is it ageist to tell an older team member they’re wrong?

by Alison Green on September 18, 2024

A reader writes:

When our company went 100% online work, my team and I helped set up 35 employees with hardware in their homes. The department we support is mostly people in their late 20s-early 30s. Two employees, Archie and Edith, both have bad attitudes and break their hardware a lot. I would say a good portion of my staff’s time is spent replacing Archie’s screen for the third time this month or fixing a virus that Edith has spread to the entire department. Don’t get me started on what they do to phones, tablets, and laptops.

I was just notified by our HR officer that both Edith and Archie have filed complaints about one of my staff members because she politely explained a process in a step-by-step email and used the words “that’s not accurate” and the “correct way.” Both Archie and Edith felt that they were being discriminated against and mocked because they’re older than the rest of the team. I read the email and that is 100% not what happened. After they filed their complaint, they sent harassing and abusive texts to my staff member.

They want me to reprimand my team member and sent an email that we all have to complete a sensitivity training and said we can’t use the words “right, accurate, wrong, or incorrect or any version thereof, as some team members find the terms offensive and disrespectful in regards to their age.” I asked them to clarify and HR responded, “Don’t tell anyone older than you they’re wrong, it’s rude and hostile.”

I’m not willing to (1) reprimand my staff for explaining and fixing an error that could have cost our company a lot of money, or (2) let people bully my staff.

I answer this question — and two others — over at Inc. today, where I’m revisiting letters that have been buried in the archives here from years ago (and sometimes updating/expanding my answers to them). You can read it here.

Other questions I’m answering there today include:

  • How can we give job applicants an easy way to ask for interview accommodations?
  • Will my lack of poker face stop me from being promoted?
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{ 363 comments }

{ 363 comments… read them below }

  1. bamcheeks*

    Aww, my grandparents’ names. And not coincidentally, also the names of approximately four children in my kid’s class.

      1. Anon for Now*

        That would be All in the Family (Archie and Edith Bunker) and I’m also surprised people in their 30s are aware of it. It’s considered so politically incorrect now that I thought it was thoroughly frowned upon. I don’t think it’s been in reruns for decades. (I’m always shocked when I see photos of Carroll O’Connor and Jean Stapleton as those characters because they’re younger than I am now but look older that me and my peers.)

          1. I went to school with only 1 Jennifer*

            I’m willing to bet money that those names were used because the writers’ grandparents watched All In The Family. It was a really really big deal back in the early 70’s.

              1. e271828*

                Edith Bunker would forward every Mrs. Fields Cookie Recipe thing she received, to everyone, with reply-all on, just to be friendly. “It’s a good recipe!” she’d say happily, hunting for the send button.

              1. porridge fan*

                Doesn’t matter when it started. If the show was part of the cultural fabric of the ’70s,

                and the writers are familiar with it because their family watched in the ’70s,

                it’s reasonable for the writers to have picked up those names from a show that was broadcast in the 70s.

              2. BatManDan*

                Hit me with a screenshot of a character in the Archie comics named Edith, please. I read them for a decade, and don’t remember one with that name.

          2. Charlotte Lucas*

            It’s also from the Archie comic, so pretty cross-generational. (Because of the way the names are paired, I assumed it was a reference to All in the Family – a show my mother hated, because she didn’t think people got the satire.)

        2. Donkey Hotey*

          Ummm… At the risk of going to far afield, All in the Family is only “politically incorrect” for people who don’t realize it’s satire. See also: Watchmen, The Boys, Colbert Report, Green Day, etc.

          1. Fluffy Orange Menace*

            I came to say the same. All in the Family wasn’t politically incorrect in so much as it pointed out the hypocrisy and bigotry around them and was very pointedly subversive for its time.

            1. goddessoftransitory*

              The first time I ever, ever saw a trans character (back then referred to as “Transvestite” or a male to female cross dresser) was on All in the Family: her name was Beverly. She was good friends with Edith. It was a very sad, memorable episode.

        3. Dasein9 (he/him)*

          This is a great example of how generational context changes perceptions. All in the Family was written to be anti-racist and anti-sexist and was perceived that way when it aired. The point was to show the absurdity of common patterns of thinking by making fun of the bigot in a way that didn’t demonize him. But, yeah, I think it comes across very differently now.

          1. Worldwalker*

            It doesn’t help that so many people didn’t get the satire. There are far too many people who only got “oh, it’s okay to think/act like I do. That guy on TV does it!”

            Aside from the alt-right and some voters who would see it as supporting their worldview, remember we live in a world where you sometimes have to explain dad jokes to people who just don’t get them. We’re talking the kind of jokes you find on your bathroom Dixie cups. (do those still come with jokes on them?) I have given up believing that anything less subtle than a fart joke will pass by some people, and I’m not even sure about those.

          2. Rachel*

            That was indeed the intent, but that doesn’t mean everyone saw it like that even at the time. My own grandfather loathed it–he hated that there was a major sitcom centering on a bigot, whether or not the point was supposed to be how ridiculous the bigot was.

          3. MichLaw*

            Also, the show has been airing over both free TV and cable in syndication for decades so I’m not surprised that younger generations know the show.

          4. londonedit*

            Also I’m in the UK and have never heard of it. Edith and Archie are popular names for babies these days, simply because there’s more of a trend for ‘old-fashioned’ names that our grandparents might have had. There are loads of Arthurs and Archies and Ediths and Violets in primary schools across the country.

            1. Nebula*

              It was apparently based on Till Death Do Us Part, which was British and something I’m vaguely aware of.

            2. allathian*

              I’m in Finland, and here some names tend to go in cycles. Family middle names are very common, my first name is my maternal grandmother’s middle name, and my middle name’s my paternal grandmother’s middle name, the paternal line in my husband’s family has used the same middle name going back to his great-grandfather, so our son’s the 5th generation with that middle name. First names tend to skip two generations because some people consider it bad luck to have several living family members with the same first name, especially in consecutive generations, so the US tradition of senior, junior, etc. simply doesn’t exist here. (We also tend to consider that tradition to be a bit yucky, as if the child didn’t have an identity of their own but is a mini-me of the parent, especially fathers and sons who people often assume won’t change their last name, at least not in the more conservative circles where the junior naming seems more common.)

              Archie doesn’t surprise me, but is Lilibet becoming popular in the UK?

              1. Media Monkey*

                maybe? i’ve not heard of any small Lilibets. Archie was popular before Harry and Meghan chose it. Lots of kids called a variation of Elizabeth though – I regularly hear Beth/Bethany/ Eliza/ Lily (is that considered a variantion on Elizabeth? I’m not sure)

            4. Random Bystander*

              Yeah–I write fiction and use a number of baby name books to get characters, and several of them comment on a “100 year cycle” (a few names are considered too out there to be re-used, but that a lot of names popular 100 years ago start coming around for new babies).

    1. Cj*

      yeah, I was like WTAF?

      I’m 63, and don’t have any problems with technology at all. but I guess that’s not really the point. the question is how in the world do you tell somebody that something is wrong without using the words that the older coworkers and HR have an issue with.

      I specifically used the word wrong here, because that’s apparently the case with the co-workers, but if I remember the letter correctly without looking back at it, they didn’t even use the word wrong but words like inaccurate and not correct, which are as about as polite as you can get when telling somebody they are wrong without actually using the word wrong. (mentioning this because I know some people hate to be told they are “wrong”).

      1. I went to school with only 1 Jennifer*

        HOW do you break a screen without having been violent to it? HOW do you break THREE screens in 1 month without getting disciplined for it? This isn’t “bad with technology”, and I also wonder how “Archie” was when they were all still in the office.

        Also, HOW are they still having problems with viruses being spread? Yes, there’s a behavioral component there, but there are SO MANY technical solutions that can be implemented to prevent what “Edith” is doing.

        2. MigraineMonth*

          This may be getting off topic, but I’ve had “broken” screens that weren’t cracked, they just no longer showed what they were supposed to. (In my case, either the graphics card or the connection between the graphics card and the screen was damaged, so I had a stripe of rainbow colors moving across the screen. Very psychedelic, but pretty distracting.) Not sure how he would have destroyed three in a month without violence, though; maybe he’s been overheating them?

          Unfortunately, if Edith needs to be able to install things as part of her job, there is no great solution to prevent her from also installing viruses (or entering her login credentials in a spoofed login page). Believe me, IT people would much prefer a technical solution to trying to educate users.

        3. foofoo*

          *Also, HOW are they still having problems with viruses being spread?*

          Because there’s only so much virus scanners can catch if you’re constantly clicking on infections over and over and over again. They’re good at catching most, but there’s a point where things will get through if enough people click enough times on enough random attachments/links/etc.

          1. Artemesia*

            This should be a firing offense too. They do it once; they get schooled; they do it again; they get fired.

          2. I Have RBF*

            My company, and many of my previous employers, have the information security department do training on virus/trojan/phishing avoidance, including phishing awareness emails at least once a month.

            It is trainable, and learnable, as long as people don’t get all butt hurt when told that they are wrong, incorrect, making mistakes, etc.

            IMO, if a person can’t be told that they are wrong, inaccurate, incorrect, etc. they need to be forcibly retired or fired, because they have a stick up their ass and are unwilling to learn anything new.

            I’m 63, and I don’t put up with that kind of BS from others. If I’m wrong, let me know. I’ll do the same for others: out of respect for their integrity I will never assume they can’t be corrected or informed of new information.

            1. not too old to be wrong*

              My company too. At one point IT was sending out fake phishing emails. If you clicked on them it would be something like “Ha, Ha we got you”. I always thought they were pretty obvious, things like Dunder Mifflin wanting to confirm your password, but a few people fell for it.

              I’ve received two smishing attempts, one impersonating my company president and one impersonating my minister. I responded to the one from my “minister” before noticing it wasn’t from him (I’m active in my church so it’s not unheard of for him to text me.) The one from the president made no sense because that’s like four levels up from me and even if he did want to contact me he’d use an official channel, not my personal phone number. It was still startling enough that it almost got through my defenses.

          3. Mongrel*

            Anti-Virus can only work with known threats and their variants, anything new has to be reported, dissected, added to the threat lists and sent to clients before it can be blocked.
            Volume has little to do with it, a single message or clicked link that contains an unknown virus or malware is all that’s required. People are the second line of defence in the system, if they’re unwilling to learn basic caution then they need to be managed appropriately.

        4. Slow Gin Lizz*

          I had the same question WRT the monitor. Sure, monitors can fail but it’s unlikely that Archie would be unlucky like that 3x in a month. How broken are we talking about here? OP said they have “bad attitudes” but does that mean they’re just grumpy or does it mean they yell a lot and throw things? If it’s the 2nd one, then Archie needs to be unemployed by OP’s company asap.

          1. Some Dude*

            I’ve had three monitors from work at home in the past ten years and none of them have broken. I don’t understand how he could go through three a month when I haven’t gone through three in ten years…..

            1. Artemesia*

              Same here — in decades with all sorts of monitors I never had one fail. Sure an old one might wear out but 3 in a month?

              1. Freya*

                At my work, a coworker recently had a monitor fail. We looked at the manufacturer’s sticker on the back and found out it was 9 years old, so we’ve prepped for all the other ones the same age from the same manufacturer to also fail in the near future. And all the older ones… One of my three monitors is one of that batch, the other two are 13 years old from a different manufacturer and working 100% fine (AFAIK anyway)!

        6. Jeanine*

          At this point I would make them pay for any equipment that is broken, there is no need for this nonsense. As for the virus, if we do that more than twice at my job by being dumb like that we are fired. HR is being ridiculous.

        7. Nightengale*

          I drop things. . . usually it is the power adapter that takes the brunt because it sticks out but screens are not immune. I haven’t broken 3 things in one month but I totally could.

          1. I Have RBF*

            I have been using laptops for decades, and I think I’ve only ever broken one screen (when someone knocked it off a table while it was open.) I’ve dropped closed Macs and PCs, and their screens usually do fine. Sometimes I’ve had to reseat a component.

