Are you “The Old Man” at work?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Where I work, there are several of us over 50 and a few over 60 years of age. We typically pick up young folks as temps, and if they’re good enough offer them a job. We use a lot of temps, the work is often strenuous and usually somewhat stressful.

The last few weeks we’ve been successful at hiring a few new guys. By that I mean really young and inexperienced men along with a couple of slightly older (but still young, in their twenties) fellas who moved to the area and worked as movers where they came here from.

Now, to be fair, us older workers do say, “let the youngsters carry that, they’ll recover quicker.” Probably a lot more than I want to admit to myself.
Also, I’m sort of used to being the old man, I joined the army a little later than usual in life and so was usually older than my officers and similar in age to my ncos.

What’s catching me is the two experienced youngsters have started mentoring the wet-behind-the-ears guys. Teaching them respect for their elders, as it were. “Hey, you’n’me are gonna take this big armoire in the house and upstairs and let the old guys take the boxes. That’s why we’re here.” Or “Come on, I’m gonna teach ya how to get an oversized sofa-bed through a door, let the seniors handle the customer and keep them occupied while we do this”.

I’m not much bothered by this, I feel a little guilty sometimes, but I don’t feel discriminated against for my age or anything. The experienced youngsters know, we’ve all paid our dues, so to speak, and nobody really shies away from the heavy stuff. It’s just startling a bit. I’ve never been in the position of “respected elder” before. I was always just that guy who happened to be a bit older than the main norm.

I’d be shocked if I was the only one this happened to, so tell me your stories of becoming the “Wise Old Man or Woman” at work and how it affected you.

2

Last time I worked for anyone other than myself, I was “The Old Guy.” Doesn’t seem like that long since I was “The Kid.”

3

In was showing one of the younger engineers a drawing I made back in the day.
He asked, “When did you make this”
“1985”.
“I wasn’t even born yet!”

So, yes to the OP.

4

Yep, same story:

A not too young engineer came into my office and examined the framed patents on the wall. I was pleased until he announced “They were all issued before I was born”. I think he won a bet.

5

I remember feeling old when I was interviewing and mentoring people who were born well after I graduated from high school. If I were still at that job, I’d be interviewing people born well after I graduated from college.

Now I just work for myself, but it’s pretty physical work, so I feel like an old man more days than I’d like to admit.

6

In my last post-retirement job, from which I re-retired in Dec 2019, I shared an office with a n00b engineer who was young enough to be my grandson. He was sharp - I wasn’t able to teach him much, but I learned a lot from him as far as using the software. Things that were almost second nature to him were new and exciting to me. On the other hand, I don’t think he could have done a passable hand sketch to save his life, not that I was ever called upon to do one myself. :wink:

7

I’m probably 20 years older than the median age of the group and a good 30 years older than a few folks.

I’ve enjoyed having a number of younger people joining in the last few years (we’ve done more hiring in the last three years than we did in the previous 15). People with recent college degrees, people with experience outside the industry.

It seems like the 20-somethings respect me more than the 30-somethings. I guess my business and industry knowledge is impressive to them, and they appreciate the time I spend mentoring anyone who asks for it.

The mid career people challenge me more and some seem to resent that my experience gives me more influence than my title and grade would normally warrant. But I really appreciate the diverse viewpoints they bring as well as the technical skills they have that we didn’t have before.

8

I’m on a 2nd career as a LEO after retiring as a Sheriffs Deputy after 25 years. I just turned 61 and am already eligible for another pension whenever I want to bail. Nobody refers to me or treats me as the old man at work. I’m looked upon more like a guru with my (almost 40 years) of experience. I’m always lead officer on my shift and team leader on special assignments. Other officers come to me for help and advice with things.

The next older officer is 60 and this is the only LEO job he’s ever had, going on 30 years. He is looked upon as the old man at work. He does the bare minimum, and sometimes it seems like he just got hired. It takes him forever to learn anything new and he’s just coasting until he retires in 2 years. But he’s always been that way even when he was much younger.

I may retire next year or I may stick it out until I 65 to bump up my pension. I haven’t decided yet. But if I’m there after he leaves we’ll see if I am considered the old man at work.

BTW, after him the next oldest guy is about 48. After that everyone else is in their late 20’s/early 30’s.

9

I’m definitely “The Old Man.” Been at my high school 35 years. I’m pretty sure I’m the senior teacher in the District, much less my campus. It has the advantage that they really don’t bug me with shit they know I won’t do anyway.

10

I’m retired now, but I noticed exactly the same thing. The youngest people were very respectful and would often come to me for advice; the mid-career folks saw me as an overpaid dinosaur and wanted me to hurry up and retire already so they could advance.

The people at the administrative level, who were generally in my age cohort, wanted me out so they could replace me with a young person who would work for a lot less money. However, they did allow that they would miss my “institutional memory”—anytime they had a clever idea, I could tell them, “We tried that back in 1987 and it was a disaster.”

