"You have to be very, very careful with this, because it's thousands and thousands of years old…from when Mommy was little."
--Hana, age 5
After my daughter uttered the fateful words above, my husband took entirely too much pleasure in calling me at work and telling me about it. After all, he's not that much younger than I am. Considering that Hana is now a junior at the University of Oregon, I suspect that another three or four millennia have been added to my age from her perspective.
Nothing makes you feel older than comments from your children.
Or so I thought.
This week, 71.43% of PCon is attending the annual PASS (Professional Association for SQL Server) conference in Seattle. Yesterday was the first day of the conference, and over dinner, Toni, Kathy, Eric, Serena and I discussed some of the sessions we'd attended. No life-changing sessions yet (something I always hope for at PASS), but we'd each seen sessions on features upcoming in the next SQL Server release. Yay! New stuff! We love it!
However, Eric also related a conversation he had with a young man in the elevator at his hotel. They discovered they were both in town to attend a tech conference. The other fellow asked if Eric was attending the iPhone conference on the second floor. Eric replied that he was here for PASS. The response:
"Oh, you're an old school geek."
It was very lowering.
According to this whippersnapper (I failed to ask Eric if the youngster was still wearing his Cub Scout uniform, although it wouldn't surprise me), PASS is the technological equivalent of AARP.
Well.
I refuse to be dismayed by this. I'm looking forward on my session today on SSIS design patterns, a Microsoft chalk talk on metadata-driven ETL and the session tomorrow on using agile development techniques in SSIS.
However, when I get back to Portland next week, I'm going to have to discuss my job title with Bill. In another month or so, "Senior Consultant" might be construed as a politically incorrect term in my case. I'll draw the line at "Consultant Emeritus" though. Even at my advanced technological age, I still look forward to learning cool new stuff – even if I have to look through my bifocals to do it.
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