@saramg Wait till you get to your fifties.

@saramg I am in this photo and… I like it.

@saramg I'm in the second half of my 30's. Good to know I can lessen the amount of given fucks.

@saramg As an SRE in very late 40s (omg 50 on Friday what?) can confirm, except second pro is more "Will rebuild said stack 2x as fast and half as buggy whether you like it or not", and our nemesis is more likely to be a project manager than a product manager.

@saramg proper devs past 30-35 years old don't call stacks a stack... They just know several languages.

@saramg @JeniParsons True for most professions, I should think. Certainly for civil servants. 😂

@saramg As a product manager, I appreciate working with software engineers who give zero fucks. With them, you know where you stand.

(And I have the tendency to give zero fucks, too. But that might be because I'm in that same age bracket.)

@saramg .. and it gets even worse if you'd hire one in his early 50s .. 😎

@saramg One of the more satisfying things in my job as an older coder is seeing my younger colleagues learn from the coding I do.

@saramg Brace yourself for the half-centurians...

@saramg
I bring all the same cons for half the level!

@saramg fitting the description in my early 30s... Should I be scared? ;)

@saramg I, too, am long out of fucks. Been there, been fucked, no longer returning fucks.
Given that I just joined a very large public sector project as a consultant, might take me a little longer than 5 minutes to understand everything. Give me a week or so...

@saramg@fosstodon.org This is why I moved to contracting. 6 months in one place, for a decent pay, is a sweet spot that keeps me interested long enough to impress and then move on before I get too jaded with the place.

@saramg oops, i already got there at 29 years old.. though maybe I'm just part of the generation that never wanted to believe in the "we're like a family" bullshit anyway

@saramg i'm in my early 40s and the fucks i give are so low that i don't even work in the industry anymore, because i don't think it's worth the money. i'm very good at what i do. but i don't wanna.

@saramg I was hired 18 months ago by a young startup when I was 53. I LOVE this job and they are „happy to have hired me“ (quote). Well... 🤐

@saramg
seldom did words match that well.
this is literally me.
also i do not care for "arbeitszeiten".
0 fucks.

@saramg looks that I am in my late 40s then…

@saramg I work at a gov. Agency in Sweden and it is such a nice place, basically all the prestige shit is non existent so the last points are almost seen as pro's too.

@saramg 😂​
and the number of fucks given drops even further past 50.

@saramg I find that it isn't the Gen-X engineers that don't respect this old-as-the-hills ex-developer ex-sysop product manager citing ancient lore to them. It is the younger ones who have decided that it has to be us-versus-them.

I believe the appropriate phrase is "fuck around and find out"

@saramg

That was me. I gave it up at 60 because I'd solved the same problems and had the same arguments with managers so many times it was getting boring.

At one point I did try moving up (as some people see it) to project management, but I didn't enjoy it and wasn't any good at it.

Now I play my guitar and write science fiction.

@saramg this is essentially me, except at 39

@saramg gives zero fucks would be a pro. I’m getting 50 this year and I do give still way to msny fucks.

@saramg I'm only late 30s, and definitely tick most of the con boxes already. I'd like to think I also tick the pros, but would feel like tooting my own trumpet to declare them as fact.

@saramg
I'm 43, and I feel this gradually coming since ~4 years.

The uneasy part (for me ?) is the "zero fucks" part:
letting go/dry the self-toxic fucks (easy example: the corporate bullshit), and keeping to give the ones that won't make me a senseless jerk. I've seen colleagues become so much jaded that they've transformed into jerks. I don't want that.

@saramg These are … Cons?

@saramg It's all true.

@saramg I'll just leave this here.

https://youtu.be/Vqbk9cDX0l0

@saramg @patterfloof as an autistic I really appreciate people who give zero ducks about the we are family bullshit

@saramg And once they cross 50 they will tell you their due dates and deadlines are all 💩 and don't really matter.

@saramg this is so true!

@saramg how are those cons?

@saramg
Dev in their 40s 🤝 PM in their 40s
😁

@saramg absolutely ZF 🤷🏻‍♂️

@saramg Zero Fucks is the evolution of Zero Cool

@saramg

Most common phrase:

[in weary voice]: Look, I just want to get shit done. It could have been written in half the amount of time we spent talking about it. 🤣

@saramg I think it's not related to "late 40s", but instead "someone who has 20 to 30 years of experience" fits all of this!

I know to have 20 to 30 yrs of experience one is probably 40+, but there are exceptions.

@saramg Well zero fuck given is something also exhibited by 30s and 20s software engineers

@saramg@fosstodon.org love the narnia reference

I can share some experience with it, but applying it to every person in an age in software engineering might be a bit harsh. Prejudice might be built with statements like this - Chatgpt is watching :)

@saramg Wait until you hit 60....

@saramg 40 year old here, (not late) but can confirm.

