Facing Sunsets

Today I had an epiphany.  Getting old sucks. 

Now, I don't think of myself as old.  I mean, sure its questionable to appreciate the fit of a college baseball player's uniform at 33, but I can still wear cute mildly offensive t's as long as they are fabulously retro.

Lawrence had a fortune cookie that said "old will always be 20 years older than you are", but what happens when you near retirement and the whippersnappers move into management and don't appreciate your extensive personal relationships with the clients or your tried and true methods.  How are you supposed to feel when 'new blood' is brought in to make things run more efficiently and you are passed over for promotions by younger, more tech savvy applicants?  What do you do when your years of experience are now the anchor around your neck and 'close to retirement' is a bad thing?

You bitch, moan and bad mouth everyone younger than you in the organization as being shortsided and bound to cripple and destroy the place you sacrificed your life to build.  Then you get your equally experienced friends to bitch, moan, and badmouth with you and sigh loudly to anyone in a 20 foot radius about how the system is mistreating you and making a big mistake.  Or, at least that's what they do at my office.

I hope that when it is my time to step away from the workplace, even if I love my job and can't imagine who I am or what I'll do without it, I will have the grace to proficiently train the replacement they hired at double my salary and walk away without letting it become a 'bad situation'.  Please don't let me call people into my office (or even worse, invade theirs!) to discuss why I feel betrayed and how I am going to get my papers together and leave, the hell with the new person.

Just as I hope someone will have the courtesy and love to shoot me dead if I ever top 250 lbs, you have permission to haul me out of the office and handcuff me to an RV bound for Pheonix if I ever get all 'poor me, these young kids don't know what their doing' when the world has clearly passed me by.