            Three screens in a month means Archie needs to be fired and given an etch-a-sketch as a going away present.

        9. Princess Sparklepony*

          Exactly. There is some violence happening in Archie’s house.

          The viruses – I’m guessing Edith is opening emails from Nigerian princes.

          1. MotherofaPickle*

            Not necessarily. My ILs have this same problem. See an ad online (or go to some site Dr Oz tells them to), click on the link, input their email for the “quote”, then act all surprised when their desktop is so crawling with malware and viruses I’m shocked it hasn’t become sentient and walked away.

            My ILs know the Nigerian Prince scam. It’s Every. Other. Possible. Scam. that they buy into for long enough. I am shocked that A) their identities haven’t been stolen yet, or B) they haven’t been contractually obligated to sell their firstborn (my SO) into indentured servitude.

            TL;DR: Boomers can be really dumb, but still know about the “obvious” scams.

      2. Silver Robin*

        double plus unright?

        There is plenty we should be sensitive to and compassionate about when speaking to coworkers; their egos are not one of them. If these two cannot handle being corrected by someone younger than them, they need to get over it or find somewhere else to work. and they complain of age discrimination when they are the ones treating people with differing amounts of respect based on age!

        2. Worldwalker*

          You got it. The legal form of age discrimination is different/worse treatment of people over 40 by a company. But in normal human terms, treating anybody of any age (not counting literal children) differently because of their age, whether it’s because they’re older than you or because they’re younger than you is it. And that’s exactly what they’re doing.

      3. LCH*

        yeah, i’d probably need to get more clarification from HR; like, does HR want us to allow people to do continue to do things incorrectly without check? is that what they are asking for? spell it out, preferably in writing.

      4. Worldwalker*

        Nobody likes to be told they are “wrong” — not if they’re 63 or 36. Or 3, or 6, for that matter.

        But they’re still wrong, even if they don’t want to hear it. If you’re supposed to put the data from X into the TPS report, and you put in Y instead, that’s wrong. It’s wrong no matter how old you are. And for that matter, it’s wrong no matter who you are, whether you’re the summer intern or the CEO.

        How have these people even gotten to this point in their careers (or to any point past “summer intern” for that matter) if they can’t accept being told that, in fact, something they did was wrong?

        And why are they so hard on the hardware?

        1. Elbe*

          Agreed. I don’t get the sense here that they are complaining about the messaging. I seems like they don’t want to be wrong – they want everyone to accept what they are doing, even though it has consequences for their coworkers and the company. And if that’s the issue, no amount of delicacy is going to work. They are simply hostile to the idea that they need to do anything differently.

          It kind of reminds me of the very common scenario where a guy will hit on a woman and repeatedly ignore her soft “no”s because he doesn’t want to be rejected. She has to use more blunt language so that he can’t ignore her rejection, but then he blows up at her for being “rude”.

          There’s no winning here. There are no magic words that will make someone comfortable understanding that they’re wrong when they specifically don’t want to be wrong.

          1. ferrina*

            Exactly. The only solution for these people is that you can’t ever tell them that they are anything less than brilliant, upstanding, wonderful people, the best people, very stable geniuses. And they will seize on any reason why you are being terrible if you tell them otherwise.

            All four of my grandparents were like this. It was verboten to criticize any of them who were our “elders and betters”. Of course, they could criticize whoever they liked whenever they liked and however they liked. including ways that were absolutely not okay.

            1. nova5155*

              No one told me that after my 50th birthday I could never be wrong. I would have used the hell out of that rule! lol

      5. Spiritbrand*

        This is very dysfunctional, but if they have to, they could say something like “to get the results you’re looking for, here’s how it needs to be done”.

      6. Bike Walk Barb*

        The idea that being older than the person helping them requires protecting them from any knowledge about how to do things differently is beyond patronizing. “Oh, you poor old, you couldn’t handle being told to do something in a different way so you don’t *break the equipment we paid for*. Here, have some cotton wool to wrap yourself in while we’re at it.”

        Signed, a 61YO who calls tech support and thanks them profusely for knowing things she doesn’t know even though her tech knowledge extends back to setting up a 300-baud modem and programming .BAT files at the cold, impersonal C:> prompt in MSDOS.

    3. Artemesia*

      Sounds like they should be fired for poor performance. I have worked with computers for decades (and am older than these twirps) and have yet to break any equipment. HR ought to be fired too. I’d take this all the way up as this kind of incompetence in HR will hamstring the company’s productivity.

      Correcting people who are doing ‘wrong things’ on the job is called management.

    4. MigraineMonth*

      “To resolve this complaint of age discrimination, from now on you are required to learn your coworkers’ ages and treat anyone over 40 differently.”

    5. Vio*

      I’d be so tempted to email HR something like
      Dear HR person
      I know that you consider it rude to use the word “wrong” with people who might be older so I have asked my elderly great-grandmother to type the next part of this email.
      YOU ARE WRONG

    6. Lab Snep*

      I had an Edith (now retired) flip the eff out at me and tell me how rude I was because she was trying to bully me into doing something we no longer did, and when she asked for proof I pointing to our operating procedure and the change log showing that had been removed 7 YEARS prior.

      And I had also spoken to someone (not her) more senior than I to make sure I wasn’t misinterpreting things.

      It was yikes.

  3. Meep*

    Can I tell Edith and Archie that my 82-87 year old grandparents (all 4 are alive) have no issues with technology? Yes, older people have a harder time learning, but mostly it is pure stubbornness.

    1. dulcinea47*

      It’s cause we’re tired of learning. I just now got old enough to figure that out. I’ve already learned so many things, it’s exhausting! ;)

      1. Grumpy old tortie*

        LOL! There’s so much truth in this, and when it comes to technology, rarely are the “improvements” improvement in actual processes or making life easier. Sometimes they are but usually not.

      2. I Have RBF*

        I finally gave up trying to really learn (memorize) anything, because it keeps changing. I just look it up, either on the web or in my notes. What I focus on learning is what to look up when and how. Essentially, I leverage the web and manuals to be my memory, and I keep lots of notes.

    2. Chirpy*

      One of my grandpas was far more comfortable with technology than my dad, for a very long time. Grandpa only slowed down using the computer in his 90s because his eyesight was going. I think dad may have taken the wrong lessons from 2001 Space Odyssey, haha

    3. Salty Caramel*

      Lots of older people have no problems with technology. It may take us longer to learn and retain new things, but even young people don’t always understand new things instantly.

      I really hate the assumption that old = technologically incompetent. I see it way too much.

      1. Cj*

        personal computers came into use for business shortly after I started my career. back then, of course, the operating system was DOS, so you actually had to type in the commands instead of just clicking on an icon or using a menu. that was a whole lot harder to learn than what younger people need to know about technology now. and I don’t see any difference between how quickly I caught onto something then as opposed to now, decades later.

      2. MigraineMonth*

        Exactly. I’m not sure we can think of technology (or most learning) as simply “learning new things”. I have less neuroplasticity than a teenager, but I’ll bet I can learn to use a new spreadsheet application faster. I’m not learning something completely new, I’m integrating the new information into my existing knowledge of spreadsheets. I may not remember all the keyboard shortcuts, but I have a depth of knowledge about the type of thing spreadsheets can and cannot do based on past experience.

        Just being able to text faster or knowing the common conventions of texting doesn’t mean that I understand technology better than someone who grew up before graphical UIs were common.

        1. ferrina*

          Yes. And the willingness is pretty irrelevant to age. I’ve been part of several tech rollouts, and we’ve had adoption problems from all ages due to sheer obstinance. (the people that genuinely don’t understand it but are trying aren’t usually the problem- we can set them up with what they need and they’ll happily do the one thing they’ve learned to do.)

      4. Jeanine*

        same here. Especially when there is no excuse for it. We were there when computers were starting to become a thing to have in your house. I learned about them along the way! I didn’t just ignore them and then freak out when presented with today’s technology. Trust me just connecting to the internet was way harder then than it is now.

      5. Grenelda Thurber*

        Absolutely true! Some of us old people actually built the internet and everything that’s attached to it.

      6. LL*

        It’s also a really outdated idea. My parents are around 70 and my dad was using computers for work in the 90s.

        1. Insufficient Sausage Explainer*

          My 78yo stepdad retrained as a computer hardware engineer in his 40s and now is the go-to person for his elderly neighbours when something goes wrong with their computer or they need something ordering off eBay.

    4. nope*

      “older people have a harder time learning”

      An ageist statement for sure. To test it, substitute the word “black” for “older” and see how you sound.

        1. Esprit de l'escalier*

          In general, it really is harder to learn new things as we age because, in general, our memories and ability to concentrate have been waning since we were 40 if not earlier. It becomes ageist if you make assumptions about individuals based on factually based generalizations about their cohort, and it’s extra ageist if those generalizations are more like evidence-free stereotypes.

          1. Grumpy old tortie*

            So much BS, it is different, not harder. Often easier because you can relate to something that you have done in the past. When I took up a new hobby in my late 50’s I applied the same habits I developed when learning to perform surgery in my 30’s. My instructor became my coach because I learned quickly, could concentrate like no one’s business, and understood what good quality practice looks like without a lot of effort on his part.

      2. Czhorat*

        After certain thresholds this is true.

        After your twenties you have less neuroplasticity.

        At some point later in life there is age-related cognitive decline.

        Older people also general don’t run as fast or lift as heavy weights. I’m not old, but I’m past the half-century mark. Do I pick up new things as quickly as I did in my twenties? Probably not. “black” and “older” aren’t really equivalent here.

      3. Student*

        This varies by person, but… it’s also true. The magnitude of this effect is not sufficient justification for treating your older co-workers badly, discrimination in work responsibilities, or acting like they are generally incompetent!

        At the same time, I think denying obvious facts is a disservice to everyone, at every age.

        I’m only just about to hit 40. I am painfully aware of how much my brain has slowed down when I go to learn new things. Among people I’ve been friends with for 20 years or more, I see the same thing. My friends report experiencing the same thing themselves.

        This doesn’t stop me from learning new things. But I am all-around worse at it. I’m slower, I need more repetition and practice to absorb information, it’s harder to extrapolate what I learn. It’s harder to just concentrate on things for as long as I used to. It’s harder to care about learning new things as much as I once did.

        I see it in people younger than me as they age. I see it in people older than me as they age. As we age, learning gets harder. When you deny reality, you set everyone up for a bad time. At least if you’re aware of it, you can try to compensate for it.

        If you explain to younger co-workers that are teaching you what you’d need to understand better, then you can steer them toward helping you more effectively. If you notice a co-worker struggling to learn something, slow down and ask them about it, see if they have ideas for what would help them retain the info. If the co-worker can’t explain it, maybe try a couple ideas based on common issues people have learning information. Those are all actionable things, but in order to get there, we all have to accept that some of us don’t learn quite the same way we used to and need to adapt strategies.

        1. Worldwalker*

          “Some of us” != “all of us” or possibly even “most of us.”

          From my own experience, people who decide “Oh, I can learn that!” and people who decide “Oh, I can’t learn that!” are both right.

          1. sb51*

            As someone also in the middle of hitting one of these age-related changes—no. This isn’t a lack of positive thinking, it’s biological changes. If you haven’t experienced them, great for you! But it’s important to support workers who can still do their jobs but need different training or support at different times.

            I am still learning new things and keeping up with my field, but I also need more time and a good night’s sleep beforehand rather than glancing at an overview and chugging a coffee and going straight into doing the new thing. (And until I was eighteen-ish I had a near photographic memory—I never studied vocabulary for language classes, I literally just read the sheet once through and then called up the memory and read off it during quizzes. In college I had to learn how to make flash cards and study vocabulary from scratch because I lost that ability.)

            I was very good at learning quickly before; now I’m just average, which isn’t a problem at work unless I forget to schedule myself time for learning!

