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Perhaps I've been channeling Michael O. Church a bit too much for my own good, but sometimes it looks as though he's nailed it. I'm a big fan of MOC's stuff as well, but just to give you one different datapoint... I'm pushing 40 (will be 40 in July) and I haven't seen any evidence of age discrimination yet. I did get laid off from a programming job about 2 years ago, but, to be quite honest, I had mentally "checked out" a good year or so before along with about half of the other stuff, most of whom left voluntarily or also got laid off. It was a shit job with shit management, and we all groused about it and start making it clear to management that we felt that way, so no big surprise there. OTOH, I had a new job lined up within < 8 hours of the layoff announcement. That goes mostly to the fact that I network a lot and knew exactly who to call, but still... Now, working in a slightly different role as a traveling consultant type, as opposed to a "sit in the same office day after day after day working on the same product" I find that my age sometimes actually helps. I've been sent to help some of the younger consultants because, as my boss put it, the customer "wants to see somebody with some grey in their beard". And, unfortunately, a little bit of grey is starting to show in my beard. :-( Anyway, it's just one bit of anecdotal evidence, and I don't mean to claim that age discrimination doesn't happen. But it's definitely not universal. At least in the Raleigh / Durham, NC area. |