Co-workers Judy Goldberg and Margaret Kaminski live in the same Brooklyn neighborhood (Park Slope), e-mail each other viral videos and cocktail party-worthy news articles and plan office birthday parties together.
“I depend on her for everything,” says Goldberg.
“I learned everything I know from Judy,” says Kaminski, 23.
They even style their dyed blond, naturally curly hair in a similar fashion. “I used to always blow-dry my hair,” says Goldberg, 50, who’s Kaminski’s boss and editor at Scholastic’s Choices, a classroom magazine. “She taught me curly hair tricks. She made me over.”
Goldberg says she has learned just as much from the younger editor (about everything from pop culture to how to stay motivated on the job) as she has taught her about the technical and managerial side of the business.
At the office, it’s easy to default to ageist stereotypes. Old people don’t know about technology, and young people are entitled brats — right? But in today’s economy, teamwork is key. These office duos below prove the old adage rings true: Age is just a number.
LEARN FROM YOUNGER CO-WORKERS . . .
Walk the tech talk. At the spin studio chain SoulCycle, job seniority is reversed: Madison Warren, 26, manages Teresa Hicks, 20 years Warren’s senior. The duo opens new locations in different parts of the country and share an apartment on the road. “When I started working with Madison, I didn’t know how to cut and paste and use Excel spreadsheets — even the most minor stuff, like how to download an attachment from an e-mail,” says Hicks, who lives in Chelsea. “She has endless patience. Madison has kept me in the loop of young kids’ stuff like Snapchat.”
Make work fun again. At the office, Kaminski is the gal who plans birthday festivities. “When I got here, I was a little jaded,” says Goldberg. “I was like, ‘Really, we’re celebrating everyone’s birthday?’ But she made it really fun. Now, I say, ‘It’s so-and-so’s birthday, what should we do?’ ”
How younger people think. At the fitness-focused e-mail newsletter Blood, Sweat & Cheers, founder and CEO Jonathan Ages, 33, often asks for insight from 24-year-old sales manager Jacob Gallice. “Our readers range from 21 to 39,” says Ages, who lives in Stuyvesant Town. He enlists Gallice for advice, like which TV shows people are watching. Since Gallice is almost a decade younger than Ages, he’s adjusted the writing in the newsletter blasts. “We learned not to make references to ’80s musicians or pop stars,” he says.
Energy is contagious. Ages points out an attribute of his coworker: unbridled enthusiasm. “We have the same spirit,” Ages says. “I had it when I was younger, and it’s a challenge to keep up as my career has progressed.” Ages recalls a time when he and Gallice, a Chelsea resident, signed up for a mud run and had to wake up at 6 a.m. on a Saturday to get to the race. “Knowing [Gallice] would fight through any exhaustion pushed me to get off my butt.”
OLDER CO-WORKERS CAN TEACH YOU . . .
What’s TMI in the office. “I grew up in the Twitter generation,” says Kaminski. “I always want to say things that shock and awe, but that’s not always appropriate for a meeting about Web design.” At one meeting, Kaminski made a joke about sleeping in a co-worker’s bed — when what she was really talking about was dog-sitting for her colleague. Afterward, Goldberg took Kaminski aside and told her, “I know it’s your go-to setting to say the most provocative thing, but in a workplace, you should err on the least provocative side as possible.”
When to punch out. Williamsburg residents Brad Gallagher, 38, and Brice Jones, 28, are opening a neighborhood bar together in a few weeks called Den. They met while working at Soho House. One night after working three back-to-back shifts, Jones suggested they go partying. Gallagher reminded him they both had a busy week ahead, so they went out for a quiet dinner instead. “You want to work 95-hour weeks, and you do it, and you burn out eventually,” recalls Jones. “[Gallagher] taught me about balance.”
How to get your way. Warren, who lives in Williamsburg, learned the art of persuasion from Hicks. “She knows how to grab [co-workers’] attention and get them to believe in you,” she says. “She knows about someone’s family, kids and what they did last summer. After that, they’ll do whatever we ask. If she meets someone, she stays in contact.”
The right way to manage others. As a newbie, Kaminski had a tendency to be snarky. Goldberg taught her how talk to writers in a more constructive way — and now that Kaminski has people working under her, she cribs her boss’ style. “I try not to be the ‘cool boss,’ ” she says. “People are happy to work with Judy, and she gets stuff done. That’s the persona I want to build.”