OT:...sort of. Productivity in retirement.

Upscale wrote:

> Maybe, but with the mandatory retirement eliminated, the young guy is likely
> going to have to pay more dues than you did to get somewhere. I'm kind of
> ambivalent to this change of retirement. It's fine for those people who
> really are productive and can make a positive contribution for some time to
> come, but I know damned well, there's going to be people who will insist on
> staying on even though they're long past the stage of contributing anything
> worthwhile. Various unions already do that for their members. With the
> mandatory retirement eliminated, it's going to be a tremendous struggle to
> get some people out.

Great point.. There's some productive older workers, but there's also
some that start coasting in their last 5 years or so. If they could
continue to work, knowing that they could retire at any time, I imagine
a lot of the lazy ones would hang on another 5 years doing nothing but
collecting a paycheck. Note, not all are lazy, but some are.

Robatoy wrote:
> I was particularly moved by a caller who said: " I have been in college
> to get my degree to do this job, I'm good at this job, and my only way
> upward is to become the head of my department. I am next in line and
> have been looking forward to my boss to retire next year. My boss runs
> 3 miles every day, he is as fit as a fiddle and is brilliant in solving
> problems for our company. On top of that, he's compassionate and a
> great friend to all that work for him... but when all is said and done,
> the sunnuvabitch is holding me back."
>

Sorry, but you struck a nerve here. I don't know where people get the
notion that they are entitled to advancement. It's a free market
economy, and when the overall quality of life looks better in another
job, I'll leave the employer I've loved for 26 years now. But the
quality of life doesn't look better in another job, so I'm staying put.
As long as I'm here, I feel like I owe them the loyalty to not whine
about my pay or my working conditions, or my boss (not that I have
anything to complain about).

There will always be people standing between us and some goal. The
boss that's holding him back is probably making the company money in
more intangible ways than he'll ever know, focused on himself as he is.
IT'S NOT ABOUT YOU!

Because I was fortunate enough to go to college, I was placed in a
position of authority over men near retirement age when I was not yet
thirty. I'm glad I was able to value their wisdom and experience,
because they could have sabotaged my whole career by simply keeping
their knowledge to themselves instead of sharing it with me. There's
no substitute for 20 years of experience. I believed it then and I
believe it even more now.

If that young man will concentrate on learning what he can from that
boss instead of hoping he'll get out of the way, the promotions will
take care of themselves, and he'll ultimately rise higher.

DonkeyHody
"A dwarf on giant's shoulders can see the farther of the two." - George
Herbert

On Dec 16, 9:29 am, "Morris Dovey" <[email protected]> wrote:
> Prometheus (in [email protected]) said:
>
> | Never been showed up by a guy younger than myself, but I've been put
> | to shame by more than a few old timers when it comes to work. If
> | they are still willing and able to do the job, there's no call to
> | push them out- and that BS about being held back by the old guy
> | that won't retire is just that. There are all sorts of ways to
> | move up that don't involve getting someone else nailed and taking
> | their place. A person deserving of advancement will find them no
> | matter who is standing above them.
>
> Agreed. I'd like to add to this just a bit.
>
> IMO, one of the responsibilities of those who've accumulated
> experience is to distill it to it's essence and hand it off to the
> younger folks so that they don't need to spend their entire
> lives/careers to reach the same level of understanding that we have.
>
> They'll need to pick up from where we leave off - not from where we
> were 40 or 50 years ago. Among other things, old timers need to teach
> impatient youngsters that moving up is a consequence of moving
> foreward; and that one person's gain need not come at the cost of
> another's loss.
>
> My dream is that every younger person I've ever worked with will have
> accomplishments that far outshine any/all of mine.
>
As always, Morris, very nicely put.

During my corporate life, I observed that many of the old timers were
afraid to share in fear of their jobs. My old boss pointed out the
stupidity of that: "How are these guys ever going to move up if they
don't have a replacement for their vacancy?"

Myself? I'm still stuck between these two proverbs:
You're never too old to learn,
You can't teach an old dog new tricks.

r

In my mind it has more to do with individual productivity. Regardless of
age, if an employee is productive, read that to mean they are an asset to
the company, then they will have secure employment. As soon as they become
a liability, there value has to be re-evaluated.

OTOH, employees with a long tenure should be given greater latitude when
determining their value.

Dave






"Robatoy" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
>I just listened to a bunch of callers to a radio show, which dealt with
> the recent passing of a law that out-laws forced retirement. A guy can
> now keep his job past 65 if he wants to and is able.
> What I found interesting, was the polarity between opinions.
> On one end of the spectrum, young callers wanted the old guard to make
> room for them.
> On the other end, people suggested that experience is a good thing to
> have in a business.
> Being who I am, I immediately thought of a guy taking a swig of his
> Malox bottle and gumming his microphone: "This is your captain
> speaking, I think....let's get this box in the air, because it is time
> for my nap."
>
> My wife thinks that old doctors are great at "I have seen this before",
> but that new doctors are better informed of new methods to threat those
> problems. ( I vote for keeping them both.)
>
> New engineers, like my neighbour, apply new materials, the old guys
> still use rivets..(so to speak)
>
> Nothing compares to an experienced hand using a scraper or fitting a
> dove-tail. (<-----the wood connection!)
>
> When does it go from "lemme show ya, rookie." to " this is how we do it
> these day, old man."
>
> I was particularly moved by a caller who said: " I have been in college
> to get my degree to do this job, I'm good at this job, and my only way
> upward is to become the head of my department. I am next in line and
> have been looking forward to my boss to retire next year. My boss runs
> 3 miles every day, he is as fit as a fiddle and is brilliant in solving
> problems for our company. On top of that, he's compassionate and a
> great friend to all that work for him... but when all is said and done,
> the sunnuvabitch is holding me back."
>
> That last line cracked me up.
>
> Thoughts?
>
> r
>

"Leon" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> You should work as long as you productive and want to. Making room for
> the younger guys is just another form of affirmative action. If the young
> guy wants your position he can work for it and pay his dues just like you
> did and the guy before you.
>


30 or so years ago (I was 23) I started a Janitorial/carpet cleaning
service....physical work requiring lots of hustle. Along came a nice old
timer (I thought in his 60's) whom had seen my yellow page ad and looked me
up because we had the same last name<g>. He asked about doing my window
accounts (at that time I did all of my own) so I politely took his name and
number but figured "you gotta be kidding" after all it requires ladders,
roofs, climbing, reaching, working at a near run and definitely to compete a
spring to the step. A short time later I had quick uptick of construction
cleanup and temporary residential demand....so what the heck I gave the old
Norwegian a call...turns out he was 75 with 50 years experience...not only
could I not keep up with him but I learned much....he actually moved bit
slower but was much more effective with the steps he took.....he worked
quite well till he was 78 and a heart attack slowed him...after a slow
recuperation he wondered if he could do a few janitorial accounts since his
doctor wouldn't let him wash windows anymore (his health really didn't allow
that either).....twas a sad but touching day when he gave his window bucket
and glass cleaning tools...he wouldn't sell them(I tried) but wanted to pass
them along to me..... over the years I had many a younger employee who could
not hold a candle to John.....discrimination for anything other than merit
is both wrong and stupid.....Rod

Mark & Juanita wrote:

> Sounds like a good friend of ours. He once made the comment, "I retired
> 10 years ago and I'm so busy now I don't know how I ever had time for
> work!"
>

I don't know a single retiree who hasn't said that, including me! Seems that
as soon as we retire, we slow down Not on purpose, it just seems to happen.
Of course, there is that little nap after lunch :-).

--
It's turtles, all the way down

"Mark & Juanita" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> I worked on the farm with my granddad, he was in his early 80's when I
> graduated from college. I wasn't a weakling, but there were things he
> could do at 83 that I couldn't do at 22. Came from raising a family on
> the Eastern Colorado plains during the Depression and Dustbowl I suspect,
> as well as having grown up with the mechanical age and using horses before
> that.


My Dad until the last couple a years was one of those ....at 90 he finally
got old..... He was taking care of a 2 acre place, large garden etc.....but
this year is pretty much his last garden of any size (can't hardly walk). He
does have a 91 yr old friend whom is still quite active in his
woodshop....its quite a kick for Al to give me a tour, showing his latest
projects, plans and home grown lumber.....he does do more scroll saw/fret
work than other stuff now but he also still takes care of a 10 acre
place.....Years back a 78 yr old duffer (Holly) helped and taught me how to
do Formica in my kitchen, watching him handle a 10ft piece on his shopsmith
was a kick....I asked a 79 yr. old (Ted) for concrete advice when I built my
garage, I wanted him to sit on the grass and point but I couldn't keep him
out of the muck as he insisted on dragging the bull float etc....Indeed
there is and was a group of those old timers that didn't understand that a
rocking chair was for sitting instead of building.....Rod

Robatoy wrote:

> During my corporate life, I observed that many of the old timers were
> afraid to share in fear of their jobs. My old boss pointed out the
> stupidity of that: "How are these guys ever going to move up if they
> don't have a replacement for their vacancy?"

I guess I was lucky in a way. My first real job was for GE back in the late
'50s. I was told when I hired on that I had two jobs - train my replacement
and make myself superflous. If I could do that, there'd be a better job
waiting.

I have no idea if GE still follows that philosophy, but I did every place I
worked. Even when I became a free lance "consultant" I told my customers
that my job was defined by 5 "d"s. Design, document, develop, debug, and
disappear.

