A couple of weeks ago, I accidentally found out how old my
children really think I am.
Katie: Well girls, it’s official. I’ll no longer be sharing
an office with my coworker Mark.
Izzy: Super sad smiley face.
Katie: I know!
Cambri: Well, I’m happy about it.
Katie: Cam Cam!
Cambri: What? I was really getting nervous he was going to
spoil Star Wars for you.
Izzy: You can’t spoil a move that’s a century old, Cambri.
Katie: Whoa! Stop right there! You do realize a century old
and made during the last century are two completely different things?
Izzy: Huh?
Peeps, it’s official. I have two pre-teen girls who look at
me like I’m 100 years old. When they found out I’d lived the majority of my
life without the pleasure of an iPad, Isabelle asked how we used to read books.
All I could think was when did I become the old person of the family?
I was still feeling extremely fragile after this
conversation. Luckily, I was heading to work, where I’m surrounded by people
much older than I am, which always makes me feel better about myself. One of my
bosses is staring 50 right in the face and I take it as my personal
responsibility to remind him he really needs to enjoy his last year in his
forties before he gets, you know, really, really old.
Being the youngest person in the office suits me. It makes
dealing with the young people in my house so much easier. Things at work were
going great until they brought in the intern, which I’m convinced they did just
to spite me.
She young (barely 20 young), super cute and makes me want to
roll myself off the top of our building just to feel young and crazy again.
Mark: Hey Katie! Isn’t it ironic you aren’t the youngest
person in the office anymore?
Katie: Tell me about. Alanis Morissette needs to work me
into an updated version of her song.
Sarah (the Intern): Who’s Alanis Morissette?
Stop. It. Right. Now.
I immediately sent an email to my boss, Chad, asking how
we’re qualifying these people. Seriously, if you don’t remember the release of
Jagged Little Pill, you aren’t old enough to be in the workforce. In the case
of I.E. Productions, if you were born after the invention of the DVR and have
never seen a T.V. spot, you are too young to have a job where you work on
COMMERICALS. It’s safe to say our intern
has never known the pain of turning on TV late at night and only having
infomercials to pick from. I’m betting she doesn’t even know what an
infomercial is.
Unfortunately for me, my bosses Chad and Gary, had both just
had birthdays where I spent the entire party asking if they were still able to
feed themselves now that they are clearly in their Golden Years. It’s safe to
say they were less than sympathetic to my outrage with the intern. In fact,
something to the effect of “what goes around comes around” was being thrown in
my direction. As if it was my fault they are so old. But IT IS their fault they
agreed to mentor someone so young.
It’s probably time to accept that a new generation is up and
coming. But since I’ve never been good at accepting things I deem unpleasant,
I’ll probably just look for a new job. One where I’m the youngest by at least a
couple of decades. I wonder if Congress is hiring?
