Stop calling me a "young person!" (weak/lame)

The BBQ Pit
1

As I’ve mentioned once or twice before, I am in Toastmasters. In fact, I am the club’s founder, and am one of the club officers. The level after “club” is “area,” and our area governor is a retiree who somehow doesn’t think it is at all condescending to make comments about “people my age.” People my age won’t get up early on a Saturday; people my age don’t like to volunteer their time; people my age wouldn’t remember the '70s; etc. Who are the “people my age” that he’s talking about? Recent college graduates. I’m 33 years old! Not only were his comments rude and condescending in general, it was rude and condescending for him to assume that he knew how old I am just from my appearance. Yeah, I look much younger than my age. I’ve known it for a long time. But is it too much to ask that you hold off on the dismissive comments until you find out if I’m even a member of the group you are insulting? And even if I were just out of college, is it too much to ask that you treat a club founder and officer with a little respect??

And it happened again today! On a conference call with a customer, with a co-worker and another customer in the room with me. The guy on the phone is someone I have never met, and it’s my first time meeting the customer in the room with us. I am editing the super-important white paper that these three people are pulling together, and I’ve been working my ass off all week. So we’re in a room, talking about what else needs to be done, when out of the blue the guy on the phone asks, “So, are you one of these wonderful young people who really, really loves words?” I stammered out a “yes,” but in my mind I was yelling WHAT THE FUCK?? I assume that my co-worker must have mentioned my age – that is, my youthful appearance, because she doesn’t know how old I am – to the two customers before I entered the room. Again: what the fuck?? :mad: What does my age have to do with anything? And again, could you have the decency to discreetly inquire about my age before calling me a “young person?” I mean, not that 33 isn’t young, but “young people” is generally used to describe college students or the recently-graduated. It’s like I need to wear a damn sign around my neck that says “I’m a grownup! Honest!”

Ok, I feel better now.

Yes, I know this is an inconsequential thing to rant about (hence the “weak/lame” disclaimer in the thread title). Yes, I do appreciate my youthful looks – I always have. I never mind being carded. Really. And yes, I know there are much, much worse things I could be called than a “young person.” It just pisses me off that I am STILL being condescended to in some professional situations, just because of my appearance. I’ve had to put up with it for 11 years (since graduating from college), and it’s really wearing thin. Just shut the fuck up and treat me like the professional I am, no matter what my age! Or, if you’re concerned about my ability to do the job, ASK SOMEONE! Find out that I’m 33! Find out that I have 6+ years of experience in this field! If I still have to hear this shit when I’m in my 40s, I might just have to smack someone…

(we need a good “pout” smiley…)

2

Damn, I have underwear older than you!!

J/K…:slight_smile:

3

I know how you feel. I actually am a recent college graduate, but some people don’t take me seriously because they think I’m a young teen. Just last week I had to argue with a lady about my age :rolleyes: . I finally gave up and asked her how old I was (she said thirteen). A pointer for certain people who work in the public: Just ask for ID if a person looks underage. There’s no need to go into a long speech about how the person is way too young to purchase “product x” or watch “movie y”. Assuming that every young looking person is a kid trying to outsmart you just wastes time.

::steps out of spotlight::

4

Back when I was a “young person”, we were called whippersnappers. Thank your lucky stars that the times, and the language, have moved on.

5

…and I was wearing an onion on my head, which was the style at the time.

6

Oh, I have this problem too. It’s really annoying. I’m a qualified gymnastics coach. I am a qualified gymnastics judge. Sometimes when I coach, I have an assistant, who will generally have no qualifications whatsoever. I call the shots, I run the class, mine is the voice the kids hear. I instruct the assistant as to what they should do.

But do the kids’ parents come to me when they need to discuss something? NO. They go to my assistants, who all out-age me by at least ten years. My assistants, who know basically nothing. My assistants, who of course shrug and direct the parents over to me.

ARRGGGHHHHHHH!!!

I also used to co-coach trampoline. Also with a coach (qualified) around 10 years my senior. I was talking with a parent once. They asked me about my job:

Me: This. I coach trampoline and gymnastics.
Them: Oh, I thought you volunteered as a helper.

I know I will be grateful later on, but for the moment, I really hate looking 14!

7

:stuck_out_tongue:

I feel your pain: I certainly remember when I was just starting in the working world, and it was a double-whammy to be both female and very young-looking. When I joined this company three years ago I thought I could finally stop “worrying” about my first impressions, because the average employee age here is something like 38 (maybe even a little lower). All was well until about 4 months ago…

Heh! These days I think “whippersnapper” is used for a young person who is a little too big for his/her britches.

