If U Cn Rd This Msg U R Old

I was just told by a team member that I’m old.   Not in so many words, but the underlying message was there. No doubt about it.

It happened during an IM-Skype conversation at work, which seems ridiculous to me since we sit about ten feet away.  Not sure why we Skype instead of walking over to chat in person.  It’s the culture of the organization and of course I want to fit in, so I Skype away like everyone else.

Something of importance to this story is that I happen to be a bit more “mature” than many of the employees, and definitely older than this team member.

This particular conversation was nothing special; a mixture of work and side comments when suddenly it turned on me.  She had misspelled a word and was trying to explain herself.  I’ll let you take a look:

Her – oops; im terrible at typing

Me – typing or spelling?

Her – it’s because Im too dependent on spell check

Me – you youngsters! How about a dictionary?

Her – I know; it’s pathetic

To which I typed a humorous response in what I thought was “IM-approved” lingo:

“u r rt, oldr peeps r so annoying”

Her reply?

“Ha! My aunt texts like that – it’s hilarious!”

What?!  Did she just call me out as being “uncool”?  I think it’s worse than that; she thinks I’m old!

Augh!  I don’t want to be hilarious like her aunt, who’s got to be way older than I am.  More importantly, I don’t want to appear “old”.  Hmph.  Just when I think I’ve become an accepted member of the team, and now they think I’m old.

But I can’t be that old.  Not only am I on Skype but my Twitter feed is pinging away with new followers and my latest Pinterest board is on fire. Geez.

If the ability to spell without spellcheck makes me old, then I guess I am. I just never realized that spelling was “old school”.

Bt u cn rd this txt, cnt u?

Ha! You’re old too.