CF: Do you think that stigma associated with age is strongest in the tech industry?
DL: Yes. Mark Zuckerberg said that young people are smarter. Now, he said that a long time ago, he probably would be more diplomatic and discreet about it now, but I bet he still believes it. I think in tech there is a plentiful supply of people in their twenties and they are all looking for work. It may be that we are in this period where technology is erasing jobs faster than we are creating them, so we have a net loss of jobs. So that means that you have a surplus of workers. If that’s the case, why wouldn’t you just hire people in their twenties who are cheaper and younger and don’t have distractions?
I’m not even sure what to add here, but this is absolutely the truth. All things being equal, why wouldn’t you hire younger workers who don’t expect as much money, have fewer outside responsibilities, and will probably leave before you need to pay them much more, allowing you go back to the start of this process again?
Because things are not always equal. Sometimes, when you follow that practice, it’s bad for your business. (Sometimes it’s also you know, illegal.) I’m not sure many of the people who run tech company’s have figured that out yet. They don’t have a long term vision beyond the IPO or acquisition. 😉
Do you admit to being “old” when working in a tech company? Would you?
“Still, we should wait before writing any eulogies. Most learning professionals doubt traditional classroom learning will ever go extinct. After all, it makes up more training hours available than any other delivery method. Instead, they envision it incorporating technology to achieve a blended format that takes advantage of both tools’ strengths. According to ATD’s research…
That’s the damage of stigma. People who need a little support, a listening ear, a proverbially shoulder to cry on, don’t get it for fear of being judged.
And then, things escalate and just get worse, until they are forced to leave their profession.
Why should this be the case when we are all dealing with a pandemic and having struggles? Why do we still judge people who actually talk about it?
Nothing will change until we can eliminate the stigma that causes so many to not even talk about their struggles.
You would think, after everything we’ve been through this year with COVID-19, racial justice issues, a dysfunctional election, and natural disasters, maybe, just maybe this wouldn’t still be the case, but I’m afraid for many workers, this is totally true: “In my opinion, productivity is given undue importance, while burnout is largely ignored in the…
I’m sure at some point, Elon Musk thought for sure that he could buy Twitter and do a better job of content moderation. I’m sure most of us have had a similar thought. We just didn’t have $44 billion lying around.
He did, and now he gets to realize something the rest of us should know by now. There’s no easy way to do it.
I’m a man with no children. So, working extra hours when the need arises isn’t really an issue. (It’s a mental health and work/life balance issue when it never ends, but when that happens I can choose to go do something else, and we’ve made some progress in recognizing this in many workplaces.) On the other hand, I know, pretty instinctively, that if I put a hard 40 hour limit, or a hard ending of my day at a certain time, no matter what, I’d probably be out of a job. Yet, for people with children, there needs to be a hard cap on the hours spent working. The pandemic creating this home/virtual school issue made this worse, and more obvious, but it’s always been an issue. Lots of workplaces talk a good game about balance and flexibility, but when push comes to shove, most of them will also demand that you figure out your childcare issues on your own time and be available to work in a pinch. So, you login from home all evening and work, and if you’re a single parent, the kids get ignored, or maybe you can find someone else to watch them for you. If there are two parents, you’d better hope you both don’t have those kinds of jobs, because one of you needs to be available for childcare, you can’t both be online working all night.Â
And, if you have to choose which one leaves that kind of work arrangement, well, in general, women get paid less and have less advancement opportunities, (partially because they are more likely to “opt-out”), so they are going to be the ones to opt out, perpetuating the impression that women make these choices, that are then used to justify not changing the workplace to accommodate working mothers. After all, they’re likely to leave anyway, right?Â
It’s really quite the little, vicious, circle we’ve made for women in the workplace.Â
I have always maintained that any personal social networking policy should begin and end with one simple instruction. Don’t be Stupid! I’ve always felt like that pretty much covers it. If something is too stupid to do in person, don’t do it online. Thus, don’t have too much to drink and interact online, don’t write…