I really think that the people who use the phrase “young person” are just doing so because it’s the most PC term they can think of for people under 30. I guess I don’t object to the term so much as I do the assumption: I look 23, therefore I must be 23.

In July I volunteered at my town’s annual festival, and at the end of the weekend I found out that the woman who was in charge of my area thought that I was 18! :rolleyes: I think it’s because I was wearing shorts, a t-shirt, and a baseball cap all weekend; when I’m wearing “dress casual” I’m more likely to be put at in my 20s. But still!

8

22, and I get offered kids meals.

I can get very worked up about this topic.

9

Aaaaargh!!! People our age volunteer their time in record numbers (for that age group), and the upcoming generation even moreso! They’ll be out-volunteering his generation by a longshot, and he should embrace that opportunity, not scoff at it.

10

I needed to get a form for one of my students so she could get an incomplete, and our department secretary was out of them, and there was some deadline pressure, so I took it upon myself to trundle over to the registrar’s office. (This was my first mistake. Faculty don’t fetch and carry anything for themselves.)

I explained the situation briefly to a young lady, who was probably a workstudy, but I’m not about to make an assumption in this thread. :slight_smile: (This was my second mistake. Faculty, with their well-honed understanding of college bureaucracy, always home in on the person at the top of the food chain in any particular office.) She turned to ask an older woman where the forms were kept. The lady snapped, “Who’s it for?” The young lady pointed at me, and the lady sneered, “SHE can’t have the form. Only faculty can get the form.”

I chose to simply be flattered (more gray hairs are popping in every day!), but, man, was that lady snotty! I mean, seriously, her voice was dripping with contempt, mingled with glee that the stupid, stupid student had no idea of proper procedure and was going to have to jump through more hoops. If you truly despise young people, it seems, it is your destiny to work in college administration.

11

My wife, who is 21, often gets a movie ticket at the children’s (12 and under) price. When they ask her age, we’re honest of course, but often they’ll just assume and charge us for the lower price. When they do this, we feel no obligation to correct their mistake. Most often, it occurs when we go to see a “children’s” movie such as Finding Nemo.

She doesn’t mind at movie theaters, but it annoys her to no end when people assume that she’s my daughter rather than my wife.

12

Well it doesn’t help that in addition to your youngish looks you have green, pink and orange hair while wearing smart-ass T-shirts from Hot Topic. Oh wait, that’s me.

This used to really be bothersome when I was refereeing soccer. I started when I was 14. By the time I was 19 I was one of the top Refs in my region, but do you think most parents even tried to consider that? Hah! It was nice when one middle age gentleman who I’d never met was working the field with me. At first he thought he should take the lead since he was the adult, but once we got out there he realized who had more experience and let me take the lead. Ahhh, how I miss the simple problems in life…

13

I get this ALL the time. I feel your pain, even though I am durn young.

Working late in retail, I was asked if it was ok with my mom if I worked this late by a woman who apparently thought I was 16.

Now, I wait tables in a pizza place where all the other servers are around 20 years old. Even they placed my top possible age at about 18.

I just figure that since at 24, I look 18, at 30, I will look 24, and so on, and that’s far from a bad thing.

14

I have never been bothered when people misguess my age. However, when I was finishing High School and starting at my university, I worked as a teller in a bank. Now, people get rather uptight about their money, so the first thing we learn is to radiate competency and confidence.

This was fine until “Connie” started working there. Never mind that I had been working there nearly 2 years longer than her. Never mind that my cash drawer always balanced, or that I usually ended up “fixing” her machines when they broke (read: taught her how to use them. Again.).

Since I was 15 years younger than her, she took it upon herself to mentor me. This included hovering over my shoulder while I was helping a customer, anxiously asking “do you need help, child?” in her motherly Texan accent. Usually this would cause a look of alarm to cross the customer’s face, and a formerly peaceful transaction would become tense (and take twice as long, since the customer would then insist on double-checking every thing I did).

Grrrr.

15

She’s lucky she’s not MY wife! I could think of a million ways to jerk peoples’ chains on this!

I feel the OP’s pain, although I think the first example is a lot more egregious than the latter. More and more I am refusing to ascribe to the notion that rudeness shoul be tolerated simply because someone is elderly. If they’re old, then they’ve had time to learn some manners. If some elderly person said things like “people your age won’t get up early on a Saturday, people your age don’t like to volunteer their time,” etc. my response would be “You’re right. This thing I have called a JOB really eats into my spare time, and makes me tired enough to want to sleep in on my days off. Of course, being a retiree who just sits around all day and sponges off the Social Security taxes I’M paying, you wouldn’t know what that’s like.”

