discriminazione di età

APRIL 2, 2008 entry taken from my previous blog

I look young; I know it. It’s never really bothered me. In fact, when I first started working at Brookside, the UPS man came up to the check-in window with a package, looked at me and said in an authoritative voice, "I’m gonna need someone 18 or older to sign for this." My smile turned into a pout and I said, "I’m 23." He said, "oh."

Like I said, it’s never truly bothered me becos it doesn’t happen often that people will question my education, experience, or other credentials. But when it does occur, it’s enough to ruin the whole day. 

I’m not the kind of person to linger on unpleasantries too long; however, my recent run in with an ageist left me a little upset.

One of my darling coworkers decided to schedule an "options counseling" and guess who got stuck with Little Mary Sunshine? Yours truly.

I had the pleasure of speaking with her and her spouse and her main concern was how to deal with feelings of sadness or depression. I told her that if she needed long-term help, I could provide her with resources. She paused and said, "If I needed phone numbers for psychiatrists or other counselors, I can do that on my own. I’m asking you what should I do." And she was rather rude about this. I toughened up and flat out said, "You came in here to find out what your options are, I WILL NOT make your decision for you."

The lady and her husband began to ask me questions about procedures and I answered them with ease. It wasn’t anything that couldn’t be answered over the phone. The lady was concerned about risks with her procedure and I addressed them and even informed her about additional risks regarding obstetrical history. She seemed kind of closed off, but was still asking good questions. Towards the end our discussion, I asked the lady if she was interested in an examination/scan by one of the nurses and the lady decided she would prefer it.

PERFECT! Get outta my face, Get Outta My Face, GET OUTTA MY FACE!

As I approached the front desk, I said, "I don’t ever want to speak to that lady again!" Something just didn’t sit right.

After lunch, Ann approached me and asked how I was doing. I told her I was fine up until the point that I had to talk to that lady. She then told me that as the patient was leaving she said, "I feel sooooo much better after having talked to you." Now, becos I love to joke about race, you would assume that I would be rash to say it was fueled by the fact that Ann is white and well, I am not. But that wasn’t even the case, Ann is older and has more "life experience" than I do; however, I gave that lady all the correct answers. Ann even confirmed that during her "session" with this nut job, the lady would ask a question, Ann would answer it, and the lady’s husband would say, "That’s what the counselor told you. You already asked that question." Ann said that this happened for every question the lady asked.

That upset me simply becos I’m a confident, educated, professional, young woman who was completely discriminated against becos I’m not 40/50-years-old. I understand that with age comes wisdom, but this lady was 40-years-old and was still acting like a child. I wanted to take her face in my hands and shake some sense into her. I would have offered for another counselor to speak with her, but the other gals are even younger than I am. I wanted to scream at her, "Guess What! Other 40/50-year-old women don’t want to deal with your shit! They don’t want to talk to you about your vagina issues! They have better things to do!" 

After the initial frustration, I tried to joke about it. But it just got to me, ya know? I’ve come across plenty of ageist, but this one just stuck with me. I guess most other times I have no validation from other observers; however, this time I had proof and two parties who could account for the discrimination. 

Ugh, I guess I just had to get this out. 

* the term "lady" is used very loosely in my article.