The Inconvenient Expert

No one tells you when it starts. You are not fired. You are praised. Your experience is acknowledged. Your résumé is called impressive, which is the first warning sign.

Then the word appears. Overqualified.

It sounds respectful. It is not. It means you are expensive without saying salary. It means you will ask questions. It means you remember how things used to work and can see how they are breaking now. It means you will not be easily impressed by free snacks or inflated titles.

You watch younger versions of yourself get hired. Hungrier. Cheaper. Easier to shape. You are told the team needs fresh energy. Cultural fit. Someone who can grow with the company.

You have already grown. That is the problem.
Your age becomes invisible in public and loud in private. Not discussed, just designed around. Shorter contracts. Advisory roles. Consulting gigs that never turn permanent. You are kept close enough to extract knowledge and far enough to avoid commitment.

You start editing your history. Removing years. Softening titles. Pretending you are still becoming instead of having become. No one calls it ageism. That would be illegal.They call it optimization.

And one day you realize you are not obsolete - you are inconvenient.

-Stanley, Brutally Human