Are you an elder?

In my old job yes. In my new one I’m still learning.

Yes. But most of the time it has nothing to do with relationship and feeling.

Well … even though I’m technically out of the “management loop” in our department, I often get called upon to write up the technical explanations of “why we did” or “why we didn’t” or “what happened, and when, and why, and how” because when others do it and I ask pointed questions about the word choices, sequences, grammar and syntax it gets dumped in my lap, anyway. My former boss nearly always had me review or completely write the tech papers from our group … the new boss is probably not going to count on my input quite so much, because I’m due to retire in a couple years, anyway.

And I also get called upon to do a lot of the estimating and number-crunching that we’re called on to do from time to time. I’ve written the estimating program / model that we use to create and justify estimates for projects that will last for years. Very expensive projects, too. Last week I got to create a one-day $12,000,000 “engineer’s estimate” that we’ll have to justify to management for a potential job in South America. Those are always fun. Fortunately, my boss put together the contractor’s side of that, which is more on the order of $60 million. I don’t like those so much.

Running out of people older than me so no.

Yes. It started when I was in my teens actually. I always tried to look at both sides of things when I was young. To give an example. My mom and I did not get along very often when I became a teen. Nothing unusual there. But when I would complain about how controlling she was or how she mistrusted my dates and I felt mistrusted me at times, I would find that I would defend her. On one hand, I felt she shouldn’t known exactly what kind of kid she raised. But then I would think that maybe it wasn’t that she mistrusted me but that she mistrusted those around me because I kept my friends private most of the time.

We also didn’t talk much so there was no way of her knowing in what direction was I changing. She probably felt that I didn’t trust her. Raising 5 kids and working a full time job is very time consuming so she didn’t have a lot of time to have one on one with any of us.

My father was very ill for several years during my teen years so that was an added burden.
So I guess people thought I was very mature for my age and could give an unbiased opinion. But unknown to them at the time, was that my moods varied. And I could be very sensible one moment and emotionally stupid the next. But I was never reckless. Not correction. I was going to let a boy break my arm once just because he wanted me to say uncle and I refused to let him win.
But I’m like @Cruiser now. I only get asked questions about health, or children by younger people. Those my age have either figured things out or simply don’t care.

Elder teacher. But not an elder in the elder sense. A paid teacher in the teacher sense. I am the elder of 95% of my students. About seven hundred students per year, one on one.

In some cases. Other times I find myself looking to others for wisdom and advise.

@Cruiser… I think you may be hazy on the concept. If there’s no one older than you in your environment, then by definition, you are an elder.

I hope this doesn’t come as too much of a shock. I hear that shocks can be damaging to us older folks.

No. I’m young and know nothing.

Yes. It’s just always been that way.

@CWOTUS I will change my answer to yes….I am an elder (but not elderly) and yes people do ask my advice all time….it is exhausting.

I would never suggest that you are elderly, you whippersnapper! (On the other hand, while I don’t consider myself elderly, either, I can’t really call myself middle-aged any more, either, unless I really expect to make it to 124…)

My company stopped hiring in 1983, then began hiring in 1997. At that point, I became a mentor to many of the FNG’s. It was amusing to work with people who literally knew nothing about what we did, or how to accomplish it.