Always worked for me.

--
It's turtles, all the way down

Swingman wrote:

> The _really_ sad thing is that a college education today is almost
> equivalent in literacy/knowledge to an 8th grade education pre 1972.
>
>

Agreed. I graduated in 1970 near the bottom of my class. About 3 years
back I took a smattering of courses and, with rare exception, simply
blew away the fresh HS graduates.

English.
Math.
Computer programming.
Machine trades.
CISCO networking.

ALL of what I knew had either been retained from HS or developed 'in the
wild' since. Where else could it have come from?

I averaged 3.5 or so while working full time in a factory, attending
school full time and being both a minister and a husband.


---
avast! Antivirus: Outbound message clean.
Virus Database (VPS): 0659-1, 12/16/2006
Tested on: 12/19/2006 12:22:42 AM
avast! - copyright (c) 1988-2006 ALWIL Software.
http://www.avast.com

On 14 Dec 2006 06:10:17 -0800, "Robatoy" <[email protected]> wrote:

>I just listened to a bunch of callers to a radio show, which dealt with
>the recent passing of a law that out-laws forced retirement.

<<< Snip >>>

>Thoughts?

Never been showed up by a guy younger than myself, but I've been put
to shame by more than a few old timers when it comes to work. If they
are still willing and able to do the job, there's no call to push them
out- and that BS about being held back by the old guy that won't
retire is just that. There are all sorts of ways to move up that
don't involve getting someone else nailed and taking their place. A
person deserving of advancement will find them no matter who is
standing above them.

"Swingman" <[email protected]> wrote in message
>
> The _really_ sad thing is that a college education today is almost
> equivalent in literacy/knowledge to an 8th grade education pre 1972.
>

Right now, I have a college grad working in the shipping department. I wish
he was as smart as some of the 8th graders around from the past.

Prometheus wrote:

> On 14 Dec 2006 06:10:17 -0800, "Robatoy" <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>
>>I just listened to a bunch of callers to a radio show, which dealt with
>>the recent passing of a law that out-laws forced retirement.
>
>
> <<< Snip >>>
>
>>Thoughts?
>
>
> Never been showed up by a guy younger than myself, but I've been put
> to shame by more than a few old timers when it comes to work. If they
> are still willing and able to do the job, there's no call to push them
> out- and that BS about being held back by the old guy that won't
> retire is just that. There are all sorts of ways to move up that
> don't involve getting someone else nailed and taking their place. A
> person deserving of advancement will find them no matter who is
> standing above them.


A person who can rise only by others falling doesn't deserve to rise.

Prometheus (in [email protected]) said:

| Never been showed up by a guy younger than myself, but I've been put
| to shame by more than a few old timers when it comes to work. If
| they are still willing and able to do the job, there's no call to
| push them out- and that BS about being held back by the old guy
| that won't retire is just that. There are all sorts of ways to
| move up that don't involve getting someone else nailed and taking
| their place. A person deserving of advancement will find them no
| matter who is standing above them.

Agreed. I'd like to add to this just a bit.

IMO, one of the responsibilities of those who've accumulated
experience is to distill it to it's essence and hand it off to the
younger folks so that they don't need to spend their entire
lives/careers to reach the same level of understanding that we have.

They'll need to pick up from where we leave off - not from where we
were 40 or 50 years ago. Among other things, old timers need to teach
impatient youngsters that moving up is a consequence of moving
foreward; and that one person's gain need not come at the cost of
another's loss.

My dream is that every younger person I've ever worked with will have
accomplishments that far outshine any/all of mine.

(dos centavos)

--
Morris Dovey
DeSoto Solar
DeSoto, Iowa USA
http://www.iedu.com/DeSoto/solar.html

Han (in [email protected]) said:

| But sometimes it does get difficult to transmit information

I've noticed that, too. Sometimes it helps to speak more clearly; and
sometimes it's a matter of holding a short 2x4 while you speak. <g>

| As our janitor explained to me a few years back: Han, common sense
| is a misnomer, it's not very common at all.

As far as I've been able to tell, the essential problem has to do with
forgetting to make sure the sense machine is turned on and properly
connected. <vbg>

| Happy holidays to all, whichever you celebrate!

Thanks - and my best wishes to all for peace, good health, happiness,
and straight-grained wood free of knots.

--
Morris Dovey
DeSoto Solar
DeSoto, Iowa USA
http://www.iedu.com/DeSoto

Robatoy (in [email protected])
said:

| On Dec 16, 9:29 am, "Morris Dovey" <[email protected]> wrote:

|| My dream is that every younger person I've ever worked with will
|| have accomplishments that far outshine any/all of mine.
|
| During my corporate life, I observed that many of the old timers
| were afraid to share in fear of their jobs. My old boss pointed out
| the stupidity of that: "How are these guys ever going to move up if
| they don't have a replacement for their vacancy?"

I think I was fortunate to have been able to work as a consultant -
because I never needed to worry about those issues. All I had to do
was help people to see the problem under their nose from a perspective
that made the solution obvious and help them feel good about
discovering it themselves.

I was always working to put myself out of a job. The strange thing was
that the more quickly I could do that, the more quickly the next job
popped up (and usually with at least a small "raise"). I never thought
of it as moving "up", if that's indeed what it was. I always thought
of it as moving "foreward", into ever more interesting projects.

You got me to wondering, how is this essentially different from how
one operates within a single corporation? The people within the
corporate environment should have the advantage of being able to look
around for problems in need of solution and being able to pick the
ones they find most interesting...

| Myself? I'm still stuck between these two proverbs:
| You're never too old to learn,

True.

| You can't teach an old dog new tricks.

So teach the new tricks to young dogs and let the old dogs learn by
example at their own pace - they (the old dogs) won't want to be left
behind. <g>

--
Morris Dovey
DeSoto Solar
DeSoto, Iowa USA
http://www.iedu.com/DeSoto

Prometheus (in [email protected]) said:

| On Sat, 16 Dec 2006 16:27:56 -0600, "Morris Dovey"
| <[email protected]> wrote:
|
|| Robatoy (in [email protected])
|| said:
||
||| On Dec 16, 9:29 am, "Morris Dovey" <[email protected]> wrote:
||
|||| My dream is that every younger person I've ever worked with will
|||| have accomplishments that far outshine any/all of mine.
|
| A noble goal- while we don't *need* to move forward, doing so is
| usually an improvement, provided that we're going in the right
| direction.

I think we /do/ need to move forward (be more efficient, improve
product quality, make customers more satisfied, etc.) Final judgement
on whether we're going in the right direction necessarily comes after
the fact.

Choosing not to move forward is making the choice of stagnation and
irrevelence - both at the individual and enterprise levels. It isn't
that the old ways are so bad; but rather that sticking to the old ways
ensures that the old problems will always be with us.

Moving forward calls for wisdom (application of our knowledge of the
consequences for the actions we take) and for courage (determination
to take actions that fit our best principles and ideals even when
those actions don't constitute the easiest, cheapest, or most
comfortable course.

I think we criticize the MBA "bean counters" when, in fact, they
aren't the individuals who make decisions resulting in degradation of
tool quality. The bean counters do analysis, brainstorm options, and
report to company management. If that management then fails to
exercise wisdom and courage, the enterprise will not do well; and
neither will its employees nor its customers.

||| During my corporate life, I observed that many of the old timers
||| were afraid to share in fear of their jobs. My old boss pointed
||| out the stupidity of that: "How are these guys ever going to move
||| up if they don't have a replacement for their vacancy?"
|
| Also very true- I've been training one of the shop lackeys in
| setting up the mill and running the laser cutter whenever possible.
| If he can get to where he can take that over for me, great! I
| already know that when that happens, I'll be heading into the
| engineering department full-time.

Hmm. I'm trying to reconcile this good news with your last paragraph
below. :-?

|| I think I was fortunate to have been able to work as a consultant -
|| because I never needed to worry about those issues. All I had to do
|| was help people to see the problem under their nose from a
|| perspective that made the solution obvious and help them feel good
|| about discovering it themselves.
|
| That's nice, if it can happen that way, but I found that the lessons
| that really stuck for me were based on shame. I usually think I
| know the right way to do something, but there have been times where
| someone walks up and does the same task in 1/10 of the time, with
| the same or better result. Then I feel like a jerk for having
| wasted time my way, but it's a great spur to learn the other guy's
| method.

But there's no call to feel like a jerk. For everything that you (or
I) do, there's likely to be at least one other person who can do one
of those things better. IMO, a better response would be gladness to
have found someone from whom we can learn. The jerks are the people
who resent those who've found a better way and won't learn from them.
"Jerkhood" doesn't fit what I've seen of you here. :-)

|| I was always working to put myself out of a job. The strange thing
|| was that the more quickly I could do that, the more quickly the
|| next job popped up (and usually with at least a small "raise"). I
|| never thought of it as moving "up", if that's indeed what it was.
|| I always thought of it as moving "foreward", into ever more
|| interesting projects.
|
| Must be the difference between corporate and production
| environments- I usually think "forward" as well, but I hear "up" a
| lot. To move "up", I'd have to be doing things I don't think I'd
| like doing, like finding ways to push people out of thier jobs and
| sneak into their place.

One of my discoveries has been that those people who keep an eye out
for problems and offer good solutions for those they have the ability
to solve (not necesarily all they find) build an in-house reputation
as problem solvers. In healthy operations solutions to problems and
the people who produce those solutions are valued highly.

