Fighting Ageism

As a Gen Y worker, you face a very steep initial climb when working with others.  "They" will take one look at you and assume that you are the person fetching the coffee, instead of someone who genuinely has value.  Here is just one example:  I remember my first meeting with a director.  The food chain was as follows Director > Manager > Leader of Grunts > Grunts.  The participants in the meeting were the Director and 2 Grunts.  Unbeknownst to the Director, I was actually the Leader of Grunts.  The other grunt was a 40something women.  The Director never looked at me ONCE the entire meeting.  He spoke to her, he asked her questions, and he totally ignored me.  Even after I had answered all the questions, he continued to direct his questions and comments at her, even thought I was clearly the one with the subject knowledge (shedeferred to me when asked a question). 

Over the next 2-3 months, every interaction went pretty much the same.  But eventually, I noticed that he slowly started looking at me and talking directly to me.  It was only after I had proven myself over the period of months that he finally got that I was the guy who he needed to talk to in order to get things done. 

People will assume that you, as the youthful one, are just the coffee fetcher, the bag carrier, the note taker.  You will have to fight against ageism again and again in order to be seen as competent.

20Something TakeAway:
Now that you are aware you face this initial obstacle, you need to know how to fight it.  There are a couple practical tips you can follow. 

1. Do a lot of interrupting.  Interrupt and restate what they told you in your own words.  Just say, 'Wait, I want to make sure I got it right, what you are saying is X.'  This will show your self confidence because you have the guts tointerrupt -- not a lot of people have guts in the workplace, they just wallow in their own ignorance.  Second, it demonstrates that you 'get it'.  Most people talk for 30 min and then they have no idea if they got through or not to theiraudience .  If you repeat back what they are trying to tell you, it gives them a chance to verify they conveyed the information correctly.
2. Ask a ton of questions, especially questions that poke holes in their logic, try to 'beat them to the punch'.  Ask questions to clarify, but moreimportantly , if you can follow their logic, try to find where things may go wrong and say, 'wait, if you do X then Y, what about Z?'  Usually they will say, "Great question! You beat me to the punch and I was just going to get to that!"  If they say that, you just proved that you can think by yourself, and not have to rely on others telling you.