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I USED to think that it would be nice to have the secret of eternal
youth. Lately, though, I’ve begun to have my doubts.

This train of thought began following a conversation with a new recruit
at work. I mentioned that I had quite a long journeyto work (in Northampton),
because I livein Birmingham.

‘Oh,’ she said. ‘You live there with your parents, then?’

That came as something of a shock: it’s been more than 10 years since
I was last a permanent resident at my parents’ abode. My colleague, however,
assumed that I was a recent graduate.

If it had been an isolated incident, it would have passed unnoticed.
But it wasn’t: this sort of thing keeps on happening to me. The very next
day, I was a guest at an event staged by the Institution of Production Engineers.
Chatting with one of the members, I mentioned the company I had worked for
before my present job.

‘That was your first job after leaving university, then?’ he said.

I explained as tactfully as possible that not only was it not my first
job, but that I had been at management level when I left the job before
last.

I know it’s supposed to be terribly flattering when folk misjudge your
age in the more youthful direction. Television adverts for miracle skin-care
potions frequently feature some female who smiles, sphinx-like, asshe reveals
that she is in fact the mother, notthe sister, of the other glamorous femalebeside
her.

In real life, though, this has its disadvantages. Like the time when
the engineer from Ford declined to let my company submit for testing components
which I designed, on the grounds that I ‘didn’t have enough grey hairs’.
I went away muttering darkly about getting my hair dyed. (Austin Rover,
by the way, had no such ageist hang-ups – and so far as I know its ‘O’-series
engine hasn’t struck problems.) Another engineer I know of was turned down
when she applied for promotion. Her superior explained kindly that he didn’t
feel she was yet of an age to handle such responsibility.

‘How old do you think I am?’ she challenged him. His guess was more
than 10 years too low. She was vindicated; he was astonished.

The trouble stems from two bits of fuzzy thinking. The first is the
assumption that only those with many years’ experience are capable of doing
a good job. In reality, it depends on the individual and what sort of job
you want done. It has been said of many scientists that they completed their
most original work by the time they were 25; KK scientific creativity seems
if anything to be enhanced by youth rather than age.

The second bit of fogginess is, having made the irrational decision
to impose an arbitrary age limit, going on from there to guess the age of
the aspiring candidate. People use a number of cues for assessing age, all
largely irrelevant beyond the age of 18. Shortness, a chubby face, fine-textured
skin and (for women) lack of make-up or permed hair are all read as indicators
of tender years, despite the fact that such features either remain constant
for a sizeable proportion of life, or else are a matter of personal choice.
People regularly assume, looking at photos of my two sisters and me, that
I’m the eldest. In fact, although I have grown up to be the tallest and
the only user of make-up, I still remain the youngest.

I suppose if people are still knocking10 years off my assumed age when
I’m 50 I’ll be glad of it. Ageism doesn’t work onlyagainst the young; there’s
a corresponding assumption that over-50s are ‘past it’ andready for a gradual
winding-down of activities. The window of assumed competence is a quite
narrow band between acne and wrinkles.

Roll on the age of computerised work, where the only contact with colleagues
and bosses is the terminal at home. Then, perhaps, people really will be
assessed on performance, rather than appearance.

Sue Birchmore now works as a technical writer.