Ask Slashdot: Old Dogs vs. New Technology? 515
xTrashcat writes "I am 22 years of age and have been working in the IT field for over a year. I try to learn as much about technology as my cranium can handle; I even earned the nickname 'Google' because of the amount of time I spend attempting to pack my brain with new information. Being 22, it is, I speculate, needless to say that I am the youngest of my coworkers. If there is a piece of software, hardware, a technique, etc., I want to know everything about it. On the contrary, nearly all of my coworkers resent it and refuse to even acknowledge it, let alone learn about it. For example, we just started buying boxes from a different vendor that are licensed for Win7. A few months later, we decide that a computer lab was going to get an XP image instead of Win7. After several days worth of attempts, none of our XP images, even our base, would work, and it left everyone scratching their heads. We were on the verge of returning thousands of dollars worth of machines because they were 'defective.' I was not satisfied. I wanted to know why they weren't working instead of just simply returning them, so I jumped into the project. After almost 30 seconds of fishing around in BIOS, I noticed that UEFI was enabled. Switched it to legacy, and boom; problem solved. My coworkers grunted and moaned because they didn't have to do that before, and still to this day, they hate our new boxes. So in closing, I have three questions: What is the average age of your workplace? How easily do your coworkers accept and absorb new technology? Are most IT environments like this, where people refuse to learn anything about new technology they don't like, or did I just get stuck with a batch of stubborn case-screws?"
Are we to take this seriously? (Score:5, Informative)
There seems so much wrong with your post.... the first thing this "old dog" would have checked is if these new boxes had a standard BIOS or running UEFI. Sounds like you have a lot of incompetent people working in your shop. I probably would have questioned the move back to XP in the first place... why? Was it a legacy software issue? Was it something that could not be solved by using compatibility mode or re-compiling the software? Did anybody bother to do a proper business case, and perform a risk assessment, including the possibility that the newer hardware may not have suitable drivers, for example?
Also, at 22, perhaps you still don't understand how stupid you sound when you make sweeping generalizations about "old dogs" and their ability to cope with new technology.
Your office also sucks. If that is what passes for IT, I'd suggest HR purge them and hire former Geek Squad employees, as they are probably better at the work (and I say that seriously, though I am loathe to ever let them touch a PC of a friend or family).
Re:Age (Score:5, Informative)
The culture of your workplace is bad, super-bad even. If everything you say is to be taken at face value and you are the only one willing to put in the time troubleshooting an issue then what's happened is those guys have most likely been worn down by the bureaucracy of their environment. I'm certain, b/c it's the nature of things, that they were like you once, or at least half of them were; excited about technology and what's new. Another commenter made the point that if you are in a workplace that is still forcing XP images onto more than a few sparse machines then there are much bigger problems, and again that should tell you what happens to people in that place long term.
Almost no one is going to start out with that attitude, so if you really care about them, or at least about the culture you're working in, you should think much harder about how did they get this way; not why won't they learn anything new now. It may mean that you need a 5 year plan that involves you getting all the experience you can and then leveraging that to get a job somewhere else, or it's almost certain you will be just like them in 10-15 years.
Don't judge the people around you, learn from them. Try to empathize with them and it may really prove out to be the most valuable thing you have ever done. It is a good idea to find people who you want to emulate and to look up to, but it can be even more valuable to find people around you whose fate you are desperate to avoid and try to discern what happened then don't do that.
I wish you a lot of luck! In closing, you really sounded like a jerk, and I don't think you meant to, so re-read your post and try to think about it from another point of view.
Re:Lucky (Score:4, Informative)
It gets old--and so do we (Score:5, Informative)
"The problem with learning everything about a system is that once that system becomes obsolete, all that work was wasted. After doing that a few times, we all drift toward learning the minimum required for the immediate problem. When that's not enough, we're grateful to have young folks around who still want to learn every little detail."
I was 20 when a 40-something programmer told me this. I told him I hoped nothing like that ever happened to me, but he just chuckled. I'm 53 now, and something much worse happened: I became a manager! :-)
My advice: do it while you enjoy it, and take pride in it while you can. Try not to rub it in when you manage to save the day; be modest and people will shower you with praise.
--Greg
Re:The question paints the asker in a pretty light (Score:5, Informative)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect [wikipedia.org]
Re:Age (Score:5, Informative)
That was a really awesome reply, and really struck a nerve with me.. I am slowly realizing why a lot of the people do the things they do at my workplace, and though I thought it at first to be wisdom and age.. it is also because they've been knocked around and burned a lot in their earlier years trying new things. I'm not as far off from the path of the OP and makes me really think.. I should take a much more objective approach to them, rather than assuming they have more years experience and are ultimately right (even if they are 95% of the time). Thanks for that!
Re:Age (Score:4, Informative)
The other problem is that this issue that he "solved" with a BIOS tweak is that if one of those computers has a problem, some tech says "hey I'll just reset the BIOS" and all hell breaks loose. IMHO, sending the machine back was the right thing to do. Mr. Google did good for the present situation, but in the long term there may be further issues. And like you said, DigiShaman, they shouldn't be loading XP on anything except 6 year old machines that supported it new.
I'm 35 now, have been in the IT biz since I was a teenager, getting paid for it. I really thought I was hot shit. Back in the day, I was, VERY very good. I once fixed a problem in 5 minutes that a more senior tech had been banging his head against for 2+hrs. I was 21 or so, he was in his 40's. I knew the fix, and could see the issue from my workstation. I offered a hand within the first few minutes. He declined. I waited another 2hrs and asked again. "Sure". Fixed. I didn't gloat about it, externally, but I sure felt good about it. But, I wasn't special. I thought I was, then, but I realize now that I just had that bit of info that he didn't.
Another time, when I was about 18 I offered to fix a priinter for a guy also in his 40's. I was really pushy about it. In fact, I was probably being a dick about it. I was so full of confidence. Eventually he said "F*** YOU!!" and stormed off. He fixed it. It was years later before I realized what a jerk I'd been.
xTrashcat, you've got youth and *inexperience* on your side, and those are both good things. Nobody's told you what can't be done yet. So, in your eyes, anything is possible. That's a valuable perspective! But be willing to see it from the eyes of someone 20 years your senior. Perhaps sending those machines back wasn't such a bad idea. You might have saved the day today, but next month... it might bite you.