        2. MichLaw*

          I’m in my late 50s but I learn new information and skills better now than I did 20 years or more ago. (Physical skills are another matter.) I was asked to train a worker who was under 40 because I mastered the new program faster than he did, and I’m the old guy in my office!

          The point of my anecdote is that we can’t assume which of the workers among us learn new tech best.

        3. Theon, Theon, it rhymes with neon*

          There are specific cognitive faculties (like working memory) that decline with age, but, depending on the individual and the domain, sometimes those declines can be compensated for with other faculties that have improved with age. I have observed that in myself. I don’t know if my working memory is worse in my 40s than in it was my 20s or teens, I just know I’m learning things more easily. I’m approaching the learning process more efficiently, in several different respects, and I have more base knowledge to build on.

          I’d offer to come back in 30 years to report how the compensation effect is going in my 70s, but Alison will probably have locked the post by then. ;)

      4. Broadway Duchess*

        Can we not do the whole, “You couldn’t say this about black people, so don’t say it about [X]!” thing? it’s not helpful, it’s not a 1:1 comparison, and it doesn’t make the point you think it does.

        1. Tea Monk*

          Thank you. I am always feeling like I’m catching strays. If there was actual anti black discrimination, the sort of person always saying ” but what if you said that about black people?” would either say nothing or endorse it.

      5. Artemesia*

        There are lots of changes associated with age including problems with vision and hearing and with memory and learning to new skills. There is a reason we don’t let pilots fly commercial jets when they are in their 70s.

        1. Worldwalker*

          I was under the impression that was because of the higher likelihood of sudden medical problems, not because they forget how to fly.

    5. Justme, The OG*

      I work in online education and some of our most technologically savvy faculty are older Gen X and Boomers. Your statement is ageist.

      1. Charlotte Lucas*

        Some of us had to program our own home computers to use them.

        I see all levels of technical expertise at all ages, so I make no assumptions. Archie and Edith just don’t want to be corrected. And that’s a problem, especially if they’re actually breaking things.

        1. It Ain't Me Babe*

          I built my first one. It had DOS 2.8. I had to ride my dinosaur over to the computer store to buy the components.

            2. Artemesia*

              Oh I remember that one. It would speak if you typed phrases into it and my kids were delighted to type in the poetry from Marvin the depressed robot from Hitchhikers guide. Also of course all the ‘dirty words’ they knew.

          2. Worldwalker*

            My first one was a Sinclair ZX-81 that came as a bag of parts and several conflicting sets of instructions.

        2. Ralph*

          Command c prompts to execute any function at work. Putting the system together myself at home. I’m an Old with a fully etched out house and above average tech skills for my non-tech organization. Woe unto them that underestimate all Olds!

          1. Worldwalker*

            Also woe unto them who Autocorrupt gets in its malevolent silicon sights: I assume you meant “teched out” but it took me a while.

      2. Esprit de l'escalier*

        Archie’s multiple broken laptop screens and Edith’s virus problem might have nothing to do with their age, but they are playing the age card to avoid taking responsibility for their problems.

        1. Worldwalker*

          Yeah. I’m turning 62 next week, and I’m a person who never buys AppleCare because I know I’m not going to break my hardware. That sounds more like what you’d expect of a particularly careless toddler.

        2. Artemesia*

          While most of us slow down a bit with age — you are of course right that, that is not Archie and Edith’s problem here.

        1. I Have RBF*

          Word. I worked at my first tech startup in 1985, the year after the PC AT came out. Before that I used CPM/MPM.

    6. Strive to Excel*

      I have found with all 4 of my grandparents that their ability to learn tech is directly correlated to their stubbornness in being taught New Things. One of them – I can only describe as a modern Luddite. Point blank refuses how to learn any tech more advanced than a cordless landline, and only knows enough about the computer to play his DVDs. It is 100% an attitude rather than an ability.

      2. UKDancer*

        Definitely it really varies. My one grandfather refused to learn to use a computer, my other grandfather (who was 8 years older) asked me to explain and help him with online dating when he was in his 90s because he had a curious mind and a lifelong interest in learning and also in pretty women.

        My grandmother wanted to use the internet for genealogy so she learnt how to do it because she needed it. She was never massively keen on it but she used it as a tool.

        It’s definitely more about what the individual’s attitude to learning is than their age in my experience.

        1. Worldwalker*

          As with most things*, it’s not aptitude; it’s attitude.

          *Most! No amount of effort will help me sing; I’ve got a tin ear, and I’m contagiously off-key.

      3. Reluctant Mezzo*

        I still wish I had set up Nana, she would have taken over the Baptist website…but I was the family member who had to tell my dad, ‘No, your eyes are fine, the old color TV that you’re using for your monitor is no good. See, isn’t it nice with a *real* monitor?’. And got him a new printer (and set it up) when his old one died.

      4. Freya*

        Yeah, my dad refused to learn how to run things on the computer. Until he REALLY wanted to run them, and then he learned. Painstakingly, but he even uses his mobile phone these days!

    7. Productivity Pigeon*

      What? No, older people don’t have a harder time learning!

      They might have MORE to learn when it comes to tech but that doesn’t mean they’re incapable.

          1. Worldwalker*

            Personally, it still annoys me. I want to tell my computer what to do with the written word, not point at pictures like a toddler with a Busy Box. I miss DOS. (and no, shelling out to Windows’ fake DOS isn’t the same thing)

            That said, I routinely use about four different GUIs (and two or three CLIs, too; the exact count depending on how you count *nix shells)

      2. Worldwalker*

        More? Why? I’ve lived with any given technology longer than someone younger than me unless they were of age to use it immediately when it was invented. I have LESS, or THE SAME, to learn as anyone younger.

        People who are released from prison after decades probably have more to learn than the rest of us, but I haven’t been in a stasis box; I’ve been here all along.

        1. A Book about Metals*

          An example of this would be Leonard Kershaw – a convicted felon who spent 23 years behind bars and once he was released, enrolled in a GED class to begin learning again

    8. Hastily Blessed Fritos*

      Telling older people they’re wrong (when they actually are) isn’t ageist. Saying “older people have a harder time learning” absolutely is.

      1. Lark*

        Let’s say that our ability to learn declines slightly as we age. Does that rise to the level of policy? After all, I learn less well than my Millenial policy-fiend colleague right now but frankly much better than my Gen Z substantially younger colleague who struggles with policy, and it’s not really something that makes a big difference at work or that needs to be accommodated. If I had a medical condition that wasn’t just “being fifty”, I could see a need for policy or accommodation, but right now it’s just regular work diversity.

        Some very young people will learn very fast, some will struggle. Even if older people may struggle just a little more than they would at twenty, why is this a concern as long as they can do their work?

        In short, I don’t think that whether I learn slightly more slowly at fifty than at thirty is even worth bringing up in discussions of ageism. If there is a difference, it is too trivial to warrant work discussion. (Frankly, I’m a much better employee now – I may take a few more repetitions to understand something, but I have much more judgement in how to apply it.)

    9. Reebee*

      “Yes, older people have a harder time learning, but mostly it is pure stubbornness.”

      —

      Patently false.

    10. LCH*

      my grandparents were in their 80s in the early 2000s and never broke their computer screen. and used email successfully. cannot comment on whether or not they have virus issues.

    11. Worldwalker*

      When I stop learning, time to bury me, because that’ll mean I’ve been dead for at least a day.

      My 99-year-old mother (she turns 100 in 3 months) wants my advice on choosing an upgrade for her iPhone. (it’s a 7, definitely time to upgrade)

      4. Artemesia*

        I don’t know I upgraded my 7 to a 14 and it failed (hardware fail) twice. Most disappointing Apple product I have owned (and I have had maybe 20 products mostly computers in the household over the years. The second time it was out of warranty and it would cost more to fix than to upgrade to a 15. so far so good. I only ‘upgraded’ for the camera as I travel a lot and really wanted to move to only a phone camera from lugging heavy gear. When the phone failed on our trip the camera didn’t and it is a good camera. It really sucked to not have a phone for 4 weeks of international travel though. Your Mom’s 7 is not necessarily going to be a worse product for her.

    12. TiffIf*

      My mother (b. 1948) has some problems with using technology, but even she has never managed to get a virus on her computer or break the screen (much less three times in one month).

  4. Czhorat*

    For LW1, I completely agree that correcting an older employee is not age discrimination, but I *also* think that “this is wrong” is language that can land very badly. I tend to be careful to soften language when someone is objectively wrong; it’s hard sometimes to deliver corrections in a way that allows everyone to save face, but that makes for a more harmonious team down the road – especially with people who have delicate and easily bruised egos.

    1. I GOTS TO KNOW!*

      When someone is so wrong that they are frequently destroying company property and endangering company data, I don’t think they deserve the soft language.

      I think the ridiculous complaint coupled with their harassment of the staff member PLUS their destructive incompetence make it clear that Edith and Archie aren’t going to listen to soft language either.

      1. I Super Believe In You, Tad Cooper*

        Yeah, this—also, the language that we know the team members used was “not accurate” and “the correct way”, both of which are pretty soft to be using with someone who’s going through company property this fast.

        1. MigraineMonth*

          If the email had used the word “wrong”, if Edith and Archie had complained that it was rude, and if HR had suggested more “teaching” language, that would be one thing.

          However, none of those are true. The email used pretty soft language, Edith and Archie complained it was *age discrimination* to be told they were doing something wrong, and HR told them they weren’t allowed to say to someone older that they were “incorrect or any version thereof”.

          In the original letter, when OP1 pushed back on that, the HR rep said, “I just want to shut them up, okay?” Which… hoo boy.

      2. Spiritbrand*

        It would be interesting if the people who received the harassing emails went to HR to complain about bullying.

      1. Edwina*

        I used to work for a software training company, and we weren’t allowed to tell people they were wrong in class. I thought it was a stupid policy, but I found ways to tell people the way they did something wasn’t right because how can you learn if you don’t know whether you’re doing it right or not. I’d say “not yet” or “not quite” or “very creative” etc. One day a student finally said, “is it right or is it wrong?!” because -duh- he needed to know! (I told him it was wrong, and he thanked me.) We also weren’t allowed to say “I don’t know” so I got creative around that one, too. I can’t stand having stupid rules that patronize people! I guess the OP’s team can come up with alternate words, but even if they do, the message still has to be conveyed!

        1. Ellis Bell*

          Yeah I see what you mean; it’s teaching language. You don’t get far telling people who are struggling to learn only what’s wrong, they need to know what’s right. So you say “Good effort, but try X instead”. That said: these are professional grownups and they sound exhausting and like they need firm corrections.

          1. Media Monkey*

            “Good job buddy!” i feel like that works less well on an actual adult than a toddler putting their trousers on back to front. exhausting is right!

        2. Zee*

          That’s the kind of language we were told to use with self-conscious 13-year-olds when they offer up answers to an open question in class so they wouldn’t feel embarrassed and stop speaking up. To have to use that with adults is ridiculous.

          1. Worldwalker*

            This. I don’t need to be told “good effort” when I did the wrong thing — I’m old enough to know how much effort I put into something! I am not 13. I’m an adult and a professional, and I’d be more offended by the softening than the direct answer.

            And I know if what I did is right — it worked, it gave me the answer I needed, whatever. I need to know what I did wrong so I can fix that thing.

      2. Tuckerman*

        Instead of telling a colleague she missed a critical step, I reminded her that we got an email about needing to incorporate an additional step for the situation she detailed, due to new federal rules. Then, I emailed her the information and asked her to please add it (so we were in compliance). Which she did.

        When people hear they did something wrong, they often focus on themselves, in a negative way. Reframing shifts the focus on the task.

        1. Elle*

          The only way this seems reasonable to me is if your colleague is somehow a toddler dictator- easily upset and in a position to wreak havoc.

