Work Advice: Manager hints that age, caretaking make me bad at my job

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Column by Karla L. Miller

Reader: I’m a woman in my early 60s in a sales engineering role for a software vendor. My team supports nontechnical salespeople in a different management chain.

My manager, “Kelly,” is in her late 50s. The nontechnical sales manager, “Tiffany,” is in her early 40s. Kelly was in a meeting with Tiffany and Tiffany’s boss, a younger man in his 40s. According to Kelly, Tiffany and her manager were suggesting replacing me with “someone who has more energy.” Tiffany indicated that I’m struggling at the company, but she has never spoken to anyone I’ve worked with or seen any of my performance evaluations. I have a stellar performance record.