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Original poster

86 year old Secretary sacked

260 replies

furryjammies · 06/02/2019 20:39

There is an article in the DF today about a now 88 year old woman who sacked from her NHS Secretary job for I think fairly spurious reasons at the age of 86. She has won her case for unfair dismissal. Do you think there should be a cut off point for retirement or should you be able to work as long as you want? She wanted to work until 90.

OP posts:
kateandme · 06/02/2019 21:26

I know this is a totally random thought but if we made people retire at a certain age we wouldn't have no pat butcher.kenbarlow or peggy mittchel!

lljkk · 06/02/2019 21:26

If people don't work past "retirement age" then the under-retirement age people have to pay higher taxes to pay for the pensions of the retired. It benefits the young for the older folk to work longer.

Unemployment is an economic structural problem, not demographic structure problem.

Fig me. I want to work until 75yo, but 86 is some innings. Long live RBG of course.

86 year old Secretary sacked
feellikeanalien · 06/02/2019 21:27

I had a secretary who was also the office receptionist and was in her late 70s.
She carried on working because she was a widow with no family and enjoyed coming to work for the company.

She definitely was not as efficient as she used to be. Eventually she retired (very reluctantly) at 80 and then went on to get a job in the local bakery!

Janethevirgo · 06/02/2019 21:28

I too will probably be working until I drop. I’ve made some really poor choices in life and i don’t ever envisage a retirement

eurochick · 06/02/2019 21:29

Law firms often have a compulsory retirement age for partners. Ours is 65.

Niccelia · 06/02/2019 21:30

It's small things like a refusal to use the IT self service portal to report a fault (takes 60 seconds) and preferring to call and wait for someone to answer for 20 mins as they find it easier.

Keeping a waiting list of patients in paper form is just NOT acceptable. Yes it is what was done in years gone by but it's just not ok these days. Especially if your job is a patient pathway co-ordinator.

We had an older admin person who was printing referrals off on paper and processing them from there. Then she went on annual leave and we had patients breeching the 2 week wait as as far as the software was concerned they had been dealt with. You can't just go rogue.

Original poster
furryjammies · 06/02/2019 21:31

Niccelia same here - I get to do the jobs those older can't grasp- it can get a bit annoying. All I get is "I really need to get into that" - well stop fecking asking me to do it for you and try yourself!

OP posts:
Bittermints · 06/02/2019 21:32

Yes, but surely that gets dealt with as a competence issue, just as it would if the person ignoring proper procedures was 20?

Original poster
furryjammies · 06/02/2019 21:33

eurochick don't know where you are but definitely not in Scotland - apparently some guy has just retired at 95! I keep thinking of Young Mr Grayson on Are You Being Served (showing my age!)

OP posts:
Wallywobbles · 06/02/2019 21:34

A physicist college of DH retired today at 78.

Rockbird · 06/02/2019 21:35

My colleague is 90. She has more get up and go than the rest of us put together and she's been at the same place for 40 years. I'd like to see someone tell her she has to retire!

Schmoobarb · 06/02/2019 21:35

I think there should be a cut off, at legal retirement age. I'm in HR and private sector contracts I've worked with this all say you'll retire from your position at the age of X

If you worked in HR you’d know that the compulsory retirement provisions were abolished years ago.

I have mixed feeling. On one hand many people still rely on income from work to live on. I’m not sure it’s fair to call someone “selfish” because they won’t give up a job they can still do well just to let a younger person have it. On the other hand it is a fact that people just wear out as they get older and some older people just can no longer do the job they were employed for to an acceptable standard and refuse to accept this, which can lead to a potentially difficult capability process for both employer and employee - much more straightforward to simply have been able to issue notice of retirement

WhatFreshHellisCis · 06/02/2019 21:35

If that person works in HR then render me shocked. Wow.

Niccelia · 06/02/2019 21:37

@bittermints, the lady in the article was keeping a waiting list in paper form...it is a competency issue and she was sacked for it. I would take a guess that it was the last in a long list of small things which had built up.

