Wow, I wish I was an engineer in that era. 25 years at the same company, 3 languages over 13 years. And when he needed to learn a new language he actually went to school for it.
I just started a new position, I have to learn at least 2 new languages (on my own time) which I need to be proficient in basically immediately. My very first project was, fix something in this new project which uses a new language, you have 3 days. And I felt lucky to have been given 3 days instead of 1 so I could learn the language. And then dozens of new frameworks and complex tools, complex and evolving architecture. In 2 months I will have my first week as being the point person to fix anything that goes wrong in production. And I feel like this is ok, this is normal.
I wonder if most engineers now are just permanent amateurs hopping around between tools and projects, learning just enough to make it work without breaking, but not knowing how to build things properly. How many years would it take to really become expert in that language? Even if you focused all your time on that, by the time you have mastered it another language will have come along to replace it, or the language itself will have been transformed into something new.
If you stay still and become an expert in something you run the risk of losing your relevance and not being able to get another job in just a few short years. 25 years? Will the company you work for even be around in 25 years? Doubtful.
Then again, back then they didn't have Stackoverflow and all the resources we have now that make it possible to learn so much so quickly.
Contemporary programmer: spends a whole weekend tweaking CSS parameters, asking web forums for LaTeX templates, finding a cool fresh font pairing on Google Fonts.
1980s programmer: sits down at the typewriter and bangs out a fixed width table, finishes with a signature.
Real 1980s programmer: sits down at IBM 3278 mainframe terminal, edits resume into text file containing DCF/Script markup. Prints mailing copies on IBM 3800 laser printer using typewriter font, hoping operations staff running printer doesn't notice (unlikely considering speed printer runs at).
Is your dad for hire? We have this legacy toolchain in cobol and IBM assembler running on a bunch of mainframes and are just not ready to migrate to our brand new Itanium servers we have ordered a while ago. Our engineers are busy porting all the logic but need help understanding the inner workings of the old setup. While they're at it, we have this small list of features we'd like to have added to the old version...
(okok, it's Saturday so can we have this as a top level reply?)
He has severe dementia unfortunately. I just thought it might be interesting to people to see what technologies were in use at those times. My dad loves to play catch with his stuffed doggie (or whatever you will throw to him) but activities more complicated than that are not feasible.
Oh my. Where I am now we just upgraded the mainframe to a Z14, this machine and software running is not even the current OS for the platform. For my twenty plus years there have been projects afoot to replace it but nothing ever pans out. This machine works in concert with a very large iSeries that for the last ten years has been rumored to be on the table to replace. Then throw in all the AIX/Oracle machines and you get the picture.
The one common reason why all replacement attempts falter if not fail. No one knows all the touch points. No one knows exactly what they really do. Oh its easy to say "that machine is the warehouse inventory and related" but on a grand scale that is a fine description. it is when you get into all the custom interfaces, all the different systems relying on it, then it becomes a whole different ball game.
I full expect the z, i, and p, machines to all be there in the next ten to fifteen years for the same reason they are here now. it gets really expensive to replace something when you don't even know what you truly have. when you do find out it can be far more economical to keep what you got but be more diligent where new apps reside.
if not a joke, I know a retired cobol expert (not sure about ibm asm) that would be interested. reply here with some means of contact and I will connect you.
I doubt it. The post explicitly states that s/he had to put him in a nursing home which means chances are that he cannot live comfortably independently.
If I lived through 3 wars and had a strong career alignment with major defense contractors, I suppose I'd be inclined to disclose health and height out of habit...but was this generally expected on a resume back in the 80s?
I've never seen health and height before, so that might be specific to military folks, but I know that in that era and earlier it was very common to include personal details such as your marital status, number of children, even your religion and what church you attended. I saw something recently about how in the 1950s/1960s, if a man were interviewing for an executive position with a company, part of the hiring process would be to interview his wife, often over a dinner that she hosted. There were classes available for women to teach them how to speak and act in those situations, so that their husbands had a better chance at the job.
All this to say: the idea that resumes and interviews would stay out of your personal life is a rather modern concept.
Thanks for posting, there is a huge life lesson in there for this audience. It is these lines:
1951 - Graduated SD State.
1964-1965 UC Extension Cobol
1968 UC Extension Fortran
1968-1969 UC Extension Systems and Procedures/Data Processing
1968-1969 IBM 370 Assembler Language
The message is always be learning, never just get a degree and then never go back to learning something new. It helps with neural plasticity and it keeps you engaged and employable.
What’s really remarkable to me is that senior Livesay, the same age as my mother, took a Fortran course in 1968, two years AFTER I did, as a teenager, at Stuyvesant High School in Manhattan. So the same phenomenon of coding teenagers [possibly] outdoing experienced workers was going on 50 years ago.
