You are a person who values efficiency, there are companies that will take advantage of that and make you burnout then fire you if you don’t have protections or do not live in a country that have them.

Some of those people that you noticed also someday wanted to make everything better and efficient, but they can’t, because most companies follow a hierarchy that do not accept changes coming from bellow to the top.

You already noticed that you can become like this, the difference will be your values, ethics and which companies will you work for, some companies can and will make you fall into hierarchy and conformism, unfortunately.

If you are young and have that option maybe search for more flexible jobs where they will accept ideas and try things like startup’s but they are often chaotic and unstable also.

I hope some of it help you, be careful to not burnout think about the long-term also.

I don’t think this is an age thing:

fixation on trivialities about a client’s appearance or something funny he did instead of getting directly to the point

I see this a lot on political comments on Lemmy and Reddit. People call politicians they don’t like weird pet names and insult their appearance. It’s like they’ve been classified as “other” so the normal rules don’t apply.

There’s value in referring to everyone respectfully. It’s easy to throw clients into the out group because they’re relatively transient. Don’t. Have empathy. Focus on what you have in common and shared goals.

I feel age has little to do with it. I‘ve seen these traits in people from all ages.

You already succeeded by noticing and asking this question. People who are old or stubborn in this way were born that way and never grew out of it.

Do your will

If you lose the ability to do your own will, and only do what is expected from you, that’s when you lose yourself

Disregard society. Doesn’t matter if you’re currently confirming or not, when you do something.

You do it, because of your own will.

I think, with that ethic base framework, you can just be yourself.

Since I’m 57 and have paid some attention to how I’ve changed over the years, perhaps I can add a little insight? Quite frankly, you get tired. I’ve been on the scene since the home computer revolution took off and I’ve seen so many things come and go. It’s not that we can’t learn new forms of communication, etc., but rather that after awhile you start asking yourself why bother when the “next big thing” is going to be another forgotten memory in 5-10 years. It’s not you who are being criticized for wasting items, it’s all the people like you over the years who have collectively wasted so much. Our brains remember all those things and they add up, causing us to fixate on the wrong info (although this last bit isn’t really something that comes with age).

Last night I re-watched The Fifth Element. Afterwards I was thinking about when it first came out in 1997. My god, that’s 28 years ago. I remember things from the 90’s. I remember things from the 80’s and from the 70’s. I remember that after 9/11 the 00’s were boring as fuck. But when you put all of that together, and start thinking about how much you’ve experience… holy hell that’s quite a lot to face squarely. And if I tell you something inappropriate about a co-worker… what? HR will pull me away from the monotony and have a talk with me? Experience tells us what we can get away with, and sometimes it’s fun just to see what people’s reactions are.

So yeah, I’ve observed these things, but I refuse to be pulled down into misery and monotony. Keep yourself busy doing things that you enjoy. Never be afraid to go down the rabbit hole and learn crazy new things. I’m working on assembling a couple swords from parts, looking into bluing some steel pieces I made. And just this week I learned about “rust bluing” which is a crazy concept but is easy to do at home. I learned something new and fun, and I refuse to ever stop learning. I may not care about Instagram or Facebook, but I installed Signal on my phone and I love being able to create my own 3D models and printing them out.

The future is always amazing. Age doesn’t make us care less about it, it just makes us more choosy in what parts are worth investing in. If you don’t want to become a listless old geezer, then don’t… all you need to do is keep enjoying the wonders of the world.

I mean, why are you so gung ho to earn money for someone else?

Seriously. Shit on company time, party on personal. “Getting to the point” is only relevant if the job won’t get done at all if it isn’t done now. Relax, hang back, do the job at a sustainable pace. You’ll have a longer and happier career that way

The rest of it? That ain’t about age, that’s about people. No matter where you work, there’s always gossipers and hidebound co-worker of any age. You wanna talk about folks that won’t try things? Run across a brand-spanking new out of school nurse. Those folks won’t budge on anything sometimes. Mostly because they’re terrified, and they think that if they stick to exactly what they learned in class, anything that does go wrong won’t be their fault, but still.

If you want to avoid that part, it’s easy. Just chill, be open to listening to others, whether they’re fresh out of school or fifty year veterans coasting to retirement. There’s almost always something you can learn from anyone, as long as you make the effort to look for it. Which is also how you avoid burnouts.

You gotta realize, most people spend a third of their lives at some job doing shit that they only do because they get paid to. The rest spend a third of their lives at some job doing shit they want to do, but also have to do because they need to get paid. Everyone has to find the balance between the raw fact that they’re stuck there, even if that’s their choice. Very few people can just say “fuck it” and go live off the land somewhere, you dig? So they find the path to making work work as much as possible. They find ways to make it bearable.

So, you gotta learn how to adapt to that, or you’ll be that miserable bastard that’s always in his office glaring and grumbling about everyone, tense as fuck and never invited to fun shit.

It’s always going to be partially about getting along with people, no matter what the job is, where it is, how old you get. It can be a matter of degrees, like a park ranger may deal with people less frequently if they’re waaaaay out in the boonies, but your typical office job where erasers and paper are a main component? You ain’t escaping people, ever. They’ll be there every day, just like you. So you either find a way to appreciate them to some degree as they are, or you’ll just be miserable.

And, that process is exactly how you don’t fall into those same traps they do. As you figure out how to get along with weirdos and idiots, you learn how to not be like them.

A good sense of humor helps a lot. Also, if you want to avoid getting bogged down by nonsense, it’s a good idea to develop your critical thinking skills. That depends on having good sources of information that you trust.

Don’t get old. I’ve noticed that now that I’m approaching 50, I’m getting lazy and having a stronger “too old to stress about performance” attitude.

But there is also a generational culture thing. I’ve noticed that people 10 years older than me have some cultural attitudes that they picked up from boomers. I’m guessing that television culture and appearance of Internet had a mental influence and generations after that are bit more homogenous.

I’d also get that asperges checked at. It’ll make your life easier.

Keep learning, keep trying new things, keep seeking out the perspectives of others (outside of these coworkers of course).

The older people I know who aren’t stubborn and slowing down are the ones who follow the above.

Don’t get old.

Be curious and keep learning. Doesn’t matter what you study.

Don’t allow yourself to believe age or experience makes you superior to others. Seems like that might be a generational mindset, but purposely avoid it.

I worked with people at Disney World for an internship who had been in the same position I was for 30+ years. They were happy with this, but it terrified me; I did not want to be a fast food or retail worker for my whole life.

Since you asked this question, you won’t. Stay away from toxic situations and people, they love being toxic, it fuels their shitty personally and you can’t win. If they push you tell them to fuck off. Also don’t start to fear new things, black people in the neighborhood, gay kids with purple hair, old age, stuff like that. It’s all in the game.

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.

They’re not pretending to be your friend, they’re trying to be your friend. They’re prolonging your interactions, sharing their thoughts and feelings with you. They want to spend this time not feeling lonely.

The extent to which this is age related is that they probably don’t have as much energy to split between their work life and their social life as you do. If that ever becomes a struggle for you, that cliche of old people playing a lot of card games and board games exists for a reason. Organizing regular games gives you people to hang out with without always having to figure out when and how.

As for the rest of it, the struggle with change and the arrogance, all I can say is to try to be humble but then that’s good advice at any age. It’ll even help you cope with annoying coworkers right now.