Embracing The Ma'am
A few weeks ago, I noticed a shift.
It may have had something to do with my job. As the youngest full-timer, I get a fair bit of flack about my age. (I also get to fix all things electronic.) It confuses guests when they think I'm a summer staff holdover, or that I should be in class right then.
And sometimes the conclusions that are reached are just plain confusing.
A few weeks ago, we had a group in that required shuttling. The Bossman had been taking care of that most of the time, but my turn came around and the question that was asked was ... interesting.
"Are you qualified to drive the golf cart?"
It turned out that they didn't just think I was young -- they thought I was really young. And I genuinely didn't know what to do with that.
Don't get me wrong. I understand that on some level it's a compliment -- I mean, who doesn't want to be considered young? Every time I get carded, it comes with a, "Oh! Wow, you look good for your age."
Which is ... great. Really. I'm glad I don't look older than I am. No one wants that.
But to be perfectly honest, I'm okay with looking roughly my own age. I'm in the kind of job where it helps to not be considered a kid and looking ten years younger doesn't help that idea any.
So I'm learning to accept my handful of grey hairs, and I've even been known to declare my age as "29 and a half." I've found that I don't even mind being called "ma'am" so much, aside from the fact that it's just kind of an ugly word -- after all, when it's used it's mostly as a recognition that yes, I'm older than the person speaking, or they need to somehow acknowledge that I might be in charge right that moment.
That's not such a bad thing.
It may have had something to do with my job. As the youngest full-timer, I get a fair bit of flack about my age. (I also get to fix all things electronic.) It confuses guests when they think I'm a summer staff holdover, or that I should be in class right then.
And sometimes the conclusions that are reached are just plain confusing.
A few weeks ago, we had a group in that required shuttling. The Bossman had been taking care of that most of the time, but my turn came around and the question that was asked was ... interesting.
"Are you qualified to drive the golf cart?"
It turned out that they didn't just think I was young -- they thought I was really young. And I genuinely didn't know what to do with that.
Don't get me wrong. I understand that on some level it's a compliment -- I mean, who doesn't want to be considered young? Every time I get carded, it comes with a, "Oh! Wow, you look good for your age."
Which is ... great. Really. I'm glad I don't look older than I am. No one wants that.
But to be perfectly honest, I'm okay with looking roughly my own age. I'm in the kind of job where it helps to not be considered a kid and looking ten years younger doesn't help that idea any.
So I'm learning to accept my handful of grey hairs, and I've even been known to declare my age as "29 and a half." I've found that I don't even mind being called "ma'am" so much, aside from the fact that it's just kind of an ugly word -- after all, when it's used it's mostly as a recognition that yes, I'm older than the person speaking, or they need to somehow acknowledge that I might be in charge right that moment.
That's not such a bad thing.
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