Act Your Age and Not Your Shoe Size

I read this article in the paper on the weekend. It was about how some celebrities dress too old or young for their ages.

I'm not so sure that I'm prepared to go on the record with my high-fashion advice to the beautiful people (I'm a card-carrying dag, after all), but I do think the concept holds in certain other circumstances. Like the workplace, for example.

Obviously I'm getting at a point here (trust me, I'll make it there eventually).

There's this woman who sits kind of nearby. I don't actually work with her, but I sit near enough to overhear a lot of what goes on.

So this woman seems generally pretty good at her job, and sounds as though she knows what she's talking about. The problem is that she doesn't seem to have gotten past her teenage giggling stage.

I'm really not one for going in for stereotypes of ageism, but you should hear this woman. If I was one of her stakeholders, I'd be left seriously questioning how whether this woman was actually listening to my serious concerns. Or listening at all to what I was saying, as she kind of sounds as though she has headphones in tuned to the Qantas comedy channel.

So what do you think, readers? Am I being too judgemental? Or is there a time and a place for the giggle that does not involve a middle-aged woman who is supposed to be a professional?