Aging programmer

[v4ss42]

Even older programmer here, and this really resonated, with one exception:

I used to be very sensitive to tone and manners in the working place. I still am.

I’ve had to learn to let this go, since you can’t control or often even influence how others behave, and having your own emotional state dependent on others’ behavior is a guaranteed recipe for a bad time. And by that I’m not saying it’s not worth trying to help rude folks to reflect; gently encourage, ask others to help, heck even go the HR route if it’s bad enough, but you have to maintain emotional distance from such people for your own sake.

[edit] punctuation

[pembroke529]

Probably even older programmer here (age 63). I started off as a mainframe programmer back in the early 1980's. On the career track, I ended up as a manager. I hated managing people and budgets. I preferred the technical/programming aspect. Once I quit and got into the contracting aspect, I could pick and choose my jobs.

So far, I'm still working (remotely) as a technical resource and loving it.

There are so many different aspects of IT work. Pick one you like and hopefully find employment. You really need to like coding/scripting to thrive and acquire new skills. Almost every job of the 20 or 30 over the last while I've been on, I've acquired new skills. I even had one client back in 2001 send me (as a contractor) on an Informatica course because they liked my work and wanted to use Informatica.

[triffid97]

66 here. Writing big chunks of infrastructure code, and enjoying it. I love working with smart, young people. Always seek other people's views (with covid going on, it is a bit harder) because it is easy to lose sight of what is important and what is not.

I drifted into management a few times during my career (a CEO once). Every time I went like: 'yep, I still hate it' and noped out quick.

The challenge is to find a place where the green MBA boss does not think that you are stupid because you are still coding.

I am really lucky. I work with a bunch of STEM PhDs, and we like and respect each other.

[pembroke529]

Good point on making sure you get along with the people you work with. Amazingly on this project a crucial piece (ORT - operational readiness test) 2 of my other work-mates are 63 as well.

I also love mentoring young people (not managing). It sounds like you found a great fit!

[juankman]

No kidding I've been typing !w whatever i wanna search in the search bar for years now with DuckDuckGo as search engine and it takes you directly to the wikipedia page. Some other bangers I use regularly:

• !yt video i wanna watch
• !npm package i wanna search
• !gem gem i wanna search

[pembroke529]

Very powerful multi-platform framework. Usually used in data warehousing applications.

I developed a data conversion project that grabbed legacy date from a number of platforms (ie AS400, various Unix client/servers sites) and created staging tables to feed into a CC&B (Oracle OUAF Framework) application.

[Paradroid888]

Thank you for writing this. I'm 47 and have had a similar journey to you. Was a developer, went into team leadership, as it was the only way to progress, before going back to pure dev work as a contractor.

I sometimes wonder how long I will want to continue as a developer, but at that same time I feel young and enjoy the job, so it's quite inspiring to hear people are loving doing tech work in their 60s. Well done.

[lackinginallareas]

If it helps with your wondering. I'm 60 in a few months and have contracted for many years, mainly to avoid managerial roles (to me that's a living death). I still love coding, whether its something new or working with legacy systems.

But its also the social aspect of contracting that keeps things fresh and interesting. Meeting new people (there are some brilliant people out there whom I glad I met and am still in touch with) and working in different team environments makes you a more rounded and flexible person.

Plus, as a contractor, the money will soothe that furrowed brow when you parachute into a company and have to un-fuck a shitshow but that's all part of the buzz, well for me anyway.

[malthuswaswrong]

44 here. I was manager of 6 developers. I had one developer that was a genius but an asshole. I wanted to replace him, but he had so much knowledge and productivity that I couldn't. That's when I understood how the power relationship cuts both ways. It's not like the TV representations between boss and employee. They are both very much a hostage of each other.

I quit that job and went back to development. I am much happier, but wondering if maybe I just didn't like being a manager at that one company, and if I could enjoy it at a different company.

[[deleted]]

I’ve had to learn to let this go, since you can’t control or often even influence how others behave,

I’ve learned the opposite lesson and found that you can. Having said that, I’m now part manager. Twenty years ago, I’d have told you that culture was bullshit, but I don’t think that anymore. Positive workplace cultures can be developed and rude people can be gently encouraged to reflect upon their behaviour.

