Too Old to Code

I was at lunch with another DBA yesterday and he made a statement that sparked a real bitter discussion. He said something to the effect of “I want to get this done in my career before I get replaced by a kid straight out of college”.

Now, I know he was joking, but I’ve heard about this several times, and I’ve had several readers tell me that they’ve lost many jobs to kids with practically no experience. I tend to take stuff like this pretty seriously because not only will I be nearing that age soon, but I’m one of those rare people who think that experience still counts for something.

One of the biggest problems is getting my mind around why companies would put their reputation on the line to save a few bucks by having someone with practically no experience build their software or run their operations. I’ve already been a victim of that to a degree. I had a company get rid of me and kept a much lesser DBA because I was much more expensive. Forget the fact that the other DBA couldn’t even read most of my code much less actually support it… but I’m not bitter, I swear!

Anyway though, it just makes me sick that people are being aged-out of this industry at around 40. I agree that you need some fresh blood in there to help with cool graphics, etc, but you should always have the heavy stuff done by heavy staff.

So, as usual, here’s a list of things you don’t want done by fresh college grads. And remember… if you think hiring a professional is expensive, try not hiring one.

This is for you managers who want something for nothing:

Surgeon — I’ll be glad to hook any of you money-grubbing managers out there up with a surgical resident and we’ll see what a good job he does on your child who was just hit by a car.

Airline mechanic/inspector — I’ll book your flight myself!

SQL Server coder — This is the guy who actually writes SQL Server. You can pinch that penny all you like, but I want the guy writing my DB to have actually done it before… go figure.

Airline pilot — Don’t worry, jr will get you there.

Architect — How many buildings have collapsed from bad design? I hope it’s yours next.

Defense Attorney — I’ll let you go to jail so jr can finish his book report.

City Planner — I’ll buy you a house there myself.

Smoke Detector Engineer — You can put them in every room of your house.

Any application your company relies on — How many companies have had even experienced people make big mistakes? Do you really want to put your entire reputation and revenue on some kid out of college because he’s a little cheaper?

The bottom line is it’s easy to get sucked into the moment and try to save some money right now. A real experienced manager though, knows that you can’t run a business like that, and it only comes back to bite you. So try to think past tomorrow and try to look at the big picture.

Sure, kids can be attractive. They work insane hours for next to nothing. They don’t have families to take them away from their jobs. And they’re easier to push around because they don’t know all the labor laws yet. Then again, they’re also irresponsible, inexperienced, and capricious. They quit jobs at the drop of a hat because they can. They don’t have any outside responsibilities, so if something pisses them off, they just take off. It’s that simple.

Both age groups have their advantages and disadvantages. The question is, what’s the goal you’ve set for your business? Do you wanna do real business in an efficient and intelligent manner, or do you wanna push around a bunch of kids so nobody’s ever smarter than you?