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以平等为傲的科技公司常以员工中的女性或少数族裔的比例为傲，但另一方面，他们也总爱吹嘘自己的团队有多么年轻。这令人疑惑——科技行业中的老员工都去哪了？
测试中可能遇到的词汇和知识：
ageism对老年人的歧视[eɪdʒɪzəm]
hindrance妨碍，障碍['hɪndrəns]
eminent著名的，卓越的['emɪnənt]
brewery啤酒厂['bruːəri]
resent愤恨，憎恶[rɪ'zent]
immune免除的，免疫的[ɪ'mjuːn]
brag吹牛，炫耀 [bræɡ]
derogatory毁谤的，贬损的[dɪ'rɒɡətri]
tightrope拉紧的绳索，危险的处境['taɪtrəʊp]
sanctimonious伪装虔诚的[ˌsæŋktɪ'məʊniəs]
bewilderment困惑，迷乱[bɪ'wɪldəmənt]
manifesto宣言，声明[ˌmænɪ'festoʊ]
radicalise使激进['rædɪkəlaɪz]
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Bob Crum finally bailed out of the tech industry last year, after four decades working for Silicon Valley companies such as Hewlett-Packard, Sun Microsystems and Cisco. When his contract with Cisco ended, he tried to find a job elsewhere, but quickly discovered that, aged 62, his “richness of experience” was seen as a hindrance, not a help, in today's tech industry.
“I was told ‘we decided to give this job to someone earlier in their career, your experience was a long time ago'. Those were hurtful things to say to someone who was eminently qualified,” he says.
“After several months trying to get back into the tech world, I just threw up my hands and mentally told myself, I'm retired from high-tech and will move on to bigger and better things.”
Mr Crum is now working for a non-profit and preparing to open a craft brewery. But he still resents the way he was treated by an industry obsessed with youth — and apparently immune to age discrimination laws.
When tech workers reach the grand old age of 45, they see the number of jobs they are offered drop, according to research by Hired, the tech recruitment platform. Salaries begin to fall aged 45, with candidates in their fifties and sixties asking for the same pay as millennials with just two years' experience.
Laurie McCann, a senior attorney with the AARP, which advocates for older people's rights in the US, says ageism in the tech industry is a “very big problem”. Two-thirds of older tech workers say they have witnessed or experienced age discrimination at work, according to a 2013 survey by the organisation.
“People brag about how young the average age of their workforce is and say downright derogatory things to older people, almost like they are above the law,” she says. Silicon Valley has begun to face up to its gender and ethnic diversity issues, after scandals such as sexual harassment cases at Uber that contributed to the chief executive, Travis Kalanick, stepping aside in June.
But while many large tech companies publish reports on the proportion of their workforce that are women or minorities, hoping it will push them to improve their figures, they do not track age. Dan Lyons, who wrote a book, Disrupted, about his experience working at start-up HubSpot, says tech companies need to recognise the value of a “blended multi-generational workforce” and show how many older workers they employ in their diversity reports. When he joined the start-up, which boasted its average age was 26, he was 52 and surprised by the “weird stereotypes” some of his younger colleagues seemed to have of older people. One called him grandpa. “I had this really big blog, I was internet famous, I had developed a TV show and worked in Hollywood, and they were like, ‘wow, you can use Twitter?'” he recalls.
Experts have clear advice for tech companies looking to show they welcome older employees — or avoid future age discrimination lawsuits.
Recruiters should end the practice of specifying the years when a candidate should have graduated from college or the need for a university email address, in effect making it clear they only expect to hire younger people. Seeking “digital natives” in job ads is problematic, because it implies someone grew up with the internet.
Once in the door, companies should retrain older staff as new coding languages emerge, educate them to recognise “unconscious bias” against older people, and host social activities that everyone feels welcome to participate in.
When Mr Lyons was at HubSpot, he felt he was walking a tightrope with his clothes. “You want to look casual, but you don't want to look like a 50-year-old guy trying to dress like a 20-year-old,” he says.
He also urges older job hunters to delete everything on their resume before 2000, to avoid getting caught in automated filters that ignore applicants with that much experience.
At work, he believes older employees should avoid sounding “sanctimonious” and instead be humble and learn younger employees' habits and favourite acronyms, such as DRI (directly responsible individual).
Chip Conley, a strategic adviser at Airbnb, was 52 when he was approached for the job — despite never having used the accommodation app.
Having been chief executive of his own hotel chain for 24 years, he developed a role as a “Modern Elder”, serving as both mentor and intern.
“My best tactic was to reconceive my bewilderment as curiosity and give free rein to it,” he wrote in the Harvard Business Review.
Ashton Applewhite, author of This Chair Rocks: A Manifesto Against Ageism, says one of the reasons few age discrimination lawsuits are brought is people are reluctant to identify themselves as older.
“Age discrimination is often the first kind of discrimination that white men encounter in the workplace,” she says. “I'm really looking forward to those guys getting radicalised and joining the movement.”
请根据你所读到的文章内容，完成以下自测题目：
A.Because he was overqualified for this job.
B.Because his work experience didn't match this job.
C.Because his experience was a long time ago.
D.Because he was considered to be too aged for this job.
答案 (1)
A.When tech workers reach the grand old age of 45, the number of jobs they are offered will drop.
B.Two-thirds of older tech workers say they have witnessed or experienced age discrimination at work.
C.Silicon Valley has begun to face up to its ageism issues after several cases at Uber.
D.Seeking “digital natives” in job ads implies the recruiter expect to hire younger people.
答案 (2)
A.falsify their ages and convince recruiters.
B.imply they are no worse than their younger counterparts.
C.avoid future age discrimination lawsuits.
D.avoid getting caught in automated filters.
答案 (3)
A.improve the public's perception of ageism in the tech industry.
B.show his compassion for older job hunters.
C.discuss the validity of ageism in Silicon Valley companies.
D.give publicity to Dan Lyons' book *Disrupted*.
答案 (4)
(1) 答案：D.Because he was considered to be too aged for this job.解释：Bob Crum被告知他们更想要一个更年轻的员工。
(2) 答案：C.Silicon Valley has begun to face up to its ageism issues after several cases at Uber.解释：Uber公司的性骚扰案等丑闻让硅谷公司开始正式性别和种族歧视的问题，但年龄歧视问题仍然不能引起重视。
(3) 答案：D.avoid getting caught in automated filters.解释：Dan Lyons建议年纪大的求职者删掉简历中2000年以前的经历，以免被自动过滤掉。
(4) 答案：A.improve the public's perception of ageism in the tech industry.解释：作者写这篇文章的目的在于呼吁人们关注科技行业的年龄歧视问题。