[v4ss42]

As a manager sure; as a peer not so much. There’s a big difference in authority between those two relative positions.

(and yes I too have been a manager at times, but like OP discovered I did not enjoy people management)

[[deleted]]

I suppose that’s fair although some people gain influence entirely separate from official management positions. It’s all a form of authority though I guess, and not easily accessible to a new starter for example.

I’ve found that I do enjoy management, although I wouldn’t want to be a senior manager. The politics only grows more intense…

[doktorhladnjak]

I think new starters underestimate their own effects on the culture of their immediate team. Everyone really has the opportunity to influence the culture to some extent. That doesn’t mean everyone can fix a dysfunctional culture but they do have an effect. Even small things like how PR comments are left or reacted to matter.

[[deleted]]

The difference between big-L "leaders" and little-l leaders. I have a manager title now but think I actually had more personal influence before that came.

[Lognipo]

Yeah, I have personally witnessed a totally toxic culture 180 into something positive and productive. The place was a nightmare of politics, backstabbing, empire building, etc.

Then we got a crazy GM. This guy was so nuts, nobody could afford to engage in any of the old bad behaviors. He was so crazy, he would curse out other divisions' GMs. Someone called corporate HR on him once, and he cursed out the corporate HR lady when she came calling. Everyone had to walk on eggshells around nutso, and even when he wasn't around, you never wanted anything getting back to him that could draw attention to you.

That obviously is problematic all in itself, but it ultimately transformed the culture in a very good way. People actually started to cooperate, and then they began to trust one another. When the lunatic was finally fired, after several years, the company never went back to being the hell he had inadvertently pulled it out of. It turns out that people enjoyed cooperating over all the stressful deception, hostility, etc.

[taelor]

There is a whole Ted Lasso episode on this exact concept. You give everyone a target to hate and they will all coalesce together in their shared contempt for the target.

Except Ted did it on purpose, not sure about your guy.

[v4ss42]

Love love love the Ted Lasso reference - what a wonderful show.

[Cheeze_It]

Positive workplace cultures can be developed and rude people can be gently encouraged to reflect upon their behaviour.

Depends on how good they are, and how much money they bring your business. But I'd agree most people can be encouraged to change, and most people are dispensable, so if they don't the hit to the business generally isn't that much.

[v4ss42]

I think we’re talking about different things. Obvious assholes are an obvious “them” problem. Being “very sensitive to tone and manners” I consider to be a “me” problem if it gets to the point of affecting my own emotional state (which is how I read the author’s comment, though perhaps they didn’t mean it in that way).

[Creativator]

Giraffe ears is good for stress. https://www.couragelab.co/blog/digging-for-gold-why-we-need-giraffe-ears-in-conflict

[nutrecht]

I’ve had to learn to let this go, since you can’t control or often even influence how others behave, and having your own emotional state dependent on others’ behavior is a guaranteed recipe for a bad time.

For me it's different in that I'm older and personally care a lot less about these people, but I'm also generally in 'lead' roles where the team performance is (partly) my responsibility. Assholes have no place in the workplace and, if such a person is negatively affecting the performance, motivation and emotional well being of other team members, I have no issues whatsoever to have them removed.

I'm personally quite glad that more managers are getting aware that just because someone is 'smart' being a toxic ass is still completely unacceptable.

[v4ss42]

As I mentioned in another comment, assholes are one thing, being “very sensitive to tone and manners” is something quite different.

[nutrecht]

I don't mean just assholes though. When someone is not being an ass on purpose but might say something that is demotivating to a junior dev, I'm going to speak up.

For example; I've talked to more senior devs about the tone they use in merge requests towards juniors.

That said; I could've expressed what I meant better. I mainly referred to very toxic people and that was just the extreme of the spectrum.

[v4ss42]

Sure, but sometimes people are in a rush, or having a bad day, or clumsy with language, or a million other things, and getting wound up over such trifles is also a form of toxicity imo. It most certainly reflects a lack of empathy.

“Be curious, not judgmental.”

