‘What do you expect at your age’

From the 1st of October if you are living and working in the UK, think before you express thoughts like the above or similar ones. The new laws come into force on 1st October 2006 to prevent the discrimination of older and younger employees. This affects employee’s life at work regarding any promotion, training and the day-to-day communication.

Sayings that you need to think twice about before using them after 1 October 2006?
‘Old boy’s network’ ‘You’re old before your time’
‘Wet behind the ears’ ‘You are old enough to know better’
‘You little whipper snapper’ ‘You can never be too young’
‘Me old china’ ‘How are you doing old boy’
Age before beauty ‘It’s hard to teach old dogs new tricks’

As an example: in 2001 a famous airline was fined £8000 for breaching discrimination legislation by advertising a job for “a young and dynamic professional". The judgement against the airline was the first successful age discrimination case in Europe and the first taken under the Irish 1998 Employment Equality Act. The Authority took the case after the airline refused to amend their advertisement, claiming that the word "young" was meaningless in an age context and that it was intended to convey enthusiasm, passion, ambition and someone who was dynamic, rather than the actual age of applicants. The Equality Authority Chief Executive said the decision represented the "casual and accepted discrimination experienced by older people in the workplace".