Steven Raymond]

On 2002.03.30 21:59 Rich Shepard wrote:
>   Well! It's about time that age discrimination affected those younger
> than
> 40. :-)
> 
> Rich

Oh- you are SO wrong for implying that ageism is always bad for "older" 
folk (with all due respect, of course ;) )

I graduated from college in '93.  At every job I have had since then, 
older folks with more "experience" had in some cases 50% (yes, that's 
FIFTY PERCENT) more pay for the SAME DUTIES and WORKLOAD as the more 
junior (me) techs pulling work from the SAME pile.

Perhaps it has just been my bad luck, but so far I have not been in an 
job environment where actual individual output and performance was 
gauged or rewarded at anywhere near the extent as career length is 
regarded.  I'm talking about indiviudal rubber-meets-the-road daily 
productivity & knowledge base here.

It would be understandable, of course, if the "veterans" were in some 
sort of mentoring or even lead tech position and in some way leading 
the junior techs with accumulated experience.  But the fact of the 
matter is, the junior techs (read: not yet burned out) are usually far 
in the lead in terms of knowledge base about current technologies due 
to self-study, vendor training, and simple curiosity/yearning to learn.

Not to mention the fact that everyone who seemed to begin their career 
prior to 1990 is looking forward to a pension of some sort.  Sure, 
nowadays we are offered 401k with (if lucky) some miniscule matching 
company contributions.  But with the market tanking this hard who has 
the guts to throw more good money in after bad?

But nevermind me.  I am sure that everyone gets the shaft no matter how 
you look at it.  I pipe up only because in response to Rich's comment 
above, in my experience have not seen any discrimination because 
someone was "too old".