Forget the grey hairs and the deepening crows’ feet. At work, there is nothing more ageing than becoming an office curmudgeon, rolling your eyes, banging on about entitled youth and muttering: “It made me who I am.” Or worse, “Well, it didn’t do me any harm!”
Such curmudgeonliness is often evident when it comes to demands for improved working patterns, such as remote work, increased diversity and flexible hours. Last year, Xavier Rolet, then chief executive of the London Stock Exchange, hit out at “entitled” Goldman Sachs analysts who complained about their long days, saying that when he was young, he worked “far more than 80 hours”.
It is hard to sympathise with highly paid graduates, but such comments smack of curmudgeon. Was the past so great that it cannot be improved upon?