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In this morning's "Reaching for More", older women working for younger bosses, for many baby boomers dealing with a much younger and sometimes less experienced supervisor, can be a very delicate balancing act.
One of the challenges that I have sometimes (is) sort of looking for younger bosses is,er, that we were just in different places with our careers; They're building and I'm, mmm, you know, I'm kind of wanna, beginning to look, to be,er,on the other side of things.
Since I'm like 20 years younger than them, they get(s) a little intimidated because I'm so much younger and I know more than they do.
Younger bosses could actually stop and listen to some of their older co-workers sometimes and benefit from them.
They bring to me the new technologies, the new way of thinking, the younger way of thinking, and um, I bring to them my ex... my life experience/ and my knowledge that's obviously older.
Peggy Northrop is the Editor-in-Chief of More Magazine, Peggy, good morning.
Morning.
Oh, you were as shocked as I was when that woman said "I know so much more than them". I'm 20 years younger and I know so much more~
But,but I've been there, I 've been there, haven't you? When you are young and you think,nobody can,can tell you anything, I do think that's a big source of tension in the work force.
I would think so, I would say so,er, is this, Peggy, the,the ultimate generation gap, do you think?
We are all gonna be there sooner or later. I mean there are twice as many baby boomers in the work force as there are the generation right behind us. We can't all be bosses, eventually this is gonna happen if we stand the work force.
Hmm, do you think woman have a harder time with this than man?
I think woman are a little bit more sensitive about their emotions,about stuff like this anyway, but also think about what women have gone through in the work force, especially the older generation, they had to work so hard to get where they are and so I think they sometimes look at the younger generation/ and say : Honey, you don't remember what it was like when I couldn't even talk about my family, when I was starting out, and here you are, you've got the room down the hall, the breast-feeding if you want, and it's a real, um, it's a real difference just in terms of what the expectations were.
Do you think it matters we, we, we heard in that, that piece of tape the woman who said I'm like 20 years younger, does, does the number matter if it's 20 years,er,your boss is 20 years younger or 5 years younger? Do you think that?
I think 5 years is pretty easy to, you know, you, you'll share a lot of the same cultural references, I mean you are pretty much in high school all of the same time,so uh, but the 20-year difference is a big gulf, I mean think about it you could be that person's parent, so you really had, it's a...it really is different generation.
And,and,and if we find ourselves in that situation I mean you have a couple of strategies that, that we should use, and what about this "don't be their parent"?
Right, right, I mean it, it's very easy to be patronizing or to er,use cultural references that, you know, you and all your friends get, but they are not gonna get, I mean they didn't grow up watching the Brady Bunch, er, so you can't really talk about that stuff around the water-cool/,you have to be careful about that, but you also,you wanna give the person a chance, I mean any boss you have to do that anyway, don't make an assumption that this person doesn't know anything, they probably have things to teach you and if they are your boss, you have to be supportive of them, you are all working toward/ the same thing, it's not like family therapy, where you all have to love each other, you are working toward this same goal.
... working together,yeah.Sounds like he, we, the older worker, would have to put maybe our ego on the back burner a little bit.
Yes, yes.
What if Peggy,you do all of these things and it just still is not working out. I mean, is that the time you go to look for another job and that's not easy when you are 40 plus years old.
That's not easy and, you know, a lot of us who are, who are older, are thinking about what our next act is going to be. So that is something that you might wanna be thinking about--changing careers. But I always think, you know, you have so much maturity if you've, if you've been working for 20-25 years. You have a lot of maturity to offer the person you are working for. So you can always go to them and say 'Look, we're all working for the same thing here,I am not interested in, I am not moving up in the way you are. How can I help you succeed? You know, I can help you look good. So how are we gonna do that together? I think..
And who would turn that down?
And I would, yeah, I would think that's a great strategy.
Yeah, that is a really good strategy. Peggy Northrop. It's a very interesting article.
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