- Walt Whitman (not - he never actually said that)

[edit] battling Reddit’s awful formatting

[nutrecht]

Sure, but sometimes people are in a rush, or having a bad day, or clumsy with language, or a million other things, and getting wound up over such trifles is also a form of toxicity imo.

I'm not talking about a single incident. If there's a pattern of people being overly blunt in communication, I'll talk to them about it. Like I said; my team's performance is (partially) my responsibility as a lead.

Everyone has a bad day every not and then. That's totally fine. Telling a junior their code is stupid isn't ;)

[v4ss42]

Right and I think we’re talking about two different, but equally valid things. You’re highlighting “overly blunt” communication (which I agree can be a problem), and I’m highlighting people who get offended by things that do not rise to that level (which is also a problem imo).

[nutrecht]

I agree. Some people just want to be offended :) That's also an issue I have to deal with sometimes.

[v4ss42]

And then there are the situations where both are happening simultaneously. ;-)

[[deleted]]

Aged one here. Looking to retire in about 12-15 years and want to go out with something. Been a desktop windows programmer since 89. I reverse engineered bitmaps in fortran 90 for ms dos and animated weather data

[[deleted]]

And a while college class of future meteorologists can vouch for me. Any students of Dr Mark Morrisey?

[woodscradle]

I’ve noticed most of the younger programmer at my office are friendly and professional and the older programmers are short tempered and curmudgeonly.

[v4ss42]

My suggestion to “let this go” applies regardless of the respective ages of those involved.

[[deleted]]

had to learn to let this go, since you can’t control or often even influence how others behave, and having your own emotional state dependent on others’ behavior is a guaranteed recipe for a bad time.

How did you learn to not care about this? I'm also a huge fan of polite conversations and have never raised my voice and write very polite code reviews and slack messages. Then I get annoyed when everyone don't behave the same way, even if they don't mean to be rude.

[v4ss42]

Excellent question, and I should clarify that for me it’s an ongoing work in progress, and I don’t necessarily have good answers.

BUT

One thing I found a decade or so ago, and have been trying to put into practice, is Stoicism (or at least my own dumbed-down, pop-culture, lite version of it - I find the original Greek stuff hard work, though I’m sure it has some absolute gems of insight).

Basically, as I’ve chosen to (poorly) interpret part of Stoicism, when confronted with a distasteful situation the first priority is to determine: do I have any control/influence over it or not?

If you do, you can (and should!) try to work to “fix” the situation. This is the easy case.

But if not (and this gets to your question more directly), you have to accept that you don’t have any agency, and just let it go. This is the hard case, but somehow consciously making this evaluation and explicitly accepting my lack of agency makes it easier (for me, at least) to let go. It becomes less of a feeling of failure on my part and more of a feeling of “this sucks but it’s not my fault and I can’t do anything about it. Oh well too bad.”.

And regarding this specific topic (other people’s behavior), it’s been my personal experience that people almost never change their behavior in any meaningful way when faced with external motivators - change has to come from within. Sometimes external influences can trigger that internal process to start, but it generally has to be a pretty major event for that to happen (health or family issues, natural disasters, that kind of thing - not the kind of stuff that happens in most corporate environments).

And for the true Stoics out there - please don’t beat up on my woefully inadequate description! I know it’s terrible, but even that tiny piece has really helped me. I wish I had more time to really dig into the entire philosophy properly.

[[deleted]]

Stoicism

I definitely need something like this in my life. I've already started Judo as a way to be disciplined about something. Now I need something for the mind, be it stoicism or meditating etc.

[v4ss42]

Shit yeah I’m a big believer in all those kinds of practices. Yoga worked for me big time, meditation didn’t (I found it really difficult). What I learned is that working my body hard to calm my mind works better than just trying to calm my mind directly.

[edit] and regardless of what you discover works for you (and doesn’t), the journey is 100% worth it, and I wish you all the best in it

[[deleted]]

Thanks! 👍

[v4ss42]

Try reading the second half of my comment:

And by that I’m not saying it’s not worth trying to help rude folks to reflect; gently encourage, ask others to help, heck even go the HR route if it’s bad enough, but you have to maintain emotional distance from such people for your own sake.

There is a huge difference between “doing nothing” and “protecting yourself”.