Coffee and a Conversation
As Told Over Brunch is a home for intelligent discourse from the twenty-something perspective - so the stuff you gossip about over mimosas on Sunday morning or over takeout on your friend's couch when happy hour ends too early. We love chatting about our lives, whether it be the relationships we’re building (or destroying), lessons we've learned at work, struggles at school, growing pains we've felt, or even the food we’re talking over.
I preface this post by alerting the reader to two things:
1.) I look younger than my age.
2.) I often have a sense of a humor that no one else gets. Or at least they laugh a lot less loud than I do.
On the former, I have a brother who is five and a half years younger. When I return home, the lady at our local Chinese restaurant inevitably asks, “Are you the young one or the old one?”
Read MoreFor the next twelve weeks, get used to seeing my name: I’m Will Woznicki, younger brother of Sara. Sara and Cazey have been kind enough to take my under their wings as an intern for As Told Over Brunch. Currently, I’m entering my senior year at the University of Connecticut. In the three years I’ve worked at two bars, played on the rugby team, and made many friends. I’m looking forward to sharing some of these stories with you.
Since childhood, I’ve been a UConn fan. I can blame my parents seeing as they both graduated from UConn themselves. As kids, my parents brought my sisters and I to Storrs, where UConn is located, whether it was to visit the Dairy Bar or watch the women’s basketball team have open practice.
If we were home, we watched the men or women’s basketball team. I grew up in a UConn household, complete with our “lucky nachos.” My dad started a tradition, where we’d have to each nachos during the game, which would clearly lead the Huskies to victory.
Read MoreOvernight my Facebook has blown up with people's selfies, which wouldn't be anything new, except now they're labeled with how old the person looks. Thanks to the #HowOldRobot, a website can now tell you how youthful/aged/non-human you look.
For kicks over breakfast, I decided to see how old I look since my birthday was this past week.
Read MoreSo I have a confession: I have terrible tact. And it's been this way for as long as I can remember. When I was in elementary school, I once ate one of those individually wrapped Mrs. Fields cookies before dinner. Being an ignorant chubster, I threw the wrapper in the trash and neglected to even wipe the chocolate fully off my face. Obviously my mother approached me, and asked if I happened to eat a cookie before dinner. I said no. A boldface lie.
Momma picked up on it, and told me not to lie. As some may say, be good or be good at it. So I decided to be good. I just wouldn't lie anymore, because I was so bad at it.
It was after this realization that a girl that I did not like asked me if I hated her. Don't lie, right? So I said yes, I did in fact hate her. She proceeded to ask me why, so I named off a few reasons I hated her. Then I thought nothing more of it.
That was, until my mom got called because I told a girl I hated her, which apparently isn't socially acceptable. So my mom naturally asked me why I told a girl I hated her. And I just said, "You told me not to lie!" and still couldn't figure out why this was my fault. On top of me telling the truth, I can't help if someone lobbed it to me. Don't ask someone what they think of you unless you really want to know!
Okay, okay, so these days I understand where I went a little wrong; that there are nice ways to phrase things, and then there are rude ways to phrase things. But I still sometimes find it difficult to answer those tough, direct questions with any amount of tact.
Do you really want to ask me why we are disconnected? Because I'll give it to you straight, despite you probably not wanting the real answer to it. Nudge me a bit more and you'll get an ear full -- which isn't what anyone wants.
The past two days have been fraught with a dull pain in the back left side of my mouth, right around the location I would expect a wisdom tooth to be. While I was eating lunch fajitas with some co-workers, I mentioned that I think that I might be getting a wisdom tooth in. "Aweee, you're teething," says one of my co-workers. I bust out laughing. It's a running joke that I'm a baby at my work, as most of my co-workers are much further along in their lives than I am. Some might argue that the usual jabbing at my youth is undermining my authority, as I've read that's a technique for older people to assert dominance. Here's an opinion piece about age discrimination in the work place, just in case you didn't know what I am talking about.
I can't say that I agree. When it comes to my work, I am the authority. No one knows social media better than me at work. I grew up on it. I took classes on it in college- classes I am sure most wouldn't have even been able to take when they were in school, as social media wasn't even a thing at the time. People respect me and ask how I think they could work with them to benefit from social media.
Then we collaborate and come up with a way that their needs are met, as well as best using social media. We're a team. They share their ideas, and mine count just as much. Yes, I report to people and their say can override mine, but that's how it should be. They're in a position of power not because of their age, but because of their wisdom.
I am still relatively new to this whole full time employment thing, so you're damn right there's times that the older people have to reel me in. There are constraints that I often can't see. They've been around the block a few times and can forecast better than I can how things will turn out. That's where wisdom trumps youth. It's not because I drink coffee and get overly excited about plans, which apparently stops once you've matured a bit and have felt similar success before.
So what if they poke fun at me because I have no idea who Donny Osmand is? Or ask if I'm even allowed to go to the company happy hour? I'm young. I have a ton of energy and enthusiasm for my job because I haven't been jaded by years of work. Let people remind me of my youth. I hope at least one person does everyday. Because one day I'm not going to be young, so I mine as well revel in the traits it presents me with now.
A few weeks ago, someone was talking about using StumbleUpon, and I was like, "OMG that's not even a thing anymore!" Seriously, hadn't been on that website in years, and I have long since thought it gave way to Buzzfeed, Reddit, and Mashable. So naturally, I dug out my old password and got back into stumbling just to see if it still enthralled me like it used it. I can't possibly conceive wasting the amount of time I used to on the site, but it was still fun and entertaining. This one article from it stuck with me above all the rest, "45 Life Lessons, written by a 90 year old."
I can't say I take advice very well. People tell me things and I consider it, and then do whatever I feel like anyways. However, I love reading advice and seeing if any of it matches up with things I already think about or were planning on doing. So, when I stumbled upon the article with 45 pieces of advice, it seems natural to ignore 44 of them and listen to one:
This is my favorite piece of advice from the list because sometimes I imagine being old and getting away with everything. No one gets mad when old people say mean things because they grew up in a different time or they don't know what that means in this day and age. Old people can wear whatever they want and NO ONE SAYS SHIT TO THEM. I'd love to be old, except for all the health issues and the whole being closer to death thing.
So any advice that tells me that you can embody the old person eccentricities without being old, I'm all in. Out of all the advice from that list, I probably picked the worst one to follow. Here's how I applied it in real life:
No one would suggest this as a work outfit, except that old lady that said I am allowed to be eccentric. And you know what I have to say?
No one else likes this outfit. There's glitter, sheer, boots, yellow, Ray Bans, a cardigan. Total confusion, but you know what? There's no point in waiting until you're old to be who you are.