Hacker News Reader

Comment by mipmap04 | Hacker News Reader

The company I'm at has been hiring these ex-big blue individuals in droves and it's been awesome. Tons of talent combined with some truly remarkable experience.

View on HN

That's reassuring. For a few months I was seriously considering dying my hair, solely for job purposes. Not something I'd ever do for pure vanity. It borders on ridiculous. Turned out I didn't need to, but the fact I had to consider it...

I don't think it's that ridiculous. You buy a new suit to look professional, shave for a new date, why is dying your hair that crazy? We all do plenty of things for appearance purposes.

There's a big difference between wearing a suit and dying your gray hair. Dying your gray hair hides your age. Age is a protected class. It's illegal for employers to discriminate on the basis of age. It's not illegal for employers to discriminate on the basis of what suit you wear.

Can we all agree that nobody should have to dye their hair to get a job? The fact that people on this site act like this is normal is very disturbing.

Sadly, at least in the U.S. it is normal for many professional women to feel like they need to dye their hair. It is part of the general U.S. cultural bias toward youth in women, which is pretty obvious in popular media but also makes itself felt in the workforce.

Grey hairs can start showing up as early as late 20s for some people. I work with a number of women over 35 and I'm having a hard time thinking of one with a single grey hair showing. For a few I'm friends with, I know that dyeing their hair feels like an important part of maintaining their professional appearance.

Even Ginni Rommetty, CEO of IBM, probably dyes her hair. She has blonde hair without a strand of grey showing, which would be pretty extraordinary for someone who is 60.

You're unfortunately correct. More people should be outraged at the expectations employers place on women to look "professional." It's enough that some employers mandate high heels and make up in their dress codes. Dying one's hair should be a personal choice, and no woman or man should feel required to do this for their employer. I hope this changes some day.

That's nothing compared to women who read the news, sports, etc. on TV, most of whom have to get breast implants. And yes, it is the older women with thicker torsos who have to do this to preserve their "feminine" appearance. Young women can often get by, just by being slim.

While good in principle, we are human beings after all. There are many dimensions on which we judge each other, many of which aren't fair and/or accurate indicator of our true skills or abilities. We've managed to legislate against some of the more egregious dimensions, like age, race, national origin etc. but there will always be other dimensions.

One of the important once is appearances, demeanor, posture etc. While those of us who know about these things take care not to place too much emphasis on these things, they're still used by most people, mostly subconsciously, in making hiring decisions.

I find your response a bit of a non-sequitor to user 9889095r3jh's point and question. I imagine 9889095r3jh, and others, understand why it's a difficult problem. But that wasn't the question. The question was, yes, there's a lot of reasons why a person might feel compelled to do these things, but can we agree that they should not have to? It's trying to establish value-norms as a basis of conversation.

Are you saying you agree that the world is this way but you don't think it should be?

I don't want to sound like a jerk, but to me that kind of statement doesn't even really have a meaning... We can all wish the world was different than it is, but what matters is how to live in the real one.

"It's trying to establish value-norms as a basis of conversation."

I guess my impression was that the true difficulty of the problem wasn't understood by the OP, which is why suggesting that we simply decide to change it won't work.

Its like saying: hey eating a lot is not good for you. Why don't you just decide not to eat so much? And the answer is: there are real biological/evolutionary/genetic reasons which make that decision non-trivial to make.

I do realize that ageism is not simple, or easy to fix. I'm currently helping my father, who is over 60, update his resume. He's extremely talented and knowledgeable in a field that currently lacks skilled workers. I'm helping him feature his experience as a selling point, and not as a disadvantage. I so realize ageism is widespread, and I understand if older workers feel like they have to take small steps to put employer's concerns to rest.

But when we're at the point when dying your hair is considered necessary to get a job, we should be upset. And I for one (as someone who went gray young) will not give in to this trend.

I'm torn on the question of dye - not so much for my hair (where a braid to the middle of my back is more likely a concern than silver temples) but for my beard which has by now turned mostly white.

I'm half wishing I'd grown it out and bleached the last few bits this past winter to start establishing as a part-time Santa. "No, it's white because I'm also a volunteer Santa during the season."

I see your point, but shaving, clothes, etc, aren't altering the natural appearance of my body. It feels similar to a woman feeling some need for breast augmentation. Silly and superficial, and lots of work to please others for no reason.

Breast augmentation has been proven in studies to result in higher income over the long run. So maybe superficial, but definitely not silly.

Not arguing that it might "work". Dying my hair might have raised my salary too. But both are still silly to me. Similar, tall people make more money statistically. Real? Yes. But still silly.

