In the last 4 weeks I’ve worked with several people over 60 and I don’t like what I saw: slow giving report or describing a problem, fixation on trivialities about a client’s appearance or something funny he did instead of getting directly to the point and doing our jobs, incapable of coping with new forms of communication, feeling they are your supervisor, even though they’re not, criticizing you for ‘wasting’ paper or erasers, telling you how they dislike other coworkers, even though I just met this person 2 hours ago, acting as if only their way of doing things is the right one, then they pretend to be your friend and ask questions about your personal life which I deflect as good as I can.
I don’t like working with people like this, it’s very draining and I don’t want to become this kind of person.
How do I make sure not to become this kind of person?
These are many different questions, so it needs lots of answers. I can see three aspects now. There may be more.
Some of these things they do are clearly toxic. So you can avoid being like this if you always continue to love yourself exactly as good as you love other humans, and stay ready to question your own actions / behaviour, and change if needed.
Some of these things aren’t so bad per se, but they are triggering you. This means that you do the same and you find it bad, but have not found a way to change yourself. This is the hard part, because this is also where you can’t see yourself properly. You need help from others. Ask some very, very trusted friends where and how it happens that you do the same things. And be ready for their answer even if you don’t like it. This thing: be ready if you need to change yourself, is also the most important of all my suggestions, because: as soon as you aren’t ready for this anymore, it means you have already become (a good bit) like this other kind of person.
Another part of the answer is that you can’t know the future, therefore it won’t be possible to determine everything. You are going to make mistakes, like everybody does. My advice for this part is to have mercy with your future self.