Course work tends to focus on the latest fads in languages. While the language chosen for a project definitely matters, in terms of engineers, I've found the languages known doesn't matter nearly so much as the ability to learn and evaluate languages. I'm far less interested in whether someone knows Scala than I am in if they know why Scala can be a good starting point for microservices.
Looks like his SSN is crossed out. I was cleaning out some junk in my house and found an old telephone directory from when I worked at a military contractor in the 80's. It had everyones SSN on it. Times have changed.
I'm a third generation programmer and talking to my grandpa is more foreign than French. He talks punch cards and I tease him about Atwood's law and my ineptitude in all things mathematic
Looks like a simpler time. You just say what you did. No need to BS it up to sound like you are gods gift to programming. And once you get the job probably no logging every second of your time.
My personal custom LaTeX template isn’t that different, but I defined all the sections and items as macros in a separate style so I can keep content and format apart.
Yellowing in paper is a combination of factors, primarily cellulose content, acidity, and exposure to light, heat, and air. Decent bond paper from the 1980s will generally look just fine if it's stored in a dry box. It has a low acidity and will normally have a higher dag content do will age more slowly.
Exposing it to sunlight and/or excessive heat will cause it to age. If it's high cellulose paper, like a newspaper, it will generally yellow quickly regardless of the storage because newspaper is cheap and acidic and not intended to last.
Looks like your Dad got exposure to IBM equipment and realised that being a programmer could be a good job. I did my undergrad in the early 80s and the Uni had a CDC which was old then. First assignment in Pascal was writing it on a punchcard machine and handing the card batch over. But it was more an exercise in showing new students what had come before. I was fortunate to get a job working in COBOL on HP, which led to Unix exposure. Working on an IBM 370 would mean you were unlikely to move out of COBOL/Fortan for a while.
Web dev is an awesome beast compared to what existed in the 80s but the complexity has gone up incredibly. Resultantly, there are a lot of people who struggle to understand the fundamentals. I met a supposed web dev the other day who didn’t know what TLS was, let alone the difference between 1.2 and 1.3
Look at current secretary job postings in China. Even if you can't read Chinese, you can see the measurement requirements in centimeters. Yes, those measurements (bust, waist, hip).
CVs here in France not only typically include date of birth but also a photo and marital status, too. None of this is relevant to the job search but it's how things are done.
The Europass CV lists various personal information for inclusion, including address, date of birth and sex. The online editor[0] mentions that all fields are optional, and some of them are listed under extra fields, but before the online editor, these templates circulated only as Word documents for about a decade, with less nuanced instructions.
It was implied that you had to fill out the template properly, including adding a photo, and as a result we were sending unnecessary personal information to all companies we applied to.
In his position at Convair, he lists "Flight Test Engineer" as one of his roles. If he performed these duties onboard an aircraft (as many FTEs do), these could be relevant parameters. If he listed them for that reason, he probably just left them there in 1980 out of tradition (see docdeek's comment).
At one time it wasn't illegal to discriminate based on health/disability, so it made sense to advertise yourself as healthy, as you'd take less sick days, etc.
That font looks lovely, what would be closest alternative I could find today to make my editor look that way? Not even sure what I should be googling for.
Poor guy was trying to find a new job at 54. He had been out of work for a month. Wasn't easy then, isn't easy now.
As to the discussion about 1 page v. multi-page c.v.'s: a c.v. is ADVERTISING. If you get the interview, you bring along a more comprehensive document in which you can go into detail about subject areas which may be relevant but don't merit inclusion on a one-pager.
As to his height: he worked on B-29's in the 1940's. Conceivably the ability to access cramped spaces was an issue then and he merely continued including this out of habit. Same as to his security clearance--most people are proud of holding one (look at all the brouhaha about Trump terminating a clearance) and like to include it on their c.v.'s.
I went to school at SUNY Binghamton which is right next door to Endicott, NY, founding place of IBM. Super interesting that your father was around there during the town's heyday.
After the Endicott-Johnson Shoe Company and IBM packed up and left, the town collapsed on itself and hasn't been able to recover since. It's crazy to think years ago, people migrated from California to upstate NY to work. OP if he ever told you about his time there, I'd love to hear about it.
[+] [-] phyller|7 years ago|reply
I just started a new position, I have to learn at least 2 new languages (on my own time) which I need to be proficient in basically immediately. My very first project was, fix something in this new project which uses a new language, you have 3 days. And I felt lucky to have been given 3 days instead of 1 so I could learn the language. And then dozens of new frameworks and complex tools, complex and evolving architecture. In 2 months I will have my first week as being the point person to fix anything that goes wrong in production. And I feel like this is ok, this is normal.
