The stupidity of ageism

Firing our parents and other truths

In a clip from the TV series, The Bear, the brother is interviewing a tired, black woman for a job. She’s been on her feet all day being turned down for restaurant after restaurant. By the time she hits this place, she breaks down and vents:

Fired after 15 years, she both envies and hates the younger, hungry cooks taking her place. Now she’ll do anything to pay the bills. She doesn’t need the vision, the inspiration, or the hero worship. “I just want to feed my kid, you know?…Give me a routine, I’m in.”

It’s fiction, but it’s not.

One-by-one I’ve had colleagues share their concerns about ageism with me. After twenty or thirty years of experience, all of a sudden employers aren’t interested in them. The candidates remove grad years and early jobs from their resumes, but it’s still harder to get interviews. They feel demeaned with questions about their interests, energies, and alliances. Told they aren’t right for senior roles, they are also denied for junior roles as too experienced. What was previously an asset, now a liability.

It’s rarely stated as an age issue, of course, because THAT’S ILLEGAL. Job descriptions are often scrubbed by lawyers for offending language, and Equal Opportunity Employer language added by default. But still, we’ve heard it everywhere with phrases like:

• we need people who bring “high energy”

• we believe in “hustle culture”; we “work hard and play hard”

• we want people who are "fanatical about the product" and “hungry”

• we need “fierceness”, “urgency”, a “bias towards action”

• “perfect for new grads” or “freshers”

Underneath these pretty words, there’s a blunter truth:

We want young people who will throw themselves bodily into anything we tell them because they don’t know better. No wisdom preferred.

Honestly I just needed to add this for a social media image. Pretty though, right?