Are you a 20-something (or older) who still gets treated like a kid by sales people? Do you have a hard time getting people to take you seriously? How do you handle it?

-- Anonymous, May 11, 2000

Answers

My husband and I are in our mid-20s, and we live and work in a city known for its abundance of young high tech workers who are raking in the bucks. Yet, we still often seem to get treated as little more than kids when we deal with salespeople. Whether it's trying to buy a mobile phone, a car, or a house, it seems like salespeople have a hard time taking us seriously- Dale with his long hair and me with my cargo pants. People talk down to us, dismiss us, or think we're too stupid to realize they're trying to rip us off.

Even our realtor (who's gonna make some serous money when we close on our house) has the nerve to act like she's just doing her friend a favor. (She was referred to us by Dale's mom.)

It really seems like people think they can take advantage of us because of our age. Just taking our business elsewhere isn't always an option.

And does anyone else get irked when a salesperson goes into first name mode? I mean, if my dad was trying to buy a car, the salesperson wouldn't just start calling him Brian.

-- Anonymous, May 11, 2000

Before I dyed my hair bright red no. Now that my hair is an 'unnatural' color, yes. I'm 25, Hubby's 26, yet we are treated like we're teenagers. Anyone who does this though loses it. I will walk out of a store or restaurant, if I'm not treated like an adult.

Suzyramble~The Mutterings of A Fool

-- Anonymous, May 11, 2000

I am with Suzy - if they don't take me seriously, I just tell them, flat out, that they have just lost the sale, and leave. And when you start doing that, it makes you more confident, I swear, and the bad service just stops.

-- Anonymous, May 11, 2000

No. I'm 5 foot 10, 25 years old, and married, so people treat me like a proper adult now. They refer to me as 'that lady' - 'I'm just going to help this lady out'. And they call me Mrs Collins, which has me looking around for my mother-in-law. I've been Mrs Collins for over a year now, but it still sounds really grown-up.

I think I'll always consider myself to be stuck somewhere around 18 years old, so I'm always surprised when other people treat me like an adult instead.

-- Anonymous, May 12, 2000

the first time i met the rector of the university where i teach, he looked at me in shock and said "oh - i thought you'd be a *lot* older". i'm 21 and was never taken to be younger than my age till i came to azerbaijan - now people are always asking how old i am, and they're generally surprised that i'm as old as i am - i think that because the women here wear so much make-up they all look like they're hovering around 30. and i suppose i have a bit of a baby face. i suppose i should be happy that i look younger than i am (and i hope it stays like that as i get older), but it can be tough sometimes when teaching - i've had adult students ask "are you a *real* teacher?". they're usually happy when i tell them where i studied.

when i'm at home i sometimes get treated like a child, though that's usually when i'm acting like a child. i have a very good direct stare and take-no-shit attitude that i can put on when i want to, which generally has the desired effect. when i do get talked down to i usually assume it's because i'm a woman and not because i look like a child - which pisses me off a hell of a lot.

-- Anonymous, May 12, 2000

I've never been talked down to. But I'm tall and I tend to balance my playful clothing and accessories with more sober things. Also, getting service from people who are paid to give you service is the one area of my life where I have no problem with assertiveness. I've been on both sides of the cash register, people. Get off your gossipping little teen butt and help me find some shoes in my size. I asked you nice, damn it.

Generally I'm pretty independent when spending my money.

I have had minor trouble with major purchases (e.g. automobiles) but that's probably because I'm female, not because I'm being treated like a child per se.

I never got carded until I was about 23. Now I get carded all the time. I don't look younger, it's just that the laws got more strict.

-- Anonymous, May 12, 2000

I'm 5'3" and pretty much look like I'm 16 (I'm 23), so I don't get any respect if I'm not "dressed up". And don't even talk to me about being carded at the movie theaters....

-- Anonymous, May 13, 2000

I'll be 25 a week from today (yes, you may beg God to help me now), and a few weeks ago I got carded buying pepper spray, which according to Wal-Mart you have to be 16 to buy. I've been carded for R-rated movies twice in the past six months (once at the theater I used to work for), and walking into a department store is just asking a sales lady to say, "Where's your mommy, Little Boy?"

So yeah, it's hard to be taken seriously. I find the problem isn't limited to strangers, though. My own friends still treat me like a kid, because even though they're aware I'm older than they are, I don't look it and it's easy to forget. "Adults" can usually tell I'm a little older by my demeanor, but that's only after talking with me. I'll have State Liquor Control up my ass until I'm 50, I can feel it. =)

-- Anonymous, May 13, 2000

I am 21 and I teach computer courses for an international training company. I am not big on wearing lots of makeup or getting all that dressed up - so I look about my age, probably even younger. I constantly have students that come into our facilities and assume that I must be the secretary or the secretary's assistant. When they see that I am their instructor I will often get the reaction (especially from the guys) "YOU are the instructor? REALLY?" Same with sales people - especially at upscale places - they either treat me like I am an idiot or like I can't afford their stuff. It used to really upset me, and on certain occasions it still does - but now I do one of two things: If it is the student teacher situation, I let them think what they want - in the end when they find that I posess the ability to teach them what they came to learn they are impressed and all is happy. If it is the salesperson thing, I go ahead act like a dumb kid and then bust out with super smarts which generally makes them feel like a fool. OR if its the money thing, I go into the store to look around a few days after being snubbed, only this time in my designer business suit, makeup and hair done, try on eighteen million items, let them bend over backwards trying to accomadate me and then buy nothing.

