“I’m Officially Old”: 30 Times Younger Coworkers Made These People Feel Old

Everybody gets old eventually, but sometimes our age creeps up on us unexpectedly and we're surprised at how much things have changed. Many people talk about how the younger generation doesn't know what a VHS is, doesn't recognize famous old-school bands, or was just born in the 2000s. And even more people feel old after interacting with younger folks, from their new slang terms to their still fresh and hopeful outlook towards life.

This online user focused mainly on the workplace and asked people to share how their younger coworkers made them feel old. A bunch of users delivered entertaining stories that might even leave you feeling old and confused.

This post may include affiliate links.

"I'm Officially Old": 30 Times Younger Coworkers Made These People Feel Old When i fell down the last couple of steps on a stairway. No one pointed and laughed like I expected, instead they helped me up and asked me if I was okay. That’s when I knew.

day_of_duke , Alessia Cocconi Report

Final score:

155points

POST

troufaki13 1 year ago

That hurt in more ways than one...

57points

View More Replies...

View more comments

We spoke to Dr. Gleb Tsipursky who wrote "Never Go With Your Gut" and he shared some insights on the topic: "Younger people often make older individuals feel 'old' due to a generational gap in technology, language, and cultural references. This can create a sense of disconnect, making older employees feel as if they are not as adaptable or 'in the loop' as their younger counterparts. The rapid pace of change in the workplace also plays a role; younger individuals may be quicker to adopt new software or methodologies, potentially making older employees feel left behind."

"I'm Officially Old": 30 Times Younger Coworkers Made These People Feel Old When they absolutely love a "new" song and then I tell them it's a re-make of a song from 25 years ago. They almost always try to tell me I'm wrong, until I pull up the evidence and then it's shocked Pikachu face lol.

_sam_fox_ , Henry Be Report

Final score:

147points

POST

Michael P (Perthaussieguy) 1 year ago

A few years ago I read about a Kanye West song featuring Paul McCartney and some Kanye fans were saying how great it was for him to help out an unknown (to them) singer.

52points

View More Replies...

View more comments

"I'm Officially Old": 30 Times Younger Coworkers Made These People Feel Old had an intern refer to the 90s as 'the late 1900s'

wtf. its true, but it makes my teenage years sound like the oregon trail or something

eusapian , Dale de Vera Report

Final score:

142points

POST

JoNo 1 year ago

When referring to something in the 70s, 80s or 90s, preface it with "last century" just for fun, especially if talking to someone 23 or younger.

27points

View More Replies...

View more comments

Dr. Gleb also shared some tips and tricks on how to stay youthful in the office: "To stay on top, especially in the office, older people should focus on continuous learning and upskilling. Familiarize yourself with the latest industry trends and technologies. Mentoring younger employees can also be beneficial; it's a two-way street where both parties can learn from each other. Building a personal brand based on experience and wisdom can offer a unique value proposition that younger coworkers may lack. Lastly, ensure that you are networking both inside and outside of the office to keep your professional connections strong."

"I'm Officially Old": 30 Times Younger Coworkers Made These People Feel Old My childhood cat lived to 21.5 so teaching (freshman biology lab, so students were ~18) became very weird when I realized my cat was older than my students

mollusck_magic , Roberto Huczek Report

Final score:

139points

POST

Michael Largey 1 year ago (edited)

Since you were teaching teenagers, you were lucky to have a long experience at herding cats.

43points

View more comments

Saying Go Go Gadget Arms to a table when reaching for items and getting blank stares in return.

Ok listen kids, you have no idea how funny this is. Lol.

DaisyDuncan2531 Report

Final score:

131points

POST

Charlie the Cat 1 year ago

Inspector Gadget

28points

View More Replies...

View more comments

Dr. Gleb also answered at what age people start feeling old: "Around their late 40s to early 50s. This is often when physical aging becomes more noticeable, and children may be leaving home, leading to a sense of emptiness and introspection. In the workplace, this might be the age when employees start to feel less in touch with younger colleagues or when they notice that higher-level positions are being filled by younger individuals."

