Time in the industry does not slow you down; it sharpens your ability to spot what actually matters.
What’s your exit strategy?
Why are you still doing this? How long do you intend to keep doing this?
What are you doing here?
Thoughts?
The finance guys (always guys) ask the first, friends and family the second, impertinent people the third and fourth.
Exit strategy? You mean, when do I want to retire? Or more plainly, when can you be rid of me?
Why am I still doing this? Because I thrive on receiving unsolicited advice (like your question, by insinuation, opens the door to offer here), and my staying prolongs the gluttonous experience!
Thoughts? Yeah, I have a few.
Like when some barely literate twenty-something deposits an exclamation point-sized “Thoughts?” prompt at the end of an email, I’m inclined to respond, suppressing rage, “Not today. Go back to being mesmerized by your blue screen.” And to myself, sotto voce: “And never to the likes of you, pipsqueak.”
Responding would attach to them and their question an unearned dignity.
So, I turn the question around.
Why do you ask?
Do you want me gone? Have I annoyed you enough? Is my place at the trough impeding your destiny? Are you jealous? Have I outlived your conception of usefulness? Is the humble-bragging done, and the knives are out? I’m so appreciative of your (totally false) solicitude.
The question might more properly be phrased as “What insecurity in your own life prompts you to ask that question?”
Maybe old age scares them. It hints at mortality. Where they’ll be some day. Remember, striver, you are dust, and to dust you shall return. Nothing explicit, mind you, but suggestive enough to make one want to turn away and change the subject. Immortal has a much more compelling ring than mortal.
But here I am, doing my best as an aspiring impediment.
Whatever the reason, turning the question around makes them splutter in their metaphorical soup. They weren’t expecting a comeback. They expected passivity. Weakness #1 noted and filed away.
Chinks in armor reveal themselves in different ways, if only we’re observant. Never let them know that you’re noting.
Observation and evaluation of human foibles are trainable skills. Advancing age enables a lifetime of scanning the human comedy. A lifetime cataloguing the motivations of others and drawing lessons. Longevity offers its own School of Treachery. Shockingly, those who feign well-meaning sometimes do not mean well. But when physical strength fails, intelligence applied to observation remains a survival skill.
This is not taught in IPC or SMTA training programs.
Cunning 101. Never admit, seldom deny, but always distinguish.
So, let’s acknowledge the irrefutable facts. I have passed middle age. I am certifiably old: 67 qualifies for Social Security. Medicare as well. Had I been French, I’d be long retired. Had I been US military, I could potentially launch my third career and income stream. I’m addressed in public as nonmilitary “sir” at a higher rate. Blue plate specials at 4 p.m. beckon. Gatherings with friends center around discussions about prescriptions taken and therapies attempted. Tales of insomnia are familiar conversation-starters. Some of us are widowed. The prospect of dating is bewildering. Lots of tree rings, some green, some burned.
Them’s the cards. In the Zuckerbergian worldview, I’ve become useless. Ready to add my ashes to Soylent Green.
Being useless means that the M&A scavengers are now circling, foraging for a quick, low-budget kill. They are the 2020s version of the Kirby vacuum salesman who plagued our grandmothers by inflicting needs on them they never knew they had. Greed is universal and lacks time-dependency. Thus, the M&A droids contact me weekly, shakily reciting their scripts about how the “test space” captivates them, and has hooked them since case studies in B-school; indeed, since they were kids, and the Challenger/Columbia disasters seared upon their brains the need for something called “testing.” So, I read pitches from lower-tier graduates lashed to the galley of gaining that one-in-a-hundredth assent from someone naïve enough to cash it in and welcome life-changing pools of East Coast money. Ignorant, non-caring East Coast money. These folks just see synergies. They’re big on synergies.
Every now and then, for amusement on a slow day, I’ll speak to one of them. My prejudices are always affirmed. Withstanding a 10-minute torrent of buzzwords is a Lenten sacrifice none should undertake. I did it for penance, er, research, so you wouldn’t have to. The approach is the same always: make a low-ball offer, pile on debt once accepted; strip the company of its cherished assets – the ones that made it unique, notably its people – and blend what’s left into some larger amorphous mass of marginally-related companies to be repackaged and sold onward at an unconscionable profit to those who horde the pools. Never mind the history, culture, customer satisfaction, and accumulated wisdom. Never mind the years and the sacrifice. Decades of devotion, reduced to numbers on a spreadsheet, presided over and collated by Vinnie from Queens. Vinnie doesn’t care about the jobs lost. He has never set foot in California in his life.
