When I confronted my boss about his apparent ageism, he argued that older people resist learning new tasks.
This is not an individual case, I've experienced some age bias here too. As for resisting learning, it's a total nonsense but they always have some lame excuse ready, don't they?
I was laid off at 63 with less than 3 years there. I was the top performer in my group and my immediate boss fought to keep me. Once I was gone, another manager called a staff meeting where he said “we need people who can keep up with new skills”. I trained myself on new technology and trained younger staff. I did consult an attorney because I nailed them on age discrimination, but he said to take the severance and forget about suing them as the jury award wouldn’t be much if I won. They’ve been in court numerous times over the years on age discrimination cases. What is needed is a big class action lawsuit to finish them off.
You’re on your own for education and improving your skillset. That’s the way it’s always been and the way that it will always be here, there or anywhere.
I know that I left with tons of Institutional knowledge of technology from four legally different engagements from 1989 to 2022. I’m well aware of critical technology details that only a handful of people understand. Not bragging, and not answering the phone either…
Ageism is one of the only tolerated systemic discriminations there are today.
So true! BNY does a horrible job offering courses on software that could be useful. You have to seek things out on your own. This leads to the perception that employees with longer tenure are stuck in the old ways and resistant to learning new things. Wrong! The wealth of experience, knowledge, problem-solving that many long timers have is irreplaceable. Replacing knowledge, dedication and a great work ethic with new folks, mostly off-shored, is a travesty and BNY should be ashamed of themselves. Or they should off-shore their own jobs and see how they like it.
In recent years, management has not hidden their bias that long-timers are lazy and complacent and those who will replace them will run laps around them.
So they push people out, hire the new stars, who, despite being given sufficiently more resources, support and latitude, are generally weaker and, in any case, tend to cycle out within a year or two.
It’s magical. They should write management books!
From my perspective, our company has a lot of folks that have been here for a very long time and have a ton of Institutional knowledge (going on 30 myself). We were taught the ins and outs of the business. The new way (and I don’t think it is unique to us) is to master some skills or data knowledge and use those to manage people.. I think experienced employees sometimes come off as defensive of newer thinking or methods (me too) because those things do not replace having that core knowledge. As people retire, leave for new opportunities, or sadly perhaps get riffed because of their perceived lack of cooperation, this company is really going to be in trouble. There are places and processes where this is already happening and the newer folks continue to try and work through things with brute force and insulting comments to those of us helping to keep the train on the tracks.
I hope you understand your contribution to the firm is important. It is not acceptable for people to exhibit ageism, but I am not sure we have an appropriate support system for those that might. HR exists in the form of a call center. Management has objectives that have little to do with taking care of people (forced ranking, insulting rewards, blinders on the corporate world wfh dealings, RTO mandatory except for new hires in other locations). Hang in there!
(And before someone tries to say I am not accepting of new ways, know I connect with people of all ages, mentor younger promising employees, and also strive to modernize everything I touch here).