Everybody gets old eventually, but sometimes our age creeps up on us unexpectedly and we’re surprised at how much things have changed. Many people talk about how the younger generation doesn’t know what a VHS is, doesn’t recognize famous old-school bands, or was just born in the 2000s. And even more people feel old after interacting with younger folks, from their new slang terms to their still fresh and hopeful outlook towards life.
This online user focused mainly on the workplace and asked people to share how their younger coworkers made them feel old. A bunch of users delivered entertaining stories that might even leave you feeling old and confused.
#1
When i fell down the last couple of steps on a stairway. No one pointed and laughed like I expected, instead they helped me up and asked me if I was okay. That’s when I knew.
Image source: day_of_duke, Alessia Cocconi
#2
When they absolutely love a “new” song and then I tell them it’s a re-make of a song from 25 years ago. They almost always try to tell me I’m wrong, until I pull up the evidence and then it’s shocked Pikachu face lol.
Image source: _sam_fox_, Henry Be
#3
had an intern refer to the 90s as ‘the late 1900s’
wtf. its true, but it makes my teenage years sound like the oregon trail or something
Image source: eusapian, Dale de Vera
#4
My childhood cat lived to 21.5 so teaching (freshman biology lab, so students were ~18) became very weird when I realized my cat was older than my students
Image source: mollusck_magic, Roberto Huczek
#5
Saying Go Go Gadget Arms to a table when reaching for items and getting blank stares in return.
Ok listen kids, you have no idea how funny this is. Lol.
Image source: DaisyDuncan2531
#6
I’m a (female) computer geek. I was running cables with this guy at work one night, and he kept trying to keep me out of the actual work part. I finally told him ‘I’ve been doing this since before you were born!’
That was about 25 years ago, and as of right now, I’ve been working in the computer field for 44 years.
Image source: INobodyisme, Sigmund
#7
Had a co-worker ask me, “Back before cell phones, did you just have to wait around at your house for a call?” Uh, yeah, pretty much.
Image source: Status-Effort-9380, Kelli McClintock
#8
They were complaining how hard and awkward it is to meet women on Tinder. I asked if they ever had to call a girl at home and her Dad answered the phone. They were horrified.
Another time one of my guys asked what a payphone was. We worked at a phone company.
Image source: Zelcron, Christian Lue
#9
Various colleagues were debating whether the Concorde had been real. They couldn’t fathom that supersonic civilian aircraft used to exist and now they don’t anymore.
The Concorde last flew in 2003, when these colleagues were toddlers.
Image source: geckos_are_weirdos, Gabriel Goncalves
#10
In trade school, we were doing introductions, saying a little bit about ourselves. One kid says “yeah, I’m really into classic cars, I have a 1997 *something or another*. Me, the other couple older folks, and the instructors all made audible groans of horror.
Image source: IndustrialPigmy, Ash Edmonds
#11
Getting a blank stare after saying we’d meet, “Same bat-time, same bat-channel.”
Image source: AvogadrosMoleSauce, Mimi Thian
#12
Went grocery shopping and I thought, “Hey, they’re playing some pretty good music.”
Image source: wocketywack, Brittani Burns
#13
Software engineering manager here. I have team members that have never seen Lord of the Rings.
Image source: meyerjaw, Nikhil Prasad
#14
I was talking to a coworker about movies and our favorites. I said something like “I watched that movie so much when I had it on tape in my college years”
Her: Tape?
Me: You know, on VCR?
Her: VCR?
Me: Oh well I guess those are old now. Everything is on DVD now.
Her: DVD?
Me: I guess those are old too. I guess Blu-ray is what’s on disc now.
Her: Disc?
Me: Nevemind
She was half joking but nonetheless it made me feel old.
Image source: watabby, JC Gellidon
#15
They started calling me “mom” or “Mama bear” on the walkie-talkies. I find it kind of endearing, actually.
Image source: WhoaThere87, Pradamas Gifarry
#16
When a younger female said she was going to come by “with some incredible tea.” I was profoundly confused and disappointed when she showed up to my office without a calming elixir of the gods and instead proceeded to talk s**t about our co worker.
Image source: JBean85, Content Pixie
#17
For me, it’s listening to a much younger group of girls complain about the guys they are hung up on. They are beautiful and young and have aspiring careers and they’ll tell me a story of what a guy did on a date and they’re like “I don’t know what to do!!” And I’m just sitting there like, “are you kidding me? Tell him to go f**k himself and find someone else who values and respects you?” I’m in my 40s now I don’t take s**t any more and my current boyfriend treats me like a queen. I’m always telling them to accept nothing less than absolute princess treatment from a guy. They never listen though.
Image source: anon
#18
I’m in IT. Co-worker needed to borrow a serial cable. The cable was older than the co-worker.
Image source: AMoreExcitingName, Karolina Grabowska
#19
I’m a preschool teacher. It’s been a TRIP to watch parents go from Soooo much older than me, to the same age as me, and now they’re younger than me!?!?
Image source: Smart_Alex, Gabe Pierce
#20
Left a note for a new hire to call IT to help him set up his work phone and he couldn’t read cursive. Asked me what language I wrote the note in.
Image source: Vast-Celebration-717
#21
When I was talking to this new delivery driver and we realized I had delivered pizza to his mother in the hospital on the day he was born.
Image source: Divayth–Fyr
#22
Younger dude said his first gaming console was the PlayStation 4, first computer ran windows 8, and had no idea what we meant by dial up or rotary phones. Had to stop and reevaluate my age lol.
Image source: happilystoned42069, Kamil S
#23
(coworker) hey, a few of us are going out Friday night, wanna come?
(me) sure
(cw) great! Meet at my place at 11.
(me) wait, 11pm?…ok (to myself) that’s when I was planning on going to bed
Image source: idiotsarray, Jp Valery
#24
Our payroll company went under (luckily not with our money), so for that month, we got real live, honest-to-goodness paper checks. Several co-workers didn’t really know what they were or how they could turn them into money.
Image source: Ambitious-Eye975, Money Knack, www.moneyknack.com
#25
This effing toddler “software developer” had the freaking nerve to tell me that Windows 95 was released BEFORE HE WAS BORN. I was like, no dude, it was just a few years ago. I asked him how old he was. He tells me he’s 26, just finished his masters. He must be thinking of DOS 6 or around there.
Yup. He was born after Windows ’95 was released.
Image source: frank-sarno
#26
One of my coworkers said their parents got them into Nirvana and Soundgarden because “that’s what they listened to in highschool.” I think I went into a fugue state for a minute with that one. But I still maintain that I am not old, and that 1997 was a few years ago.
Image source: MagniPunk
#27
Not me but a friend named Jessica (my name is also Jessica) said she was working with a young woman also named Jessica who said “oh wow I’ve never met someone with my same name!” She was 22. If you grew up in the 90s there were so many Jessicas.
Image source: pun__intended
#28
When I couldn’t decipher the two youngest coworkers parts of the conversation. I had to search what some words meant.
Image source: Quantum_Yeet, Mimi Thian
#29
I work at a brewery part-time as a beertender (aka bartender) for extra income and free beer. I’m 45, and most of them are in their early 20s. I like all of them, but boy, did I realize quickly that I was out of touch with today’s slang in the US! We were trying a new beer, and my coworker was like, “Damn, this really slaps,” and that was followed by “no cap” by another. I stood there so confused about what these guys just said. They have all taught me much more since😆
Image source: StopTouchingThings, Amie Johnson
#30
Years ago, before I retired, when I met a new young troop and realized I’d been in the military longer than they had been alive…
Image source: PirateKilt, Diego González
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