The pride of old people

[Phanuthier]

Didn't know where to put this with no RTT, so here is my random rant for the day.

So in one of my classes, we have 3 small design projects to do (each takes a few hours... a few minutes for design and a few hours for debug). In my group, its me, another guy who's 24 and one guy who is about 55 or so. The old guy doesn't know crap, his designs suck (they are more guess and calibrate until they work, absolutely no theory or design behind it, and the designs are so bad they barely work or barely meet spec).

Ok, no biggie, I can do this myself (and the other 24 year old, who I usually split the project work half/half with him and the old guy supervises). But the old guy decides to waste an hour of my time today trying to calibrate his "design" (i.e. threw a bunch of numbers on and keep changing it till it works) and tries to get me to help him with his work, when I could just do it myself.

Again, ok.

He's a little slow, i.e. he will go file->exit or edit->copy and edit->paste et al ... everything about how he does things is slow, re-invents the wheel on every single thing when he's asking me or the other 24y/o to explain how we did our design.

But here is the annoyance... the old guy has to feel "respected" ... if we make a mistake or overlook something, he gets all fathery and starts lecturing us ... gives the whole "the generation these days are so spoiled, so stupid, so useless et al" ... when its us who is doing all the design, test, debug and basically the whole shabang. So... ontop of doing the work, afterwards, we have to tell him what a valuable member of the team he is and say that he brings intangibles and all that crap.

Elders these days. Sense of entitlement, doesn't do their due dilligence and always comes unprepared, et al.
(this is true, but partly made in jest of the "kids these days" that pop up from time to time cause i'm feeling the need for mild entertainment)

[pylon]

May I reply??

My father is a very respected electrical engineer. he is 68 and nearing, if not past the end of his career. He was one of the main guys involved in the design of the Syncrude plant way back when. He is one of those guys that has forgotten more than most people will ever know about electrical design etc.

Since CAD became the norm in the late 80's and early 90's he kinda fell short of the young guys who were computer wizzes, but he was always kept around, and always was there to check work because he has something the current generation of engineers and designers lack. Practical experience. For 20 years he did on site work and and slide rule design, and understands the trade in the physical world not just the virtual one.

Last November his firm let him go because he was contract at 800/day, and the fat cats were first to go. They left a lot of the younger lower paid guys in charge, and now, the project is not only behind, it is a mess. He was called back in last week to come back onto the project in a supervisory role not because they need his sub-par computer skills, but because they need his experience to check the drawings, verify calculations etc.... because it was being rushed through without the old wisdom of "measure twice cut once" in the electrical design sense if there is a term for it.

I too work with a guy in my field (finance) that is the same old guy that seems to hold you up. But every once in a while the guy shows me something that is invaluable to my future career advancement simply because he has been there... done that. I don't know if I am even on the mark with this response, but all I can say is sometimes these old guys that have been around forever, have been around forever for a reason.

[Vulcan]

Originally Posted by Phanuthier

Didn't know where to put this with no RTT, so here is my random rant for the day.

So in one of my classes, we have 3 small design projects to do (each takes a few hours... a few minutes for design and a few hours for debug). In my group, its me, another guy who's 24 and one guy who is about 55 or so. The old guy doesn't know crap, his designs suck (they are more guess and calibrate until they work, absolutely no theory or design behind it, and the designs are so bad they barely work or barely meet spec).

Ok, no biggie, I can do this myself (and the other 24 year old, who I usually split the project work half/half with him and the old guy supervises). But the old guy decides to waste an hour of my time today trying to calibrate his "design" (i.e. threw a bunch of numbers on and keep changing it till it works) and tries to get me to help him with his work, when I could just do it myself.

Again, ok.

He's a little slow, i.e. he will go file->exit or edit->copy and edit->paste et al ... everything about how he does things is slow, re-invents the wheel on every single thing when he's asking me or the other 24y/o to explain how we did our design.