--
Morris Dovey
DeSoto Solar
DeSoto, Iowa USA
http://www.iedu.com/DeSoto

Prometheus (in [email protected]) said:

| On Mon, 18 Dec 2006 00:47:27 -0600, "Morris Dovey"
| <[email protected]> wrote:
|
|| Prometheus (in [email protected]) said:
||
||| On Sat, 16 Dec 2006 16:27:56 -0600, "Morris Dovey"
||| <[email protected]> wrote:
|||
|||| Robatoy (in
|||| [email protected]) said:
||||
||||| On Dec 16, 9:29 am, "Morris Dovey" <[email protected]> wrote:
|
|| I think we /do/ need to move forward (be more efficient, improve
|| product quality, make customers more satisfied, etc.) Final
|| judgement on whether we're going in the right direction
|| necessarily comes after the fact.
|
| Too true, unfortunately. I guess my continual mental block is in
| wondering if many of the things in modern life that are *new and
| improved* are really good for us in as far as we are human beings.
| To my mind, there are a lot of pitfalls in things like television
| and mobile phones that have GPS trackers in them. All of that
| stuff is relatively benign on the surface, even valuable- but add
| it together, and those things that were supposed to make us all
| more connected seem to act as a barrier to actual interaction with
| the people right in front of us. Add to that the continual
| improvements in the sophistication of advertising, and these new
| things become more status symbols than products.

Well, yes we do need to examine these things for actual value. Much of
what's new has about as much value as a Pet Rock. Much of the
excitement generated is because we're being given a glimpse of
possibilities; and there's a lot to be excited about - as well a lot
to be wary of. I think we don't get to live out our last years rocking
on the front porch - as 'elders' we have a certain responsibility to
warn of dangers and give our blessings for purely positive
developments - and perhaps to at least speak out on the expected and
possible consequences of the rest.

| Sorry if that's a little disjointed- the dogs woke me up early
| today, so I'm a little groggy.
|
|| Choosing not to move forward is making the choice of stagnation and
|| irrevelence - both at the individual and enterprise levels. It
|| isn't that the old ways are so bad; but rather that sticking to
|| the old ways ensures that the old problems will always be with us.
|
| New ways mean that there are new problems, of course. The problem
| seems to my mind that once we've all been led down one path, the
| older method or product is discarded and forgotten- it's not so
| much that I would want to turn the clock back, as I would love to
| see some of those missed paths not taken explored, rather than
| being dismissed as irrelevant. I suppose that might be why it
| seems we're always re-inventing the wheel, especially on a long
| timeline.

No, we can and do still cherish the best of the old - and we've all
seen the evidence of that here on the wreck and on abpw. The question
is really about how much resource can we dedicate to that effort.
Consider earlier threads on old Chinese joinery and somewhat more
recent dining table and dining chairs...

We have the opportunity to explore, within the constraints of
available resources, paths not previously explored. After a long
career as a computer geek, I've decided that I want to explore the
practicalities of harvesting energy from the sun. IMO, that path has
been under-explored and it's something that appears to hold
considerable promise. Other people will (re)visit other paths.

Yes the wheel will be invented again and again; but so will we invent
a means of repairing damaged nerve bundles and of instantly producing
virus-specific immunizations and of ensuring that all babies are born
healthy and without debilitating defects. I keep hoping that some
genius would shout: "Eureeka! I have a topical cure for presbyopia,"
so I can stop wondering where I left my trifocals.

| It's neat that we can move technology along at such a blazing-fast
| pace, but there is absolutely no way that we are learning all the
| lessons that could have been gained from each new method or product.

The hurrier-I-go-the-behinder-I-get syndrome? Methinks this is what's
sometimes called the "human condition". This is humanity's Catch-22.
If we were smarter, then we /could/ extract those lessons; but if we
were smarter, then technology would be moved just that much faster...

|| Moving forward calls for wisdom (application of our knowledge of
|| the consequences for the actions we take) and for courage
|| (determination to take actions that fit our best principles and
|| ideals even when those actions don't constitute the easiest,
|| cheapest, or most comfortable course.
||
|| I think we criticize the MBA "bean counters" when, in fact, they
|| aren't the individuals who make decisions resulting in degradation
|| of tool quality. The bean counters do analysis, brainstorm
|| options, and report to company management. If that management then
|| fails to exercise wisdom and courage, the enterprise will not do
|| well; and neither will its employees nor its customers.
|
| Can't argue with any of that. I can't even really say that the
| corporate structure as I understand it is failing- they are
| producing and distributing mind-boggling quantities of product and
| making huge sums of money, after all. I guess my gripe is that it
| seems like every year, we're becoming less human and more consumer.
| I guess part of that was being raised in a pretty isolated area
| that was about thirty years behind the rest of the US, and getting
| the crash course along with everyone else. I watched people that
| used to get together and do things drop into shells made from
| manufactured plastic and begin communicating from isolated personal
| command centers and ignoring the people standing in front of them
| in favor of the ones that were filtered through a speaker or a
| screen. It broke a lot of families, and scattered a lot of friends.

Yup. (We don't always make good choices.) The real questions are
whether we recognize that we could have made better choices; and where
do we go from where we are...

| Then all the latest and greatest medications came to town, and those
| same people who couldn't figure out why they felt like crap
| discovered the joys of of chemical happiness with things like
| Prozac and a variety of other things with oddball names that
| changed their personalities even further. All of it happened way
| too fast, and most of the people I meet today have a sort of sick
| desperation about them. We're not in the business of solving
| problems any more- just making more sophisiticated band-aids.

Hmm - /some/ of us are still in the business of /trying/ to solve
problems. :-)

| We're getting pasteurized and homoginized, and while that might be
| good for the big picture, where there are few sharp divisions left
| and anyone can be just exactly the same as everyone else if they
| choose, I still miss the cranky old guys that would sit in front of
| the gas station and jaw all day, and the kids who actually used a
| playground- instead of pretending to kill things on the television.

I dunno. I know of a place (right close by) where a bunch of cranky
guys get together and gab (mostly about woodworking, but every now and
then they'll let their guard down and talk about life outside the
shop.)

| I know there's no easy answer to any of that- if there were, I'd
| file it away and move on. Don't get me wrong, some technology I
| like a whole lot (I am talking to you via a computer, after all) I
| just wish there were a way to move forward without forgetting all
| the past that lies behind us. Every time that happens, empires
| fall- we are what we are today because of those that came before us
| and their values. We forget those values and ways of life at our
| own peril. How many people can make a wagon today- or shoe a
| horse? What about butcher a pig- or even just wash their clothes
| without a machine? How would a modern family keep one another
| entertained if the TV, telephones and internet connection went
| down? I think about that, and then I wonder what happens when the
| gasoline runs out, or our military adventures isolate us from those
| cheap foreign suppliers we've handed almost everything over to. A
| synthetic life does not teach people how to cope with the real
| world and it's challenges. Ancient Rome is a great example- they
| were powerful and technologically advanced. They had cental heat
| and indoor plumbing, great works of art and amusement for the
| masses. If you were there, it would have seemed it couldn't end,
| right? But then of course, there were a thousand years of darkness
| that followed on it heels- and they didn't have quite so far to
| fall as we do.

Take a slightly different perspective and ask yourself how long would
it take to, for example, learn to make a wagon (starting from what you
know right now) with no requirement that the wagon be particularly
beautiful (that could come later)? How long to learn to butcher a hog;
or to wash clothes by hand?

No matter what, you can't fall any farther than all the way. Yup, it
definitely could happen. The really important question becomes how
long does it take to get back on your feet?

| Getting back to your original statement, it *does* take wisdom- but
| where is our wisdom coming from these days? I hate to think that it
| is from YouTube and Comedy Central. The same for courage- the only
| times I see that word used any more are in the context of killing
| foreign people with rediculously advanced weapons or when someone is
| dying of cancer. There used to be more opportunities for it (and
| there still are- it just seems to be a concept that is going by the
| wayside.)

Both are alive and well to the extent that they ever have been -
they're just not talked about as much. I've found it interesting that
many people are more comfortable talking about excrement than they are
speaking of either wisdom or courage. When we get past shocking one
another with the inevitable, then perhaps we'll have more time for the
things we admire and respect.

| Anyway, another fairly useless rant on my part.
|
||||| During my corporate life, I observed that many of the old timers
||||| were afraid to share in fear of their jobs. My old boss pointed
||||| out the stupidity of that: "How are these guys ever going to
||||| move up if they don't have a replacement for their vacancy?"
|||
||| Also very true- I've been training one of the shop lackeys in
||| setting up the mill and running the laser cutter whenever
||| possible. If he can get to where he can take that over for me,
||| great! I already know that when that happens, I'll be heading
||| into the engineering department full-time.
||
|| Hmm. I'm trying to reconcile this good news with your last
|| paragraph below. :-?
|
| There is something to reconcile? I'm not taking another person's
| place, I'm creating a new position to help with an increased
| workload (there is *no* full-time engineer on nights). There's a
| bottleneck in engineering, and I can help clear it up- but there
| needs to be someone who can do my job as well, or it's just moving
| the bottleneck elsewhere. Right now, I'm doing double and
| sometimes triple-duty.

