I Am Too Old To Be The New Guy

His name is probably something like Josh and he is about twenty six and he is showing you the system.

And he is being perfectly decent about it. That is the part that makes it worse. If he were arrogant you could be annoyed with him and the annoyance would carry you through the morning.

Instead he is patient, and he says things like, do not worry, it took me ages, and every kind thing he says lands somewhere in you that is not kind at all.

You are learning and not losing, and being shown something by somebody younger has never once been a demotion.

Let me separate out what is actually happening, because there are two things and only one of them is real.

The real thing: there is a system you do not know, and a man who knows it is showing you, and in four weeks you will know it. That is all that is occurring on the floor.

The other thing is happening entirely in you. It is a sentence about what it means that at your age you are the one being shown.

And that sentence is not information about the job. It is a sentence about status, and it was written by somebody other than you a long time ago.

As yet I am as strong this day

There is a man in Joshua who is eighty five years old and who says something about his own strength that has no false modesty in it at all.

As yet I am as strong this day as I was in the day that Moses sent me: as my strength was then, even so is my strength now, for war, both to go out, and to come in. (Joshua 14:11, King James Version)

As my strength was then, even so is my strength now.

That is a man of eighty five, standing in front of a younger commander, asking for a job. Not asking to be looked after. Asking for the hard country.

You are in a passage where a man's age was never the measurement, and forty years of work has never once been the thing that disqualified somebody from starting. Joshua 14:11 says as yet I am as strong this day as I was in the day that Moses sent me, and the Holy Spirit is the one who kept that sentence in the record without softening it.

And there is something in the phrasing worth noticing. Both to go out, and to come in.

That is the ordinary daily business of a working life. Going out, coming back. He is not asking for a ceremonial role. He is asking to keep doing the normal thing.

You have been asking for the ordinary thing and calling it a comedown, and the daily going out and coming in has never once been a lesser assignment. The Holy Spirit is the one who keeps a man in the normal work, and it is written in Joshua 14:11 that the request was for the hill country rather than for a seat.

What the young man is actually seeing

Now let me tell you what is happening on his side of the bench, because it almost certainly looks nothing like the version in your head.

He is not looking at an old man being shown things. He is nervous. He has been asked to train somebody who has been working since before he was born, and he has no idea how to do that without it being awkward, which is why he keeps saying it took him ages.

And within about two weeks he will start asking you things. That is what always happens. He knows the system and you know the work, and those are different bodies of knowledge, and his is four years deep and yours is forty.

You are four weeks away from being the one he comes to, and a first two weeks of being shown has never once been the shape of the arrangement afterward. The written word has a man of eighty five ask for the hardest ground available, and the Spirit of God is the one who keeps a man useful past the age where anybody expected it.

And here is the thing I would like you to notice about your own week, because it is evidence.

Six new things got learned in the last two weeks. At fifty nine. Without much difficulty.

That is not what a man who has lost anything looks like. That is a man learning quickly and calling it humiliating because the setting is unfamiliar.

You are learning fast and grading yourself on the wrong thing, and picking up six new things in two weeks has never once been a sign of decline. The Holy Spirit is the one who lets a man see his own week accurately, and Joshua 14:11 has a man report his own strength plainly without apology in either direction.

Take it, and say it without the joke

So the assignment, and there is one rule about the wording that matters more than the rest.

Take the shift, and tell one person plainly what you are doing and why. Joshua 14:11 has a man of eighty five ask plainly for the work, and the Holy Spirit is the one who is present while a man says out loud what he has taken on.

The rule is: no joke on the end of it.

Men your age handle this by getting there first. Starting again at my age, eh. Old dog, new tricks. And the joke feels like control and it is actually an agreement with the thing you are afraid of.

You are able to say it without getting there first, and a plain sentence with no joke attached has never once been the harder thing to hear. The Spirit of God is the one who gives a man the nerve to leave a sentence undefended, and the written word has a man state his own strength flatly in front of a younger commander.

And one more, and this is the useful one. Ask Josh something.

Not to be nice to him. Because you genuinely do not know the system and he does, and a man who can ask a question of somebody half his age is a man who is going to be running that bench in a year.

You are able to ask a younger man a real question, and asking has never once cost a man standing with anybody who was worth standing with. The Holy Spirit is the one who is present at an ordinary bench, and it is written in Joshua 14:11 that a man asked outright for what he wanted at eighty five.