But here is the annoyance... the old guy has to feel "respected" ... if we make a mistake or overlook something, he gets all fathery and starts lecturing us ... gives the whole "the generation these days are so spoiled, so stupid, so useless et al" ... when its us who is doing all the design, test, debug and basically the whole shabang. So... ontop of doing the work, afterwards, we have to tell him what a valuable member of the team he is and say that he brings intangibles and all that crap.

Elders these days. Sense of entitlement, doesn't do their due dilligence and always comes unprepared, et al.
(this is true, but partly made in jest of the "kids these days" that pop up from time to time cause i'm feeling the need for mild entertainment)

Just remember not to fall into the same trap and be the old fogey when you're 55.

[Phanuthier]

white text guys... its a parody, just making the joke. i actually like the guy, nice guy... just making a joke here.

more info for those that need it : parody from the service industry thread about kids these days, sense of entitlement et al.

[Rerun]

55 is old? I don't think so. By today's standards, I think the guy is in his prime.

[flamesfever]

If you think the generation gap is bad today, you should have seen it back in the 60's.

My Dad, who was older and had grade 10 education, was the production manager for a large plant making electronic components. As such, he was constantly called upon to train young, graduate engineers, who were making twice his wage, to take his place. Yet when anything went wrong, the engineers would automatically come to him to help them find a solution.

I can't imagine how frustrated my Dad must have felt.

However, it was acknowledged at my Dad's retirement, that it was his knowledge and experience that saved the plant from closing down several times.

[mykalberta]

I assume you are in university. You have no obligation to assist this person if he isnt doing the basic work. Personally I would go it with the other guy - you dont want to get your grade lowered by someone who cant cut it. Its unfortunate that technology has passed him by, and its honorable that he is trying to catch up but its not your responsibility to teach him.

I would have given old balls more slack but once he starts lecturing you and talking down to you about talking about your generation then he gets no more slack IMO. Let him hang himself with his arrogance and fail the class.

[Sample00]

you crazy kids with your modern, hip ideas..why cant you just leave well enough alone!

[Ozy_Flame]

Old folks deserve respect, but clearly the opinions of those who rant about "the good old days" should be taken with a grain of salt and sense of humor. Times are changing fast, the kids have far more technical skills than before and team members who can't get over the fact that "the good old days" are gone, their value slides to minimal. Static personalities that hate change, IMO, are more of a threat than a good thing. Your team is only as fast as your slowest worker.

Maybe in the traditional lines of business such as accounting or engineering that stuff is necessary, but the line of work I'm in - marketing and social media - its definitely not useful.

[habernac]

On the flip side, the kids who think they know everything are pretty damned annoying.

[GreenLantern]

I also work with an older guy when I need to build maps or work with degrees of time in terms of lat/long.. he is a bit slower on the comps, doing the things you talk about, but when he does something it is always done right. I find that when I do it by myself I rush through it a lot and as a result have to go back and change something. My end is more get it done fast, look at what is messed up, then go back and fix it. This works for me, and I usually finish things as fast as his "slower" method.

But what I do admire about him is that he is more than willing to listen to me and hear me out, even if he knows the entire time that I am doing it wrong.. then when I need to correct it he won't give an I told you so, but more hints at what I did wrong.. like "Well what would happen if we poked the data on this table before we converted it?" type stuff.. he shows incredible patience. He will teach me things, and has taught me things, that I have no idea about until it is an after thought.

Now I know this is a different circumstance than you, because you are on the same field as your guy where I am the rookie and he is the sergeant tasked with guiding me. But I thought I would share anyway..

[Bagor]

Originally Posted by Phanuthier

Elders these days. Sense of entitlement, doesn't do their due dilligence ....

Originally Posted by Phanuthier (in another thread)

frustrating weekend on one of my design projects, and made a small mistake (wrote 145 instead of 195) and lost 13% on my midterm

A little more diligence and you wouldn't be losing 13%.
BTW That's a B-I-G mistake in old foggie land.