11

In all of the companies/organizations I’ve worked for, I was never “the old guy”, because even in up-and-coming tech environments where there tended to be a lot of young people, back then I was one of them. As I got older the work environment tended to be different, probably helped along in large part by the fact that as a younger boomer – but a boomer nonetheless – I’m part of a very large cohort all growing older together. The only time there was a significant age difference between me and my everyday co-workers was when I was mentoring and managing a group of interns – college students who had not yet even graduated – but there the age difference was to be expected, and I’m sure they would have been disappointed if their manager had been anything other than an old fart. :wink:

12

I make it a point never to tell anyone that their brilliant idea will not work because we tried it in the past.

I might point out things they need to watch out for, either technically or organizationally, or point out unintended consequences that need to be mitigated or accounted for. But generally tread very carefully not become Dr. No.

I’ve seen a great many improvements come about at the second or third time of asking. Either because of technical differences in approach or the organization being more ready to accept change than they were before.

Of course this is highly context specific. I can conceive of circumstances where it might be that proposals are just physically impossible

13

Ugh! Strongly dislike this guy. Usually the guys like this that we get flounce because they don’t really want to work(hard) and that’s just not possible in this job.

14

My job isn’t physical, but I’m definitely getting to be the old man there.

A few years back, the Section Head I worked under for the first 15 years of my career finally retired. That made me one of the oldest people in the office, and in our division, I had a hand in training almost every new hire, so the people vying for the job to replace the section head were actually both younger than me, and people I had trained (don’t worry, I never actually wanted that job, too many pointless meetings).

One of those newbies became the acting section head during the process to promote a permanent replacement, and the acting period coincided with my annual performance review. One thing she asked me was what my “personal growth plans” were for the coming year. I told her, “Well, we haven’t had a proper Office Curmudgeon since Len retired; I think I’ll aspire to becoming the new Office Curmudgeon.”

She thought it was funny.

Fast forward five years: I’ve had two (count them, two) Supreme Court of Canada decisions that supported my assertions that certain of our office practices were not correct. Assertions that were ignored by everyone in management because they were all convinced they were smarter than me.

The "I told you so"s have been exquisite.

I’ve also taken to the role of, in meetings, saying the things everyone else wants to say, but are reluctant to say. I’ve had several people come up to me afterwards and thank me for being enough of a curmudgeon to tell the bosses what they need to hear.

15

Yeah, I was ~20 years older than anyone in my crew in my last corporate job - retrenched in 2017. I knew the sack was coming for someone, so I told my boss “if and when you have to can someone, make it me - I have no kids and no mortgage, all the other guys need this job”. Last I heard they are all still there.

And now I’m a sole trader, being paid for what I was doing for nothing in my spare time back then!

16

I’m getting closer, but not all that close. I started at my job at age 22 when the average age of folks in my classification was probably then in the mid-late 40’s and even a little uniformly so (lots of expansion of the workforce from late-1970’s to mid-1980’s). I was the youngest for the first 5+ years. Then one of the youngest for the next ten after that as hiring was quite light. An avalanche of retirement of that huge older cohort starting in the last 10-15 years has finally started to reverse that.

But although I’m sure I’m a lot higher on the ladder more generally, my specific little specialty section is mostly kinda old. I’m the 4th oldest out of seven and the senior guy (by age) is insisting he won’t retire until 72 and I’m won’t be getting anywhere near that. But yeah, I’ve usually been the young kid rather than the old guy working with a bunch of young kids. Other than my teenage stint at McDonald’s I’ve really never worked much with a young workforce - my work role models have uniformly been older, cranky and cynical :slight_smile: .

17

I’m the oldest secretary at my law firm. A slightly younger woman has been there slightly longer than I have, and I’ve been there 22 years. Between you and me, I’m very highly paid as a secretary. I’m sure they’d like to see me retire and to replace me with a cheaper new model. But I think they’re having trouble filling positions, like everybody else, so they have to bite the bullet and pay me for as long as I choose to stay. Which won’t be all that much longer - I hope to retire at 66 years 4 months, which is a little more than a year away.

18

I should also add that there at least a dozen teachers on campus who were my students once upon a time. That can make you feel old.

19

(1) Good for you teelabrown! Working toward that Full Retirement Age with the end in sight.

(2) Back in 2009-2010 I worked as a cashier at a local casino convenience store. One of the charter employees in fact. I was most assuredly the oldest at 56. Only the store managers were over 30. Unlike most of those responding I was never needed for mentoring or any other “ASGuy knows…” stuff. But management sure enjoyed having an employee that showed up and performed the assigned tasks every day.

One of my store managers, having fired someone for failure to show up, told me: “Older employees understand the work ethic. Show up, on time and every day.”

Got a raise every six months.

20

I work at a local TV station that employs well over 100 people. At 69, I’m easily the oldest person in the building. (Two of our senior News Anchors retired in the last year, both younger than me.) My department has seven people, one in his early 50s, four in their 40s (including my supervisor) and a guy in his late 20s. I don’t think any of them regard me as an “old man.” When I announced my decision to retire at the end of the year, every one of them expressed both surprise and regret at the news.

Until COVID-19 hit, I still did a weekend radio gig at a major market radio station. I was far over the station’s target audience (Adults 25-54), but I made an effort to keep up with contemporary music and lifestyle trends so I could always relate to the audience.

I think how co-workers regard you depends a lot on your attitude toward your job and life in general. I realize, though, that I’ve been lucky in that regard and that certainly doesn’t apply to everyone’s situation.