"I'm Officially Old": 30 Times Younger Coworkers Made These People Feel Old I'm a (female) computer geek. I was running cables with this guy at work one night, and he kept trying to keep me out of the actual work part. I finally told him 'I've been doing this since before you were born!'

That was about 25 years ago, and as of right now, I've been working in the computer field for 44 years.

INobodyisme , Sigmund Report

Final score:

117points

POST

pep Ito 1 year ago (edited)

I once commented with coworkers I started working at the company in 1988. Then one of the younger ones said hey, I was born that year!

23points

View More Replies...

View more comments

"I'm Officially Old": 30 Times Younger Coworkers Made These People Feel Old Had a co-worker ask me, “Back before cell phones, did you just have to wait around at your house for a call?” Uh, yeah, pretty much.

Status-Effort-9380 , Kelli McClintock Report

Final score:

113points

POST

Blondie23 1 year ago

Um... GenX here.... we didn't "wait" for calls, people just called and tried to get you at home!

5points

View More Replies...

View more comments

"Labeling oneself as 'old' in the context of intergenerational relationships can be detrimental. It might induce a self-fulfilling prophecy where the older individual starts behaving according to the limitations they assume come with being 'old,' thereby missing out on opportunities for growth and learning. However, acknowledging one's experience and wisdom as a form of 'positive aging' can be empowering," said Dr. Gleb when we asked if labeling oneself as old is a bad or good thing.

"I'm Officially Old": 30 Times Younger Coworkers Made These People Feel Old They were complaining how hard and awkward it is to meet women on Tinder. I asked if they ever had to call a girl at home and her Dad answered the phone. They were horrified.

Another time one of my guys asked what a payphone was. We worked at a phone company.

Zelcron , Christian Lue Report

Final score:

110points

POST

Ample Aardvark 1 year ago

Way back then, my boyfriend's dad sounded exactly like him on the phone, and they both thought it was hysterical to pretend to be each other when I called!

28points

View More Replies...

View more comments

"I'm Officially Old": 30 Times Younger Coworkers Made These People Feel Old Various colleagues were debating whether the Concorde had been real. They couldn’t fathom that supersonic civilian aircraft used to exist and now they don’t anymore.

The Concorde last flew in 2003, when these colleagues were toddlers.

geckos_are_weirdos , Gabriel Goncalves Report

Final score:

106points

POST

David A Paterson 1 year ago

We want supersonic. Chant it with me.

25points

View More Replies...

View more comments

"The dynamic between younger and older people in an office environment can be very beneficial if managed correctly. Younger employees often bring new perspectives, tech-savviness, and a willingness to take risks. Older employees, on the other hand, bring experience, industry knowledge, and a nuanced understanding of company politics. Organizations that create a culture of mutual respect and learning between these two groups are generally more innovative and adaptive to change," shared Dr. Gleb. So if at any time you feel "old" in your workplace, remember that you have a very important part to play and wisdom to share with the younger workers.

#10

"I'm Officially Old": 30 Times Younger Coworkers Made These People Feel Old In trade school, we were doing introductions, saying a little bit about ourselves. One kid says "yeah, I'm really into classic cars, I have a 1997 *something or another*. Me, the other couple older folks, and the instructors all made audible groans of horror.

IndustrialPigmy , Ash Edmonds Report

Final score:

105points

POST

Jan Hyde 1 year ago

Or I like "old movies" - It came out in 1989 man, that's not an old movie.

35points

View More Replies...

View more comments

#11

"I'm Officially Old": 30 Times Younger Coworkers Made These People Feel Old Getting a blank stare after saying we’d meet, “Same bat-time, same bat-channel.”

AvogadrosMoleSauce , Mimi Thian Report

Final score:

102points

POST

Ace 1 year ago

#Nana nana nana nana....

26points

View More Replies...

