Re: Friday philosophical - the age thing

[Keith Hood <klhra -at- yahoo -dot- com>]

Sigh. Wheeze. Cough. Hack hack.

Sorry, at my enthusiasm, breathing too deep causes a
spasm.

I certainly echo the complaint about getting no
enthusiasm from the company. I can think of only once
when I was actually enthusiastic about the job. At
least I think I was enthusiastic - I was working 75
hour weeks for months at a stretch, so maybe the
enthusiasm was imaginary. That was a startup back in
the bubble days when we all thought we were going to
get rich off the IPO. Didn't happen, of course -
company fiddled around too long and put back the IPO
twice because the bigwigs wanted first to "develop a
larger market presence" and "solidify the branding"
before actually printing stock. So they waited about 3
months too long. The hell of it was, we weren't a "dot
com" company - we had a solid software product. We
weren't one of those companies with business plans
saying they had no products and intended to produce
all their revenue from selling ads on the Internet.
But 99% of all investors couldn't tell the difference
or didn't care. The funding went away, and so did we.

WAY too many companies, and just about every one that
I've worked for since the 80's, provide
anti-enthusiasm. That's especially true in this day of
offshoring and commoditizing of previously valued
skills.  Who can get enthusiastic when you know your
job skills and your experience can be counted on to
bring you nothing but self-respect as you watch your
job go to a foreign country? What's the point of being
enthusiastic  - at any age - when you know the company
will fire you in a heartbeat to protect the value of
the CEO's stock options?

I'm going to cut this off before I dissolve into
telling pity-me war stories. Or more, actually. Have a
nice weekend.


--- Gene Kim-Eng <techwr -at- genek -dot- com> wrote:

> I was doing fine from 51-53, until the company
> became unable to provide the enthusiasm.
> 
> Gene Kim-Eng
> 
> 
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Keith Hood" <klhra -at- yahoo -dot- com>
> > Would that this were true. Enthusiasm is the
> oxidizer
> > but age is the fuel. No matter how enthusiastic
> you
> > are, pulling all-nighters at 50 is always a lot
> harder
> > than at 25. You may achieve the all-nighter, but
> you
> > *will* pay dearly for it.
> 
> 



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