To find it very hard to deal with a very young senior manager?

[ForBoldMintBear]

I’m 36 and I’m a general manager of a restaurant that is also part of a large chain. A few months ago we got a new area manager who is only 22! I just find him very hard to deal with because he is so young and in my opinion lacks experience. I’ve never known an area manager to be as young as he is either. I find him very difficult to deal with because he is so young. He also won’t take on board any suggestions or advice and he thinks he knows it all, including when I know that some of what he wants to do won’t work for the restaurant and that it will make things worse! AIBU to find it so hard to deal with an area manager who is this young? I don’t even know how he got the job when he is only 22.

I get this quite a bit at my job (graduate scheme and apprenticeships) and I think the best way to deal with it is to nod, smile, and let them make mistakes. And they will. I've had some with terrible ideas or are full of wanky corporate speak. It's the interpersonal skills they lack experience with, how to speak to dinosaurs with 25 experience like me who have seen it all. These young people have a lot of enthusiasm and are bigged up by their mentors only to see the frontline is very different and they soon change their perspective quite a bit. Time will tell, OP.

He is your senior so of course you shouldn’t be trying to tell him what to do!! Did you apply for the job?

We get quite a few very young senior managers in the NHS coming in via the graduate training scheme with absolutely no clue about anything clinical and just see everything in terms of time, occupancy and throughput.
They aren't the ones staying after hours as a clinic has overrun because a frail, non English speaking patient has taken longer than their allotted ten mins to be seen or a treatment has taken longer because a patient has had a medical reaction.
They are the ones who have buggered off at 5pm as they have "finished" or are sitting in their luxury offices a kilometre away from a patient.

Op I work in a completely different sector, but I know what you're saying. In my experience when someone that doesn't have the requisite maturity for a role, it all comes out in the wash at some point and they're not in the role for very long. In the meantime I'd let him be. Someone somewhere saw something in him that they thought made him the best fit. They might be changing approach in what skills and attributes they are hiring for in the role and I'm guessing you wouldn't be in a position where the hiring manager would have told you that. So you do have to suck it up. It is incredibly frustrating. Vent at your work best friend / when you get home to your family but otherwise take it all on face value, do the job and I'm pretty sure, if what you're saying is true, he will be moved on at some point anyway.

Side note - I was also a very young manager at 22 running a department of much older people, I don't think it's age so much as mindset. I was very successful but I know it bothered my team.

It’s you who’s the problem.

@ForBoldMintBear I've been in a very similar situation and did all the sceptical ranting that you are doing now. I'm not in your industry, but I do work for a very "operational" organisation. The lack of life and operational experience, technical knowledge and maturity of our new manager quickly became apparent, and gave me the trigger to apply fur more senior roles to get me out of her way, for when things went wrong. Which they did.

Five years on I am 2 grades higher, in a role that perfectly suits my skills, knowledge and experience, and I spend no time at all worrying about other people's.

It’s a you problem.
If you can do it better why an earth didn’t you apply for the job?

You seem to know an awful lot about him to know he definitely doesn't have experience and isn't fast tracked etc

But then also a lot of it is "your opinion"

Maybe he finds you hard to work with because you question every single thing he does?

Malicious compliance OP.

Make sure all his demands and instructions are in writing.

Follow them to the letter.

Have fun.

@ClianTheLang what's so funny?

Presumably, the clinical situation you describe is not part of their job?

How juvenile.

leave or get in with it
do as you are told and don’t argue with him

So bully him for no reason?

It's not about bullying, but more about making sure his mistakes don't come back on OP.

I was that young manager & it was so challenging being patronised by people who were older & in roles less senior. Presumably they got the role because they are capable & have shown this. You may not think their ideas will work but no need to make it about age. Treat them as you would a colleague of any age.

'Presumably' is doing a lot of heavy lifting there.

Quite. I envy the optimism in this thread.

Your management obviously thinks more highly of him. I was a very young senior corporate finance director - I got the position on merit - my age was irrelevant. You need to move on from focusing on his age.

Lots of these suggestions are ridiculous tbh

"Constantly question his every decision"

It's not a good look

This. You've been on the job years and not made manager despite knowing what works....hmm.

What is the problem with at least trying the ideas? If you have logical, legit problems he'll hear them and think 'oh yeah!'. If theyre just bitter bullshit while you do cats bum mouth because you dont like change get out of his way.

Grreeaaattt, create a toxic environment for no reason, so fun!

It does sort of sound like you want him to be bad at his job because you resent the fact he's younger and more senior than you, OP. Maybe the specific skills and experience he has makes him suited to the role, even if they're not as many years of experience as people in that job normally have.

I had the a similar experience on a job last year where I wasn't even managing anyone, but was supposed to be on an equal footing with two women 30 years older than me. They had much more experience in a related field, and had gained a relevant but not mandatory qualification before entering the industry, which I don't have, but I had more experience of the specific job we were doing, and have always been told I'm excellent at it. Despite this, I was constantly undermined and told I was doing things wrong, until I finally snapped at one of them and then was accused of being "immature". It felt like they wanted me to fail and it was horrible when they eventually pushed me to. Don't be that person.