10/30/2021

Why 37-year-olds are Afraid of the 23-year-olds Who Work for Them

Young people continue to make older workers nervous

As a Millennial with a habit of lurking on TikTok, Jessica Fain understood that skinny jeans and side parts were on the steady march toward extinction. But when Fain, who works as a product manager at a large tech company, heard that some of her favorite emojis might also be confronting retirement — namely that laughing-sobbing face — she decided to seek the counsel of her junior colleagues.

“I heard that using this emoji isn’t cool anymore,” Fain, 34, said she wrote in a water-cooler-type Slack channel.

“Yeah I only use that emoji at work for professionalism,” she recalled a younger employee replying. “H8 2 break it to 2 u Jess.”

Please select this link to read the complete article from The New York Times.