April 5, 2025 at 12:00 am
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Feeling your age? How would you know?
April 5, 2025 at 6:55 am
Do you get joy from showing people how to go about doing a task? That 24yr old programmer in your team who soaks up what you are teaching them, the way you approach a problem rather than you solving that particular blocker and they express delight at what you are passing on? That is one thing that keeps me young, teaching others. (I also happen to still like programming, after all this time).
You share your experience and knowledge and wisdom Louis, with thousands of others, doing this. You must be a little more confident than you say to write as you do on this forum. If that is showing your age then it is not so bad.
Graham
April 5, 2025 at 8:06 am
Failure is a great teacher, but the more you see it as the primary way a lot of people learn (or even don't learn), I guess this is what actually makes me feel old. Like I have said the same things over and over and over and no one is listening.
Or as the saying goes, failure is the most expensive form of education, but some people will learn from no other.
On the subject of failure I think every data professional should watch the series Mr Bates versus the Post Office. It is a dramatisation of the failures in the Post Office Horizon system (developed by Fujitsu) that led to hundreds of people being falsely prosecuted. It has been described as the greatest miscarriage of justice in British history.
Let no one ever tell you that transaction control is an optional extra.
April 5, 2025 at 3:59 pm
The first time you find yourself with a manager who is clearly younger than you are can be one of those moments in life where "I'm getting older" really hits home.
In my experience (so far) there are two phases to getting older: not caring for it at all, then reconciling to it and realizing that this part of the journey is the most weird but you're more equipped to deal with it than any other stage in your life.
April 5, 2025 at 4:18 pm
How will I know when I feel older?
Well, I will try to give you all some realistic perspective while trying not to be too negative. Here are some thoughts:
Starting with a response to Louis on recognising songs:
1. You find that the songs you like best are from the 1930-1940 era, and classics from several hundred years ago.
2. Your college class has announced your 60-year reunion.
3. The most frequent entries on your Outlook calendar are doctor appointments.
4. Last month you paid the $5000 annual premium for you Long Term Care insurance.
5. Yesterday your daily investment loss exceeded what you paid for your first house on a 30-year mortgage.
6. Your oldest and longest held investment was bought in 1943.
7. Your financial software contains 82 years of transactions.
8. This morning your grandson is coming over to carry bags of water softener salt to your basement.
9. Your grandchildren are graduating from college.
10. You have seven retired computers in your home office closet.
11. Your 'evening' dinner reservations with friends are for 4:00pm.
12. Most days you nap for a few hours in your Lazy Boy.
13. Your church celebrates fifty years and you were a charter member, board member, and served on the building committee.
14. Your high school class points out that your annual banquet was established 133 years ago. (I wasn't there.)
15. You enjoy sharing a glass of wine on the patio with neighbors when they come home from work.
16. You and your wife are both thankful you have survived bouts of cancer years ago.
17. Your 15th retirement anniverary is this month after working beyond the normal age.
18. When you woke up this morning your wife had to massage your back with Icy Hot before you could stand up.
19. You discovered that the THC/CBD gummies are the best pain killer and far less damaging than NSAIDS.
20. You have run out of TV series to watch for the third time.
21. You finally threw away over 400 3.5" floppy disks last year.
22. You wake up and thank God your wife is still sleeping next to you.
23. You and your wife enjoy three mugs of coffee in bed, and don't feel guilty about it being 10:30.
24. You wake up to find you neighbor raking leaves in your back yard.
25. That bottle of 'aged' scotch was distilled after your retirement.
26. Your dentist told you your teeth will last longer than you do.
27. You discover getting old beats the alternatives.
28. You used to love to travel. Now you value staying home.
Rick
Disaster Recovery = Backup ( Backup ( Your Backup ) )
April 5, 2025 at 4:19 pm
duplicated comment
Rick
Disaster Recovery = Backup ( Backup ( Your Backup ) )
April 5, 2025 at 10:30 pm
Everyone in a hurry to get something done, not necessarily to do it right the first time. And speaking of not learning, why was it I never heard of C.J.Date until 2024? And I heard about him from Dr. Ralph Kimball from a blog post he wrote back in 1997!
