I didn’t think I’d be a frightened man at this stage of my life. I picture myself as a solid citizen, a guy who mows the lawn on weekends, takes care of things, a good neighbor. I thought I had everything covered. My kids are young adults; I thought I would have enough in the bank to help them over the rough spots, be there for them when times get tough in the early years. I didn’t think I would be sitting around the house on long afternoons waiting for the phone to ring, watching at the window for the mailman and praying that someone would offer me a job.
The woman is calling from a health-insurance company that’s looking for a computer programmer in either COBOL or RPGIII. I know both! The newspaper ad had stated that experience with a health-insurance provider would be a big plus. I have 19 years’ experience working as a programmer for a health-insurance provider. I imagine this woman looking at my work record. What more could she want? How could I be any more qualified? Then she drops a bomb on me. “I’m calling in regard to Jack Philips,” she says. “He has applied for a job with our company and has given us your name as a reference.”
It takes a minute for this to sink in, then it dawns on me that Jack (not his real name) and I have applied for the same job and they’re interested in him, not me. My spirits, so high a moment ago, come crashing down. I’m glad the woman can’t see my face. She is waiting for me to say something, but I don’t trust my voice. She breaks the awkward silence by asking me if I know Mr. Philips well and if I had the opportunity to observe his work. Jack’s resume is in front of her and she wants to know if I’ve time to answer a few questions. I have the time.
I know Jack well and I know his resume, too. I helped him write it. I know his capabilities and his limitations as a programmer. I know the routines and procedures he can do with ease and I know the ones that will cause him problems. I know be likes to flow-chart every program before he writes it, even the smallest ones. I know he wishes be had a two-car garage because there’s no place to put the lawn mower and the kids’ bikes. I know he wishes he’d fixed up his old car instead of buying a new van. The payments are killing him. What I don’t know is why this company is interested in hiring him and not me.
I’d been established with our firm for 17 years when Jack arrived. Because I was the assistant data-processing manager and lead programmer, part of my responsibility was to train new employees. I danced Jack through the structure of the company, explained the operating system to him and introduced him to subroutines and utilities that would save him hours of coding. We sat side by side in a glass cubicle and banged out programs on our terminals eight hours a day. If he had problems, I was always there to help.
The company, a health-insurance carrier in business for 50 years, had for the past few years started to go into a dive. High claims and dwindling receipts began to eat up its reserves, and two and a half years after Jack started, the company was forced to close its doors. In our last days with the firm, we worked on our resumes. When Jack read mine he didn’t think I would have any trouble finding a job, but he was worried about his own lack of experience.
My employment record stretches back over 30 years. I’ve done just about everything to a computer except marry one. I’ve operated, programmed and designed systems for them. I’ve kicked them and kissed them. I’ve written articles about them that have been published in top-of-the-line computer magazines. Jack has five years’ experience.
Of course, my experience and skills are not something I found on the street. I put in long hours and days to acquire them, and the years added up. A glance at my resume will tell you that I graduated from high school in 1957, got out of the Air Force in 1962 and started my first job in data processing, working on an old IBM 1401, in 1963. It’s not too difficult to figure out that I’m in my middle 50s. Jack Philips, by the way, is in his 30s.
Up until now I hadn’t considered my age a handicap. After all, all I do is sit in a chair, stare at a screen and press a few keys. I’m not looking for a job as a quarterback in the NFL. I don’t have to worry about throwing the long ball or taking a hit from Reggie White. All I want to do is write a few programs. Twenty-six years ago, when I was 28, the federal government passed a law forbidding job discrimination by age. I wonder if anyone read it.
I’m not saying that I should be given a job just because I have a lot of experience, but I am saying that I think I at least deserve an interview, particularly in this case. It may turn out that Jack is a better programmer than I am, or that the interviewer thinks he has qualities that I lack. I can live with that; but you can’t tell that from our written work summaries. The only edge he has, and I guess it is an edge, is that he is in his 30s and I’m in my 50s.
After I finished telling the woman on the phone what a fine fellow Jack was, I mentioned I’d answered their job advertisement and had sent in a resume myself. “Oh,” she said. I told her I’d received a postcard from her company notifying me that the resume had been received and that I would be contacted if I qualified for the job. “Oh,” she said, and hung up without so much as saying that I should have a nice day.
