I have a friend at work who is older and completely technologically disinclined. He would always come to me for help. The difference was, he would take notes, and try to do it himself next time. He would never try to p**n off his work, he just didn't understand the technology. I always helped him and he was very grateful. He now has an assistant that can help him with that stuff, so now he only asks me questions even the assistant doesn't know.

Thanks for pointing this out. I'm 60 and I have a degree in Computer Information Systems. I keep the knowledge base current.

Just like my favourit client. I started working with her when she was 6 years before retiring. She was/is a no nonsense woman that was just happy we reduced her work and offerd her no unnecessary add ons that would have been to much. Damn I miss her and her strong dialect and frank words.

I spent some time working at a well known technical school and some of the emeritus professors and late career tenured professors would swing by and chill for a bit and usually teach me something about the technology in the lab that I didn't know. I was a technical instructor, so my knowledge base in that area was (and is) generally pretty good to begin with. These were not Comp Sci professors BTW, but they still sometimes had a better handle on tech and troubleshooting than some of the newer professors who I supported in more lecture based classes (to be clear, I'm not throwing shade on anyone, I was pretty much never the smartest person in the room unless I was alone).

Agreed. This is the beauty of hiring those people who are semi-retired. You get the benefit of their years of experience in their field. Plus, they have a good work ethic. If I was an employer, that would likely be my first choice in hiring. Also, there are so many people in the 50+ age group who lost their jobs due to downsizing, etc. No one wants to hire them because of their age. Trend is to hire the young, so they don't have to pay as much in salaries. That's a shame.

Well of course not. That's why the ones that do are called Karen's. Hell one of my favorite coworkers was retired for about 7 years, but had to go back to working with how insane medical bills and inflation are. I call him when I start having computer issues before I even consider IT because this guy is easier to understand and less cranky lol

There are some older people I know they're on the ball and can still deal with all this stuff, and there are others that know nothing about it. Though the ones I deal with are usually the ones that are willing to admit that they don't know and just ask.... And if you give them a logical explanation, they listen

For sure. In my experience, most aren't.