And that’s in good times.
Back in the real world, nervous customers are trying to drum up business by quoting in expanded volume. Angst meters are rising. There are two possible causes, one doubtful, one plausible: 1) business is good, requiring more outsourced testing and failure analysis (doubtful); or 2) business is bad, and sales departments are being terrorized by their managements into rototilling for new revenues because capacity beckons, and debts need servicing. The real world is more Darwinian than ever.
Salespeople get excited by big RFQs. Excitement often clouds judgment (all the more reason why youth shouldn’t vote). Recently, one of ours brought in a 20-board test project. They were very anxious because the customer was emphatic about getting quotes back quickly to reach their customer who was unreasonable and tyrannical. A high-voltage, stressful pyramid scheme, pegging the fear index. We were given a hard deadline: they wanted all 20 quotes back within one week of our receiving 20 sets of files. That is a tall order, as we are not a vending machine. Test quotes require engineering, and engineering takes time. Plus judgment. Sometimes gut feel. AI has not altered these truths. Nor has the need for adult supervision evaporated in AI euphoria.
Enter experience (a more emollient word than “old age” or the more descriptive “decrepitude”), casting calm upon the waters.
Two probing emails, directed by me, revealed two salient factors:
- The buyer for the OEM was new to the company. He had been on the job for six weeks. He was eager. To please. A FOMO guy. You could tell from the incessant volume of emails spewing forth like TikTok posts. Desperation by another name.
- Our quotes were going into his quotes, what in olden days was often referred to by the dismissive term “bid for bid,” meaning that our customer was busy trolling for business.
Implicit in this buyer’s anxiety was the newbie’s urge to please management. Never mind the time expended and diverted from real discernible business (a distinction experienced people immediately recognize).
This was confirmed when quotes were submitted on time, the third week of February 2026. We were informed by the buyer – revealing more than a cagey veteran would reveal – that if awarded this contract, his company would be placing orders with other suppliers and us in Q4 2026 at the earliest, but more realistically, Q1 or Q2 2027. The buyer’s email body language almost screamed, “Isn’t that exciting?!”
Well, no.
Tough to pay the light bill based on 12-month maybe-ish implied IOUs and LOIs. No contractual obligations there. A lot can happen in 12 months, I’m told.
We could see this one coming a mile away.
When “test” occupies a disproportionate section of your company’s name, people send you lots of stuff. Some requests bear no relationship to what your company actually does. Nevertheless, the customer assumes you will find a way and either help them or direct them to the right source to solve their problem. In operating as a node connecting need and solution, one’s patience is occasionally tried in the interest of that intangible known as Goodwill. Seasoned knowledge (note no mention of senior citizenhood) helps. Especially when expectations must be set. Ruthlessly.
A certain customer recently wanted a quote from us for ESS/HASS/HALT testing. They sent the RFQ on Friday. They wanted pricing by the following Monday. Our company does not perform ESS/HASS/HALT testing. We have a partner that offers this service. Unfortunately, a banana slug would smoke their quoting process in a drag race. So, expectations need to be set realistically.
The customer is, yet again, a young, impressionable, eager, anxious program manager, about to receive a striking lesson in why You Can’t Always Get What You Want. I deliver the message firmly. The good news: yes, we have a source that can help you. The bad news: allow two to three weeks for a quotation and be prepared for many technical questions should your SOW lack specificity (as they judge it).
Thus, derailed from their carefully prepared script (What could possibly go wrong?), the customer elected to waive the requirement. And quality goes by the board.
As we get older, time becomes more precious. In fact, time speeds up. Optimizing one’s time becomes a valued life skill. Some of us are good at it. We have the scars to prove it. We’re still here and not just spinning yarns over beers.
Spare a thought for the venerable among us. They have wisdom available for the taking. And they’re a lot like you. Someday you’ll become a lot like us.
So don’t kill us off yet.
Ask first.
Robert Boguski is president of Datest Corp. (datest.com); This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. His column runs bimonthly.
