Genuinely don't know if IABU here so I would be grateful for some opinions.
I started a new job last year. It's a great job and I enjoy it, however I've had to take a step back in seniority - I took a few years out when my kids were small and during that time my specialised industry shrank to nothing, meaning I had to move industry. If I am honest I do have a bit of a chip on my shoulder about that but I try to get on with it. And I do genuinely enjoy my job and the company.
The average age of my department is very young. The majority of my colleagues are more than a decade younger than me, but most of the time we don't notice the age difference and we get along well. It's just a few little comments that have started to get to me. I'll try to give a few examples.
I was talking about a popular song. It is from the late 80's but still played on the radio and TV a lot now. A couple of the younger women had never heard of it, and made comments like "How would I have heard of it, I was a baby". Er, I have heard of songs from the 60's and I wasn't born then either!
Then another time I was making an observation that there was nobody over 45 in our department, and I made a joke about getting shipped off to the glue factory... one of my colleagues suggested seriously that perhaps the pressure gets too much at that age and they have to slow down in their career. This is not a high pressure job by any stretch.
Another example is we were talking about how to deal with a situation, and I made the comment that "you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar". I was met with blank stares. When I acted surprised that nobody had heard of that expression, it was suggested that perhaps it was a "generational" thing. I am 12 years older than the person who said that, FFS! Then another chipped in and said, oh we can swap, you can teach me old sayings and I can teach you young words like bae. Because obviously anyone over 40 doesn't watch TV or use social media.
So am I being oversensitive and AIBU to let this get to me?
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AIBU?
About casual ageism at work
17 replies
Fezzik · 06/07/2016 11:46
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