Does Deferring to Someone Younger Mean You Have Lost? The Day a Kitchen Knife Came Out in the Lab

The other day, I came across a story on social media.

A former junior colleague had been promoted and become someone’s boss. The more senior employee could not accept it, the relationship deteriorated, and in the end, the senior employee left the company.

I can understand the feeling to some extent.

You once taught a junior colleague how to do the job, and now that same person is giving you instructions. Some people are bound to find that hard to take.

But the story reminded me of an incident I experienced at university.

This one went far beyond someone resigning.

A kitchen knife came out.

An Older Junior and a Younger Senior

When I was in graduate school, there was a student in the lab next to mine who had returned to university after spending some time in the workforce.

I think he was two or three years older than the typical student.

In the lab, however, a younger student was his senior.

Naturally, it was this younger senior who taught him the experimental procedures and the lab rules.

Apparently, he did not like that.

Arguments kept breaking out over demands such as, “I’m older, so show me some respect,” and “You should thank me properly.”

Eventually, a professor stepped in and explained that relationships in the lab should be based not on age, but on experience and responsibilities.

Normally, that would have been the end of the matter.

But it was not.

Unable to accept the situation, the student actually pulled out a kitchen knife and began acting violently.

Those of us in the next room were thrown into a panic, shouting:

“Just close the door!”

In the end, the police arrived and took the student away.

It is an incident I still cannot forget.

Apparently, rather than bow his head to someone younger, he chose to have the police force his head down.

Does the Title of “Senior” Never Expire?

Japanese people place a curious amount of importance on senior-junior relationships.

At school and at work, once someone becomes your senior, they remain your senior no matter how many years pass.

But positions at work change.

A former subordinate may become your boss, and you may find yourself learning from someone younger.

I have worked in IT for many years, but in the world of technology, age guarantees nothing.

Sometimes an engineer more than 20 years younger than me teaches me a technology I knew nothing about until the day before.

Saying, “I’m older than you,” will not make the program run.

If anything, the person who cannot honestly ask about something they do not understand is the one who causes problems at work.

The fact that someone used to be the senior and the claim that they now have greater ability or authority are entirely different things.

The Era When Age Alone Made You Important Is Over

“Respect your elders.”

It is something we have been told since childhood.

In the past, far fewer people lived to an advanced age, and the experience and wisdom of older people carried great value.

Today, however, we no longer live in an age when simply getting older earns unconditional respect from those around us.

I am already at an age when I can no longer call myself young.

That is precisely why I think it is quite dangerous when someone starts demanding respect on the basis of age.

Respect is something other people should naturally feel, not something you bill them for.

And authority that can be maintained only by repeatedly saying, “I’m your senior,” or “I’m older than you,” was never worth much to begin with.

Pride Has Maintenance Costs Too

In the end, quitting a company because you cannot bear to be overtaken by a former junior and pulling out a kitchen knife in a lab are completely different in degree, but they probably share a similar root.

The hierarchy in your mind no longer matches the hierarchy in reality.

And you cannot accept reality.

You grow one year older every year, but your position and abilities do not automatically rise along with your age.

I think life becomes considerably easier once you accept that obvious fact.

Growing older itself is unavoidable.

At the very least, I would like to avoid the mistake of thinking that age alone makes me important.

After all, if that misconception gets badly out of hand, the police may end up coming to the lab.