December 2006 - Do Not Go Softly into Night School

By Anthony J. Lockwood

This closer to 60 than 50 EE pal of mine and I were knocking back a few beers recently when he blurted out that work is really bumming him. He’s been working for this outfit since its beginning. He put in his time getting paid peanuts, endured cramped quarters, long hours, and did all that stuff you have to to make a startup go. Now, the company is doing such bang-up business that it is hiring every newly minted EE that it can find. What’s got him depressed is that these kids are whizzes at PSICE, LabVIEW, FLUX, etc., and he still relies on the user’s manual. This makes him feel old and ready for pasture. With his attitude, he is.

What depressed me about this exchange is that this guy has more skill and talent in his pinky than I have in my entire, overfed bod. I asked him if these kids were good engineers or just good program jocks. He responded that they were not yet good engineers but most seemed likely to be good engineers someday. Smart kids, they show promise, as I once wrote.

“So, you’re a silverback, lad. You should mentor them in the art of engineering. Engineering is more than the ability to use the tools. Learn the software, then ‘teach the children well.’ Wear a cap and gown.”

   

Lockwood, Editorial Director

My perky platitudes and earnest bucking up went over like a pork chop at a kosher picnic. Then, he came out with the real problem. Not only was he not, in his mind’s eye, old enough to be the mentor for some kid young enough to be his kid, but the mere thought of gaining guru status in, say, SOAPP or GTMax scared him. He wasn’t sure that he could do it. It was like going to school all over again.

With that attitude, he might as well go softly into the night. It does not matter that he helped build his company from scratch. Past performance, no matter how great, is not an entitlement to stop learning and growing. They need him now.

Under far different circumstances Winston Churchill offered up this warning “Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.”

Whether you’re an aging Baby Boomer or a 1980 model geriatric prototype with a fresh degree, you’ve only just begun to learn. You cannot escape the fact that you could be obsolete by the time you reach the bottom of this page.

But you can fight it. And you can manage and delay your inevitable decline into obsolescence by beginning yourself anew via the constant upgrading and expansion of your skills. For you young ’uns, that means glomming on to a mentor. For you former youths, it means learning how to use all those new tools and—yes—being the mentor. You are that old.

Worst of all, whether you’re young or getting fusty, it means school. Going back to school, not just to seminars and conferences. School. Teachers’ dirty looks and all that. School is the best way to enhance your value as an employee and a great way to keep your skills ever young.

Thinking of schoolwork might tire you with chilling memories of dumb assignments. So, don’t go, if you’re ready to be old and obsolete. If you’re not ready to be a once-was, figure out what you need to know and make yourself go back to school.

Thanks, Pal—Lockwood

Lockwood is Anthony J. Lockwood is the Editorial Director of DE Magazine. Dogs like him, but most humans are not so sure. Which is OK with him; he’s not so sure about most humans. You can send Lockwood an e-mail by clicking here. Please reference “Diatribes, December 2006” in your message.