Youth in the Workplace
From as far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a writer.
Actually that’s a bit of a fib; I spent much of my youth hoping to be a knight. I wanted to fistfight dragons and drink from goblets and cleave bewildered peasants in two - all of that fairytale stuff. But ‘I always wanted to be a writer except for that 7-8 year period when I wanted to be Lancelot’ isn’t half as good an opening, so there you go.
After a childhood spent gaily skewering imaginary villains on perilous quests, my interests broadened. I found something mightier than the sword, a new Holy Grail to seek: a career in writing. After a blurry and rather pungent three years at university, I entered employment and – with no small amount of luck – I found my first writing job at 22 years old. And within that first role (plus many of the ones that followed) I was the youngest in the office.
Now, being young in the workplace can be an enormous boon: you've no commitments, your finger’s on the pulse, you’re hungry. You’re malleable, and you have momentum and drive. Plus, in my experience, older colleagues will naturally just assume that you lead a cool debauched private life, for some reason. ‘What shenanigans did you get up to this weekend, ey?’ 54-year-old Jeff from Sales will ask as I trudge to my desk on Monday morning. ‘Oh, this and that’, I reply, at which Jeff cackles knowingly as if I said ‘a 38 hour meth-fuelled orgy’. I’m happy to let colleagues assume this. It’s certainly more interesting than ‘folding laundry and tending to a dying basil plant’.
There are downsides to being young in the workplace. Imposter syndrome strikes early, and it strikes hard. I’ve sat through dozens of meetings in foisty silence, acutely aware that I am the youngest in the room, and terrified to speak because of it. Even if I have ideas I want to share, a hundred niggling doubts swarm over me, clogging any orifice that might otherwise permit me to make a sound.
‘How’d you fool them?’ my brain cackles as I wince and wither. ‘How’d you trick them into hiring such an oaf as you? Christ, you’d better hope they don’t ask you a question, Danny Boy. Imagine them, watching you expectantly, the hope slowly fading in their eyes as they cop your vacant expression and empty notepad.’
People assume you are inexperienced and incapable early on in your career. As a copywriter whose work is often posted company-wide, I’ve gritted my teeth through hundreds of ‘constructive feedback’ emails - even from people employed in entirely different sections of the business. Ryan from Accounts on my back about my frivolous use of the Oxford comma? By Jove, it makes me balloon with rage. It’s hard not to feel that, were I thirty years older with grey hair and a suit, people would hesitate before leaping in to tell me how to do the job I’ve been hired for.
In such an environment, working your way up is difficult. Let’s be honest: in any given job role you can learn all there is to learn in – what – six months? A year, tops? Then what? In the majority of businesses, you’re expected to sit and pay your dues, put the hours and months and years in, and then one day, perhaps, when you’re no longer quite so young, you’ll get the word ‘senior’ tacked onto your job title and an extra hundred quid a month. Forgive me O Lord, but I feel less than thrilled at the prospect. Luckily for us young(ish) folks, there’s a solution.
In today’s working environment, I’ve found it far more rewarding to move around. Our parents and grandparents may have spent four decades loyally bound to one company (like a knight to a Baron, now that you mention it) however if you’re serious about keeping up the pace in your career, it pays more today to work with many different people, in many different companies. I believe that if I’ve reached the point where I can do my job without thinking, I’m no longer learning, and it’s time to move on. As a consequence I’ve found that each time I’ve upped sticks, my job title has improved - sometimes dramatically so.
To be young in the modern workplace is to be at once idolised and overlooked. Youth is revered and adored and valued, yet apparently not to be trusted. Well, if you’re feeling a little glum due to the workplace frustrations and stagnation that from youth, try not to worry - it certainly isn’t a life sentence. Though your wallet may be full of naught but old bus tickets, you’ve got Time in abundance. You have years and years ahead to pirouette between different jobs, each time leaping ever higher and more gracefully. So take it at your own pace, and don’t let anybody make you feel small. Because you are not small.
You, my friend, are a friggin’ knight.
Written by Dan Hackett
Dan is a copywriter living in Bristol. He wrote his first novel last year, though he's not tried to get it published yet. Instead, he is currently sitting on it like a goose on an egg, refusing to let it hatch, mortified at the prospect of releasing it out into the world. If you fancy telling him to get his act together, his Twitter is here. Oh and he writes about travelling sometimes, too.