      3. UKDancer*

        I learnt a lot about this from my ballet teachers who give the best corrections I’ve come across for adult learners. These tend to be specific, given at the time and direct but without saying expressly that someone is wrong. They focus more on what you need to do differently and how to do it.

        So some of the ones I heard in classes recently included “Odette, good arms but straighten the standing leg more without locking the knee, yes like that. Benno, you need to curve your arms more in second position, like you’re hugging a beach ball. Rothbart, follow your hand with your eyes when you do the porte de bras like you’ve just had the best manicure of your life and can’t stop admiring it.”

    3. A Library Person*

      This is true and OP’s team should definitely consider whether and how to soften the language, but in an IT context I can easily envision scenarios where “you’re doing it wrong” is actually the information that needs to be conveyed (in gentler terminology, of course). Sometimes “the system is wired so we have to do x” can work without explicitly saying “and therefore you are wrong”, but sometimes you may need to explain that a person’s approach *will not* work, and dancing around the fact can potentially make things worse. The solution here is probably to approach these conversations with a lot of explanations of what the correct/accurate approach is that can, in turn, soften the message that Archie and Edith are, in fact, wrong.

      1. I GOTS TO KNOW!*

        To be fair, the LW said their staff member said “that’s not accurate” and the “correct way.” Not “you’re wrong”

        Archie and Edith got the message “you’re wrong” (because they were) and don’t want to be told they are wrong at all.

        “Don’t tell anyone older than you they’re wrong, it’s rude and hostile.” “can’t use the words
        “right, accurate, wrong, or incorrect or any version thereof”” – HR is saying even soft language that conveys the underlying message “you’re wrong” is not allowed.

        HR, Edith and Archie are so off base here no amount of softening language is going to help.

        1. A Library Person*

          Yeah, I initially wrote a coda agreeing with you here. From all evidence in the letter, Archie and Edith are among the perpetually aggrieved and to my eye they are likely projecting some insecurities about their level of technological proficiency. I would be very interested to hear how HR expects this team to tell Archie and Edith what they refuse to hear, because (as you say) “inaccurate” isn’t as loaded as “wrong” and is, well, the accurate word for the situation.

        2. Phony Genius*

          At the end of Alison’s answer, she suggests asking HR how to respond to the older employees’ errors. My guess is their response will be something like “assume that they are not the one making the mistake, and maybe you are.”

          (I speak from experience.)

          1. Charlotte Lucas*

            That sounds like a manager I had who once told my team we should “agree to disagree.” I can’t remember the details, but it was about an actual, objective fact.

        3. Orv*

          I prefer “it doesn’t work that way,” because it moves the blame to the process instead of the user. Sometimes they’re right that it would be nice if it did!

      2. Czhorat*

        Yes, this is where I was; it’s obviously impossible to know without reading the initial email, but there is often a way to say it more gently. Rather than “you’re inputting the data wrong” it could be “the budget spreadsheet won’t work if you don’t use the “add device” button rather than manually adding lines” instead of “manually adding lines won’t work and is the wrong thing to do. You have to use the add item button”. Minor shade of difference? Yes, but “the system won’t work if you don’t …. ” puts the burden of being “wrong” on the impersonal system rather than the user.

        Most people shouldn’t need this much care, and it could feel like walking on eggshells. If that’s where you are with them, though, that’s where you are.

        There’s a bigger question about Archie and Edith’s work and attitude, but that’s outside of LW’s hands; if they regularly make major errors and are unable to learn to stop making them then maybe this role isn’t a good fit for them.

        1. Strive to Excel*

          Personally I’d revert back to doing this for Edith + Archie. Then make their managers start signing off on any additional hardware replacements. And alert them every time a policy break results in significant IT time, such as a virus being spread across the company.

          The flipside of Business Passive Polite is Business Passive Aggressive. If they don’t like being told directly that they are doing something wrong, well. That’s what “per my last email” was created for.

      3. Runcible Wintergreen*

        Sometimes, phrasing a correction as “that’s not the way to get the result you are looking for” helps to soften somewhat. I think a lot of people do things incorrectly because of a misguided attempt to extrapolate from other processes or insufficient explanation at some point (eg, I use X report to get monthly numbers from New York so I should use the same thing to get yearly rollup results from the whole company – no one explained that you have to log into Y portal and use the Z report since they are reported through different systems). They get defensive because they feel like they did the best they could with what they knew.

        It’s minor, but sometimes if someone is “sort of right”, it’s more helpful to acknowledge that their approach is the correct way to do something, just not the thing that they want to do :)

        1. Charlotte Lucas*

          I sometimes tell people that the system thinks they want it to do X instead of Y, unless they do Z. Anthropomorphizing can be helpful when explaining tech to people.

        2. KaciHall*

          I’m fairly certain that being “sort of right” would not lead to broken displays.

          sometimes people are in no way right and it’s not helpful to pretend they are.

          1. Worldwalker*

            I’ve just surfaced for air after working with Blender (3D editing software) all day. Broken displays are currently at least a possibility. Blender will do that to a person.

    4. dulcinea47*

      A lot of times you don’t need to state the wrong part out loud. Just say what they need to do instead. Instead of saying “why are you hitting ctrl instead of alt, that’s wrong”, you just say “Try hitting alt next time and see if that works for you.”

      Personally, I’m willing to be corrected when I’m wrong as long as it doesn’t come across as scolding. I would have zero problem with someone saying “the correct way to do this is…”

      1. Radioactive Cyborg Llama*

        The co-worker said “that’s not accurate,” which means there was a previous communication in which E&A had said “I do it [wrong way].” And I bet doubled down.

        I’m curious how they’re supposed to tell them how to use their equipment without implying that it’s the correct instructions for using their equipment.

      2. Czhorat*

        It’s interesting to see the responses to this letter next to the “poker face” letter; again, it’s ENTIRELY possible that the Bunkers are clueless and a bit hostile. It’s also possible that the LW’s staff is doing the same thing in writing that LW3 was doing with her face – conveying that they think their internal clients are idiots.

        1. Decima Dewey*

          LW 1’s HR: “You’re being too hard on Archie and Edith. Who among us has not wantonly and possibly maliciously destroyed several thousand dollars worth of equipment? Who among us has not clicked on a ransomware link that made a vital system inoperable for two weeks during busy season? Who among us hasn’t spread a virus IT has repeatedly warned us about throughout the system? These things happen…”

    6. HonorBox*

      Depending on the situation, softening is helpful. An example, which I’m creating from the scenario presented in the letter: If Archie had his computer monitor stacked on some books and that stack toppled and caused the screen to break, maybe you start with, “Hey Archie, we can get you a better support for your monitor.” But if it happens again, “Hey Archie we need to get you a better setup because as we’ve seen, this is creating an issue that has repeated itself.” And the third time, “Archie, this is wrong. You can’t set your monitor precariously like this.”

    7. kanada*

      I think that softening your message can be a kindness, but if there’s a person on my team who can’t handle being told, calmly and straightforwardly, “this is the wrong way to do things”, that’s a performance issue, not a personality conflict.

    8. Worldwalker*

      I’m likely neurodivergent (never diagnosed, because routine diagnosis came along long after I reached adulthood). I much prefer a direct “this is wrong” than some attempt at softening it. I’m a very literal person, and “this is wrong” is easy to interpret, and I can go on and correct what is wrong, rather than trying to figure out what someone was really saying.

    9. kiki*

      In a lot of situations I soften, but it sounds like these two may be, like, putting their devices in blenders or something. That’s probably an exaggeration, but if they are so frequently wreaking havoc on their devices, it’s probably past due to completely shut down some of their assertions. Sometimes something is just completely wrong or inaccurate and trying to soften that is more confusing than helpful.

      Your laptop is not completely waterproof and safe to use in the tub. That is inaccurate. Your phone is not safe to be dropped off of buildings in a mid-size city, not just super tall buildings in major cities like NYC, etc. That is wrong.

  5. Person from the Resume*

    #3 is interestingly worded. Poker not entirely required, but …

    Yes, if your face coveys that you think someone is an idiot or saying a dumb thing or suggesting a silly idea that’s a problem.

  6. I GOTS TO KNOW!*

    As Alison said, your HR team is SO SO SO BAD.

    I’m older than my manager. Does that mean she can’t correct me or tell me I got things wrong?

    It’s absolutely absurd.

    I’d start by pushing back to show HR how absurd they are, but I’d also go above their heads. Especially given how much Edith and Archie are costing the company with their incompetence.

    Do not discipline your team, do not agree to sensitivity training. And ask what is going to be done about them harassing and bullying your staff.

    And absolutely go over HR’s head. This is so ridiculous that my flabber is fully gasted.

    1. Anonymous Educator*

      Same. I’m older than my manager. And I was older than previous manager. And I was older than the manager before that one. Imagine if they could never correct me. What the… ?

    2. RCB*

      100%, we have to stop treating situations like this gently and do the professional version of laughing HR out of the room. They need to be mocked so heavily at the absurdity of their assertion that it’s crystal clear that not only are they out of line but they need to either resign or get more training, because HR has to get it right, they are the legal defense of a company, and for them to be THIS WRONG is just inexcusable.

      1. Eldritch Office Worker*

        Yes, because HR should be laughing Archie and Edith out of the room to begin with, so they deserve it. I mean they should be gently acknowledging their frustrations and telling them that’s not discrimination and explaining and blah – still, same outcomes.

    3. Ellis Bell*

      I wonder how many groups would be interested in pushing back against this, like 1) all the other ‘older than’ employees who probably don’t want to be patronised or banned from being told when they’re on the right or wrong track by people helping them, and 2) all the employees who want Archie and Edith to actually do their jobs instead of drumming up drama with departments vital to helping them out, and 3) Archie and Edith’s boss might have an interesting opinion on the fact that they can’t be told that they’re right or wrong any more by anyone junior in age. I would definitely consider telling HR’s higher ups that 1) you functionally can’t do your jobs any more because people are asking you if they are doing things right, and you’re not allowed to answer them, 2) Clarify with HR if it is actually legal to treat older-than-you people differently to younger than people simply because HR thinks people older than OP’s team can’t accept help and instructions. 3) Ask HR how team members are supposed to verify people’s age so they know how to treat them.

      1. Wombats and Tequila*

        Yes! HR is so infuriatingly patronizing. As someone of a similar age to Archie and Edith, it honestly sounds like they are both incompetent and need to be put on a PIP.

        What in the flugelhorn is Archie doing that is breaking his screens frequently? Is he a toddler? Is he throwing tantrums and punching the screens? He deserves to be charged for each screen replacement going forward. He shouldn’t get a free pass to destroy company property.

    4. Gumby*

      The ideal situation would be if the HR person who handed down this decision is younger than OP. Then OP could, by the very rules that were put in place, declare that HR is not allowed to tell her that the way she’s handling this is wrong therefore she and her team will continue as they have been.

  7. Putting the Dys in Dysfunction*

    Did HR also say, using the same bizarre logic, that Archie’s and Edith’s texts couldn’t possibly be abusive because the two of them are older?

    Common sense appears to have left the HR Department.

  8. CityMouse*

    As someone who’s had to train people who are older than me, boy, that HR is on glue. You can’t manage or help someone without telling them something is inaccurate.

    1. I GOTS TO KNOW!*

      I assume that was a note to herself she forgot to remove when she was drafting before she added the link to the article :)

    2. gyrfalcon17*

      No, no, it’s like when someone calls and asks “is your refrigerator running? … well you better go and catch it.” It’s an instruction to Alison’s readers that we need to go check all the links on all our webpages. Right now.

      ;-)

      (/jk)

      1. Cyndi*

        No, it’s got to be a coded warning of some kind, like that old PLEASE WAKE UP creepypasta. No other explanation. /jk

  10. Dodubln*

    What the hell is Archie doing to his screen that he has broken three in one month? Balancing it in a bottle of Geritol?

    2. Rainy*

      I assume he’s punching them or picking them up and whacking them on something when a whippersnapper sasses him on Teams.