<g> Thank you for clearing that up so nicely. Only really small people
need to leave their boot marks on other peoples' shoulders. If you
help the people around you to grow and be strong, most will be glad to
give you a boost.

| Or was it the difference between "forward" and "up"? I confess, I'm
| not even entirely clear on that myself- it's a sort of fuzzy matter
| of semantics. I guess the idea of moving forward is just more
| appealing to me, without the mental image of climbing up someone
| else's back and stepping on their head when I get there, which
| seems to be a common practice.

IMO, it'd be a really Good Thing to achieve some inner clarity on this
one. Might even be a good lunchroom discussion...

|| But there's no call to feel like a jerk. For everything that you
|| (or I) do, there's likely to be at least one other person who can
|| do one of those things better. IMO, a better response would be
|| gladness to have found someone from whom we can learn. The jerks
|| are the people who resent those who've found a better way and
|| won't learn from them. "Jerkhood" doesn't fit what I've seen of
|| you here. :-)
|
| Well, thanks! But that doesn't stop me from feeling shame about not
| having found the most efficient way of doing something I'm being
| paid to do. As noted in the previous post, it's what keeps me
| hungry to learn- if I didn't feel anything but positive about being
| shown up from time to time, it'd be too easy to assume I've got it
| figured out and just coast.

Not a chance. It'd out the first time you were honest with yourself.

||| Must be the difference between corporate and production
||| environments- I usually think "forward" as well, but I hear "up" a
||| lot. To move "up", I'd have to be doing things I don't think I'd
||| like doing, like finding ways to push people out of thier jobs and
||| sneak into their place.
||
|| One of my discoveries has been that those people who keep an eye
|| out for problems and offer good solutions for those they have the
|| ability to solve (not necesarily all they find) build an in-house
|| reputation as problem solvers. In healthy operations solutions to
|| problems and the people who produce those solutions are valued
|| highly.
|
| An apt summary of what I try to do- which is why I get to move
| forward.

Bingo! :-)

--
Morris Dovey
DeSoto Solar
DeSoto, Iowa USA
http://www.iedu.com/DeSoto

Thu, Dec 14, 2006, 6:10am (EST-3) [email protected] (Robatoy) doth
query:
<snip> Thoughts?

If a company wants to let you go, they'll find a way.

I got laid off in 90 ( plant closed), and again in 95 (office
closed). Most places, doesn't matter what the experience, you get to a
certain age and they don't want to hire you - and usually don't. I
don't know how many time I heard, "You're too experienced for the job" -
meaning they didn't want to hire me because of my age, and this allowed
them to get away with it.

I also heard a lot of BS about wanting people that would "stay and
grow" with the company. Saw a lot of younger people hired, then they'd
bail in a year or two, when a better paying job came along.
Heard a lot of talk about promoting from within too, but that
usually meant instead of listing the job, and letting people aplply for
it, they'd just hire someone from outside the company, and claim they'd
reviewed the records and no one was qualified, or they'd post the
qualifications for the job so high no one could qualify.

At one time a lot of jobs required someone with a 8th grade
education. Time went by, and they upgraded the requirements to a high
school graduate, but the actual squills required were still only at an
8th grade level. More time went by, and now to qualify for the same job
you have to have four-year college degree - even tho the actually skills
required to do the job are still only at an 8th grade level. So there's
a lot of jobs out they that people can't get, simply because they don't
have a high enough education, not because they can't do the job. Sad
really.

I've seen supervisor after supervisor who had no idea at all what
the people under their supervision actually did. One production line
position a new worker was trained by another worker. Well, the new
worker kept screwing up. So they fired him and hired someone else. The
new guy was "trained" by he same person. This new guy was fired for
screwing up too. Repeated several times. I don't know how they finally
solved the problem. The four-year college degree "supervisor" had no
idea in the world what was going wrong, because he didn't bother
learning what his people where supposed to be doing and how they were
supposed to do it. What he should have done is to learn right from the
start what his people did and how they did it, then train all new
workers himself. Way back when, any time I transferred to a new
assignment, I learned what my troops did and how they did it, then
within six months I could do ANY job any of my people could do,
sometimes better. I could watch someone work for just a minute or two
and see if they were doing it right or not. If they were doing it
right, I'd say good job, and move on. If they weren't doing it right,
I'd correct them, watch for another minute or two, and moved on. I
din't have to harass my people to get good work out of them, for one
thing, because they knew if they got behind for some reason, Id jump in
and help. Try that with 99.99% of the supersors in the commercial
sector - it ain't gonna happen. I've found too that the managers
usually didn't know what the supervisors were supposed to do either.

Life's a bitch, then you reincarnate.



JOAT
Where does Batman buy gas for the Batmobile?

Here where I stand by this elephant my take is that the schools
(Charlotte/Mecklenburg County NC) have severe discipline problems resulting
in distractions to the students, teachers, and efficient use of all
resources. You can apply your perspective of 30+ years ago versus presently
as to better or worse. IMHO it's worse from a legal constraining point and a
family supportive point. Used to get your butt busted at school and again
when you got home. Never dreamed of getting a lawyer.

Then the school board is dysfunctional as well - maybe worse, in fact..
Central to the emotional disagreements are racial divisions. If you apply
logic and it doesn't support the center city viewpoint then you're a racist.
Gets old listening to this broken record. There's always going to be the
poor, the privileged, and the middle class in between. The environments of
each strata come with the turf. Objective leadership with diverse inputs is
far more constuctive than this subjective partisanship - regardless of which
race or strata. There's Affluence and Influence. By a higher standard those
with Influence should be effectively using it to help those without
influence.

And that situation is not unique to the "South". Raised as a poor kid in
Kentucky I understood that if my lot in life was to improve it would have to
be because of my efforts. I never dreamed that anybody owed me anything just
because of where or how I was born. Whether abandoned as a baby or shot and
crippled as a young adult or broken in half as an older adult I never
expected anyone to improve my situation for me.

As I've aged I've found that charity for others is part of the journey as
well. Each year I choose organizations that apply their resources to
educating, enabling, and lifting the standards of those less fortunate. For
example, Habitat for Humanity is a program aimed at enablement - not
entitlement. The old give a job instead of a meal thing.

Accountability, acceptance of responsibility and consequences, for our
actions or present condition determines the mindset that wants to "make it
happen" or the one who explains all the things or people (including
teachers) who kept it from happening. He "gave" me an F, as opposed to "I
got an F." Some might call this maturing.

This applies not just to education. The internalized values and attitudes
are the core disease and things like education, out of control materialism,
excessive debt, selfcenteredness, and such are the outward symptoms. The
answer, in part, is to have more role models and mentors in each race and
strata that have strong, constructive character traits and are willing to
publicly exhibit them. As opposed to positions that are fashionable at the
time.

And, this is not a disguise for right-wing fanaticism :) It's a simple,
middle-of-the-road observation. The problem with that is then each extreme
views you as part of its opposition since you're left or right of them :-)

Whew!! Sorry for the length, folks. Have some warm and loving holidays! And
give of yourself as well as your affluence.
TomNie

> From an age based perspective the slide in the past 30 years is
> astounding.
> The US education system is rotting from the greed and arrogance of the
> educrats, a teaching staff poorly educated themselves, and the mirror
> image
> spawn of irresponsible parents they practice on.
>
> ... and further illustrated by the frequent asininities of one or two of
> the
> supposed college level "educators" who post here.
>
> --
> www.e-woodshop.net
> Last update: 12/16/06
>
>

"Jim Giblin" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:drLgh.736$aD6.223@trndny02...
> You are a lucky duck!
>

Yes I am. When I was there 15 years, they sent my wife and I to Italy for
10 days. At 10 years, one of my shippers (young sports fan) was sent to
Florida for the first week of Red Sox spring training. Our Office
Administrator (15 years) will be getting her dream trip at the Christmas
Party tonight. She is taking a west coast tour for about 10 days.

On Tue, 19 Dec 2006 00:22:41 -0500, Bill in Detroit <[email protected]>
wrote:

>Swingman wrote:
>
>> The _really_ sad thing is that a college education today is almost
>> equivalent in literacy/knowledge to an 8th grade education pre 1972.
>>
>>
>
>Agreed. I graduated in 1970 near the bottom of my class. About 3 years
>back I took a smattering of courses and, with rare exception, simply
>blew away the fresh HS graduates.
>
>English.
>Math.
>Computer programming.
>Machine trades.
>CISCO networking.
>
>ALL of what I knew had either been retained from HS or developed 'in the
>wild' since. Where else could it have come from?
>
>I averaged 3.5 or so while working full time in a factory, attending
>school full time and being both a minister and a husband.
>
I did most of my undergraduate and graduate school a few years after
graduating from high school and after being married and having two
children. I think that the biggest difference between people doing
that and those going directly to college from HS is that I was going
to school for a purpose while most kids were going to school because
mom & dad were paying for a "vacation". Intelligence didn't have
nearly as much to do with it as a purpose (not to mention that I
wasn't spending all my time going to football games and keggers).

Dave Hall

"Mark & Juanita" .... and you know the really sad part? It makes "sense"
when you look at
> from whence the different "buckets" of money come.

Absolutely! And more than that. After the turmoil, I decided to take an
early out myself; and have spent much of the past four years doing contract
work for the old firm. Even with us making $70 to $100/hour we are cheaper
than many of the direct employees, when you consider their benefits burden
add about 100+% to their hourly rate. A contract engineer comes in, does
the job and leaves. No strings.

I have told both of our kids "Don't expect to do what Dad did." The 30-40
year employee is a thing of the past. Today's youngsters have to stay
flexible.

