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"Why don’t you stay at home and enjoy your retirement?”
After two years of being under increased scrutiny based on her age, Rose-Marie feels that she was manoeuvred out of her workplace - a job that she’d previously loved - simply for being older.
Rose-Marie, a Francophone who has lived and worked in the UK for over 30 years, retired just before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic from a long career in the public sector namely the NHS, Education, Housing. After a stint with the Office for National Statistics during the Census, she decided to rejoin the workforce as a fully-fledged worker to earn some money to enjoy the lifestyle she had been used to when she was working.
She applied and got a job with an airline managing contractor as Passenger Service Agent, at Heathrow. Rose-Marie was the first and last point of contact for passengers, from their checking-in onto the plane to their boarding on the flight.
Rose-Marie was passionate about her job and delivering excellent customer service, and work is important to her, not just from a financial point of view, but because she feels it’s good to keep your mind active as you age. She enjoyed the social side, especially dealing with customers.
One night after her late shift, she inadvertently dropped her freedom travel pass in the office. When she went back in to look for it, a supervisor was on the phone to someone with her pass in her hand. Her senior manager commented, “I didn’t realise that you were that age!”.
Since then Rose-Marie says that her age became an issue and she faced constant ageist comments from colleagues and management, including ‘why don’t you stay at home and enjoy your retirement’, ‘why are you working, how much money do you need to live on?’, and ‘do you want to borrow some glasses?’.
Once my team learnt I was the oldest employee there, I felt that I was put under extra scrutiny, as though I was no longer fit to do my job well.
As an industry, Rose-Marie says that aviation prefers young-looking staff, especially in customer facing roles, saying, “The environment was unfavourable for older people, not just among colleagues but also at a management level. There was little done to educate people on a corporate level about ageism and supporting older workers.”
Recruitment and promotions didn't project an image of equality, she says: “It’s ironic, because although the industry favours younger workers, many travellers tend to be middle aged or retired, and I believe that it would make sense to have a mixed-age workforce too.”
As a campaigner and proponent for older workers, Rose-Marie alerted senior management to the treatment of older staff when she found them crying on duty or she heard that they had either been sacked or had failed their probation because of mistakes they had made.
In particular, she observed that mistakes made by younger staff were deemed as learning curves, lightly dealt with by a reprimand or just ignored all together, while the same mistakes made by older staff would be dealt with harshly with warnings or sacking at one point or another.
"As it wasn’t an inclusive place to work if you were older, I emailed management, the ACAS and Gov.UK guidance on the management of older workers. I even quoted section of Equality Law relating to Age Discrimination. I also sent an invite to senior managers asking if they would be willing to send a representative to a training session with an organisation (Wise-Age) to manage older workers. The invite was sent to me, but I had no remit to represent my employer."
Rose-Marie was then put under strict scrutiny. “I was monitored and singled-out on several occasions, told to style my hair in a different way because it ‘looked better’, told to ‘stand in the corner and look pretty’. Me, a grown woman!”
I was also told that my mind ‘couldn’t register that information’, as though I was past-it, which was so insulting.
"On the one occasion I made a mistake with a passenger - it's called a near-missed which is a common and daily occurrence on nearly all the airlines under the management of my company – and I was belittled and shouted at in front of passengers at boarding.
“Embarrassed and humiliated, I asked to leave to report to the duty manager in the office. Instead of the support and understanding I was expecting, I was met with another barrage of shouting. I was told ‘I should know better’, as though I was accountable to higher standards because of my age and experience. I later received an apology, but I was totally unsupported.
“Despite recording all the incidences and ageist comments, HR took little action either to support me or challenge the culture, even though the ageist treatment that I received was all proven in correspondence with management.
“After two years of this situation, I realised that I wouldn’t be able to win, that I would always be judged and treated more harshly than younger colleagues, even for regular mistakes or issues that are common in the business.”
Finally, Rose-Marie felt she had no choice, saying “I found myself in a situation whereby I had to jump before I was pushed. It was with great sadness that I resigned in December 2024 because I couldn’t accept the pervasive ageism in my workplace any longer.”
Her workplace treatment left Rose-Marie deeply upset, and she attended therapy to help her through the experience. Losing her job affected her in other ways too. “I still want to work. The financial side of my job was important to me; with cost of living and with no extra income, I’m now feeling under strain. But I also feel more isolated than I did, I’ve lost all those good relationships that I had with customers. And I feel that I’m not using my mind enough, that brain fog is setting in.
Age discrimination isn’t taken seriously, not like racism or sexism. But it made me feel as though I wasn’t as valuable as everyone else, just because of my age.
“But despite my negative experience as an older person, I need to share my story because with the rising increase of older workers, decision makers will inevitably have to change or amend laws to accommodate them. Furthermore, those who would have the duties of applying them like heads of organisations and companies would understand the impact of ageism, and hopefully that will eventually mean that the treatment that I experienced won’t affect anyone else.
“I also want to use my experience to prompt the government to enforce the equality laws for equal rights for older workers and support older people.”