-- Anonymous, May 13, 2000

i will be 27 in october and i teach high school. on top of that i am a whopping 5'2 inches and i have all kinds of cheeks going on up in here. i look like i am a late teen. when i have parent teacher conferences , the parents ALWAYS look at the kid and then look at me and then the kid and say, THIS is your teacher? i just grin and say, yes, i am old enough, i am a mommy too.. trust me i am older than i look, now about your son..... then i go on about thier little hoodrat. i get carded everywhere. but i think the worst thing is the fact that since i look like a teenager, people treat me like they treat teenagers, which is pretty rudely. my daughter was born with abnormalities and so she is in special day classes for speech production reasons. well my very first conference with her new teacher was a nightmare...she kept blinking her eyes and repeating things really loudly and slowly like the information was way above my head and all... at the end of the meeting i go... well thank you for your time, i have to go to work now... should i have my secretary call and schedule that other meeting (for the language specialist)and she said, your secretary? what do you do? and i said, i am a teacher. i teach high school with SDC kids in alternative ed. she said, oh, i had no idea.... and i go yah well... i gotta go now, thanks for your time buh bye. needless to say she acts like we are longtime friends now..... but it is so lame. she was taqlking down to me because she thought i was some teenage mom. *rolls eyes* and even if i was, she was rude... ugh! some people
Caitlyn


-- Anonymous, May 13, 2000

Constantly. I'm 19, 5'1", I was tutouring fourth grade this past spring, and one day I got asked "Who do you belong to?" "I'm tutouring for so-and-so's class." "Oh! [to no one in particular] I thought she was like 12!" Hey ever heard of inner monologue?? Everyone tells me I'll appreciate it when I'm older, but it sux for now. Except it got me the part of Mary Tilford, a 14-year-old, in a production of "The Children's Hour" recently. I finally stopped getting offered children's menus at age 16 I think.

-- Anonymous, May 14, 2000

I'm with you, Caitlin. I work at a college so I suppose it's not so bad, but everytime I need to request a favor from another office, it takes me 10 minutes to convince them that I'm not a student and therefore shouldn't be automatically relegated to the bottom of the priority list. (Not that that's particularly fair to the students, but that's how college works, I've found).

I'm sure in a few years I'll be glad to look young, but it would occasionally be nice to not look 18 anymore (I'm 25).

On the other hand...I've had the occasional student (when I work with kids) call me "ma'am", and that always makes me feel about 65. I go by first name with everyone, so I suppose I should be grateful students tend to be comfortable with that.

-- Anonymous, May 14, 2000

And you know what? With some people, it just never ends. Reading this page, I realized I must be one of the oldest people around here today (36 next month) and even I still get it regularly. But maybe that has something to do with the long hair and a steadfast refusal to wear suits. Anyway, I really don't care. I do appreciate politeness, but when people are condescending I tend to just leave them to boil in their own fat.

-- Anonymous, May 15, 2000

YEEEEEEES.

I am 5' tall and 22 (almost 23) years old. I am ALWAYS treated like a child--I get ignored by salespeople, or talked down to. Men especially are extremely condescending toward me and complete strangers have the AUDACITY to think that it is even remotely acceptable to PAT ME ON THE HEAD. can you believe it. Short people get shafted man, i tell you. It is the unsung struggle of many!!! We shorties are the victims of countless injustices every day... I will forever be called "cute" UGH

-- Anonymous, May 16, 2000

I got IDed for an R18 film the day before my birthday, and once I got stopped from following my little sister into a pub when I was 18 and she was only 15. That sucked.

-- Anonymous, May 16, 2000

Because of my line of work (fundraising, at the moment), I have to do a lot of stewardship events with little old ladies. I also have very long, strawberry blonde hair that they all love to pet. They will just stroke my head and reminisce, "I had long hair once..." I vacillate between being flattered and annoyed. They mean well, but it is a bit freaky. Not that playing with people's hair is ALL that intimate, but still. Maybe it's akin to how pregnant women feel when people touch their bellies.

-- Anonymous, May 16, 2000

I'm not a 20-something anymore, so I rarely get treated like a child by salespeople. I DO, however, get treated like an idiot a lot of times by MALE salespeople. For this reason (among many), I will never darken Radio Shack's doors again.

On the flip side of that, I got "ma'am"ed in the grocery store recently, by a guy who looked like a teenager. I said something ineffectual to him, and only as I was walking off did I think of the perfect response (doesn't that always happen?): "Ma'am? I can't be a 'ma'am.' I listen to Korn and Nine Inch Nails!"

I have been carded twice in the last few months for cigarettes, though, and the sign plainly states that you have to LOOK at least 27. Which I'm not. (I'm 38!) Woo-hoo.

-- Anonymous, May 16, 2000