Same thing for oldsters.

RonB

"J T" <[email protected]> wrote in message
>
> At one time a lot of jobs required someone with a 8th grade
> education. Time went by, and they upgraded the requirements to a high
> school graduate, but the actual squills required were still only at an
> 8th grade level. More time went by, and now to qualify for the same job
> you have to have four-year college degree - even tho the actually skills
> required to do the job are still only at an 8th grade level. So there's
> a lot of jobs out they that people can't get, simply because they don't
> have a high enough education, not because they can't do the job. Sad
> really.

Times have changed. Years ago, it was common to leave school after the 8th
grade to help support the family. In today's environment, any kid that
wants to get through high school can, at no cost in the public schools.
Problem is, many of them don't want to because they are just plain lazy. I
have jobs that don't even require an 8th grade education, but I won't hire
anyone that does not have a HS diploma. Believe me, I've tried and the kids
that can't make high school, just don't want to work and be a part of normal
society. They want to do their own thing and not follow any rules. Be
gone, you lazy SOBs.

"Morris Dovey" wrote in message

> Agreed. I'd like to add to this just a bit.
>
> IMO, one of the responsibilities of those who've accumulated
> experience is to distill it to it's essence and hand it off to the
> younger folks so that they don't need to spend their entire
> lives/careers to reach the same level of understanding that we have.
>
> They'll need to pick up from where we leave off - not from where we
> were 40 or 50 years ago. Among other things, old timers need to teach
> impatient youngsters that moving up is a consequence of moving
> foreward; and that one person's gain need not come at the cost of
> another's loss.
>
> My dream is that every younger person I've ever worked with will have
> accomplishments that far outshine any/all of mine.
>
> (dos centavos)

But worth a million ... well put and noble sentiments, sir. You are a true
gentleman!


--
www.e-woodshop.net
Last update: 10/29/06

A few years ago the parent of the aerospace firm I worked for started
positioning us for a sale. They brought in a hatchet-man and new executive
staff and started cutting heads. It became immediately evident that they
were cutting seniority first. That is where the highest wages and benefit
values are.

Out went hundreds of years of knowledge and skill. Many were given
severance packages, low-cost medical and they started their pensions.

A few months later many of these old farts showed up again earning $70 to
$100 per hour as contractors while pulling pensions.

MBA's prevail again!!!

RonB

"Robatoy" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
>I just listened to a bunch of callers to a radio show, which dealt with
> the recent passing of a law that out-laws forced retirement. A guy can
> now keep his job past 65 if he wants to and is able.
> What I found interesting, was the polarity between opinions.
> On one end of the spectrum, young callers wanted the old guard to make
> room for them.
> On the other end, people suggested that experience is a good thing to
> have in a business.
> Being who I am, I immediately thought of a guy taking a swig of his
> Malox bottle and gumming his microphone: "This is your captain
> speaking, I think....let's get this box in the air, because it is time
> for my nap."
>
> My wife thinks that old doctors are great at "I have seen this before",
> but that new doctors are better informed of new methods to threat those
> problems. ( I vote for keeping them both.)
>
> New engineers, like my neighbour, apply new materials, the old guys
> still use rivets..(so to speak)
>
> Nothing compares to an experienced hand using a scraper or fitting a
> dove-tail. (<-----the wood connection!)
>
> When does it go from "lemme show ya, rookie." to " this is how we do it
> these day, old man."
>
> I was particularly moved by a caller who said: " I have been in college
> to get my degree to do this job, I'm good at this job, and my only way
> upward is to become the head of my department. I am next in line and
> have been looking forward to my boss to retire next year. My boss runs
> 3 miles every day, he is as fit as a fiddle and is brilliant in solving
> problems for our company. On top of that, he's compassionate and a
> great friend to all that work for him... but when all is said and done,
> the sunnuvabitch is holding me back."
>
> That last line cracked me up.
>
> Thoughts?
>
> r
>

But what does one do when in you are in a position like mine.

I have been working for a company now for 7 years. I am next in line for
senior management and my boss is about 6 years from retirement. He is one of
the one's you could very much call a coaster. His knowledge is invaluable
and knows people that I would love to hear a simple "hello" from.

The problem is that he drinks like a fish at work. Yes the owners and other
upper management are aware of the situation. He has been attending AA
meetings for a quite awhile but with very little improvement. Now I don't
want someone's career ended in such a way. The owners are reluctent to do
much more. We can't find any qualified people to fill the open positions we
have, but yet I am looking forward to his retirement. I am dreading next
Fridays meeting as I will have to drop the bomb to the fact of his recent
escapades.

What is a company to do. I believe that the owners privately are hoping they
can coast this out until his retirement. If they are forced to let him stay,
it makes this situation worse. I don't want his position but I am compelled
to report his behavior. I find it wrong not to. And yes I don't wan't his
job as I would feel like a huge gigantic Fir tree in the middle of a lumber
farm just waiting for the axe to start swinging.

If I could find a cabinet shop that can pay me what I make now, then I would
be set.

Allen

"Robatoy" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
>I just listened to a bunch of callers to a radio show, which dealt with
> the recent passing of a law that out-laws forced retirement. A guy can
> now keep his job past 65 if he wants to and is able.
> What I found interesting, was the polarity between opinions.
> On one end of the spectrum, young callers wanted the old guard to make
> room for them.
> On the other end, people suggested that experience is a good thing to
> have in a business.
> Being who I am, I immediately thought of a guy taking a swig of his
> Malox bottle and gumming his microphone: "This is your captain
> speaking, I think....let's get this box in the air, because it is time
> for my nap."
>
> My wife thinks that old doctors are great at "I have seen this before",
> but that new doctors are better informed of new methods to threat those
> problems. ( I vote for keeping them both.)
>
> New engineers, like my neighbour, apply new materials, the old guys
> still use rivets..(so to speak)
>
> Nothing compares to an experienced hand using a scraper or fitting a
> dove-tail. (<-----the wood connection!)
>
> When does it go from "lemme show ya, rookie." to " this is how we do it
> these day, old man."
>
> I was particularly moved by a caller who said: " I have been in college
> to get my degree to do this job, I'm good at this job, and my only way
> upward is to become the head of my department. I am next in line and
> have been looking forward to my boss to retire next year. My boss runs
> 3 miles every day, he is as fit as a fiddle and is brilliant in solving
> problems for our company. On top of that, he's compassionate and a
> great friend to all that work for him... but when all is said and done,
> the sunnuvabitch is holding me back."
>
> That last line cracked me up.
>
> Thoughts?
>
> r
>

"Morris Dovey" <[email protected]> wrote in news:45840362$0$61929$815e3792
@news.qwest.net:

> Prometheus (in [email protected]) said:
>
>| Never been showed up by a guy younger than myself, but I've been put
>| to shame by more than a few old timers when it comes to work. If
>| they are still willing and able to do the job, there's no call to
>| push them out- and that BS about being held back by the old guy
>| that won't retire is just that. There are all sorts of ways to
>| move up that don't involve getting someone else nailed and taking
>| their place. A person deserving of advancement will find them no
>| matter who is standing above them.
>
> Agreed. I'd like to add to this just a bit.
>
> IMO, one of the responsibilities of those who've accumulated
> experience is to distill it to it's essence and hand it off to the
> younger folks so that they don't need to spend their entire
> lives/careers to reach the same level of understanding that we have.
>
> They'll need to pick up from where we leave off - not from where we
> were 40 or 50 years ago. Among other things, old timers need to teach
> impatient youngsters that moving up is a consequence of moving
> foreward; and that one person's gain need not come at the cost of
> another's loss.
>
> My dream is that every younger person I've ever worked with will have
> accomplishments that far outshine any/all of mine.
>
> (dos centavos)
>
> --
> Morris Dovey
> DeSoto Solar
> DeSoto, Iowa USA
> http://www.iedu.com/DeSoto/solar.html
>
I feel exactly the same way as you Morris.

But sometimes it does get difficult to transmit information. I was on a
business trip this past week. My work is in a biochemistry/molecular
biology lab, where one of the things we need is something like deionized
water (like distilled water). In the lab that is accomplished by letting
tapwater flow through 3 tanks: First a "carbon" filter to get the
chorine and "junk" out, then 2 "mixed-bed ion-exchange" tanks.
Everything in series with a shutoff valve on the building side, and a
simple toggle valve on the "tap" side. The tanks are about 6" diamtere
and 2 feet or so high. They are connected with tubing that includes
automatic shut-off valves: when you disconnect them there is no flow,
when you connect them there is flow.

On Monday I got a call from a younger coworker complaining the system
didn't give any water. Nothing flowed. Who should he call in the VA? I
made the mistake of not providing the complete explanation above, for
reasons I know <grin>. Just asked him to check the tubing connections.
When I came back to the lab on Friday afternoon, another coworker
complained about the same thing. You guessed it. No one did check
whether indeed there was a hose disconnected. It took me 10 seconds to
check the 6 or so connections and push the last one in, since it had come
loose (no one admits to touching it).

As our janitor explained to me a few years back: Han, common sense is a
misnomer, it's not very common at all.

Happy holidays to all, whichever you celebrate!
--
Best regards
Han
email address is invalid

Dave Hall wrote:

> I did most of my undergraduate and graduate school a few years after
> graduating from high school and after being married and having two
> children. I think that the biggest difference between people doing
> that and those going directly to college from HS is that I was going
> to school for a purpose while most kids were going to school because
> mom & dad were paying for a "vacation". Intelligence didn't have
> nearly as much to do with it as a purpose (not to mention that I
> wasn't spending all my time going to football games and keggers).