I wonder if most engineers now are just permanent amateurs hopping around between tools and projects, learning just enough to make it work without breaking, but not knowing how to build things properly. How many years would it take to really become expert in that language? Even if you focused all your time on that, by the time you have mastered it another language will have come along to replace it, or the language itself will have been transformed into something new.
If you stay still and become an expert in something you run the risk of losing your relevance and not being able to get another job in just a few short years. 25 years? Will the company you work for even be around in 25 years? Doubtful.
Then again, back then they didn't have Stackoverflow and all the resources we have now that make it possible to learn so much so quickly.
[+] [-] mbrock|7 years ago|reply
1980s programmer: sits down at the typewriter and bangs out a fixed width table, finishes with a signature.
[+] [-] MaggieL|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] khazhou|7 years ago|reply
But the smell of typewriter ink. Man, I miss it.
[+] [-] 0xBA5ED|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Spooky23|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bluedino|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|7 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] iforgotpassword|7 years ago|reply
(okok, it's Saturday so can we have this as a top level reply?)
[+] [-] ilaksh|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Shivetya|7 years ago|reply
The one common reason why all replacement attempts falter if not fail. No one knows all the touch points. No one knows exactly what they really do. Oh its easy to say "that machine is the warehouse inventory and related" but on a grand scale that is a fine description. it is when you get into all the custom interfaces, all the different systems relying on it, then it becomes a whole different ball game.
I full expect the z, i, and p, machines to all be there in the next ten to fifteen years for the same reason they are here now. it gets really expensive to replace something when you don't even know what you truly have. when you do find out it can be far more economical to keep what you got but be more diligent where new apps reside.
[+] [-] gcb0|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] syntaxing|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] TheCoelacanth|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Latteland|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] metaphor|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] larrywright|7 years ago|reply
All this to say: the idea that resumes and interviews would stay out of your personal life is a rather modern concept.
[+] [-] adventured|7 years ago|reply
https://i.imgur.com/btFE99N.jpg
And Paul Allen's -
https://i.imgur.com/0pDSVBS.jpg
[+] [-] ChuckMcM|7 years ago|reply
1951 - Graduated SD State.
1964-1965 UC Extension Cobol
1968 UC Extension Fortran
1968-1969 UC Extension Systems and Procedures/Data Processing
1968-1969 IBM 370 Assembler Language
The message is always be learning, never just get a degree and then never go back to learning something new. It helps with neural plasticity and it keeps you engaged and employable.
[+] [-] aj7|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bryanrasmussen|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] grigjd3|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] drmpeg|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] m12k|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Spooky23|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] werber|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] whatsstolat|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] otras|7 years ago|reply
https://www.sharelatex.com/read/cqscsqsqmskm
[+] [-] pinewurst|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] miles|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Pokepokalypse|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] raverbashing|7 years ago|reply
Almost 40 years later, phone numbers are on the way out, DOBs are "illegal" and github and email are more important information on a CV.
[+] [-] pjmobile|7 years ago|reply
I'd like to know the brand. Almost 40 years old and not yellowed - that's amazing.
[+] [-] tinbucket|7 years ago|reply
Exposing it to sunlight and/or excessive heat will cause it to age. If it's high cellulose paper, like a newspaper, it will generally yellow quickly regardless of the storage because newspaper is cheap and acidic and not intended to last.
[+] [-] magicbuzz|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] RLN|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] clamprecht|7 years ago|reply
Here's an indeed.com search for "cm" that pulls them up: https://cn.indeed.com/jobs?q=cm
[+] [-] docdeek|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dessant|7 years ago|reply
It was implied that you had to fill out the template properly, including adding a photo, and as a result we were sending unnecessary personal information to all companies we applied to.
[0] https://europass.cedefop.europa.eu/editors/en/cv/compose
[+] [-] ThenAsNow|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] analog31|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] astura|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] suyash|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] srik|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ghewgill|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bdz|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kevsim|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] uvee|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pseingatl|7 years ago|reply
As to the discussion about 1 page v. multi-page c.v.'s: a c.v. is ADVERTISING. If you get the interview, you bring along a more comprehensive document in which you can go into detail about subject areas which may be relevant but don't merit inclusion on a one-pager.
As to his height: he worked on B-29's in the 1940's. Conceivably the ability to access cramped spaces was an issue then and he merely continued including this out of habit. Same as to his security clearance--most people are proud of holding one (look at all the brouhaha about Trump terminating a clearance) and like to include it on their c.v.'s.
[+] [-] rdelval|7 years ago|reply
After the Endicott-Johnson Shoe Company and IBM packed up and left, the town collapsed on itself and hasn't been able to recover since. It's crazy to think years ago, people migrated from California to upstate NY to work. OP if he ever told you about his time there, I'd love to hear about it.