Friends my age are being cut out of the workplace even though they’re brilliant at avoiding brain rot

September 16, 2026 — 1:50pm

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When I turned 50 – a few years ago now – I encountered some corporate turnips whose mission was to humiliate me for being biologically a few years older than them. One day, in a crowded lift at my old workplace, a former colleague I’ll call “Steve” asked if I had considered Botox. He often steered office chat around to who was the oldest (knowing it was me), at which point I’d excuse myself and place an online order for a voodoo doll with extra large pins.

Thanks to Steve and others, I imposed a total social media ban on any birthday posts. And I kept things vague when people asked how old my kids were (that is, I hoped they would go to university, rather than admitting they were there already).

Things are no better for my professional friends deep in the job-searching trenches. One in her early 50s was a corporate high-flyer for most of her career then took a consulting role for a few years while her kids were in secondary school. When she decided to resume her corporate career, she found jobs had all but dried up thanks to an algorithmic bias that deems 45 as over the hill.

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