[Cowboy89]

Originally Posted by habernac

On the flip side, the kids who think they know everything are pretty damned annoying.

In workforce terms I am a kid. I still thanked this though. There's many older people at work that I could probably beat out in any kind of simulated examination whether it be written, oral, case study based etc. on the technical aspects of my job. However at the same time when life throws a curveball, the people who seem to know what to do and how to get started are the older more experienced people. Often they've seen something like the crisis du jour happen before (Even if it was in the 70s). Which is ultimately why I execute while they manage me.

[burn_baby_burn]

It doesn't seem that long ago that people were telling me that my generation didn't have any respect. Now at the age of 36 I have people in my generation saying the same thing about teenagers today. I find it pretty interesting.

In response to the OP, I wouldn't paint the whole generation with the same brush because of some ridiculous comments by one member of that generation. If this 55 year old member of your team was so smart he wouldn't still be in school at his age.

[Sliver]

Well old people certainly aren't infallible, contrary to some of the sentiments in this thread, and I think in many cases their knowledge is outdated. I'm with the OP on this and his call for a ban of all old people from the workplace/society.

[Phanuthier]

Originally Posted by burn_baby_burn

It doesn't seem that long ago that people were telling me that my generation didn't have any respect. Now at the age of 36 I have people in my generation saying the same thing about teenagers today. I find it pretty interesting.

In response to the OP, I wouldn't paint the whole generation with the same brush because of some ridiculous comments by one member of that generation. If this 55 year old member of your team was so smart he wouldn't still be in school at his age.

Um did everyone just miss the fact that I was making a play on the "young people these days" cliche, and flipping it around here?

I mean, I _just_ said that was the parody in post 4... and flipped the cases of what is said to paint a whole generation for young people, to the exact same case for old people. (Entitlement, not willing to put in the world to learn and thinking someone else will bail them out, immediately saying he's right before listening to why he is wrong - the 1 hr thing, demanding respect without proving their worth et al)

The bolded was exactly what I was trying to prove... surprised so many people missed that.

Funny so many people dogpile the cliche... turn the case around and well, whatever is written so far.

(For the record, I don't mind working with the guy. I like to do most of the work myself anyways and he's a good guy when he's not trying to act like a father. We went with him cause he's an uncle of the other 24 year old, and me and the other 24 year old are able to take care of the work load anyways, so I don't really care if we have a 3rd person or not and I don't take leaches really that personally.)

[Sample00]

Originally Posted by Sliver

Well old people certainly aren't infallible, contrary to some of the sentiments in this thread, and I think in many cases their knowledge is outdated. I'm with the OP on this and his call for a ban of all old people from the workplace/society.

you meant that in green text, right? cause I am going to assume it was sarcastic.

[Phanuthier]

Originally Posted by GreenLantern

But what I do admire about him is that he is more than willing to listen to me and hear me out, even if he knows the entire time that I am doing it wrong.. then when I need to correct it he won't give an I told you so, but more hints at what I did wrong.. like "Well what would happen if we poked the data on this table before we converted it?" type stuff.. he shows incredible patience. He will teach me things, and has taught me things, that I have no idea about until it is an after thought.

I worked with/for a guy like that on one of my internships, great relationship. He had the experience, I was up-to-date with the theory - it worked great. That is a great relationship to work in. On more than a few internships, and working with this old guy (which I don't mind helping him out, just as long as he is willing to listen and not trying to act like a father when someone is helping him out) its been the me, the young person, who had to show patience to teach this.

The point/parody/inspired partially by a rant, was that respect is mutual and earned through what you do - not given due to age.

[Sliver]

Originally Posted by Sample00

you meant that in green text, right? cause I am going to assume it was sarcastic.

Maybe blue text to indicate a joke. I wasn't being sarcastic but for sure not serious.

[habernac]

Originally Posted by Phanuthier

The point/parody/inspired partially by a rant, was that respect is mutual and earned through what you do - not given due to age.

Excellent point.