Back when I was a bookseller, I didn’t understand the work ethic of my assistant manager.
Our workplace had opinions on how she worked and interacted with her staff. She wasn’t a horrible person to interact with, but I would always tell myself and those around me “if she was a bookseller, I think we’d all get along with her better. As the assistant manager though…” We all, to some extent, agreed on this statement.
We were all a pretty young group; we were the new generation of store managers and booksellers after a long reign of notable booksellers and managers. We were swarmed with faculty and administrators looking for the old store managers and hoping that they would “fulfill this request” like they would have in the past.
I was the oldest in our group of booksellers. I was 25; a year out of grad school just trying to get some work experience so that I was able to move forward with what I really wanted to do down the line: help students on the college level. Those around me were fresh out of college or just starting college, looking to get a job either on campus so that they were able to attend their classes before and after work, or those that lived within 15 minutes of the college. After me was my manager, who was 27 at the time that I started my job at the bookstore. To be 27 and run an entire campus bookstore? That took balls to do. Although she was young, she was professional and felt wiser beyond her age, and she was older than all of us so of course we showed some respect.
Our assistant manager came in during the first day of classes, or what was “rush” for us. “Rush” was the first week of classes that we were the busiest. We all thought she was just another bookseller being added to our team, until we were told she was our assistant manager.
Later in the months to come, we found out that she was just 20 years old, making her the second youngest amongst us all.
Back then, I didn’t understand why she worked the way she did. I didn’t understand how someone knew what they were talking about, but had a hard time communicating that to us. I didn’t understand why she managed us so drastically different than how our store manager did.
I didn’t understand how someone that was one of the youngest in our workplace even have enough experience to get into a managerial-level position until I did.
Hi, my name is Liz, and I am the youngest person in my office in a managerial-level position with only 2 years of experience under my belt.
I sometimes wonder if my old assistant manager felt this constant pressure of being older in the workplace. You should dress like this and you should talk like that and you should present yourself in a way where you look like you know what you’re talking about. You think that you have to act like you’re older because you had an encounter where a student thought you were a student and didn’t believe anything you were saying to them. You think that you have to change your language and code-switch to a more professional-sounding voice; using “I am following up with an inquiry you addressed per your last email” instead of “I’m reaching out about that request you sent in your last email.” You think that you have to be this person that is older beyond your years, without realizing that your youth brings something special and new to the table.
Instead, you are slammed by faculty, administrators, and former students whose age is way past the mid-life crisis phase for sounding “too young”, therefore “not knowing what I’m talking about”. You start to wonder if you’re even worth of the position you’re in because of these various factors. You develop some extreme imposter syndrome, deeming anyone and everyone who’s older and wiser than you a better fit.
In higher education, I’ve learned that these things I’m feeling are very apparent and visible to those who experience it. Those who work in it work in the field until retirement. They make connections with each other in different departments, trusting each other with their work and are constantly doing favors for one another due to the fact that they worked together on making a situation right. Being new and young in higher education makes it hard to gain that with other people, and people are not willing to trust newcomers that they don’t know or haven’t ever heard of before.
They deem you as new, they deem you as entry level, and they deem you as incompetent of sharing information and being correct about that information. She’s young; she can’t possibly know what I’m talking about. I’ll ask *insert someone older than me* instead. Being young in a workplace that has notably older than your generation makes you feel all the things you think others are projecting onto you: you’re too young to be in the position you’re in, so you have to constantly prove yourself.
Prove that you’re knowledgeable, wise, and competent, while trying to maintain your youth.
At my desk in my very-big-girl-job are stuffed animals that once lived in my room growing up, and crochet chicks that I did over the winter break. I have two Care Bear plushies with my cats pictures on them. I had a Kpop themed 2023 calendar, and still have Victon’s Seungsik calendar on my desk. I currently have Valentine’s day hearts hanging from the rim of my desk. I am known to unapologetically be myself in a setting that can suck the fun out of things. In everyday life, I am the things I place on my desk; bright, colorful, and festive, so why must I dim my light to fit the standards of working in a professional setting? Why can’t we be ourselves and be professional? Why can’t we be wise, smart, professional and young? Why must I sacrifice my youth when in all reality, my generation of professionals are going to be the ones running the same offices in 10, 20 years from now? Why can’t we use our youth as a way to relate to our students; to make them understand that we are not all ancient and dusty and detached from reality?
Why must I feel like the only reason I experience impostor syndrome isn’t because I think I don’t do my job well or don’t know what I’m doing in this position, but because of my age? When are we going to stop believing that we aren’t worthy of our place in professional settings because of our age? I know that this feeling will pass one day. I know that I will one day feel like I’m worthy of my place in my career as I grow more into this role. I know down the line, I will see people even younger than me in positions like my own, and I hope to one day meet them and ask them if they feel the same way as I do.
Nothing that I do professionally is ever conventional. In a field of scholars with PhDs and accolades under their belts, I was able to publish my first ever article in an academic journal at the age of 27; something only those with experience and education do and be taken seriously. This time around, I am in a position that most people tend to have later in their 30s/early 40s. I guess this is just something that I do.
And maybe, that just says something about me and my work ethic.
Letters From Liz. 