An active social life is just as much a part of the collegiate
experience as the classroom, IMHO.

Did my undergraduate work at a downtown, "street car" school which
means the bulk of the student body lived at home and commuted to class
every day.

The typical collegiate life did not exist.

While I went directly from HS to college, at least half my classmates
had spent a couple of years in Korea.

Most, including myself, held down part time jobs, while carrying a
full course load.

One guy worked a full 40 hour week, carried a full course load, and
managed to graduate summa cum laude with an electrical engineering
degree.(BTW, he went on to be president of the gas company).

These guys were on a mission. They had lost a few years, and didn't
have time to waste.

Needless to say, it had an impact on my life.

Today's youth face a totally different world.

Some how the will muddle thru, but we are sure as hell making it
difficult for them by not demanding they receive an opportunity to
earn a better education.

Lew

On Thu, 14 Dec 2006 12:12:21 -0700, "Warren Weber" <[email protected]>
wrote:

>
... snip

>>
>DON"T retire. I did in 1983 and there is not enough hours in the day to do
>all the things I want to. W W
>

Sounds like a good friend of ours. He once made the comment, "I retired
10 years ago and I'm so busy now I don't know how I ever had time for
work!"



+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

If you're gonna be dumb, you better be tough

+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

On Mon, 18 Dec 2006 07:39:29 -0600, "Swingman" <[email protected]> wrote:

>"J T" <[email protected]> wrote in message
>
>> At one time a lot of jobs required someone with a 8th grade
>> education. Time went by, and they upgraded the requirements to a high
>> school graduate, but the actual squills required were still only at an
>> 8th grade level. More time went by, and now to qualify for the same job
>> you have to have four-year college degree - even tho the actually skills
>> required to do the job are still only at an 8th grade level. So there's
>> a lot of jobs out they that people can't get, simply because they don't
>> have a high enough education, not because they can't do the job. Sad
>> really.
>
>The _really_ sad thing is that a college education today is almost
>equivalent in literacy/knowledge to an 8th grade education pre 1972.

You're not kidding there. When I went to college in about eight years
ago, it was easier than high school. Very hard to justify the huge
price tag on it if you're looking for education, and not just a paper
that will get you a job.

"Leon" <[email protected]> wrote in message
> You should work as long as you productive and want to. Making room for
the
> younger guys is just another form of affirmative action. If the young guy
> wants your position he can work for it and pay his dues just like you did
> and the guy before you.

Maybe, but with the mandatory retirement eliminated, the young guy is likely
going to have to pay more dues than you did to get somewhere. I'm kind of
ambivalent to this change of retirement. It's fine for those people who
really are productive and can make a positive contribution for some time to
come, but I know damned well, there's going to be people who will insist on
staying on even though they're long past the stage of contributing anything
worthwhile. Various unions already do that for their members. With the
mandatory retirement eliminated, it's going to be a tremendous struggle to
get some people out.

In article <[email protected]>,
bf <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>Upscale wrote:
<...snipped...>
>
>Great point.. There's some productive older workers, but there's also
>some that start coasting in their last 5 years or so. If they could
>continue to work, knowing that they could retire at any time, I imagine
>a lot of the lazy ones would hang on another 5 years doing nothing but
>collecting a paycheck. Note, not all are lazy, but some are.
>

Working for a government agency, I see this happen quite frequently.
In fact, there are some employees who start "coasting" much earlier in
their career, like, say, about 25 years before they retire.
--
Make it as simple as possible, but no simpler.

Larry Wasserman - Baltimore Maryland - [email protected]

You are a lucky duck!

Edwin Pawlowski wrote:
> "Robatoy" <[email protected]> wrote in message
>> On one end of the spectrum, young callers wanted the old guard to make
>> room for them.
>> On the other end, people suggested that experience is a good thing to
>> have in a business.
>> Being who I am, I immediately thought of a guy taking a swig of his
>> Malox bottle and gumming his microphone: "This is your captain
>> speaking, I think....let's get this box in the air, because it is time
>> for my nap."
>
> I have no plans to retire fully. I'm 61, and my boss, the owner is 62. He
> has no plans to ever retire fully either. Of course, our circumstances are
> much different than most people in the workforce. The company has about 20
> employees, many have been there 10+ years (18 for me, longer than anyone)
> and are completely loyal as everyone is treated so well.
>
> First of all, I don't think of what I do as "work". I actually enjoy going
> to the plant every day and interacting with my co-workers. I don't have any
> set hours. I can come and go as I please. No one questions what I do. As a
> company, we have a simple philosophy that has worked very well. Make the
> customer happy, give them a good product, on time, with efficiency so we
> make a profit.
>
> We do have an occasional staff meeting. The last one involved the owner and
> all the managers. We discussed important topics such as what we will be
> doing on our trip to Las Vegas, who is driving to the airport, what will the
> wives do while we are at a seminar, what shows do you want to see, etc.
>
> Perhaps some day I'll cut back to 4 days, then three days, but I have no
> reason to leave. It is just too much fun. I'm sure my attitude would be
> different if I spent my day screwing handles on toasters on the assembly
> line every day.
>
>

On Sat, 16 Dec 2006 16:27:56 -0600, "Morris Dovey" <[email protected]>
wrote:

>Robatoy (in [email protected])
>said:
>
>| On Dec 16, 9:29 am, "Morris Dovey" <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>|| My dream is that every younger person I've ever worked with will
>|| have accomplishments that far outshine any/all of mine.

A noble goal- while we don't *need* to move forward, doing so is
usually an improvement, provided that we're going in the right
direction.

>| During my corporate life, I observed that many of the old timers
>| were afraid to share in fear of their jobs. My old boss pointed out
>| the stupidity of that: "How are these guys ever going to move up if
>| they don't have a replacement for their vacancy?"

Also very true- I've been training one of the shop lackeys in setting
up the mill and running the laser cutter whenever possible. If he can
get to where he can take that over for me, great! I already know that
when that happens, I'll be heading into the engineering department
full-time.

>I think I was fortunate to have been able to work as a consultant -
>because I never needed to worry about those issues. All I had to do
>was help people to see the problem under their nose from a perspective
>that made the solution obvious and help them feel good about
>discovering it themselves.

That's nice, if it can happen that way, but I found that the lessons
that really stuck for me were based on shame. I usually think I know
the right way to do something, but there have been times where someone
walks up and does the same task in 1/10 of the time, with the same or
better result. Then I feel like a jerk for having wasted time my way,
but it's a great spur to learn the other guy's method.

>I was always working to put myself out of a job. The strange thing was
>that the more quickly I could do that, the more quickly the next job
>popped up (and usually with at least a small "raise"). I never thought
>of it as moving "up", if that's indeed what it was. I always thought
>of it as moving "foreward", into ever more interesting projects.

Must be the difference between corporate and production environments-
I usually think "forward" as well, but I hear "up" a lot. To move
"up", I'd have to be doing things I don't think I'd like doing, like
finding ways to push people out of thier jobs and sneak into their
place.

Leon <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> "Pat Barber" <[email protected]> wrote in message
> news:[email protected]...
>> Never fear, the FAA "forces" them to quit at age 60,
>> no exceptions.
>
>
> Do the pilots have to quit or can they work as an attendant, or baggage
> handler or some thing else airline related?

They can certainly take other flight positions. Flight engineers (although with
automation that job is fading away). The FAA has this concept of 'pilot in
command' and for some archaic reason they feel pilots over 60 arn't capable of
this.

Al Haynes was the captain of the infamous United flight 232 that crashed in Sioux
City in 1989. 110 people died in that accident. The fact that 175 survived is
amazing. Crash investigators determined that the plane had sustained such damage
as to make it un-landable. Captain Haynes was forced to retire later that year
simply because he was turning 60. What a waste of talent and skills.

--
Frank Stutzman
Bonanza N494B "Hula Girl"
Hood River, OR

"Robatoy" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
>I just listened to a bunch of callers to a radio show, which dealt with
> the recent passing of a law that out-laws forced retirement. A guy can
> now keep his job past 65 if he wants to and is able.
> What I found interesting, was the polarity between opinions.
> On one end of the spectrum, young callers wanted the old guard to make
> room for them.
> On the other end, people suggested that experience is a good thing to
> have in a business.
> Being who I am, I immediately thought of a guy taking a swig of his
> Malox bottle and gumming his microphone: "This is your captain
> speaking, I think....let's get this box in the air, because it is time
> for my nap."
>
> My wife thinks that old doctors are great at "I have seen this before",
> but that new doctors are better informed of new methods to threat those
> problems. ( I vote for keeping them both.)
>
> New engineers, like my neighbour, apply new materials, the old guys
> still use rivets..(so to speak)
>
> Nothing compares to an experienced hand using a scraper or fitting a
> dove-tail. (<-----the wood connection!)
>
> When does it go from "lemme show ya, rookie." to " this is how we do it
> these day, old man."
>
> I was particularly moved by a caller who said: " I have been in college
> to get my degree to do this job, I'm good at this job, and my only way
> upward is to become the head of my department. I am next in line and
> have been looking forward to my boss to retire next year. My boss runs
> 3 miles every day, he is as fit as a fiddle and is brilliant in solving
> problems for our company. On top of that, he's compassionate and a
> great friend to all that work for him... but when all is said and done,
> the sunnuvabitch is holding me back."
>
> That last line cracked me up.
>
> Thoughts?
>
DON"T retire. I did in 1983 and there is not enough hours in the day to do
all the things I want to. W W

On Thu, 14 Dec 2006 17:03:17 -0600, "RonB" <[email protected]> wrote:

>A few years ago the parent of the aerospace firm I worked for started
>positioning us for a sale. They brought in a hatchet-man and new executive
>staff and started cutting heads. It became immediately evident that they
>were cutting seniority first. That is where the highest wages and benefit
>values are.
>
>Out went hundreds of years of knowledge and skill. Many were given
>severance packages, low-cost medical and they started their pensions.
>
>A few months later many of these old farts showed up again earning $70 to
>$100 per hour as contractors while pulling pensions.
>
>MBA's prevail again!!!
>
>RonB

... and you know the really sad part? It makes "sense" when you look at
from whence the different "buckets" of money come. Pensions come out of
the "Pension Fund" that is completely separate from the rest of the
workings of the organization in question. As contract laborers, more than
likely little or no overhead or benefits are assigned to the people who
come back, thus they are "cheaper" than full-time employees. So, the
division comes out ahead even though when you add up all the costs they are
higher.