View more comments

#12

"I'm Officially Old": 30 Times Younger Coworkers Made These People Feel Old Went grocery shopping and I thought, "Hey, they're playing some pretty good music."

wocketywack , Brittani Burns Report

Final score:

94points

POST

Some guy 1 year ago

Agreed! They play original versions now, not the canned, watered-down, zombies-in-the-Dawn-of-the-Dead-shopping-mall "music" anymore.

12points

View More Replies...

View more comments

#13

"I'm Officially Old": 30 Times Younger Coworkers Made These People Feel Old Software engineering manager here. I have team members that have never seen Lord of the Rings.

meyerjaw , Nikhil Prasad Report

Final score:

91points

POST

Jan Hyde 1 year ago

Seen? It was book in my day ;-)

84points

View More Replies...

View more comments

#14

"I'm Officially Old": 30 Times Younger Coworkers Made These People Feel Old I was talking to a coworker about movies and our favorites. I said something like “I watched that movie so much when I had it on tape in my college years”

Her: Tape?

Me: You know, on VCR?

Her: VCR?

Me: Oh well I guess those are old now. Everything is on DVD now.

Her: DVD?

Me: I guess those are old too. I guess Blu-ray is what’s on disc now.

Her: Disc?

Me: Nevemind

She was half joking but nonetheless it made me feel old.

watabby , JC Gellidon Report

Final score:

88points

POST

WhiteClawOfDeath 1 year ago

My sister called VCRs fat DVDs

28points

View More Replies...

View more comments

#15

"I'm Officially Old": 30 Times Younger Coworkers Made These People Feel Old They started calling me "mom" or "Mama bear" on the walkie-talkies. I find it kind of endearing, actually.

WhoaThere87 , Pradamas Gifarry Report

Final score:

82points

POST

Mimi La Souris 1 year ago

it's so cute :)

17points

View more comments

#16

"I'm Officially Old": 30 Times Younger Coworkers Made These People Feel Old When a younger female said she was going to come by "with some incredible tea." I was profoundly confused and disappointed when she showed up to my office without a calming elixir of the gods and instead proceeded to talk s**t about our co worker.

JBean85 , Content Pixie Report

Final score:

78points

POST

Mad Dragon 1 year ago

I say "spill the tea" all the time when I've got some juicy news.

17points

View More Replies...

View more comments

#17

For me, it’s listening to a much younger group of girls complain about the guys they are hung up on. They are beautiful and young and have aspiring careers and they’ll tell me a story of what a guy did on a date and they’re like “I don’t know what to do!!” And I’m just sitting there like, “are you kidding me? Tell him to go f**k himself and find someone else who values and respects you?” I’m in my 40s now I don’t take s**t any more and my current boyfriend treats me like a queen. I’m always telling them to accept nothing less than absolute princess treatment from a guy. They never listen though.

anon Report

Final score:

78points

POST

Karl 1 year ago

That is the benefit of age and experience. You’ve developed a finely tuned b******t detector that lets you quickly work out who and who doesn’t deserve your time.

41points

View More Replies...

View more comments

See Also on Bored Panda

Dutch Swimmer Goes Viral For Super Revealing Trunks During 2024 Olympics: “Is This Legal?”

Thrill-Seeking Diver Jumps Down Extreme Waterslide, Ignoring The Strict Ban For Women

#18

"I'm Officially Old": 30 Times Younger Coworkers Made These People Feel Old I'm in IT. Co-worker needed to borrow a serial cable. The cable was older than the co-worker.

AMoreExcitingName , Karolina Grabowska Report

Final score:

77points

POST

The Scout 1 year ago (edited)

Couldn't you have found a matching picture? This is a supressed USB cable. A serial cable is the monstrosity with the square end that you find at the back of old monitors/printers.

18points

View More Replies...

View more comments

#19

"I'm Officially Old": 30 Times Younger Coworkers Made These People Feel Old I'm a preschool teacher. It's been a TRIP to watch parents go from Soooo much older than me, to the same age as me, and now they're younger than me!?!?

Smart_Alex , Gabe Pierce Report

Final score:

76points

POST

Karl 1 year ago

My dad was a secondary school teacher for 40 years. At the start of the school year one of his new pupils looked familiar so he asked her “Did I teach your mother?”. “No”, replied the girl, “You taught my grandmother!” He knew then it was time to retire 🙂

53points

View More Replies...