      1. Sola Lingua Bona Lingua Mortua Est*

        Notebook or monitor -> knocked off of table/desk.
        Notebook, tablet or phone -> dropped.

        1. Antilles*

          Once? Sure.
          But three times in a month? That’s way beyond the realm of “accidentally knocked it off the edge of my desk”. I mean, accidents happen, but after the first time, wouldn’t you rearrange your desk or something?
          Also just going to note that if he’s in his 50’s, that means he was born in the 1960s. Google tells me over 90% of American homes had TVs in 1960, so dude has likely been around screens of some form his entire life. Surely he hasn’t been breaking his screens at home that often.

          1. I went to school with only 1 Jennifer*

            I *don’t* disagree with you… but I also feel compelled to point out that tv’s (and computer screens) used to be MUCH heavier than they are now. Not just bulkier (which they were, what with those picture tubes) but also heavier. Much harder to knock off a surface, and correspondingly more destructive when they hit the floor.

            1. Teapot, Groomer of Llamas*

              I read a joke that the difference between old TVs and moderns ones is that you carefully placed down a modern one because you were afraid of breaking it and carefully placed the old TVs down carefully because you were afraid of breaking the tv stand.

              1. Sola Lingua Bona Lingua Mortua Est*

                Old televisions had support under their centre of gravity, while new ones generally are held up by those scrawny legs at the corners. It’s only slightly cynical to suggest they have been designed to break (and be replaced) easily.

            2. metadata minion*

              You’re also not usually as close to a TV as you are to a computer, and with the invention of the remote control you almost never have to touch them. I’m kind of a klutz and while I don’t think I’ve ever actually knocked my laptop off the desk, I have spilled things on it, accidentally yanked the cord out, etc. I have never done this with the TV because it’s so rarely within my zone of klutziness.

            3. Worldwalker*

              Ages ago, I borrowed a 21″ monitor (back when most were 14″) for a display, and it took two people to carry it safely.

              The one I’m looking at right now is 32″ (and curved). I can pick it up with one hand.

          3. Media Monkey*

            i’m 50 and was born in 1974. have never broken a screen and am perfectly competent with technology (glass of water knocked over my laptop the other day notwithstanding)

        2. Rainy*

          I have been using laptops and monitors including sidecar-ing portable screens with the flimsiest props possible for literal decades and I have never once knocked a laptop off of a table or desk or knocked a monitor over. I drop my tablet and phone literally all the time and the only time I’ve had a tablet or a phone get damaged from it were the following: holding brand new phone before the case came in the mail, fell over uneven pavement and scraped the very edge of the screen (phone still worked fine, had it for two more years); cat knocked coffee mug off nightstand onto iPad leaning against nightstand and broke screen (iPad still worked; I put a sealing screen protector on it immediately and used it for two more years until the OS was so antiquated nothing would run on it anymore).

          With devices these days, as long as you do literally the minimum and put some kind of protector on it and are minimally careful, my experience is that they’re basically bulletproof. If this dude is breaking multiple monitors a month, it’s because he’s doing it on purpose.

          1. Sola Lingua Bona Lingua Mortua Est*

            holding brand new phone before the case came in the mail

            I’ve had multiple arguments with family members because I won’t even open the box of a new phone or tablet until the case arrives.

            With devices these days, as long as you do literally the minimum and put some kind of protector on it and are minimally careful, my experience is that they’re basically bulletproof.

            I agree 110%, as long as the screen protector/case actually exist. I couldn’t find a case for my Pixel C or Pixelbook, and both definitely took more incidental impacts and scrapes than any phone or other tablet has over the years.

            If this dude is breaking multiple monitors a month, it’s because he’s doing it on purpose.

            I’ve worked with sharp minds who unfortunately have suffered nerve damage over the years and developed jitters, so I’m not quite ready to jump to that conclusion with you. Something is wrong in the scenario, but I can’t tell from the letter if it’s denial, someone working into aging catching up to them (and that could be from necessity, not necessarily denial), or other circumstances.

        1. Worldwalker*

          Well, that would imply that it’s wrong to break the hardware, and HR says they can’t do that. :p

    4. pally*

      I’m wondering if Archie was provided with a touch screen. Something maybe he’s not used before. But then I have to ask, how would one destroy a touch screen? Is there such a thing as applying way too much pressure on the screen when touching it?

      I would hope he’s savvy enough not to let any substances (food, for example) get on it. And subsequently not use a harsh cleaner to clean it.

      1. metadata minion*

        You certainly *can* break a touchscreen by applying too much pressure, but you’d practically have to be trying to do it.

    5. Antilles*

      The best explanation I can imagine is some sort of major anger issues. Either (1) he gets angrily demonstrative while pointing at stuff on the screen so his finger accidentally hits and breaks the screen and/or (2) that he gets irritated at the computer and regularly smacks the screen to relieve stress.

      1. Worldwalker*

        I can’t think of anything that would happen more than once, though. Remotely possibly twice, if there were two competing possible reasons why you broke Thing X and you carefully avoided the wrong one. But three times? That’s enemy action. Or personal violence, in this case. I wonder if he broke what he threw it at?

    7. Phony Genius*

      Archie could be old enough to have been the guy from the 1997 Bad Day video. (The guy in a cubicle who beats up his computer.)

    8. Dawn*

      For what it’s worth, I used to work in electronics retail and seniors frequently try to drive their fingers straight through a touchscreen. My grandmother broke at least one tablet this way, poking at it so hard that she actually cracked it.

      That would be my suspicion of how Archie is breaking his screens.

      1. Too Many Tabs Open*

        I can see that happening if someone has neuropathy in their hands and can’t judge how hard they’re pushing; if that’s the case, though, Archie and the IT folks (my next band name) should be working on accomodations.

        1. Dawn*

          Well keep in mind this was originally published April, 2020. Everybody was scrambling to accommodate as many employees as they could without anything like sufficient resources, or even access to the office and the equipment there in a lot of cases.

    9. Red Reader the Adulting Fairy*

      RIGHT? I have literally never broken a screen on anything in 40 years of operating things with screens. On the one hand, yes, I’m unusually lucky, but geez, three in one month is just absurd.

      1. Georgia Carolyn Mason*

        Hey, I’m an epic klutz and I admit I’ve broken two. 1) Dropped cell phone grabbing it off a shelf and it fell onto the metal base of a chair; 2) slipped on ice with not-well-protected laptop. Someone breaking three screens in ??the time since the org went WFH and the date of the original letter, so like a few months?? sounds either intentional or phenomenally careless. Either way, nothing to do with age.

    11. Worldwalker*

      Worse, it seems like this was not the only month that Archie’s screen breaking habit has take up IT’s time.

      Who does that?

  11. CubeFarmer*

    I would want to know what’s happening with Edith and Archie that’s causing them to blow through hardware so quickly… Maybe they have to start documenting how the equipment met its demise.

    Also, how is saying “this is wrong” to a older colleague discrimination, in a way that saying to a younger colleague would not be? I would try to soften the message if I were speaking to ANY colleague (in fact, I just did. I wanted phrasing different so instead of saying “that’s the wrong way to describe this,” I said something like, “it’s more precise and less confusing if you use more exact terminology.”

    1. Hannah Lee*

      Yeah, the combination of Archie breaking screens and Edith running an open house for viruses and malware kind of derailed me from the main question.

      What are these people doing?
      Why does the employers network not detect and filter all those attacks, viruses, etc.

      We had an employee who was repeatedly having issues with viruses and malware, but our tech caught it before it caused a problem … sometimes catching it before it infected his laptop, but always catching it, isolating it before it spread. He was required to sit with IT and show them what he was doing, what sites he typically visit AND do remedial training to spot phishing and malicious emails. This was a intelligent applied engineering guy who was for whatever reason really sloppy about clicking links without paying attention.

      Edith a) needs training, and refreshers on being safe online and b) be set up with passwords that require frequent updates and c) to have ALL her tech firewalled off from the rest of the company and not be allowed to have any sensitive information locally

      And Archie needs to explain himself, because repeatedly damaging company issued equipment is odd at best and possibly an indication of something else more serious.

    2. Coverage Associate*

      2 family members are hard on laptops. Get crumbs in them, don’t use sleeves when putting them in backpacks, etc. Even they only bust one once a year at most, and those are the cheap models for personal use.

      Same about cellphones. My spouse and I used to replace our phones at the same time with the same models, but I use mine so much more, I had to upgrade years ahead of my spouse. How are people who don’t like the technology being hard on it, unless intentionally?

      Also, anyone picking up viruses repeatedly probably is really surfing the dregs of the internet. That’s not typical time wasting sites like YouTube. I have complained before about a firewall that blocked all .org and.edu sites, and a whole bunch more (askamanager was white listed, but not corporette), but at least I worried a whole lot less about clicking on something bad. Now we have top notch IT that is more refined but still blocks lots of sites with substandard security.

    3. Pizza Rat*

      I was wondering the same. If the broken screen happened once, it might have been partly because it was packed poorly or mishandled in shipping, but this is just weird to me.

  12. Kat*

    So telling someone older they are wrong or using words like “incorrect/accurate” is discriminatory but HR had no issues with the abusive messages the old folks then sent to the LW’s team? SMH.

    1. SHEILA, the co-host*

      I think we have a classic missing stair situation here. HR doesn’t want to deal with Archie and Edith so they’re making it everyone else’s problem to work/walk around them.

  13. Nameless*

    LW #3 – I also don’t have a great poker face, and my go-to strategies are lifting my hand to my mouth to rest my chin on, in such a way that my fingers cover my mouth so that you can’t see my mouth to detect if I’m smiling or frowning; if you really, really have to, turning camera off for a minute (under the guise of needing to sneeze or cough) and composing myself.

    1. Hannah Lee*

      I had a job where many of the other departments mid, senior managers were jerks. As I was advancing in my department, eventually I had to work face to face with several of them and struggled to not react when they were doing obnoxious stuff (everything from sexist or racist discriminatory stuff, to crude stuff, to shady, borderline, possibly illegal)

      At my last review there, some of the feedback was that I didn’t seem to like them, and it was clear I disapproved of some of what they did/said, and that was (obviously) holding me back. My choice was to throw in and act like their stuff was fine or to be stuck at my current level never really succeeding more.

      It was a wake up call, not that I needed a better poker face, but that the company’s and management’s values were completely the opposite of mine and it wasn’t a good place for me to work. Not just career-wise, but for my physical/mental health and also if I have only one life and x number of years to be working, why would I ever waste more of it the time I’m working contributing to the success of a company that rewarded jerks, bigots, shady people.

    2. Lucky*

      Not exaggerating, LW 3, Botox cured me of my active b***h face and has helped me to advance in my career. I don’t recommend running out and getting injections for solely that reason, but if you were thinking about it but on the fence . . .

      1. Catherine*

        I used to do this as well when I was in a job where the bosses made increasingly illegal suggestions and it was vital not to show my WTF face. Thank you Botox for holding my eyebrows down.

    3. Wheels*

      My strategy is always take notes for literally any meeting. That way I can keep my head down when needed.

  14. Jon*

    Always enjoy when an HR department’s response to accusations of age discrimination is to tell you to effectively age discriminate.

  15. Basgiath IT Dept*

    As someone who literally tells people all day long that they’re doing it wrong, yes, softening it is necessary but… it’s still wrong. If someone is putting in the wrong password, there’s no amount of softening that’s going to get them logged in. HR has lost the thread.

    1. Katydid*

      I worked in IT for a long time and had a combo of these questions – once the director told me “You can’t just tell people no that’s not possible right away and look at them like they’re stupid”. Which, fair, but I started waiting 24 hours to tell them no and it made people think we had considered it even if the $10,000 lab interface they wanted was never, ever happening.
      Also, we had a Dr very close to retirement who was very open about the fact that every time he had to reset his password it was set to “IhateEpic!”