You would think someone, somewhere would be adding all this stuff up and
support making decision that resulted in lower total costs. That doesn't
seem to happen.

Government thinking is even more convoluted and thus overall more
expensive than the private sector.




+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

If you're gonna be dumb, you better be tough

+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

"Leon" wrote in message

> LOL, both of us having automotive back grounds we have similar opinions
> here. The older employee may not be as productive but his wisdom and
> experience is a valuable asset that can have a positive effect on
> productivity that not every one recognizes.

There is a Downside ... being less PC, he's more liable to tell the dufus,
baseball capped backward dumbsh*ts of today where to go.

--
www.e-woodshop.net
Last update: 10/29/06

"Robatoy" <[email protected]> wrote in message
> On one end of the spectrum, young callers wanted the old guard to make
> room for them.
> On the other end, people suggested that experience is a good thing to
> have in a business.
> Being who I am, I immediately thought of a guy taking a swig of his
> Malox bottle and gumming his microphone: "This is your captain
> speaking, I think....let's get this box in the air, because it is time
> for my nap."

I have no plans to retire fully. I'm 61, and my boss, the owner is 62. He
has no plans to ever retire fully either. Of course, our circumstances are
much different than most people in the workforce. The company has about 20
employees, many have been there 10+ years (18 for me, longer than anyone)
and are completely loyal as everyone is treated so well.

First of all, I don't think of what I do as "work". I actually enjoy going
to the plant every day and interacting with my co-workers. I don't have any
set hours. I can come and go as I please. No one questions what I do. As a
company, we have a simple philosophy that has worked very well. Make the
customer happy, give them a good product, on time, with efficiency so we
make a profit.

We do have an occasional staff meeting. The last one involved the owner and
all the managers. We discussed important topics such as what we will be
doing on our trip to Las Vegas, who is driving to the airport, what will the
wives do while we are at a seminar, what shows do you want to see, etc.

Perhaps some day I'll cut back to 4 days, then three days, but I have no
reason to leave. It is just too much fun. I'm sure my attitude would be
different if I spent my day screwing handles on toasters on the assembly
line every day.

You should work as long as you productive and want to. Making room for the
younger guys is just another form of affirmative action. If the young guy
wants your position he can work for it and pay his dues just like you did
and the guy before you.





"Robatoy" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
>I just listened to a bunch of callers to a radio show, which dealt with
> the recent passing of a law that out-laws forced retirement. A guy can
> now keep his job past 65 if he wants to and is able.
> What I found interesting, was the polarity between opinions.
> On one end of the spectrum, young callers wanted the old guard to make
> room for them.
> On the other end, people suggested that experience is a good thing to
> have in a business.
> Being who I am, I immediately thought of a guy taking a swig of his
> Malox bottle and gumming his microphone: "This is your captain
> speaking, I think....let's get this box in the air, because it is time
> for my nap."
>
> My wife thinks that old doctors are great at "I have seen this before",
> but that new doctors are better informed of new methods to threat those
> problems. ( I vote for keeping them both.)
>
> New engineers, like my neighbour, apply new materials, the old guys
> still use rivets..(so to speak)
>
> Nothing compares to an experienced hand using a scraper or fitting a
> dove-tail. (<-----the wood connection!)
>
> When does it go from "lemme show ya, rookie." to " this is how we do it
> these day, old man."
>
> I was particularly moved by a caller who said: " I have been in college
> to get my degree to do this job, I'm good at this job, and my only way
> upward is to become the head of my department. I am next in line and
> have been looking forward to my boss to retire next year. My boss runs
> 3 miles every day, he is as fit as a fiddle and is brilliant in solving
> problems for our company. On top of that, he's compassionate and a
> great friend to all that work for him... but when all is said and done,
> the sunnuvabitch is holding me back."
>
> That last line cracked me up.
>
> Thoughts?
>
> r
>

"Bill in Detroit" wrote in message
> Swingman wrote:
>
> > The _really_ sad thing is that a college education today is almost
> > equivalent in literacy/knowledge to an 8th grade education pre 1972.
> >
> >
>
> Agreed. I graduated in 1970 near the bottom of my class. About 3 years
> back I took a smattering of courses and, with rare exception, simply
> blew away the fresh HS graduates.

Youngest daughter is currently in college so, along with having to foot the
bill, I get a first hand look at the illiteracy exhibited by many of her
"professors". (She has one recorded on tape apologizing to the class for
being late with the remark: "I had done left my keys at home...") ...
thankfully not an English professor, but the sad thing is I wouldn't have
been surprised.

From an age based perspective the slide in the past 30 years is astounding.
The US education system is rotting from the greed and arrogance of the
educrats, a teaching staff poorly educated themselves, and the mirror image
spawn of irresponsible parents they practice on.

... and further illustrated by the frequent asininities of one or two of the
supposed college level "educators" who post here.

--
www.e-woodshop.net
Last update: 12/16/06

On 14 Dec 2006 06:10:17 -0800, Robatoy wrote:
> I just listened to a bunch of callers to a radio show, which dealt with
> the recent passing of a law that out-laws forced retirement. A guy can
> now keep his job past 65 if he wants to and is able.

When you look at the demgraphics of voters, you will find than
proprtionately more older people vote than younger people.
Therefore it should come as no surprise (irrespective of the ad/dis-
advantages of older vs. younger workers) that laws like this get
passed.
Unless the voter age profile shifts, expect more to come.

Pete (age 50)

--
..........................................................................
. never trust a man who, when left alone ...... Pete Lynch .
. in a room with a tea cosy ...... Marlow, England .
. doesn't try it on (Billy Connolly) .....................................

Swingman wrote:

> The US education system is rotting from the greed and arrogance of the
> educrats, a teaching staff poorly educated themselves, and the
mirror image
> spawn of irresponsible parents they practice on.

Without a doubt, the US educational system is broken.

There is plenty of blame to go around.

A lack of competition has had a devastating effect not only on school
administrations, but also on teacher's unions.

There is little or no incentive to deliver a better product, namely an
educated human being.

CYA runs rampant, the mark of bloated operations.

However, the ultimate failure lies squarely at the feet of the
community who pays the bills.

Our society has been willing to accept sub standard product.

Until parents accept their responsibility to be parents, we as a
society, have a problem.

As Walt Kelley once said using his POGO comic strip, "... we have met
the enemy and it is us."

Lew

On Mon, 18 Dec 2006 00:47:27 -0600, "Morris Dovey" <[email protected]>
wrote:

>Prometheus (in [email protected]) said:
>
>| On Sat, 16 Dec 2006 16:27:56 -0600, "Morris Dovey"
>| <[email protected]> wrote:
>|
>|| Robatoy (in [email protected])
>|| said:
>||
>||| On Dec 16, 9:29 am, "Morris Dovey" <[email protected]> wrote:

>I think we /do/ need to move forward (be more efficient, improve
>product quality, make customers more satisfied, etc.) Final judgement
>on whether we're going in the right direction necessarily comes after
>the fact.

Too true, unfortunately. I guess my continual mental block is in
wondering if many of the things in modern life that are *new and
improved* are really good for us in as far as we are human beings. To
my mind, there are a lot of pitfalls in things like television and
mobile phones that have GPS trackers in them. All of that stuff is
relatively benign on the surface, even valuable- but add it together,
and those things that were supposed to make us all more connected seem
to act as a barrier to actual interaction with the people right in
front of us. Add to that the continual improvements in the
sophistication of advertising, and these new things become more status
symbols than products.

Sorry if that's a little disjointed- the dogs woke me up early today,
so I'm a little groggy.

>Choosing not to move forward is making the choice of stagnation and
>irrevelence - both at the individual and enterprise levels. It isn't
>that the old ways are so bad; but rather that sticking to the old ways
>ensures that the old problems will always be with us.

New ways mean that there are new problems, of course. The problem
seems to my mind that once we've all been led down one path, the older
method or product is discarded and forgotten- it's not so much that I
would want to turn the clock back, as I would love to see some of
those missed paths not taken explored, rather than being dismissed as
irrelevant. I suppose that might be why it seems we're always
re-inventing the wheel, especially on a long timeline.