@saramg Thank you. I turned fifty at the start of this year. I feel deeply seen. :totoro:

@saramg can confirm

@saramg Also, I am so using this in actual conversation: "Do not cite the deep magic to me, product manager, I was there when it was written." Absolute perfection. :totoro:

@saramg not sure why “gives zero fucks” is a con - maybe because I’m in my middle 40s 😅😅. Can you clarify? 😊

@saramg Hahah I love this (as a 45 year old dev).

I could add:

- "I've seen... things. You can't frighten me with code anymore."
- "My technical advice about this feature is to not do it at all"

Full onboard with the "zero fucks given".

@saramg this is me 100%, but I’m 38

@saramg oh believe me, dozens of fucks are no problem above 40, the rest of the list is correct 😂

@saramg @briankrebs
Those cons are actually pros.

@saramg 38 and starting a new job in a few weeks. On my way to be exactly this person!

The, where do i see myself in 10 years.

@saramg @tomklaasen that’s about as accurate as accurate can get.
Minor thingie: it started in my 30s :)

@saramg If they even hire such a person.

"too much experience"

@saramg absolutely no fucks. It's true.

@saramg

I'm an #AncientGeek (age 67) and I can confirm that the number of fucks given decrease exponentially with age 👍

@saramg all look like pros from here

@saramg Look, I *know* I've never interviewed/worked with you, so where were you hiding your cameras? I am definitely In This Picture, aaaaand...eh, it's fine. Whatever.

And by the way, if you don't let me fix that problem I've been nagging you about, the SEC is going to Roast Us Alive when it comes to light. You let me know what you want me to do, I'm going to lunch... ;)

@saramg I'm dying, because it's too true.

@saramg I feel seen. Other than the first 2 points about being good at my job.

@saramg Hit 48 this year. Can confirm amount of fucks given, though I am an SRE. I figure approaching 50 means your resume makes you very employable in our field, so not giving fucks is an option younger people, or people in other fields don't have. I.e. everybody would, it's just that in our line of work, when approaching 50, we _actually get to do so._

@saramg @marcoarment Very excited to enter this phase of my life. Very early on in my new position I told my manager “I don’t do fire drills”.

@saramg Yay, I already have the cons! As for the pros… well… I’ll try again in 20 years.

@saramg @briankrebs Hire one in their late 50s and they can rewrite it in assembler.

@saramg You're describing hiring person and the pyramid above problems.

@saramg Could I add, ‘Grumbles about not being consulted before the RFQ was submitted because I know I will be the one to fix it’?

@saramg *looks at self*

Yeah, checks out.

@saramg - I'm in my mid-50s and can confirm that this is the case.

@saramg hahahaha PREACH!

@saramg are you talking about me? 😜 i have to say that i have seen too much "family" as an excuse for exploitation to even take anyone who says these things seriously. i do enjoy helping people making their own experiences, even if i have to do the pull requests ... the rest is just two more decades of training y pattern recognition models.

@saramg wow, that resonates.

@saramg @timsaucer Like a koala in the rain, FTW!

https://youtu.be/-tOHtuPFUYU

@saramg “Will rewrite” sounds like early 30s. Late 40s is “is tempted to rewrite, but will not”.

@saramg pfft, wait until you hit mid-50s. Not only do I have zero fucks to give, I'm not sure I even remember what they look like.

@saramg I'd say the same for many other fields -- I go through this in communications, PR *so* often.

@saramg I give such few fucks that I've maneuvered myself into a niche so specialized that I had to start my own thing.

@saramg As someone in their mid-30ies, there is a ramp-up-phase for this, too. Also, this applies to other IT areas as well.

@saramg In their 50s: *points at specific section of deep magic* I actually wrote that part. See, the reference note has my old email address in it?

@saramg are those actually cons though?

@saramg I love this! I just wish they'd stop trying to turn me into a manager.

@saramg I'm closer to 50 than to 40 but the answer is COBOL! Sorry, what was the question again?

@saramg @marcoarment Oh I haven’t given a fuck for corporate stuff for a long time. I’ve paid my dues and have realized that being married to your job is a really bad idea.

@saramg brilliant. Yes.

@saramg those "cons" seem like pluses

@saramg can we put "zero fucks" with the pros?

@saramg what does it say about us that we've been trans since age 30, but also have been in our "late 40s" by this description since, like, 25?

@saramg lol

@saramg As an engineer/scientist in my 40s I can confirm most of this :)

@saramg
Not giving fucks is a survival strategy, I guess. I'm in my late 40's and giving fucks at work led to surgery and stress medication.

@saramg Card-carrying 🧓 ... no lies found.

@saramg the true-true (a software engiwhatever in their early 40s)

@saramg zero fucks given, as it should. Definitely not family.

@saramg age and experience are powerful and transformative

@saramg Oh, I feel this post in my bones, lol

@saramg I feel like this could be written about the age group and not just software engineers