7 Tips for Working for a Younger Boss

it's mainly establishing yourself as a leader. yes,you maybe younger than your subordinates but you can certainly prevent management conflicts. act your age.do not let your emotions neither your people intimidate you.and lastly, keep in mind that in the end of the day,YOU are still the supervisor.

marion of NJ 11:02AM March 26, 2010

hi..................

murugan of ID 10:04AM March 26, 2010

After 12 years in the U. S. Navy and 11 years working various mechanical jobs, I had much experience working for younger and older supervisors and supervising younger and older workers. Four years ago, I was tired of laying on a creeper pulling transmissions and asked my oldest son if he could help me find a job in the oil and gas industry where he worked (and made three times what I did). A few weeks later, he called me and said there was an opening, so I quit that day. The next morning I had a new job and not a clue what I was doing. I started as a junior helper so I was hammering pipe and building valves with guys less than half my age and I felt like a new man. After a couple of weeks, I went out on my first field assignment working for my own son! He was hesitant at first, but I told him not to worry and I was there to work, just treat me like the other guys. We've both moved on to other employers, and I have observed other son-father teams in the field, and in fact actually trained my younger son and stepson when they came to work in the field. A few months ago, I came to this company, and on my first field job we had a crisis. A piece of eqiupment failed and started a cascade failure down the line. The lead operator, (16 years my junior) started to panic and was yelling orders that made no sense. I stood in front of him, eye to eye, said "Calm down! what's the first step?". He told me, so I did that, and we quickly solved the problem and had everything running smoothly again. He later apologized for screaming at me and thanked me for helping him "reset". Remember older workers, patience with the young ones, honed by years of experience raising children and grandchildren, is one of your greatest assets. I'm not saying treat them like kids, and cut the fatherly (or motherly) advice to an absolute minimum, but keep it in reserve like a fire extinguisher. A good work environment, and a profitable business, takes advantage of the pontiential and knowledge of its youth and the experience and patience of the mature in its employ.

Richard of TX 8:55AM March 26, 2010

You're EXACTLY who I'm talking about...EXACTLY...look KID, first off, learn how to spell, or at least LEARN HOW TO PROOFREAD...maybe you've heard of it before?...na, I doubt it...anyways, EXPERIENCE is EVERYTHING

You're right when you say "Listening to elders, people with more life experiences, and assuming that beacuse they have been there and done that means it is a guarantee is foolish" I've been saying that for years but that's EXACTLY what we do, when was the last time you had an 18 year old professor in college? If there is an 18 year old professor, does that make him smart because he's only 18 years old and teaching college? or does that make him good at remembering things he's told by someone else? That's what college is, you sit in a room and listen to someone tell you something they heard from someone else, and so on and so on and so on.

I'm talking about EXPERIENCE, I'm not talking about what you're probably talking about which are things like computers, cell phones, etc, which is kind of obvious from this comment "What worked in 1966 don't work now other than the train. What worked in 1999 (10 years ago) is out of date and ancient" Out of date and ancient, that's what we say about computers and all things electronic, once again, I'm talking about EXPERIENCE

Here brainiac, let me help you understand the concept of EXPERIENCE, when your car needs to be repaired, say your brakes, yea, I said BRAKES, not BREAKS like you probably would, say your brakes are bad on your minivan, do you want someone who just graduated from a tech school to work on them or do you want someone who's been working on brakes for twenty years? Here, let me make it more personal for you, you say you're, yea, I said YOU'RE, not YOUR like you did, you say you're a father, I really don't care what it is, but say your five year old little girl has a problem with her heart, do you want a doctor who's only done two heart surgeries to work on her or someone who's done 500.

I'm not saying older workers are perfect, they're not, I'm saying that we DO know a lot more than younger bosses do, like I said before, it comes from LIFE EXPERIENCE, if we've been doing a job for years and years and years, and than we have someone in their 20's get hired to be our boss, fine, some of us don't want to be a boss, some of us just want to do the job we were hired to do, but when I have 20 years experience in my job and you come along and try to tell me HOW to do my job, than THAT I have a problem with...

armybeef68 of CA 4:19AM March 26, 2010