One of the few good things about officially being an old coot is that I now get to say anything I goddam well please about things that annoy me, and one of the things that really annoys me is when people say that "age is just a number." Yeah, and so are the contents of actuarial tables. I started out my business career in the early 1970s as an aerospace engineer, then wandered into positions in a variety of disciplines: marketing, sales, sales support, quality, and--God forgive me--human resources. For the immediate 30 years before becoming old and cranky I was a business consultant, specializing in management/leadership development. Back then I had to be diplomatic: "Maybe your people would be more likely to follow your lead if you were able to create a more engaging workplace environment." Were I still doing that sort of work as an old coot I could be more direct: "You couldn't get people to follow you out of a burning building." Or better yet: "You couldn't get people to follow you out of a burning building even if they were wearing gasoline pants." I am currently hunkering down with my wife of 40 years, regularly Zooming with my kids and grandkid, and hoping that I'm too ornery for Covid-19 to want to have to deal with me.

Comedy Writing

70th birthday, blow out the candles

Is Age Really Just a Number?

I reached my biblical allotment of three score and ten. I am, as St. Paul wrote in his second letter to the Corinthians, “playing with house money.”

×Close