There are few things which irritate and disappoint me more then someone who acts as if the world owes them something just for being themselves; those people who exert a sense of entitlement, frequently referenced as a negative trait of my generation.

I recently read a post which is a perfect example of this. The post is titled “Successful Old People Should Stop Being Selfish And Retire” and asserts that young people “can’t find jobs not only because this recession sucks, but also because old people are choosing not to retire…and now: they don’t want to give it all up after squandering away our environment and screwing up our market. So next time when you can’t find a job, don’t blame the minority for filling some quota (that is extremely rarely the reason why you don’t get hired), just go ahead and blame the people at the top.”

After reading that I had to sit back for a moment and consider what I had just read.  If I have trouble getting a job it is because some older person at the top (of the company) is refusing to retire.  It has nothing to do with me, its only because someone won’t retire.  Do people really believe this?

People do not get promoted within a company because there is simply an open, they also have to be qualified to handle the position and its responsibilities.  John Infante put it perfect when he commented, “If there’s a post where the fresh blood is being told that they have everything they need to be in that post, except an available post, then I see your point. Especially if it’s conceded that the old guard is able to do the work, but the younger workers in waiting could do it better. The company should be prepared to move that person aside.”

The author argues that older people are not retiring because they are a, “new generation of “old people” think they will never die due to modern advances in medicine. They are ambitious workaholics who are also too selfish and egocentric to step aside and believe that a younger person could do just a good of a job, if not a better one. They are the first generation who have received so much: peace, propsperity, and technology.

I may be incorrect, but I believe OUR GENERATION was described as, up until Sept. 11, as the first generation which has lived in peace, prosperity, and has experienced life only with technology.

In many instances upper level corporate employees will choose to stay on with the company when they could have retired because it is what is best for the company.  They postpone their retirement for the benefit of the company, which seems selfless to me.  If there is no qualified person to replace them, or the company opts to retain them during a transition period when their successor gradually takes over their duties.  If the person was that easily replaceable they would have been fired a long time ago.

If you showed this post to a group of people who have worked their way to their current positions I think they would share the sentiment that JRandom42 expressed in his comment, “You’re supposed to be the best and the brightest, given every chance, opportunity and edge that I never had. You just want me to hand over my success just because you think I should be put out to pasture? I’ll laugh in your face and tell you to grow up and quit whining like my 4 yr old granddaughter. You can have my success and the fruits of it when you pry it away from those I find worthy of it and choose to bestow it on.”

Pushing out older workers does not transform a company into some Utopia full of ‘fresh blood’; it creates a company of unexperienced workers.  Money can buy you an education and just about anything you could ever need but it cannot buy you experience.  Only time can provide you with the opportunity to gain experience, and experience doesn’t mean anything unless you embrace it.   Emily Hill hit on this point in her comment,  “Age and experience has its benefits. Once you stop seeing the older generation as the impediment to your success, maybe you’ll see it to. And figure out a way that you can benefit from it.” You can’t learn from experience unless you get off your soap box and embrace it.  These people who you are so quick to push out are the ones who formed the industry as it is today, the ones that put the foundation in the ground for companies to be what they are today, and the ones who are wrote about in your text books.  They are the ones that you need to be learning from, but you can’t do that until you admit that you can learn from them.  There is not a single successful older person who was working in the mail room one day and told their CEO that they could do the job better and was sitting as CEO the next day. They used opportunities they had to showcase their skills and to learn from the older more experienced employees.