  16. Rainy*

    “You can’t tell people older than you that they’re wrong or made a mistake” is such a thoroughly unhinged way to interpret age discrimination law that I’m not sure I can come up with any response other than “wha….?”

    Like, this is the kind of thing that toxic families say to try to pressure you to shut up when Druncle Nobrain talks about politics, not something your *HR* says about your coworkers who can’t stop punching their monitors!

  17. Llellayena*

    For LW1: it’s only age discrimination if it can be proved that the employee uses that language to describe the issue only with people over 40 (and I sincerely doubt that they are the only two people with issues, just the people with the MOST issues).

    1. Serious Pillowfight*

      Coming here to point this out. Aside from HR just being totally off-base about how to handle this, ageism isn’t even a legal/HR issue until age 40.

      1. Georgia Carolyn Mason*

        Yeah, if they were somehow treating these workers differently *because* of their age — or talking smack about them for being old and unable to use technology — that would be one thing. But I’m sure if a younger colleague allowed the network to be infected with a virus or broke all the equipment, they would also be told they’re wrong.

    2. Worldwalker*

      And it’s vanishingly unlikely that the LW only tells people over 40 that they’re wrong in any fashion.

  18. Salty Caramel*

    Edith needs some education about spotting viruses and phishing and ransomware and the like. My Information Security team handles that, others’ experience probably varies.

    Archie needs someone to check his desk setup to get to the root of the breakage problem.

    Both of them need to accept that they are wrong sometimes and learn from it instead of tone policing people who are helping them. Age discrimination certainly exists, but I don’t see it here.

  19. Czhorat*

    For LW3, I think identifying the problem is the first step. I’ve encountered PLENTY of people professionally who are, to be kind, without a clue. I really don’t want someone to walk away thinking that I think they’re an idiot, even if I do.

    I also have tried – and mostly succeeded – in reframing in my head. Some people genuinely are a waste of oxygen, but more often they’re either concerned with different elements of a project than I am, understand something differently than I do, or have differing priorities. If you look at it more that way you’ll FEEL less angry, which can lead to looking less angry.

  20. Anonymous Educator*

    Following up on Alison’s comment about it being patronizing to treat them differently because they’re older, I’d say it would be age discrimination to not say “this is incorrect” to them if it’s something you would say to a younger employee doing the same thing.

    Also, what is with the breaking of the hardware?

  21. RandomNameAllocated*

    Hmm, LW1, I might smile sweetly at HR and then ask them if its OK to move the extra expenses those two are causing on to HR’s budget… Well, I wouldn’t, but I might think it very hard

  23. Anonymous Educator*

    There’s a subplot in DI Ray, in which the title character politely corrects someone who gets her name (mixes her up with someone else of South Asian descent) and title wrong (essentially demotes her), and then that person later complains that DI Ray had been a bully for correcting her.

  24. Double A*

    Ah yes, I celebrated my 40th birthday with a crime spree because I could no longer be called out for being wrong. It’s one of the few perks in an otherwise youth-obsessed culture.

    1. Sola Lingua Bona Lingua Mortua Est*

      Well, of course; we’re on our way to Carousel. What possible punishment do they have that trumps that?

    2. NobodyHasTimeForThis*

      I had not yet been told I am now free from consequences. I had maintained I had to follow all the same rules and nobody told me I was wrong!

      Let the games begin

        1. Georgia Carolyn Mason*

          Hey, I’m FIFTY and didn’t realize I now lived a consequence-free life, at least at work. If I’d known that, even I (who self-identified as a birthday-hater in the other thread) might’ve had to celebrate!

  25. Lark*

    I have noticed that sometimes when folks don’t literally say, “the correct way” or “accurate” or use other very clear right/wrong language, listeners assume that something is optional. If it’s just “the best way” or “the most secure way” rather than “the correct way” to do something, people tend to think “well, this purchase/issue/customer isn’t security intensive/major so I’ll just do it the less-good way and it won’t matter”.

    Jeez louise, I am SO OLD and have been working for SO LONG and have tried really hard to do things right and every time I see people, old or young, just sort of bopping along making problems and refusing to improve, I feel like I screwed up my entire career. I have always felt that I would, like, be fired and lose my home if I willfully screwed up and made trouble, but apparently that isn’t the case.

  26. Sneaky Squirrel*

    I’m concerned that HR’s blanket rule is to tell you to figure out if someone is older and then treat them differently because of that. That’s kind of the opposite of the point of the law.

    This is where malicious compliance would feel so sweet. I’m not truly recommend this, but I wish that LW could ask HR to formally provide them with a list of everyone who is older than LW, because how else is LW supposed to know who they should treat differently? Should they make the judgement of who is older than them based on appearances or use formalized data instead?

  27. Making up a name for this*

    I found the original letter and it looks like a sentence got cut off.

    That’s not okay and I’m not willing to (1) reprimand my staff for explaining and fixing an error that could have cost our company a lot of money, or (2) let people bully my staff, for which they won’t be reprimanded. I pushed again and the HR rep said, “I just want to shut them up, okay?” I know emotions are running high right now, but as a middle manager what do I do here?

    Does that make HR worse? Geez.

    1. Strive to Excel*

      Yes! HR is explicitly saying “I don’t want to deal with complaints” – ie, do their job. If they don’t want constant complaints, they have the authority to *shut it down*. That’s *the entire point of HR*.

    2. Ellis Bell*

      “I just want to shut them up, okay?” is the key to the solution right there. The HR rep thinks no one could be more of a PITA than Archie and Edith, but OP sounds highly motivated to me! If OP really wants to protect the team, they have to just be more persistent than the trouble makers are. If contacting the HR boss doesn’t work, I’d be constantly going back to this rep saying I was concerned about treating staff differently and making every little communication about doing things right/wrong HRs problem.

  28. Potsie*

    Oof. I would be tempted to assign the IT tickets filed by Edith and Archie back to Edith and Archie since they are clearly the experts. I would probably end up fired if I worked for that company.

  29. A Book about Metals*

    “we can’t use the words “right, accurate, wrong, or incorrect or any version thereof, as some team members find the terms offensive and disrespectful in regards to their age.”

    Ugh – this is terrible. It sounds like something someone would write if they wanted to parody “woke” HR

  30. Chairman of the Bored*

    I want to know if the HR rep is older than all odd the people they are correcting here.

    If not, then presumably HR rep has no standing to tell them that what they are doing is wrong.

  31. Hummer on the Hill*

    This LW’s HR dept makes me furious… and I am 71! I work in tech, and yeah, sometimes I slip up, and I get told I made a mistake or don’t understand something and am told the correct info. As long as it’s done respectfully, it’s fine. I am not a wilting flower just because I have a few more orbits under my belt!

  32. FashionablyEvil*

    This is one of those letters where I wish there was a follow up where the LW comes back and says, “So, it turns out the HR rep is Archie’s niece/Edith’s paramour/being blackmailed by Archie and Edith,” or some other wild turn of events.

    1. 3-Foot Tall Inflatable Rainbow Unicorn*

      Was there ever an update? I’d really love an update on this, preferably one where Archie and Edith discover that age is no “get out of damaging equipment free” card.

      1. FashionablyEvil*

        I looked–I didn’t see one, but the comment thread on the original was pretty extensive and I didn’t spend much time looking to see if the OP weighed in.

  33. Yup*

    I think the HR department is totally off here. But I also think the ageist accusation isn’t necessarily wrong. Just the tone of letter #1 feels like it’s calling the two older employees incompetent, even stupid, for not being able to navigate office technology. But it IS hard to change the way we work, especially at today’s incredible pace, and what these employees may need isn’t “No that’s wrong” but “I think we should sit with you and help you feel more comfortable with this.”

    I would totally feel targeted too if I’m trying to understand something that’s frustrating me and someone tells me repeatedly that I am wrong. It is difficult to be an older employee in today’s office. It is frustrating and sometimes humiliating, and this feels like a reaction and pushback to being called out for incompetence.

    There are better ways to handle this. Ageism isn’t black and white, it’s a whole grey area and we need to be conscious of that.

    1. ThursdaysGeek*

      You can be wrong at any age, frustrated with changes at any age. If you’re slowing down or humiliated because of your age, there’s a problem. In my office, we are constantly learning: us older ones are looked up to for institutional knowledge, the younger ones are looked up to for their knowledge of new technology – we learn from each other.

    2. Jackalope*

      The thing is that it’s never been normal to break one’s screen multiple times a month, and antivirus tech and the knowledge of how to handle viruses has been around for decades. These aren’t advanced tech concepts.

    3. Strive to Excel*

      I hear you about it being frustrating to have to change the way you work to accommodate new tech. I’m not even that far into the workplace and am already frustrated with the way that a lot of software companies in particular seem to just make arbitrary and unnecessary changes to their product.

      But in this scenario, Archie and Edith aren’t just ‘bad at tech’. OP is describing needing to clean up after a virus infection that hits other coworkers. Which means they’re not just struggling with aspects of their jobs, they’re exposing the company to active harm. That *is* incompetence. And it absolutely stings to be told that hey, you’re bad at your job. There’s no good way to hear that. But they’re not being called out for being old, they’re being called out for being unable to use required tools in a safe manner. Turning this into an agism conversation only results in the reinforcement of the stereotype of “old people bad at tech” and will make the inevitable fallout a lot worse.

      A family member of mine recently dealt with a similar situation – except that instead of having an employee who was bad with computers, her employee was a surgeon who was no longer able to keep his hands steady enough to do surgery reliably. He also claimed that they were being ageist, with a much better claim than Edith & Archie because his lack of hand steadiness *was* directly related to his age & physical condition, resulting in any complaints being tangled up in HR red tape. Then he botched a surgery to the point where the patient is going to have complications for the rest of their life. So instead of transitioning out gracefully, he got forced to retire and now probably has a malpractice lawsuit on his hands.

      1. anon here*

        All HR people need to learn the law around bona fide occupational qualifications. The patient should sue the HR that lollygagged on getting the shaky-handed surgeon out of the OR, too.

        1. Strive to Excel*

          This is second-hand at best; I think it was less HR lolly gagging and more that they were doing everything by the book to avoid a discrimination lawsuit, especially since a) “your hand is wobbly” is really hard to quantify and b) is so specific to surgeons that they basically had to get other surgeons to confirm “this person is probably unsafe”.

          The bigger problem, at least according to my family member, was that the surgeon himself, who has the significantly greater ethical responsibility, got incredibly offended and obstinate about the suggestion that he couldn’t do his job. Instead of doing an honest self assessment of his own abilities, he refused all feedback or or suggestions on ways to compensate or move to a different stage in his career.

          1. Elbe*

            It’s never great when someone lacks emotional maturity, but it certainly is scary how often it can have really terrible consequences for other people.

            This is one of the reasons why I agree with Allison that being able to handle negative feedback is such an important characteristic in an employee.

    4. Sneaky Squirrel*

      If there’s an obvious security issue or a misuse of company property, such as someone sharing viruses or breaking multiple screens, this warrants a “no, that’s wrong” conversation. These are potentially fireable actions.

    5. HonorBox*

      I can see that there is some frustration shining through in the letter, too. But I think the frustration has nothing to do with the ages of the people. Rather it is the situations the IT team is cleaning up. Archie isn’t having trouble navigating Excel. Archie has broken three screens in a month’s time. Telling Edith that clicking on an attachment from an unknown sender is “wrong” is the perfect wording. That’s not targeting. That’s not harassment. That’s fact. If there are questions that Archie and Edith are asking and they need a bit more instruction or coaching, that’s one thing. But even then, HR is overstepping, because if Archie is being coached and someone tells him he’s incorrect about something, as long as the tone is not negative, all you’re doing is sugar coating and I’d argue that’s not helpful either.

    6. Ellis Bell*

      I’d be with you on this if it were people going from an old way to a new way, and struggling with new training but these are people who literally just need to stop breaking stuff. There’s also the fact that they’re openly harassing OP’s team (!!), so I’m going to say that the problem is their personality, not their age, or the training methods used with them.