It's neat that we can move technology along at such a blazing-fast
pace, but there is absolutely no way that we are learning all the
lessons that could have been gained from each new method or product.

>Moving forward calls for wisdom (application of our knowledge of the
>consequences for the actions we take) and for courage (determination
>to take actions that fit our best principles and ideals even when
>those actions don't constitute the easiest, cheapest, or most
>comfortable course.
>
>I think we criticize the MBA "bean counters" when, in fact, they
>aren't the individuals who make decisions resulting in degradation of
>tool quality. The bean counters do analysis, brainstorm options, and
>report to company management. If that management then fails to
>exercise wisdom and courage, the enterprise will not do well; and
>neither will its employees nor its customers.

Can't argue with any of that. I can't even really say that the
corporate structure as I understand it is failing- they are producing
and distributing mind-boggling quantities of product and making huge
sums of money, after all. I guess my gripe is that it seems like
every year, we're becoming less human and more consumer. I guess part
of that was being raised in a pretty isolated area that was about
thirty years behind the rest of the US, and getting the crash course
along with everyone else. I watched people that used to get together
and do things drop into shells made from manufactured plastic and
begin communicating from isolated personal command centers and
ignoring the people standing in front of them in favor of the ones
that were filtered through a speaker or a screen. It broke a lot of
families, and scattered a lot of friends.

Then all the latest and greatest medications came to town, and those
same people who couldn't figure out why they felt like crap discovered
the joys of of chemical happiness with things like Prozac and a
variety of other things with oddball names that changed their
personalities even further. All of it happened way too fast, and most
of the people I meet today have a sort of sick desperation about them.
We're not in the business of solving problems any more- just making
more sophisiticated band-aids.

We're getting pasteurized and homoginized, and while that might be
good for the big picture, where there are few sharp divisions left and
anyone can be just exactly the same as everyone else if they choose, I
still miss the cranky old guys that would sit in front of the gas
station and jaw all day, and the kids who actually used a playground-
instead of pretending to kill things on the television.

I know there's no easy answer to any of that- if there were, I'd file
it away and move on. Don't get me wrong, some technology I like a
whole lot (I am talking to you via a computer, after all) I just wish
there were a way to move forward without forgetting all the past that
lies behind us. Every time that happens, empires fall- we are what we
are today because of those that came before us and their values. We
forget those values and ways of life at our own peril. How many
people can make a wagon today- or shoe a horse? What about butcher a
pig- or even just wash their clothes without a machine? How would a
modern family keep one another entertained if the TV, telephones and
internet connection went down? I think about that, and then I wonder
what happens when the gasoline runs out, or our military adventures
isolate us from those cheap foreign suppliers we've handed almost
everything over to. A synthetic life does not teach people how to
cope with the real world and it's challenges. Ancient Rome is a great
example- they were powerful and technologically advanced. They had
cental heat and indoor plumbing, great works of art and amusement for
the masses. If you were there, it would have seemed it couldn't end,
right? But then of course, there were a thousand years of darkness
that followed on it heels- and they didn't have quite so far to fall
as we do.

Getting back to your original statement, it *does* take wisdom- but
where is our wisdom coming from these days? I hate to think that it
is from YouTube and Comedy Central. The same for courage- the only
times I see that word used any more are in the context of killing
foreign people with rediculously advanced weapons or when someone is
dying of cancer. There used to be more opportunities for it (and
there still are- it just seems to be a concept that is going by the
wayside.)

Anyway, another fairly useless rant on my part.

>||| During my corporate life, I observed that many of the old timers
>||| were afraid to share in fear of their jobs. My old boss pointed
>||| out the stupidity of that: "How are these guys ever going to move
>||| up if they don't have a replacement for their vacancy?"
>|
>| Also very true- I've been training one of the shop lackeys in
>| setting up the mill and running the laser cutter whenever possible.
>| If he can get to where he can take that over for me, great! I
>| already know that when that happens, I'll be heading into the
>| engineering department full-time.
>
>Hmm. I'm trying to reconcile this good news with your last paragraph
>below. :-?

There is something to reconcile? I'm not taking another person's
place, I'm creating a new position to help with an increased workload
(there is *no* full-time engineer on nights). There's a bottleneck in
engineering, and I can help clear it up- but there needs to be someone
who can do my job as well, or it's just moving the bottleneck
elsewhere. Right now, I'm doing double and sometimes triple-duty.

Or was it the difference between "forward" and "up"? I confess, I'm
not even entirely clear on that myself- it's a sort of fuzzy matter of
semantics. I guess the idea of moving forward is just more appealing
to me, without the mental image of climbing up someone else's back and
stepping on their head when I get there, which seems to be a common
practice.

>But there's no call to feel like a jerk. For everything that you (or
>I) do, there's likely to be at least one other person who can do one
>of those things better. IMO, a better response would be gladness to
>have found someone from whom we can learn. The jerks are the people
>who resent those who've found a better way and won't learn from them.
>"Jerkhood" doesn't fit what I've seen of you here. :-)

Well, thanks! But that doesn't stop me from feeling shame about not
having found the most efficient way of doing something I'm being paid
to do. As noted in the previous post, it's what keeps me hungry to
learn- if I didn't feel anything but positive about being shown up
from time to time, it'd be too easy to assume I've got it figured out
and just coast.


>| Must be the difference between corporate and production
>| environments- I usually think "forward" as well, but I hear "up" a
>| lot. To move "up", I'd have to be doing things I don't think I'd
>| like doing, like finding ways to push people out of thier jobs and
>| sneak into their place.
>
>One of my discoveries has been that those people who keep an eye out
>for problems and offer good solutions for those they have the ability
>to solve (not necesarily all they find) build an in-house reputation
>as problem solvers. In healthy operations solutions to problems and
>the people who produce those solutions are valued highly.

An apt summary of what I try to do- which is why I get to move
forward.

On Thu, 14 Dec 2006 17:39:50 -0800, "Rod & Betty Jo" <[email protected]>
wrote:

>
>"Leon" <[email protected]> wrote in message
>news:[email protected]...
>> You should work as long as you productive and want to. Making room for
>> the younger guys is just another form of affirmative action. If the young
>> guy wants your position he can work for it and pay his dues just like you
>> did and the guy before you.
>>
>
>
>30 or so years ago (I was 23) I started a Janitorial/carpet cleaning
>service....physical work requiring lots of hustle. Along came a nice old
>timer (I thought in his 60's) whom had seen my yellow page ad and looked me
>up because we had the same last name<g>. He asked about doing my window
>accounts (at that time I did all of my own) so I politely took his name and
>number but figured "you gotta be kidding" after all it requires ladders,
>roofs, climbing, reaching, working at a near run and definitely to compete a
>spring to the step. A short time later I had quick uptick of construction
>cleanup and temporary residential demand....so what the heck I gave the old
>Norwegian a call...turns out he was 75 with 50 years experience...not only
>could I not keep up with him but I learned much....he actually moved bit
>slower but was much more effective with the steps he took.....he worked
>quite well till he was 78 and a heart attack slowed him...after a slow
>recuperation he wondered if he could do a few janitorial accounts since his
>doctor wouldn't let him wash windows anymore (his health really didn't allow
>that either).....twas a sad but touching day when he gave his window bucket
>and glass cleaning tools...he wouldn't sell them(I tried) but wanted to pass
>them along to me..... over the years I had many a younger employee who could
>not hold a candle to John.....discrimination for anything other than merit
>is both wrong and stupid.....Rod
>

I worked on the farm with my granddad, he was in his early 80's when I
graduated from college. I wasn't a weakling, but there were things he
could do at 83 that I couldn't do at 22. Came from raising a family on
the Eastern Colorado plains during the Depression and Dustbowl I suspect,
as well as having grown up with the mechanical age and using horses before
that.



+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

If you're gonna be dumb, you better be tough

+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

"Teamcasa" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> In my mind it has more to do with individual productivity. Regardless of
> age, if an employee is productive, read that to mean they are an asset to
> the company, then they will have secure employment. As soon as they
> become a liability, there value has to be re-evaluated.
>
> OTOH, employees with a long tenure should be given greater latitude when
> determining their value.
>
> Dave

LOL, both of us having automotive back grounds we have similar opinions
here. The older employee may not be as productive but his wisdom and
experience is a valuable asset that can have a positive effect on
productivity that not every one recognizes.

"J T" <[email protected]> wrote in message

> At one time a lot of jobs required someone with a 8th grade
> education. Time went by, and they upgraded the requirements to a high
> school graduate, but the actual squills required were still only at an
> 8th grade level. More time went by, and now to qualify for the same job
> you have to have four-year college degree - even tho the actually skills
> required to do the job are still only at an 8th grade level. So there's
> a lot of jobs out they that people can't get, simply because they don't
> have a high enough education, not because they can't do the job. Sad
> really.

The _really_ sad thing is that a college education today is almost
equivalent in literacy/knowledge to an 8th grade education pre 1972.


--
www.e-woodshop.net
Last update: 12/16/06

"Pat Barber" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> Never fear, the FAA "forces" them to quit at age 60,
> no exceptions.


Do the pilots have to quit or can they work as an attendant, or baggage
handler or some thing else airline related?

Never fear, the FAA "forces" them to quit at age 60,
no exceptions.


Robatoy wrote:

> Being who I am, I immediately thought of a guy taking a swig of his
> Malox bottle and gumming his microphone: "This is your captain
> speaking, I think....let's get this box in the air, because it is time
> for my nap."
>