Confession: I was a knee-jerk, age-discriminating boss. I ran a 40-employee in-company ad agency, and one of the sections was a three-person in-house travel agency. It consisted of a manager, who reported to me, an assistant manager and a clerk. It was a very busy office, handling 20 or 30 daily travel and hotel arrangements, as well as schedules for business conferences several times a year that involved some 2,000 company delegates who gathered in resort hotels throughout the US.

The work was complex and time-consuming, particularly during the conferences, when the agency staff had to work on site at the hotels, and were available to delegates 24-7. The travel manager was in his 40s, had been with the company 20 years, and did his job with great skill and dedication. His assistant was a young man in his 20s, who worked adequately when under supervision, but tended to goof off when tempted by the all-expense-paid life at the resort hotels. The clerk was a woman in her 60s. She did most of the paperwork, daily contact with airlines and hotels, as well as keeping financial and budget records.

As time went on, I couldn't help observing that the young assistant manager was performing at a less than adequate level. I had several meetings with him, with a warning that if he didn't improve, his job was in jeopardy. He promised to do better, and did perform well enough for awhile. Fortunately for all concerned, after two years with our company, he found another job and resigned.

Because of the travel agency's heavy schedule, I didn't have the luxury of conducting a long series of interviews to find a replacement. The departing assistant gave two weeks' notice, so I had just enough time to run a newspaper ad and also check with city commercial ad agencies for a qualified candidate. My agency manager and I interviewed five people, all young men and women, for the job. Two of them had good potential, and I figured that if we'd give the top candidate several weeks of on-the-job training in our company's procedures, he/she probably could have become good a assistant manager.

I was about to make an offer to one of the applicants when a sudden thought struck me. Why not fill the job with a person who was already highly qualified and ready to take over on Day One? I took my idea to Personnel, but the response was, "Are you kidding? You want to promote a 60-something clerk to assistant manager? She doesn't have a college degree, and anyhow, she'll be retiring in a year or less." The Personnel rep was a good friend, and I'm sure his highly inappropriate remarks were not intended to be heard by anyone else. I told him to shut up and start the paperwork.

The result was that my travel agency now had two very efficient and reliable managers. Incidentally, the former clerk did not retire for another seven years. I'm proud of the fact that I woke up in time to overcome age discrimination, and also that she received a much better retirement package as a member of management than she would have had as a clerk.

Learn more about this author, Ted Sherman.
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