Reply #62: I think it must be your area. I'm 56 (almost) and can make my PC spin like a top. [View All]

I use the 'Net for much, more than e-mail, and train and support my friends and family to do likewise.

I started with a Commodore 64 back in the day, typing assembler code into it and doing checksums to play early computer games, later on, at the bank I worked at, worked on a dual diskette IBM XT (you know, no hard drive: one diskette for the program, the other for the data) spec'd our first IBM AT purchase (:woohoo: Hard Drive!) taught myself DOS, dBase III+, and created programs to monitor project workflow, learned Lotus 1-2-3, word processing (of course) mainframe system security, Jobcard JCL, and moved up from there, doing Network Support and training.

I've designed forms using the old Lasersoft program, worked with Microsoft Access, written macros in Word and small programs in Excel. Learning Lotus Notes, HTML, and Javascript, I became a Notes developer and system liaison to our outside web developers. PowerPoint? Child's play.

What am I doing these days? After I started training in Java, my department was eliminated and the jobs sent to India, so I'm doing secretarial work at my doctor's office. Every once in a blue moon, I pick up some PC work on the side for a little spare cash, but the Geek Squad has made that kind of work scarce indeed.

Two of our women patients around my age, women who are also IT professionals, were in the office not long ago complaining about their lack of ability to find work suitable to their talents and experience.

Boomers who know PCs and have other computer skills? We're out here, in heaps across the Northeast particularly, believe me, but the kids coming up behind us who grew up on computers and cell phones and iPods AND have their BS in Computer Science (or Electrical Engineering, or other IT degrees) combined with the pressures of offshoring/outsourcing, are rendering us obsolete. No matter how much retraining we could get, we can't compete with those with equal (or perhaps better) skills who will work for far, far, FAR less than we have learned to expect, or indeed, need.

I've seen the ads for people with computer skills in the Northeast: a laundry list of hard-won, highly technical skills, with entry-level salaries. It's way past depressing. :(

Sorry you can't find the skillset you need where you are, but keep looking, it isn't generational.