View more comments

#20

Left a note for a new hire to call IT to help him set up his work phone and he couldn’t read cursive. Asked me what language I wrote the note in.

Vast-Celebration-717 Report

Final score:

72points

POST

Ace 1 year ago

That's just sad.

53points

View More Replies...

View more comments

#21

When I was talking to this new delivery driver and we realized I had delivered pizza to his mother in the hospital on the day he was born.

Divayth--Fyr Report

Final score:

71points

POST

Some guy 1 year ago

That's just as good on a "small world" basis.

12points

View more comments

See Also on Bored Panda

Woman Put A Water Fountain With A Camera In Her Yard, Here Are 24 Photos Of Regular Visitors (New Pics)

“Ma’am I Live Here”: Woman Refuses To Back Out Of Driveway, Learns A Lesson The Hard Way

#22

"I'm Officially Old": 30 Times Younger Coworkers Made These People Feel Old Younger dude said his first gaming console was the PlayStation 4, first computer ran windows 8, and had no idea what we meant by dial up or rotary phones. Had to stop and reevaluate my age lol.

happilystoned42069 , Kamil S Report

Final score:

66points

POST

Karl 1 year ago

I was temping at an office and some people were reminiscing about their first game console. One said theirs had been the first X Box and everyone called him old. I decided not to mention my Atari cartridge console with wood veneer effect and Tank Pong.

32points

View More Replies...

View more comments

#23

"I'm Officially Old": 30 Times Younger Coworkers Made These People Feel Old (coworker) hey, a few of us are going out Friday night, wanna come?

(me) sure

(cw) great! Meet at my place at 11.

(me) wait, 11pm?...ok (to myself) that's when I was planning on going to bed

idiotsarray , Jp Valery Report

Final score:

65points

POST

Just another idiot 1 year ago

I'm in my 40s. When darkness falls, I like to be in my recliner with a tumbler of bourbon and watch TV.

40points

View More Replies...

View more comments

#24

"I'm Officially Old": 30 Times Younger Coworkers Made These People Feel Old Our payroll company went under (luckily not with our money), so for that month, we got real live, honest-to-goodness paper checks. Several co-workers didn't really know what they were or how they could turn them into money.

Ambitious-Eye975 , Money Knack, www.moneyknack.com Report

Final score:

64points

POST

BoredPossum 1 year ago

I'd never even seen a check before I changed country. In Sweden we haven't used them for ages.

7points

View more comments

#25

This effing toddler "software developer" had the freaking nerve to tell me that Windows 95 was released BEFORE HE WAS BORN. I was like, no dude, it was just a few years ago. I asked him how old he was. He tells me he's 26, just finished his masters. He must be thinking of DOS 6 or around there.

Yup. He was born after Windows '95 was released.

frank-sarno Report

Final score:

64points

POST

Jeremy Bolanos 1 year ago

I remember standing in line at the 'computer store' to buy Windows 95 (floppy edition) and then installing it over Windows 3.1

11points

View More Replies...

View more comments

See Also on Bored Panda

50 Of The Most Incredible Shots That Were Submitted To The Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards

French Diver’s “Jewels” In Tight Swimming Trunks Become Talk Of The Town At Olympics

#26

One of my coworkers said their parents got them into Nirvana and Soundgarden because “that’s what they listened to in highschool.” I think I went into a fugue state for a minute with that one. But I still maintain that I am not old, and that 1997 was a few years ago.

MagniPunk Report

Final score:

62points

POST

Did I say that out loud? (he/him)cis/het 1 year ago

1997 was precisely 6 years ago.

58points

View More Replies...

View more comments

#27

Not me but a friend named Jessica (my name is also Jessica) said she was working with a young woman also named Jessica who said “oh wow I’ve never met someone with my same name!” She was 22. If you grew up in the 90s there were so many Jessicas.

pun__intended Report

Final score:

60points

POST

Jessica Reitzell 1 year ago

Holler back

25points

View more comments

#28

"I'm Officially Old": 30 Times Younger Coworkers Made These People Feel Old When I couldn't decipher the two youngest coworkers parts of the conversation. I had to search what some words meant.