I wouldn't take the opinion of the surgeon into account either. I would be asking the other admin people who work in the office with her. We have very competent clinical staff, but I wouldn't ask them to photocopy a letter unless I really had to!

BathshebaKnickerStickers · 06/02/2019 21:37

My mum knows a lady in her 90s who works in catering at our local university (5 mins from her house).

Every time she mentions her I replay the Victoria Wood 2 Soups sketch

SiliconHeaven · 06/02/2019 21:40

My accountant is in his late 80s. To be fair he only works 2 days a week now but he’s excellent at his job still.

SerenDippitty · 06/02/2019 21:42

No, some people don't suit retirement.
I'll never forget my Dad telling me of the men who'd retired from his office and their life expectancy no being long after retirement.
It wasn't to do with health but losing the will when given free time and not being able to manage it.

Surely that was their own fault for not cultivating outside interests. No one is just their job.

Bittermints · 06/02/2019 21:43

Yes, that doesn't sound good. She may well not have been properly trained or managed, but equally she may have struggled with new software. We don't know.

People age at such different rates. I knew an academic in his mid 70s who cycled to work every day, several miles, ending with a steep hill. He was as sharp as a pin and relished getting to grips with new technology. Retired with great reluctance at his wife's behest. I wonder how he's getting on now.

BowBeau · 06/02/2019 21:52

People do realise that the UK has record low unemployment and anyone who wants a job could almost certainly get one

Being able to get A Job isn’t the same as being able to get a decent job though. An 80yo solicitor is hogging a job that could be filled by a graduate who will end up working at Tesco instead. Much better for the 80yo to retire so the graduate can develop a proper career.

KrazyKatlady · 06/02/2019 21:53

I read in metro last week about an HGV driver who is 83 and still working. He said something like if I was at home I would probably just sleep....which I found slightly strange and IMO not inspiring confidence of his mental alertness to drive a truck!

Playmysong · 06/02/2019 21:53

How do you deal with this in the NHS?
If you allow secretaries to work till they are 90, then nurses and health care assistants as well as other disciplines have to be allowed to as well.
I suspect that most 86 year old secretaries would be struggling to carry out their duties, however theirs is not a physical job in the sense a nurse’s is.
When my husband was rushed into hospital with a GI bleed, the nurse in the Admissions Unit refused to check the blood, for his transfusion, as she said she had been working for 11 hours and she was too tired to do so (she still had an hour and a half of her shift still to go)! This was a nurse in her late 40’s so can you imagine an 80 odd year old nurse coping with this, or hoisting 8 large disabled patients into bed in just over an hour?
Where I worked as a registered nurse, we all hated being on shift with some older nurses who couldn’t keep up with the pace, and they were only in their 60’s. I can assure you this was with good reason as you had to take up the slack. Can you imagine what it would have been like with someone in their 80’s?
It is bad enough being expected to work till 67.
Sorry if you think I am being ageist but the time comes when older staff can become a liability, in the sense of their physical (and sometimes mental) abilities.

ICouldBeSomebodyYouKnow · 06/02/2019 21:54

an 86 y/o would be unlikely to be a wizz on Excel, or other technology

Why? Excel has been around since 1985. She'd have been only 52. I was taught computer programming in the early 1980s by people 20 years older than me. These folk will now be early-to-mid-80s in age.

Get thee hence with they ageism!!

UterusUterusGhali · 06/02/2019 21:54

It'll soon enough be the norm, particularly for renters. What are they going to do when they need to rent privately as HB is capped and lots of landlords won't/can't take people in benefits.

It's going to be a car crash.

ICouldBeSomebodyYouKnow · 06/02/2019 21:56

*thy

It's small things like a refusal to use the IT self service portal to report a fault (takes 60 seconds) and preferring to call and wait for someone to answer for 20 mins as they find it easier.

I had a colleague who did that. She was mid-40s. Nothing to do with age. She just thought she was too important to use the portal!

WalkingDAway · 06/02/2019 21:57

@Playmysong, its like anything...what do you do with the staff members who become to overweight to do their jobs.

I would not like to be on the dying end of the morbidly obese doctor 'running' to resus which I witnessed a few months ago.

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