But I'll tell you who I REALLY feel sorry for. I feel sorry for today's 20- and 30-somethings who will likely never know the $1000-$2000 days many of us knew in the 80's, 90's and 00's.
Back in the days when FedExing diskettes across the planet was a normal thing.
Take today's 20 and 30-somethings and project forward 20-years, I wouldn't want to trade positions.
However, to be brutally honest, $1000 a day isn't even close to unobtainable now. Many people in this industry pull down ~$250-500k per year.
20 years ago: - It was hard to find books on technical subjects. - Computing time was so scarce you had crazy internal chargeback systems. (Though this is sort of coming full circle with AWS) - You had to worry about every level of the stack to do the simplest things. (Weak abstraction) - No meetups or other technically assisted socializing. - In most cities if you wanted to grab a beer, the cost involved coming home smelling like smoke.
I'll be 51 in a couple months.
Age discrimination is widespread in this industry. I get lots of interviews, but quite commonly I find that my interviewer starts finding reasons not to hire me, the very instant they see me in person, and so can see I have grey hair.
Discriminating against employees or candidates over 40, for reasons of age, is flatly illegal under US Federal Law, as well as the laws of all the States that I know about. However, such age discrimination is quite widespread.
To a lesser degree you can't look 50 either - I'm fortunate to have been dirty blond when I was younger and my hair doesn't seem to be greying yet but if it was and I was interviewing, I'd change it. Five hundred pounds and rolled into the interview in an oversized Aeron chair? You probably look older than you are to the interviewers.
I don't think most age discrimination is conscious but even where it is, don't help them out by acting or looking old/older.
Note: Since I have no idea how @MichaelCrawford looks or interviews, this comment is not aimed at him but is rather responding to a pattern I see when we interview people my age.
In reality I invest a great deal of money in technical books, as well as time in reading them, and writing code for the exercises in the books.
Is it a compensation issue, a work/life balance thing, a new technologies thing?
Conversely, are you willing to lower your compensation, work/life balance, technology choices, etc. to accomplish that?
Hard for Santa to fix these problems without knowing the tradeoffs...
It's a lack-of-challenges (read culture) thing. My employer unfortunately tolerates mediocrity & isn't under investor pressure to improve. It drives me crazy, but can't leave until I have a new gig lined up.
I live in Austin & work as a product manager, FWIW.
That said, being a DBA is not always a stable life. Depending on the organization (or the lack of it) there can be late night firedrills, off hours maintenance / migrations, calls to fix data wounded by bleeding edges. A good DBA can mitigate these problems, given adequate support by management - IOW given the authority to do so.
The rest of this comment doesn't apply to convenience store clerks with degrees in computer science.
Many times when I hear people say something like this, they're working in a job they hate because they're making good money. If you can't make job change because you're expecting the same wage, that's a different problem (Dear Santa - please include personal budgeting software).
Fortunately, unless you have one of those truly horrible jobs, there's a better way to get the job you want. Change your own job - and you start with changing your own behavior. This method requires a lot more work than sitting in your cube all day (playing with your red Swingline stapler) but broadly try this (not every problem will require all the steps):
1) Exceed your bosses expectations but still be on time.
2) Change how you do the job so that you're enjoying yourself.
3) Learn something new in the process of doing 1 and 2 above.
4) Use an appropriate new technology to replace something old - make sure you can justify why you replaced the old (presumably working) way.
5) Teach others in your office how you achieved more by doing things this new way.
This makes a few changes:
1) You think differently about your job and the enjoyment you get from it.
2) Your boss thinks differently about you.
3) Your coworkers think differently about you.
Don't underestimate the important of your perceptions - you can probably do your current job in a way that you find enjoyable if you tweak the job and change your attitude!
Israel Gat, Diana Larsen, David Spann, Woody Zuill, Ward Cunningham, Robert Martin
Actually, as I make the list, it just keeps getting longer. Those are all people I have worked with or associated myself with in the last 12 months professionally. They are all extremely fantastic engineers as well as speakers, managers, and educators. Each one of them. The difference between them and the standard engineer is they have built a personal brand around themselves. They write, speak, and help with open source projects. Instead of being thought of as "older" they are thought of as the sages of the industry, filled with wisdom that can only be purchased with decades of industry experience. And companies bang down their doors to hire them. I happen to personally know that one person in that list makes a day rate of $10,000 and honestly, that person wishes they would get FEWER calls for work.
Keep going! Build your personal brand and you'll get the job you want.