Quantum_Yeet , Mimi Thian Report

Final score:

49points

POST

Jared Robinson 1 year ago

thank god for urban dictionary.

28points

View More Replies...

View more comments

#29

"I'm Officially Old": 30 Times Younger Coworkers Made These People Feel Old I work at a brewery part-time as a beertender (aka bartender) for extra income and free beer. I'm 45, and most of them are in their early 20s. I like all of them, but boy, did I realize quickly that I was out of touch with today's slang in the US! We were trying a new beer, and my coworker was like, "Damn, this really slaps," and that was followed by "no cap" by another. I stood there so confused about what these guys just said. They have all taught me much more since😆

StopTouchingThings , Amie Johnson Report

Final score:

47points

POST

Joshua David 1 year ago

I just act privy to the slang like totally. Then later I'll do research.

8points

View More Replies...

View more comments

See Also on Bored Panda

Woman Moves Out Of Parents' Home After They Asked Her To Give Her Space To Brother, They Freak Out

Mom Leaves $250k Inheritance To Son, Throws A Fit When Daughter Stops Looking After Her

#30

"I'm Officially Old": 30 Times Younger Coworkers Made These People Feel Old Years ago, before I retired, when I met a new young troop and realized I'd been in the military longer than they had been alive...

PirateKilt , Diego González Report

Final score:

40points

POST

Michael Largey 1 year ago

I know someone who retired from the military on the day before his daughter would outrank him.

18points

View More Replies...

View more comments

Note: this post originally had 61 images. It’s been shortened to the top 30 images based on user votes.

What do you think ?

Randy Sanders 1 year ago

My oldest son's history teacher was teaching about the Vietnam war, and he had to write an essay about it. I helped him out. He got an F and I knew then her facts were wrong. I had a meeting with her to rectify this problem and she proceeded to tell me all kinds of things that were just plain wrong. I finally had to say, "Lady, I was there, you weren't". Her eyes got really big. Anyway, the upshot of all this was I was invited to talk in her class about it. PS, My son got an A.

I think it's great that you were able to meet with the teacher and correct her, even better that you were invited to talk to her class. But, it begs the question, what was she taught about such an important part of your country's recent history, and how many have passed through her class learning these "facts" that you know to wrong?

Load More Replies...

Will Cable 1 year ago

When you talk to someone and you realise some of your clothes are older than they are.

10points

Auntriarch 1 year ago

I have shoes older than my boss. Quality shoes mind you

6points

UpQuarkDownQuark (he/hey you) 1 year ago

The internet has changed everything between generations. Media is partially democratized, allowing you to find and watch or listen to anything from any time, but is also increasingly spoon fed by algorithms. For us we over-40s television was as the primary means of media consumption, and whether you were 10 or 80, Sam Donaldson or Walter Kronkite presented the news. There weren’t many channels, so you watched old shows from 10, 20, 30, 40 years ago. From 8pm to 10pm the same shows were on for everybody. This means I knew about old phones, old radio shows, old movies, old singers, and old technology and old cultural mores. It’s just not true anymore.

AndThenICommented 1 year ago (edited)

Nailed it. We didn’t grow up so segregated from our parents’ or even grandparents’ pop culture or technology. I realise now that my partner and I have been raising our kiddo in a more old school way in that we still watch tv together (whatever it is), we share tech in the house (even have a family computer), listen to music together, have family dinner, just generally more inter-generational sharing. I didn’t realise this was unusual until now.

4points

Load More Comments

“I’m Officially Old”: 30 Times Younger Coworkers Made These People Feel Old

Games

Vėja Elkimavičiūtė

Vėja Elkimavičiūtė

Word Search

WordroW

Jigsaw

Crossword

Sudoku

Picdoku

Killer Sudoku

Kriss Kross

Word Flower