Help! My Coworkers Treat Me Like I'm Over the Hill

Eddie hears from a reader who's fifty and fears his co-workers don't respect him because of his age. Is it time to put the young whippersnappers in their place?

Writing in the Globe and Mail, David Eddie hears from a reader who's fifty and fears his co-workers don't respect him because of his age.

The reader writes:

I’m in my mid-50s, but working in a young industry (the Interwebs). I dress fairly well, in a Brooks Brothers sort of way, so I don’t look like an old fart. But when people learn my actual age - I don’t try to hide it, nor do I advertise - they are shocked.

I’ve been in meetings where other managers have slagged a person as being useless and associating said uselessness with their age. I actually overheard a thirtysomething moaning about a fiftysomething being placed on her team, “Really, what am I going to do? You can't teach someone that old anything!” And you know I can’t let a comment like that go. I can keep up. My team’s work is widely praised. But sometimes when colleagues learn my age they squint at me as if they’re measuring me for a box. Suggestions for overcoming this ageism? I tried wearing a trucker hat sideways, but that hasn’t helped.

Eddie's advice:

Unfortunately, the type of ageism you describe is a 21st-century epidemic.

Weird things happen when you turn 50 these days. For one thing, you’re no longer part of TVs coveted 18-49 demographic. Suddenly you’re a “Grey Power” person.

You know those commercials? Crazy rageaholic lady drives along honking horn, screaming out her window at other drivers. Inside the “Grey Power” corporate bunker, a spokesperson watches through the window, then turns to the camera, shaking his head sadly: “There are a lot of bad drivers out there. But you’re not one of them. If you’re 50 or over, with a good driving record, you’re eligible for Grey Power.”

But 50 is far too soon for talk of “grey power,” IMHO. I’m a little younger than you - but in the same ballpark - and I still feel like a kid. A teenager! I'm just getting started in life!

It’s a shame the whippersnappers in your office pooh-pooh quinquagenarians so callously. Punks! Duogenarians and trentagenarians can be so rude and callow, sometimes.

My advice to you: Don’t listen to the haters, player. In 19th-century Russia, if her literature is to be believed, a man was considered to have entered his prime at age 50. And that’s in the 19th century, when they didn’t have spin classes or fruit smoothies and you were lucky even to live that long.

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