Seven LEAN Years

Unemployment among older American high-tech workers is skyrocketing. Engineers and software programmers, in particular, are theoretically the most in demand; yet engineers and software programmers over age fifty are destitute. If a person of this age group prefers to stay out of management and instead use their highly-trained skills and experience to do real work, this person is looked upon as some kind of a dinosaur, an ignorant buffoon who is socially inept and ready for the scrap-heap. Unemployment among this group of older workers is roughly one in five. Underemployment -- the condition of working in a low-wage job because no appropriate high-wage position is available -- is anywhere from 20% to 80% of this group. Age discrimination in the high-tech fields is now so pervasive that it has become an accepted cultural norm.

Call me a dinosaur if you like but I know that I would hate being in a management position - a 'suit'. I much prefer to avoid the Peter Principle trap. I guess that's why I returned to academia.