> Breast augmentation has been proven in studies to result in higher income over the long run. So maybe superficial, but definitely not silly.

Did this study check for the obvious possibility of women of higher income being more inclined to pay for a breast augmentation?

I'm sure any serious journal will require this before accepting such paper, but the amount of junk science being published in humanities journals forces me to ask.

I think the difference is that wearing a new suit and having a shaved face signals that one cares enough to make the effort to appear neat. Dying ones hear (with a natural color) however is a modification of one's appearance that one whishes to remain unnoticed.

Not that I think looking neat is super important (my own appearance is just one step above "hobo") but it feels acceptable to me that some jobs require it because it correlates with other personality traits which are important like self-discipline and not being a "precious snowflake" for example.

It correlates with traits like being a dependent conformist, which is generally good for employees you want to exploit.

if the dye job is noticeable then it just looks like the person is stuck in the past and will amplify the ageism. It should be easier for women to dye their hair well (so that it is not noticed as such) because a) women of all ages changes their hair color, b) they are willing to shell out the big bucks for a professional, and c) they are less likely to have graying facial hair :{>

I started my tech career at the age of 18 and my colleagues on their 30s and 40s. I rarely shave those days to create an appearance, I am mature enough to participate in serious tech discussions. Now I am nearing 40 and this story worry me. I may need to do the other way around to stay relevant.

The group I work with at my current gig just hired two older devs to work with us. One guy came from Lockheed Martin, the other spent most of his career in finance at various banks and investment companies. Both have ungodly amounts of experience with .Net, Java and Javascript.

Just being able to have them around has given our team an ocean of knowledge to draw from. I know I'm a better developer just from asking for help and bouncing stuff off of them. You can't put a price on stuff like this.

A lot of great engineers get laid off simply for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, especially in bigger orgs. When it comes time to cut down expenses, the more experienced (and hence higher compensated) engineers are usually prime targets to get axed. Its really stupid and short term thinking, but there is a reason why it happens.

OTOH looks like your org actually benefited tremendously from having those experienced engineers, so in a morbid way their being laid off turned out to be good for everyone involved.

That's exactly the value I was alluding to. Is paying these folks, say, 20% more than someone in their 30's really a boat anchor, or is it an asset?

That's not what's happening.

A decade ago, IBM had 130,00 staff in the USA and very few in India.

Today, IBM has 130,00 staff in India and it refuses to say how many are left in the USA.

It's not really a question of saving a bit of money (20%, say) on American employees. IBM is just shipping jobs to India at a terrific rate because the cost of employing Indians is, in comparison, very very low.

https://www.seattletimes.com/business/ibm-shifts-center-of-g...

Realistically speaking, the answer to that question depends on the current makeup of your employees.

If most of your workforce is 50+, you probably don't need more highly experienced people and are probably overpaying for some of the more basic tasks some are doing. It's also not great for continuity if you're set to have large segments of your workforce retiring in a small window of time.

On the other hand, if your workforce skews young and inexperienced, bringing in some people with much more experience is probably going to be a valuable resource for them that'll help everyone perform better, and will help you avoid costly mistakes.

That's a good observation. Managers should be maintaining a reasonable balance.

genuinely curious how your organization managed to hire them

Same here, and our experience with them has thus far been great. Many times IBM doesn't know what they're giving up -- or they simply don't care.

Could it be that the leadership of IBM doesn't really know what's needed for the future?

Could it be that, being clueless, these high level managers are merely guessing and assuming that young workers are the only ones who can lead to profit growth?

Could it be that these high level managers fully expect these younger workers to lead and manage -- to do their jobs for them?

IBM is just getting rid of Americans with high salaries, health insurance and pensions and replacing them with much cheaper workers in India. It now has far more workers in India than it does in the USA.

Of course, IBM is also destroying the skills and experience that customers are paying them to provide, but it's happy to get a short-term gain and ignore the long-term pain. The people in charge will have stashed away their millions and left before most of the ordure hits the rotating device.

Bear in mind that IBM's turnover today is less than it was in 2000, and it's had five or six years of annual decline. As a company, it's failing badly, so perhaps it's unrealistic for it plan for a future that might not happen.

I'd argue in IBM's eyes it's short-term pain (increased training costs/doubling up on resources/lawsuits, communication/teething issues) with the view for long term gain (lower long term costs / liabilities). That's not to say I agree or disagree with the approach but it's definitely not an easy decision to make.

At face value, your company could make some noises about how awesome things are and win some friends.

YMMV in practice though.

Maybe it could be established that these employees are encouraged to make small bits of noise in certain ways.

(Translation: I'd like to hear more, even though I'm young myself FWIW)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com