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Paranoid about being too old for my job

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Inuit
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05 Mar 2010, 5:05 pm

Hi,

this may seem odd worry.

I'm 35 and a web designer I have worked in this industry for 12 years but average at 2 years max in any one job a lot of my positions lasted less than a year as I can quickly isolate myself by not wanting to join in with social events (a lot of companies have an active social commitie to arange weekly nights out football etc) I try to fit it but seldom do. I'm feeling like this in my current role now. My work is always well recieved, though I myself am not. So I usualy end up wanting to look for another job. A pattern that has spanned 12 year.

Each time I go to a new company I worry that I'm getting too old (I'm ten years older that
most people in my current company). I'm covincing myself that I can't do this much longer and nobody will want to employ me when I'm 40 as 'web design is a young mans game'. Is this worry rational? Do I have any grounds to belive that one can be too old for this industry? Has anyone had any experience of remote working in this industry (other than contract - I have a family and mortgage and need regular income). Remote working would be good though, I could concentrate on my work instead of worrying about how I appear in the working environment.



Willard
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05 Mar 2010, 7:13 pm

Inuit wrote:
Hi,

this may seem odd worry.

I'm 35 and a web designer I have worked in this industry for 12 years but average at 2 years max in any one job a lot of my positions lasted less than a year as I can quickly isolate myself by not wanting to join in with social events (a lot of companies have an active social commitie to arange weekly nights out football etc) I try to fit it but seldom do. I'm feeling like this in my current role now. My work is always well recieved, though I myself am not. So I usualy end up wanting to look for another job. A pattern that has spanned 12 year.

Each time I go to a new company I worry that I'm getting too old (I'm ten years older that
most people in my current company). I'm covincing myself that I can't do this much longer and nobody will want to employ me when I'm 40 as 'web design is a young mans game'. Is this worry rational? Do I have any grounds to belive that one can be too old for this industry? Has anyone had any experience of remote working in this industry (other than contract - I have a family and mortgage and need regular income). Remote working would be good though, I could concentrate on my work instead of worrying about how I appear in the working environment.


Not an odd worry at all. You need more than just income, you need plans for the future, a nest egg, etc... that's the problem with Executive Function impairment. Even when you know what needs to be done, it's near impossible to figure out a way to make it happen. I had the same problem, hopping from job to job to job within a narrow special-interest career, never able to 'network' or fit in the way everyone else did, knowing all the while I'd hit the wall eventually - and I did. Thank goodness for SSDI.

I wish I had some useful advice for you, but in my experience, this is one of the most debilitating aspects of having AS. Parts of our brain just never grow up enough to function adequately in the real world, even when everything else seems relatively normal.



Meistersinger
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12 Sep 2015, 11:35 pm

^^^

You're not the only one. I just turned 58. Even though I'm still looking for part-time work, I've pretty much given up. Even when I was working full time, I seldom participated in companies activities for a variety of reasons, mostly because I can't stand drunks, I'd rather go to a concert band or symphony orchestra concert, or to the opera, rather than a sporting event, and I am only at this company for one reason: to do the job to the best of my limited abilities. I don't have time to socialize. No, I don't like employee incentive programs either, since they're more often than not popularity contests. In addition, the mantra I grew up with when it came to working is the only incentive you need from your employer is that you get a paycheck every week for your supposed labor. I'd rather kick a person's ass than kiss it to get a project done. Besides, I hate trying to sell a service a customer doesn't need. (It's the PA Dutch/Scots/Irish in me. Unless what is needed is to pass a state automotive safety and emissions inspection, I'm not even going to try to upsell you a product. I MIGHT recommend the product for the future, but I won't go out of my way to push that product. Besides, most extended warranties aren't even worth the paper they're printed on.)



Nathaniel75
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13 Sep 2015, 12:02 am

For something as technically demanding as web design, I would think employers would value your years of experience rather than seeing you as too old.



SocOfAutism
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13 Sep 2015, 8:23 am

Meistersinger wrote:
Even when I was working full time, I seldom participated in companies activities for a variety of reasons, mostly because I can't stand drunks, I'd rather go to a concert band or symphony orchestra concert, or to the opera, rather than a sporting event, and I am only at this company for one reason: to do the job to the best of my limited abilities. I don't have time to socialize. No, I don't like employee incentive programs either, since they're more often than not popularity contests. In addition, the mantra I grew up with when it came to working is the only incentive you need from your employer is that you get a paycheck every week for your supposed labor.


OMG YES. As a NT with especially NTish traits, I am often painfully aware of social things going on around me. When I was forced to go to these after work drinking things I became aware of all kinds of dynamics I would have rather not known about. Affairs, people that I liked hating each other, realizing that some people came in late not from working all night as they said but because they were drinking and driving until the wee hours of the morning.

No thank you.



Campin_Cat
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14 Sep 2015, 10:59 am

Guys, this thread is over FIVE-years-old----NOT that it's not still relevant; it's just that, in addressing the OP (the PERSON), they may not be around anymore, to respond.

Nathaniel75 wrote:
For something as technically demanding as web design, I would think employers would value your years of experience rather than seeing you as too old.

I don't think it usually works like that, because a younger person can be hired, much more cheaply.





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