    7. Silver Robin*

      Could be, but this is an incredibly immature response to being told they are doing something incorrectly and then having been provided detailed notes on how to do it correctly. They are getting help, but are so caught up in their feelings around age/tech/newness/change that they externalize it and project ageism onto the IT folks who are just trying to get them to stop breaking things. That is wild.

    8. kanada*

      People have this attitude towards technology all the time and I don’t understand it. If a doctor or lawyer or pharmacist–or any one of a hundred other jobs that require continuing education–came on here and complained that they were constantly having to learn new things, we would immediately see how off-base they are.

      1. Ellis Bell*

        I’ve seen it happen in teaching actually. “Woe is me, why do I have to improve what I do, when I’ve been doing it for so long? I don’t care if studies have shown new information about how the brain works, your training is a slight on my entire career up to this point.” TBF to the HR rep it definitely matters how the training is presented – you can’t suggest people have been doing it wrong, at least not straight away – you’ve got to pitch it as an exciting new way to get even better.

        1. Worldwalker*

          My father was a teacher (retired in 1975) and he had to take regular continuing education courses for his entire teaching career, as did every other teacher. This is not something new that they sprung on that guy.

    9. Ralph*

      One of them is breaking hardware. The other is bringing in viruses. By any metric, they are a problem. And they are a problem that must be fixed for the good of the coworkers and the organization.

    10. Elbe*

      “I think we should sit with you and help you feel more comfortable with this.”

      Maybe delicate language like this would be fine the first few times, but if the issues keep happening, it’s appropriate to be more blunt with a person. When you break office equipment 3 times (!) or give viruses to your coworkers, I don’t think that it’s right to quibble about the (accurate, direct) language used to let you know there’s a problem. They weren’t being yelled at or berated and the messaging was still professional.

      Frankly, they ARE wrong here, and they should be adult enough to look at the facts. When most people are repeatedly told that they are doing something wrong (and can verify that their actions have had negative consequences for the company and for coworkers), the take away would be “wow, I need to spend time improving my skills”. It should not be “Wow, people are obligated to handle me with kid gloves when I repeatedly break things.”

    11. Retired Vulcan Raises 1 Grey Eyebrow*

      As an older person (and retired) I’d be irritated & frustrated if someone training me softened corrections because of my age.
      That is age discrimination!
      I’ver got grey hair and wrinkles, but my brain is as flexible as ever and I love learning.
      Just give me clear corrections, tell me the correct way and I’ll be happy.

      I was in STEM, doing highly mathematical work at the bleeding edge and I never felt it was more difficult for me to keep to that level than my younger colleagues.
      People of all ages may have trouble keeping up with their more tech-savvy colleagues.

    12. Worldwalker*

      It seems to me that they’re incompetent because they won’t use normal office technology — and that they break it!!! There is a difference between “unable” and “unwilling.”

      What’s so difficult about “today’s” office, and at what age should one expect to be unable to handle it?

  34. ThursdaysGeek*

    I’ve worked with people older than me and younger than me on my team. Their age is completely immaterial. I want to know if they’re competent, and their age has nothing to do with that! Your HR is bad, no matter how old they are, and ditto with Archie and Edith.

  35. Bookworm*

    Letter #1 – maybe Edith and Archie aren’t good candidates to be remote. I wonder if they had the same issues in the office (breaking equipment, etc)

    1. EchoGirl*

      Looking back, the original was from April 2020 when there was no choice. Once things started opening back up, I’d imagine this would be something that would have to be taken into consideration in making remote work decisions (assuming bringing them in could be done safely).

  36. Festively Dressed Earl*

    Real question: how do you learn to have a poker face? It’s a skill I need too, and I have no idea how to cultivate it.

    1. Eldritch Office Worker*

      Remote work helped with my poker face a LOT. I watched my reactions and learned to temper them. Some people do the same thing in a mirror or with a buddy.

    2. Radioactive Cyborg Llama*

      I think this is something that could be practiced. Going into a meeting, intentionally decide to keep your face neutral.

      I haven’t done this with my non-poker-face but I have done it for times when I know my counterpart is likely to aggressive and/or obnoxious. I’m a lawyer so I call it “legal robot.”

      1. Festively Dressed Earl*

        Legal robot when someone’s being obnoxious pretty much hits the nail on the head. If you couldn’t see your face, how did you know when you were about to make a non-neutral expression? Did someone help you, or did you bite your cheek like Honor Box suggested, or did you practice bracing yourself in neutral situations?

    4. HonorBox*

      It can help if you have meetings remotely and with people who you’re comfortable with and who won’t take offense to any reactions. That’s where you can really watch yourself. Set up your screen so you can see yourself better.

      When you’re in person, I’ve noticed that I can feel some reactions coming on. You get a second or two warning when someone is saying something you’re going to react to a lot. Try gently biting the inside of your cheek, biting down hard. You can distract your face a little bit if you’re focused on something others won’t see.

    5. Grey Coder*

      I find I do worse at controlling my reactions if I am surprised. So now if I know I may be challenged, I prepare by thinking of the loopiest things that someone might say in the meeting. “New dress code is banana skins.” “All presentations must be yodelled.” “Software is to be delivered on 5.25 inch floppy disks.”

      I may be tempting fate, but reality has not yet exceeded my preparatory benchmarks.

    6. RR*

      As someone with a terrible poker face, I’ve found it helpful to cultivate and practice other expressions. Rather than aiming for a true poker/neutral face, I deliberately put on a “I am listening to you earnestly” or “I am thinking seriously,” or similar. And, as others have noted, placing hands on face can both help convey this and mitigate against the “OMG are you crazy” reaction that I might otherwise have written across my forehead.

  37. DivergentStitches*

    I’m in several “minority groups” – female, over 40, lgbtq+, disabled – and would never ever think being told I was wrong was discrimination against anything.

    Regarding the writer with the glass face – what should I do if I’m starting a new job where the client expects everyone to be on camera for meetings, but I have a neurological condition that makes my face have muscle spasms or tics regularly? Should I warn the manager on day 1 or just let it happen and see if anyone brings it up?

    1. Silver Robin*

      Alison’s advice for this is commonly to say something quick and breezy about it on day one. “Hey, just wanted to give a heads up that sometimes my face will twitch; it is a tic and it does not mean anything. Please ignore it.” Something like that.

      You can use that for folks you will be regularly speaking to as well, if you want, but you do not have to announce it. If folks have feelings about it, they will either let you know and you can respond based on how they handle it, or they will ask your manager and they will be able to tell them to leave well enough alone.

  38. Eldritch Office Worker*

    Ironically, as HR, if I couldn’t tell older people they were wrong half my career wouldn’t exist (the other half, of course, is telling younger people they’re wrong).

  39. House On The Rock*

    Serious question: couldn’t people get in trouble trying to guess, or ask about others’ ages?

    My employer (large, public academic health system) is very, very strict about avoiding the whiff of discrimination to the point where managers are told not to make any assumptions about ages or refer to an employee’s age. They don’t even like us starting discussions with staff about retirement plans, even when it’s quite obvious someone is getting close. So determining whether someone is “older than you” to be in compliance with these directions seems extremely risky. What happens when you have a new employee and they realize IT is walking on eggshells around them because they’ve made an assumption about how old they are? The mind boggles!

    1. Eldritch Office Worker*

      “couldn’t people get in trouble trying to guess, or ask about others’ ages?”

      Not legally, unless they’re being discriminatory based on that information. It sounds like your employer is being extremely overcautious, I’d guess based on historical issues they’d rather avoid.

    2. Ellis Bell*

      They’re only really supposed to treat Archie and Edith this way, who expressly requested it. Everyone else is reasonable.

  40. Radioactive Cyborg Llama*

    I feel like this is a case for malicious compliance. “I can’t help Archie because that would involve telling him the ‘correct way’ to use power point and I am not allowed to do that.”

  42. HonorBox*

    Serious question:
    If “we can’t use the words ‘right, accurate, wrong, or incorrect or any version thereof, as some team members find the terms offensive and disrespectful in regards to their age’ is that not a form of discrimination? Like from younger coworkers who DO hear those words when needed. If Reiliegh is 28 and being told she’s accurate in her work or Taylon is 26 and told that he’s done a calculation wrong, isn’t it age discrimination?

    I’m being facetious… mostly. HR is horrible in this situation. On what planet do they think a policy in the employee handbook that states, “People over the age of ____ are not to have the words right, accurate, wrong, incorrect or any version of said words used about their work” makes sense. I can’t see that it would hold up legally, but even more I can’t see how it actually works in reality. Like if Jerry says that the business opens at 9:14 am and phones aren’t answered until then, how is it problematic to just tell him he’s incorrect. That’s not rude or hostile. That’s just fact.

    Did we ever get an update to this letter?

    1. Radioactive Cyborg Llama*

      Legally, to be a victim of age discrimination, you have to be 40 or older. SO as a legal matter, there is no recognizable age discrimination under age 40.

    2. Sneaky Squirrel*

      The idea of treating someone at work differently because they’re elderly could be considered discrimination. In the US that person would have to be over 40 unless a stricter applies; if LW was in their 20s, a 30 year old wouldn’t have a claim.

      Realistically though, I think it would come down to whether there was an adverse impact to the protected group as to whether it would get any traction. If I’m 40+ and you’re telling me that I can never be wrong, I’m not exactly going to complain about it.

      1. Strive to Excel*

        I think like with the other protected categories, adverse impact + business needs is the formula applied. For instance, an eyesight test is probably going to adversely affect people over 40, but an airline requiring pilots to have regular vision tests with results over a certain benchmark is going to be upheld as reasonable. The average office implementing an eyesight test is likely not going to be legally supported.

  43. Le Vauteur*

    The IT scenario – HR needs to see the messages the complainers sent to your team. Along with a log of the interventions and actions your team have had to have as a result of ineptitude to fix things. And maybe a nice comparative graph of numbers for the rest of the company at the same time. And a note explaining the cost of these encounters, and what would have been the risk if the encounters hadn’t needed to happen. Sure, some people need a ‘hmm, try it this way’ approach to training and talking through things rather than a ‘no, that’s not right’ approach, but equally, their ineptitude is a capability issue, perhaps HR need to focus on that instead. And if it comes up again in the future, head any problems off at the pass with providing the data that shows a concerning pattern that you’ve noticed… Age is irrelevant, it’s people who can’t listen and follow instructions that are the issue.

    And the person with the active RBF – try and convert your WTF expression to a confused head tilt – and use ‘hmm, may I ask for some clarification about how this will affect X?’. I am blessed with such a face, and sometimes I am able to make it use its inside voice, sometimes I don’t bother. Masking was actually great for that!!

  44. Caramel & Cheddar*

    I definitely read the first letter as if Archie and Edith were also late twenties / early thirties and were somehow irate that an even younger employee was correcting them.

    1. Eldritch Office Worker*

      I don’t see how it’s rage bait. This can be what working across generations is like and “your HR sucks” is a pretty common theme.

  47. Project Maniac-ger*

    I think HR should be more concerned that Archie and Edith are purposely damaging company equipment and refuse to stop doing so.

    This is not an age issue, this is an asshole issue.

  48. Elbe*

    Yikes, HR is terrible here. It sounds like they’re so afraid of a lawsuit that they are content to let bend over backwards catering to the most unreasonable people. Anyone with basic critical thinking skills knows that no one magically stops making mistakes the second they hit, say, 55.

    This sounds like a classic case of confusing a lack of privilege for discrimination. Archie and Edith seem to assume that everyone should defer to them because of their age (and perceived seniority) and they are getting offended when they are treated like everyone else.

  49. ZebraStripes*

    Am I required to inquire ones age before providing feedback? Should we start wearing name tags with our birthdays? I wouldn’t want to provide feedback only to realize that Susan is 2 months older than me. where does this end? Time of birth?