16

About 5 years ago or so, when I was 26, I was standing on the sidewalk in front of the front yard of my wife’s and my house. A man, who I think was some kind of sales man, walked up to me and asked me if my mother was home :eek:
I just made some sort of comment that I was the owner of the house and that I wasn’t interested in anything he had to offer.
Although I’ve always looked pretty young, that’s the only incident I can think of where somebody assumed I was a kid after I became an adult. Of course other people may have made that assumption too, but they never said it to my face.

17

Heh heh. I’m 36, and I got carded for ID at the liquor store the other day. {In NZ the legal age is 18} Just call me Dorian Gray.

18

On one hand it seems like a petty thing to bitch about, but on the other hand it’s good to know that so many people understand what I’m talking about. :slight_smile: People who look their age – or older – never, never understand why situations like ours can be so frustrating. It’s not like I bristle every time someone guesses my age wrong, in fact most of the time I find it amusing. And I really do appreciate my appearance: looking younger than your age runs in both sides of my family, and it gives my mom a huge amount of pleasure when people refuse to believe that she’s old enough to have two kids in their 30s. And there is definitely a difference between someone merely thinking I’m younger than I am, and someone treating me differently (i.e., with less respect) because of my perceived age. It’s just that after a while, and especially in certain situations, it is annoying as hell to be the proverbial book that is judged by its cover.

But hey, I’m preachin’ to the choir, here. :wink:

I know! In the case of the Toastmasters guy, I was amazed that he would voice such a thought. It would be like talking to a black person and “joking” that you’ll understand if they don’t show up for x event, because you know that their people are lazy.

Well, ok, maybe it wouldn’t be like that, but it’s still condescending and ignorant.

Oh, the irony… :slight_smile:

I was 23 and living on my own when I got my first tattoo: several people who noticed it asked if my parents approved. :rolleyes:

Oh, I hate when that happens. Some people just get it in their heads that older = wiser (or more knowledgeable about the job), and they do the most illogical things…like your less-experienced co-worker trying to mentor you.

While it was a frustrating thing to hear, I don’t think that it’s ever right to answer rudeness with rudeness. Besides, retirees have earned the right to sit around all day if they so choose: they did their time in the working world. And the guy in question doesn’t sit around all day, he volunteers in a leadership position that is almost the equivalent of a full-time job.

After the third time he made a reference to “people my age,” though, I did call him on it. He admitted that he’d assumed I was in my early 20s, and seemed a little embarrassed. Good. :wink:

Heh. I rent a townhouse – by myself – in a “family” neighborhood, and sometimes I wonder what my neighbors think when they meet me. I wonder if they keep expecting to see my mom come out of the house someday, or something. :smiley:

LOL!

My standard reply when someone is suprised to find out my age, especially if they seem embarrassed about being wrong, is “it’s ok, you should see the picture in my attic.” Some people don’t get it, but it’s worth using the line for the laughs when people do get it. :slight_smile:

19

I don’t get it…shouldn’t you be happy? When I’m 33 I hope I could look 20 something heck I am in High School now and if I had the exact same face at 30 something that I do now I’d be happy not pitting my situation. If you look to young grow some facial hair and you’ll be fine. I’d rather look way younger and have people call me a young person while I am an adult than to look way older and have everybody calling me sir and giving me senior citizen discounts.

20

No offense Start, but did you read any of the posts besides the opener before you posted? I’d think that this quoted section would clear up a lot of your questions in regard to Misnomer

Plus, she’s mentioned that she’s female, so growing a beard probably isn’t a viable option for her:).

To answer your questions from my own point of view, based on the way my older relatives look, I’ll always look younger than my real age. I will probably appreciate it more when I actually am middle-aged/old but there are no perks to looking, and being treated like an 11-13 year old when you’re 22. There are a lot of people out there that don’t treat kids with respect. It’s annoying to have to struggle to be taken at least semi-seriously when people who look their age are given it without having to do anything.

I don’t mind being carded. I don’t even mind when I go out with friends my age and am offered the children’s menu/price. I do mind when people in the public, workplace, or the place where I volunteer are rude and condescending because they think I’m a child. For the most part, they do change when they find out my real age though. Maybe I should get “I’m over the age of 18” tattooed on my forehead to save time. Of course, then I’ll only encounter the “you can’t fool me, there’s no way you’re old enough to do ____” folks.