When I was younger, I often wondered how it was that New Senior Guy was totally incapable of actually programming, but very good at handwaving and bullshitting, and being patronizing. Now I know how those people got hired. Thanks.
When I was younger, I, too, thought I knew everything and that the senior guys were full of it. As I grew professionally, I developed a degree of humility and EQ and understood how little I actually knew.
Sure. It's a common meme. It certainly happens. Consider though, that the fact that it happens sometimes means that genuine frauds are able to trot out this meme, as you have just done, and immediately dismiss the complaints of the junior.
You might as well have said, "Well, you know, when I was a young girl I once had a crush on an older man, and when he rebuffed me I badmouthed him on Insta and all this talk of older men coercing young women in employment is probably just schoolgirl crushes, broken hearts and vindictiveness."
It's true that young people can be cocky and arrogant. But there are unscrupulous people who use this meme to maintain their position, usually to the detriment of the young people. If your interview system is unable to identify such people then you will create a hostile environment. Hopefully, your good people will leave. Unfortunately, many will stay and blame or doubt themselves. I was very lucky in two cases to be at a start-up with a strong CEO who wanted to see results (which I could produce, but which the bullshitter could not).
I was also lucky that in those two cases, the CEO correctly interpreted my emotional expression, which ran the gamut of anger, isolation, helplessness, victimhood, righteousness, denial, negotiation, not as a lunatic but as someone in a fundamentally awful position, and why.
So in one specific case I'm thinking of, the senior guy in question tanked two consecutive projects and lost a major client, while in another, the CEO eventually called him out by asking to demonstrate doing himself what he claimed he was mentoring his team on, and firing him when he failed (the guy handwaved, boasted, and prevaricated but couldn't actually do what was asked). That CEO was fucking great.
When I was younger, I often wondered how it was that New Senior Guy was totally incapable of actually programming, but very good at handwaving and bullshitting, and being patronizing. Now I know how those people got hired. Thanks.