  50. Merry*

    I feel for the 3rd commenter, I have a pretty expressive face myself and found mask wearing a blessing because I could relax more behind one. But I have found I can change my “you’re an idiot” face into one that reads more as “I’m confused” or “That’s interesting” now it sometimes starts as “your an idiot” and I’m sure it might be noticed but I just talk over my loud expression until I’ve convinced them I’m really quite confused

  51. Anon for This*

    For Poker Face: I had a similar problem. Practiced in front of a mirror – how does my face feel when I have a neutral expression? Then, when I am in a situation where it’s necessary, I arrange my face that way, and make sure that it stays that way. Was hard in the beginning, now it’s more or less normal.

  52. Bitte Meddler*

    #1 is especially laughable to me because I’m on my 4th career and I started it in my early 50’s. I’ve only ever had one manager who was my age or older.

    I’m cackling at the idea that the younger ones should have been forbidden from correcting me when I was doing something wrong.

    1. allathian*

      Yeah, I’m working for my 4th manager who’s younger than I am at my current job.

      The manager who originally hired me was simultaneously both very hands-off and a micromanager, she’s about 10 years older than I am and still working for the same employer as a senior IC.

      The second seemed an improvement at first, and she did understand my job better than the first one, but she was way too touchy-feely, not particularly competent as a manager, and she wanted above all else to be liked, so she wasn’t particularly effective, either. We parted on pretty bad terms (she quit as a manager, then retired bad) that I won’t go into now, although I’ve talked about it here before. She’s about 15 years older than I am.

      After that I had two managers who’re about 10 years younger and one who’s almost exactly 15 years younger, and my current one is younger than I am but not by much, we haven’t celebrated her birthday so I don’t know her exact age, but she has several kids, at least one in college. All of the younger managers have been great to work for, and they don’t hesitate to give constructive feedback just because I’m older…

  53. Worldwalker*

    “Don’t tell anyone older than you they’re wring”???

    That’s the most ludicrous thing I’ve seen today, and it’s definitely in the running for this month.

    “You’re too old to understand how this works” is ageist. “That’s not how this works” is … normal.

  54. Buffalo*

    LW, if I may use some formal HR terminology, your colleague appears to be a “meathead” and should “stifle themself”.

  55. Blarg*

    I would like to request an update on this one! I hope Archie, Edith, and the HR people are all gone — or that OP and their team have moved on.

  56. I'm just here for the cats!!*

    #1. I would bet money that HR rep is friend with those problematic coworkers or they have bullied the HR person so much that the decided its easier to do what they want. I wonder why they are still employed if they are spreading computer viruses and breaking equipment weekly? I hope the OP took this to someone higher.
    #2 along with everything else Alison said, another suggestion is to mention parking and if they need closer parking or handicap parking who they can contact. For example at my university there is handicap parking near all the buildings, but you sometimes have to drive on the sidewalk. So we give people the info for parking services. Also, when someone is coming for an interview, while bringing them to the office or wherever it’s great to point out where the bathrooms and drinking fountains are. And if there’s no drinking fountains let them know where they can get a cup water, or offer them something.
    #3 I also do not have a poker face and I also have a higher voice. It is frustrating when something is just the way you are and you can’t fix it.

  57. Morning Reader*

    I agree that age shouldn’t be a factor in hearing “that’s wrong” or incorrect. But, to combine issues in the two letters, what if the IT person is routinely letting their irritation show whenever they interact with older coworkers? There a difference between “that’s incorrect” with said an even tone, or said with a deep sigh and an eye roll. If their face is saying “you’re an idiot,” even if their exact words are completely on target, I can see how the older coworkers might object.
    (In an old workplace, we had one IT guy handling everything, and while he didn’t have an ageism problem, he had a personal interaction problem. He treated anyone who needed help as though they were incompetent and he seemed to be irritated with any request. It was true that he was very overworked and seemed to not have time to manage any common courtesies, but he eventually had to be coached to, for example, say “I’m removing your monitor now and I plan to be back with a replacement in a couple of hours,” instead of just taking the thing away, stalking off without giving the coworker any idea of what he was doing or when he’d be back, looking irritated at any question raised or having to take care of this. It was his job to fix or maintain these things but he didn’t see it as part of his job to be nice about it.)
    In this case, I think it would be hard not to let your face show “how stupid are you to expose us to a virus for the eleventieth time this month,” when you are actually thinking that.
    I’m not saying this is necessarily what is happening in the ageism letter, but it’s a possibility that the tech support person disdains the older, tech-troubled coworkers, and it comes through in their nonverbal communication.
    Even so, HR is… wait, what?

  58. Vaca*

    I’d really like to hear the answer to the question behind the question – what do you do when your HR is just incompetent? I get there was brief mention of going over their head, but many HR people (and I say this being related to several) seem to be grossly untrained, way overconfident in their ability to assess a situation, and basically untouchable (because ownership hired them to not have to think about this anymore). Can we get a blanket article about handling incompetent HR?

    2. Elbe*

      Honestly, I think that the advice would be similar to “your boss sucks and isn’t going to change.”

      Lots of people are bad that their jobs, but that incompetence does a lot more damage when those people are in roles that have authority or power over other people. That includes executives and owners and bosses, but it also includes HR. If there isn’t a reasonable person with authority over the HR person, then they’re probably just as untouchable as a CEO or business owner would be.

  59. An Australian in London*

    OP1, I hope HR was younger than you so they would accept you were allowed to tell them that they were wrong.

  60. PivotTime*

    There is a line between ageist language and communicating in the work place. I’m over 40 and federal law prevents someone from holding my age against me in compensation, job title and many other ways, but telling someone that there are procedures that are the “correct” way to do things is not ageist. Especially when a significant amount of time and resources is being dedicated to $%^%^ who can’t control themselves and wreck office equipment regularly.
    Archie and Edith were problem workers to begin with and this is something they’ve seized on to be awful about. Your employee shouldn’t be getting abusive texts from anyone for any reason. Why doesn’t HR care about that? Their logic is bananpants. These people are bullies and your HR is weak and doesn’t know what they’re doing. Stay strong and I hope you’re able to convey to your staff that you are doing all you can to protect them when HR clearly will not.

  61. Elizabeth West*

    Archie and Edith suck, and it’s not because they’re older. It’s because they suck.

    Sending abusive texts is grounds for firing someone regardless of age. This HR doesn’t seem capable of handling it, unfortunately.

  62. Kaleb*

    One consideration about the script provided on the second letter for accommodations (bearing in mind I’m in Canada, and the language in equity work sometimes evolves differently from elsewhere, including the US) – where I work we are moving away from the language of ‘accommodations’ and toward language like ‘accessibility measures.’ The reason is that ‘accommodation’ language carries a connotation of asking for something extra, and can make people feel like a burden (think of the difference between having to ask “can you accommodate me” and asking “can you make this more accessible”). Our script is something along the lines of “please let us know about any accessibility measures that could support you in the process.” This hasn’t been a universal change, but I’m directly engaged in disability-related work, and I’ve definitely been hearing this more frequently as time goes on (and, anecdotally, as a disabled person myself, I’m happy about this shift!)

    1. GythaOgden*

      Yup. The UK word is ‘adjustments’ — with the implication that adjusting a situation for an employee is akin to adjusting the height on a desk chair. (That may feel too trivial, but in our case I think that it also means that most people might be able to access adjustments for minor issues that don’t rise to a full on disability; we actually do it though the occupational health system, which helps people with temporary or minor situations mould things to their needs.) Accommodations does sound like you are going to let some things slide, like behaviour, or ask other people to do the heavy lifting for that person, like the OCD colleague who was imposing a lot of rules on the office with the blessing of HR. American equality law produces a lot of awkward legal catch-22s, whereas in our case I think a lot of the problems that US law has is mitigated by our laws explicitly being a covenant between employee and employer in which both have stated rights and responsibilities. (Our health and safety law is framed such that EVERYONE is responsible for safety. It’s the employer’s responsibility to provide PPE; it’s the employee’s responsibility to wear it.)

      Accessibility actually makes a lot of sense, though. It’s an established concept in the workplace, it’s an active word, it doesn’t have the connotations that other people have to scootch over and give you more room than they have and it pushes through ‘inaccessible’ pathways to find the right set-up for an individual.

  63. Mermaid of the Lunacy*

    So let me get this straight…Logan was born one month ahead of me and Lisa was born one month later. So I can tell Lisa she’s wrong but not Logan? Hahaha

  64. RagingADHD*

    Never mind technology – I want to know how people who are so old they don’t understand *glass* can still be alive, much less employed.

    You don’t break 3 screens (or verbally abuse and harass people) because you are old or don’t understand technology. They seem to understand perfectly well how to send nasty texts!

    This is an anger management and behavior problem, and HR are idiots.

  65. Retired Vulcan Raises 1 Grey Eyebrow*

    Archie & Edith realised that their lack of ability to do their jobs, plus their screwups taking up so much time from the IT dept, meant their jobs were in serious danger.
    They may have been put on PIPs or just guessed what was coming down the track for them.

    My theory is they made these ridiculous complaints of ageism so that they could claim retaliation and scare off their employer from firing.
    A pity they couldn’t apply such ingenuity to their actual jobs

    I’d like to think that HR had an ongoing plan to fire them and merely wanted to make sure OP’s team didn’t say anything that could be used to derail the process. In the real world, I think HR were just conflict-averse and ignorant of employment law.

  66. Sedna*

    I went back to check the original post and Edith is in her 40s?! Girl that is old enough to know not to click on viruses. I’m in my forties and not only do I perform basic maintenance and upgrades on my home computer, I troubleshoot computer problems for older relatives, as do most of my peers. Your age is not the problem here, babes.

    1. allathian*

      Indeed. My mom is in her late 70s and worked with computers throughout her STEM career. She started with punch cards in the late 1960s and she used FORTRAN, I’ve seen some of the printouts.

      I’m in my early 50s and got my first computer as a high school graduation present and I’ve been using them ever since.

  67. Crencestre*

    OP1: Full disclosure: I am a 74 year old woman who works as a museum educator – our staff ranges in age from 20 to 80 and the opportunity to learn from people of ALL ages is one of our agency’s great strengths! That being said, you can’t learn from ANYONE if you’re unwilling to be open to constructive suggestions and to others’ perspective. And there’s no age limit to that!

    Your HR department is nutty as an almond grove and is incredibly, obnoxiously, offensively condescending to seniors as well. By assuming that they can’t possibly be held to the same standards as younger employees, they’re perpetuating a very pernicious stereotype about seniors. Ironically, THAT – not expecting competent work from senior staff members! – is the REAL agism here.

    1. allathian*

      Yes, I feel this so much. My current department has employees of all ages. The youngest are in their mid-20s because most positions in government require at least a bachelor’s degree, with more than half requiring at least a master’s. The oldest are in their 60s. We treat each other with warmth and respect each other’s professional skills regardless of age, and we also learn from each other regardless of age.

  68. Raida*

    “Get f**ked.”
    That would be my manager’s manager’s response to this.
    And since he’s in his sixties, I think he’d say it in person, to both of them, outside the office while getting a coffee.
    What are they gonna do, say *he’s* being ageist? Nononono they wouldn’t friggin dare.

    Frankly, the response should be to go to these staffs’ manager(s) and get them plus our area’s manager to nut out how *they* will manage *their* ignorant and rude staff who think that making a complaint when they are given clear instructions is in any way professional

  69. Raw Cookie Dough*

    I think Edith and Archie are weaponizing the younger generations’ words against them, and HR is either falling for it, or just feels backed into a corner to comply.
    Either way, this GenXer is thoroughy amused.

  70. Amy*

    I don’t think the ages of Archie and Edith are the problem- HR is clearly on their side (to the point of ridiculous favoritism) and gaslighting LW1 as being ageist.

  71. Rep (taylor’s version)*

    Interestingly, I was reprimanded at a job for having a poker face “I can never tell what you’re thinking” okay???

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