A Senior Citizen Surviving in a Young Generation Workplace

I’m asked on a regular basis, by my young coworkers, when I’m going to retire. This old grandma’s ideas about how things should, and shouldn’t be done, don’t always coincide with their ideas. My answer to that question is usually the same. I tell them I’ll retire when I win the lottery, or when I get fired.

My job is a cafeteria assistant in a large nursing home in the midwest, where I have lived most of my life. In the foodservice area where I work, approximately 50 individuals are employed. Their ages range from 16 to 70. The majority of them are under 40, and about half of those under the age of 40, are teenagers. Sometimes it can get tricky for the senior citizen generation to survive in this type of atmosphere. Needless to say, the work ethics of a 16 year old are a lot different then those of a 70 year old.

Cold coffee, served in a dirty mug, just doesn’t fly with this grandma. Neither does silverware with eggs from breakfast still on them. These are some of the issues I deal with it on a regular basis.

The teenage dishwasher is more concerned with what she’s going to do after she leaves her job, then weather the dishes are clean or not. She gets very irritated with the senior citizen constantly sending dishes and silverware back to be redone. There is no way she is going to get her job done on time if she has to redo everything, she tells the senior citizen. This is when two worlds can collide. What’s important to the younger generation is not the same thing that’s important to the older generation employee.

Cellphones, ipods, and the school prom are probably on the mind of the teenager. She is only their washing those dishes because she wants and needs those things. She can easily become distracted.

In order for the senior citizen to keep her sanity in this type of work environment, she needs to try and be patient and  set a good example herself.

I go home at days end and think if only you could be 60, before you’re 16. I was a teenager myself, long, long ago, and I survived.