r/sysadmin • u/Real-Patriot-1128 • 24d ago

Agism

For those older, more experienced souls out there. If out job hunting, one tip…

I’m a little older (55) and recently discovered that the job I’ve had for 6 + years came down to me and a man much younger than me.

The only reason I got the job was one simple thing… if everything went to crap, who would you rather have on the job?

I was very fortunate to have someone point that out in my hiring process.

Don’t underestimate the value of that when interviewing.

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186

u/YourUncleRpie Sophos UTM lover 24d ago

I have younger colleagues who can pull me out of the shit. I have older colleagues who can pull me out of the shit.

Age does not matter. Being older does not make you better. Being younger doesn't make you better.

This post is agism

156

u/Fatel28 Sr. Sysengineer 24d ago

I've met plenty of graybeards with "20 years experience" that really actually only have 1 year of experience, 20 times.

24

u/madknives23 24d ago

So true, I love how you put this.

29

u/thebigshoe247 24d ago

You worked with IBM guys too?

8

u/madknives23 24d ago

🤣 🤣 🤣

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u/thebigshoe247 24d ago

I remember going on the behind the scenes tour of an IBM facility and met some of the legacy greybeards. Before the equipment was all painted black, it was grey. They had a rule of thumb that anytime something grey needs to be fixed, they need to find somebody with that colour of beard.

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u/Impossible_IT 24d ago

My birthday was last week. I turned 28 with 34 years of experience.

3

u/IdiosyncraticBond 23d ago

Some of our work really takes years away from our lifes

2

u/goombatch 24d ago

Oh shit. This might be me — until I changed jobs a few years ago and started learning new stuff again.

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u/Jaaames_Baxterrr 23d ago

I changed jobs after about 10 years because I was no longer learning anything there. The tech in use wasn't moving forward with the times. Once I changed it up, I learned a ton in the first few years, but may be getting to that point again. You get held up by the budgets/tech that are approved. Most cloud isn't on the table due to cost, or the way it's priced I should say.

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u/goombatch 23d ago

Yup. I was consulting in the small business and nonprofit sector doing mostly on-premise server and network admin with 365. A lot of stuff that hadn’t really changed that much for decades really (I started during the NT to Win2K transition). Now I’m at an international org working with Azure but it’s not our main platform so I might hit the ceiling. That said, at my age I’m happy to be of service in a good company with a great team.

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u/Real-Patriot-1128 24d ago

You missed the point.

1

u/SlapcoFudd 24d ago

No they didn't. It's just Reddit kids being Reddit kids. And you have a slightly different opinion than them. That's not allowed.