I just found out I didn’t get the promotion that I was certain I would get. I’m feeling very emotional about it. For those who have experienced this, what are the next steps? What should I do and what should I not do?

I know of an employer that employs asian females almost exclusively in their production area. The job is mostly soldering through hole components. The pay isn't very high. There are about 40 people working in that production area and it's 95% asian females. The odd part is there are two leads and a supervisor in that area and they are all white. It really seems like race based hiring practices.

What is the longest time you've ever taken off work (non parental leave)? I'm planning on taking off a full month in the middle of the summer and I'm slightly worried how it could effect my standing/job performance. Has anyone done this and been alright when finally getting back to work?

I’m a 35-year-old in Seattle, and I’m genuinely terrified that I’m already becoming too old for this industry. I looked around our all-hands meeting yesterday and realized that except for upper management, almost everyone on the engineering team is fresh out of college age. They can pull all-nighters without blinking, while my back hurts if I sit in the wrong chair for two hours. Are we all just silently sliding toward an expiration date once we hit our late 30s? How do you stay relevant?

Our CIO is pushing us to learn a programming language that no one has heard of. He used it in his old job. One looked into it and found that no company or government agency in my state used it. It doesn't appear in TIOBE Index. It doesn't appear in Stack Overflow's to programming language. My colleagues and I see this as a huge career limitation. What can we do about this?