For a lawyer, I’m not too bad at science, and math. Geometry came easy. At my mega-competitive college prep high school in Cincinnati, however, I was always one of the handful of dumb-asses in the smart kids’ math class. Those who went on to careers in medicine could always count on me to skew the grades in their direction. I liked the Humanities much better, and still do. Science, Math, Tech, Numbers: they did not come that easy.
Nowadays, and in doses, I do like playing with business numbers, market shares and even budgets. Business people even say I’m good at it. But none of it really turns me on. Numbers and the often-mathematical elegance of the Universe. It’s there–I admit it. But if something has an answer, it’s not as interesting. I associate “the need for certainty”–either in nature or or moral–with small minds.
Same with the new Digital World. And Word Processing and Graphics. I don’t like it–and love it when others–always younger–do it for me. For a history major who wrote his big thesis at Duke for Professor Bernie Silberman class on “How the Shishi Got the Chutzpah to Overthrow the Bakufu”, I have come a long way with Tech. But not far enough.
Documents especially. I hate to type, create, edit, manage, store and retrieve documents. And it’s hurting me–and wasting the time of others who I demand do it for me.
Boomers can and will work long and passionately into their sixties, seventies and even eighties. I’d rather work with a 50-year-old than anyone because he or she, generally, will go on until the last dog dies.
Younger people don’t have that ethic–yes, the laid-back glaze in their eyes about work is nearly universal and annoying (why enter a profession unless you have a last-dog-dies mentality?)–but they do Get Tech.