April 6, 2025 at 10:21 pm
Good article, Louis. I am older than many I work with, but I don't feel old. Indeed, I've lost 35 pounds in the last 6 months, so I'm feeling more energic than I have in many years.
Another thing I do is actively learn new things and technologies. Since the beginning of 2025 I've learned more about GitHub Actions and .NET Minimal APIs.
However, I either rarely or never get to put what I learn into practice at work. I work in State government, and as everyone knows government tends to lag years, sometime decades behind. We could be 20 years behind in several areas, but because we're government, who cares? It's not like we have any competitors. So long as we generate reports to satisfy funding, it doesn't matter.
Kindest Regards, Rod Connect with me on LinkedIn.
April 7, 2025 at 2:15 pm
I'm still pretty young, early 30's but I always think its funny that people say getting old sucks... my experience has been that getting old is awesome! Being young often means having to do what other people want you to do, having very little say in your own life and not having any money. I sure am glad to be an adult!
I know I don't have a very broad perspective yet, but the only negative to getting older I have experienced so far is that my parents are getting older as I get older, and that can be sad to see. Everything else has just been better in life as I have gotten older.
April 8, 2025 at 5:22 pm
I'm not quite where Rick is, but I feel a lot of those things. I'm definitely old.
At the same time, I know that paying it back, helping others, and recognizing that they have to not only make some of their own mistakes, but they have to be ready to hear things from others. I especially see that in coaching.
Just last week we had kids complaining about other kids. They were trying to be good examples, motivate others, remind others to do things and the "others don't do it." I reminded them they don't always hear us coaches and we still have to keep saying the words. Sometimes people don't want to change or aren't willing.
Often they're just not ready to do so. They haven't reached that point or made enough of their own mistakes.
April 10, 2025 at 5:32 pm
I'm not quite where Rick is, but I feel a lot of those things. I'm definitely old.
Steve, here's where I am. Exactly one month ago today I reached 82 years old. I enjoyed a 42-year career in IT after a false start in another area of employment. Now as of 4/30/2025 I will have enjoyed fifteen years of wonderful retirement. At this point, I have three out of four sons/stepsons active in IT careers, with two of them anticipating their own retirement. They got their first taste of computers when we got an Apple 2+ back in the late 70's. I still love working with data and data bases, but now on my own time and my own data.
Rick
Disaster Recovery = Backup ( Backup ( Your Backup ) )
April 14, 2025 at 4:02 pm
I first felt somewhat old when I realized I was old enough to be a new college hire's parent. The next step was when I realized I was old enough to be a new college hire's grandparent.
However, with age comes wisdom and the ability to solve problems very quickly based on experience and having seen and done a lot of different things. I am still working at 66 because I enjoy the work and enjoy teaching the younger folks how to problem solve and remind them that everything they see that's older made sense when it was implemented. It may not make a lot of sense now, but it did make sense in the past.
April 14, 2025 at 7:32 pm
I love these responses.
I would clarify one thing. The biggest point I was trying to make is that you have never been old, so how do you know that you FEEL older. I guess if you are in perfect health all your life, you don't know the sensation of feeling weak for periods of time, but for me it has been hills and valley for so many years.
@skeleton567 left a list (a excellent and often hilarious list), but that list is just like my pictures of being younger. I can provide evidence of being older, but I struggle a lot with if I feel older, or just hurt more. Steve's point (which I take to mean) on maturity is an interesting one. That was kind of why the pile of mistakes we gather up and have tried to share, but see people making the same mistakes over and over really hit me.
Many of us become our parents, but usually after we have just done the same dumb stuff they did, or told us not to do.
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