Depends entirely on what the job is.
Is the 42 year old a welder? Then 48 different jobs might mean they’re in super high demand and contract out to high paying, low time frame jobs.
Is the 42 year old a cop or a priest? Probably skips town a lot for… reasons…
Most any other job might just mean they’ve had an interesting life and like to try new things. Their broad experience might mean they’re great for what they’re currently doing.
Even if he’s a coder I wouldn’t be surprised. Also I spent 5 years as a consultant and worked fot 1 company in about 10 diferent companies doing different things, is that 10 differenr jobs?!
I would ask follow up questions to his statement
Did you switch the keycaps for your r’s and t’s?
Tbf it’s very hard to type on my phone. The keyboard is tiny and I always make mistakes. I don’t even care anymore lol
besides I’m old and typing in my bed at night I can’t see much haha
I’m not going to fault anyone for typos. I fight my phone’s autocorrect all the time, but it was odd that just those two letters were transposed
I was up to 14 at age 25. When you’re young and inexperienced, any schmuck that will pay you and be slightly less abusive than the last guy is worth working for, and you never owe the last person anything.
“That’s so cool man. What was the weirdest one?”
Make friends with the guy. He’s got some some stories. True or not, he’s got some stories.
Gen-X in tech here. When I was about to enter the workforce we were told that having multiple jobs in our resume or showing that we stayed at a job less than five years was really bad and would make us difficult to hire because it showed that we couldn’t be depended on.
Fuck that!
I switched jobs all the time as I chased higher salaries and bigger benefits. If they wanted my skills they needed to pay me AND they needed to guarantee me at least two off-site training programs per year. All that training and experience in different technologies and environments made me more and more valuable until my only option was to go into consulting so that multiple clients could benefit at once and none need to commit to paying me beyond the scope of their project.
That’s the right mindset.
For those reading, don’t let them fool you about down selling your worth. If you’ve got the skills they want, and you show that, they’ll pay you. Job history conversations are just a way to try and leverage lower pay or benefits on you.
Up until like 2022, changing your job every one and a half to three years was the best way to increase your base salary and total lifetime income.
I’ve changed jobs every 3ish years for the last 12 years and when I started I was making $15 an hour and now I’m making $67 an hour.
My friend who I met at the $15 an hour job has only changed jobs every 7 years, he’s now making $27 an hour.
We have similar skill sets and graduated from the same college except he was 2 years ahead of me, although, I did move to a higher cost of living area which is probably good for like $20 of the difference.
“Cool, tell me about them. Sounds like an interesting life.”
why would i need an opinion on that?
If I’m a coworker in this situation I don’t care. If I’m a manager in this situation I just don’t bother training them on anything but the basics for the job.
What’s wrong with that? If you only find 3 months jobs you end up that way. And if you sprinkle some 1 week jobs the count rises very fast.
Not my problem, tell me more
Maybe he worked a few years at a temp agency?
I would assume they were exaggerating and/or were a consultant at some point.
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You’re right. Here in 2024 your version is more likely than mine.
My opinion is only that I’m not going to get attached, guy’s probably not going to be here long. That’s all.
That is a lot. Like a lot a lot.
There’s not enough context here to have a strong opinion, but I’ll add that personally, nothing has given me a bigger raise than getting a job at another company.
I’m 38 and I’ve had about half of that, but the vast majority was from 16-25. They were all shitty retail things or short term odd job type things, but work is work so I include them if someone asks how many jobs I’ve had except on a resume of course. I just stick to relevant things there.
I’ve done everything from retail, to refrigeration diagnostic work. From wiping ass and giving meds, to even being a carnie. The only type of jobs I’ve never had are “real people jobs” like office work. I’m just a subhuman meat machine.
