Apparently, Getting Older Doesn’t Necessarily Make You Smarter

There is something I have been thinking about lately, and I’m just going to say it…

Some people do not get wiser with age.

They just get older.

In fact, they actually seem to get a little bit stupider.

Which can be insulting.

I was raised with the idea that your elders were supposed to know shit.

You know what I mean?

You got older. You experienced things. You worked. You learned. You made mistakes. You gained perspective. You accumulated decades of knowledge that younger people simply couldn’t possibly have yet.

So, in theory, by the time you’re 65, you should have some fucking wisdom.

You should be able to walk into a situation and recognize when someone else has spent nearly a decade mastering something.

You should understand that experience is a major influence in said wisdom.

Most importantly, you should know when to shut the fuck up and let the person who actually knows what they’re doing do their job.

Apparently, that particular life lesson was skipped by some people.

This is where my husband comes in.

My husband, Roy, is almost 60 years old.

After working weekends for what feels like approximately one hundred years, he finally has weekends off.

This man has spent essentially his entire adult life working in the service and retail industries. Even when he started his current job, he worked weekends for YEARS.

So now, finally, after all this time, he gets to have his weekends.

I think that’s fucking wonderful.

He deserves it.

There is something else you need to understand about what he does.

He doesn’t just work in a retail store.

He has spent close to a decade curating one of the nicest retail stores in downtown Galveston.

I don’t say that lightly.

Galveston is a very particular place. I love it, but let’s be honest about what it is. It’s quirky. It’s historic. It’s funky. It’s very, very local. There is a lot of “good enough” here.

Then there is this store.

It stands out.

It’s high-end. It’s beautiful. It’s filled with merchandise that is completely unlike what you typically find around here in Galveston.

For close to ten years, Roy has been one of the people responsible for making it look that way.

He has an eye for this shit.

A really good eye! Well…two!

I would argue that if anyone should be going around teaching other people how to merchandise and curate a retail space, it should probably be my husband.

He has created some of the most incredible storefront windows in this city.

People who have never actually done this kind of work probably don’t understand… these aren’t traditional display windows.

They aren’t giant, boxed-in department-store windows where you have a perfectly contained little stage and can simply build a scene inside of it.

These are essentially just enormous windows incorporated into an old historic building.

They are around fifteen feet tall.

Roy has turned those windows into something people actually talk about.

For YEARS.

Every holiday, every season, every occasion, those windows change.

People notice.

People comment.

People take pictures.

People talk about them.

They have become part of the visual personality of the store and, in a weird way, part of the visual personality of downtown Galveston itself.

Roy does it with a space that is, frankly, a fucking nightmare to merchandise. There is another little detail that makes this entire situation even more ridiculous…

One of the owners loves to shop.

When I say “loves to shop,” I mean LOVES TO SHOP!

He sees something he likes, he buys it… and that’s great! He’s fortunate enough to be able to indulge in that hobby. Luckily for the store, some of the things he brings in are fantastic.

Here’s the problem…The store is already fucking full. Like, FULL. There isn’t some magical empty warehouse in the back where Roy can put all the new stuff until he decides where it belongs.

The merchandise is everywhere.

You can’t control what customers buy, you can’t control where the holes are going to appear. Something sells over here. Something sells over there. Three things sell from one section. Nothing sells from another section for six weeks. Then suddenly somebody buys something that has been sitting there forever. Now you’ve got a giant fucking hole.

So the store isn’t a blank canvas.

It isn’t… “Okay, today I am going to put the candles here, the jewelry there, and the household decorative items over there.”

No.

The store essentially tells you what you have to work with.

You have to look at what sold.

You have to look at what came in.

You have to look at what is left.

You have to figure out where the new merchandise can go.

You have to make it all look intentional.

Somehow, Roy does that.

He takes the weird, constantly changing puzzle of merchandise and turns it into a store that still feels curated.

And then there are the windows. Oh, don’t forget the windows! You can’t just put merchandise wherever the fuck you want. There is a gigantic, very real consideration called THE SUN. Those huge windows get blasted with Texas heat and sunlight. Put the wrong thing too close to the glass and leave it there long enough? Congratulations! You’ve just cooked your merchandise.

So now you’re considering traffic flow, visual balance, inventory, sales, available space, new merchandise, empty spaces, product placement, sightlines, seasonal displays, the historic architecture, and the fucking Texas sun.

That IS merchandising.

That IS experience.

That IS knowing your space.

That IS knowing your inventory.

That IS knowing your customers.

That IS knowing what looks good.

That IS knowing what the fuck you’re doing.

So imagine my irritation when the owner’s husband… who, as far as I can tell, mostly comes around to drink alcohol and make himself part of the scenery… decides every once in a while that he’s going to bring someone into the store who can give Roy some “input.”

I’m sorry.

INPUT?

To the man who has been doing this for almost ten years?

The man who has transformed that store?

The man who has created those windows?

The man who understands the inventory, the customers, the architecture, the space, the sunlight, the sales patterns, the merchandise and the limitations better than virtually anyone?

Then someone wanders in and says something like… “I wouldn’t put those jellies and jams there. I’d put them somewhere else.”

WHERE?

WHERE WOULD YOU LIKE HIM TO PUT THEM?

That is the kind of moronic shit that drives me fucking insane.

It is so easy to criticize a finished product when you aren’t responsible for solving the actual problem.

“Oh, I wouldn’t put that there.”

Okay.

Great.

Where would you put it?

More importantly…

What would you move?

What would you sacrifice?

What would you rearrange?

What happens to the merchandise that is already there?

What happens when that item sells?

What about the stuff coming in next week?

What about the fact that there is literally nowhere else to put it?

What about the fucking SUN?

That’s the part outsiders don’t see.

They see a shelf.

Roy sees the entire chessboard.

It isn’t that somebody has a different opinion.

Everyone is entitled to an opinion.

It isn’t even that somebody makes a suggestion that Roy doesn’t agree with.

Fine.

Suggest away.

It’s the presumption.

The presumption that after more than a decade of doing something exceptionally well, this man needs some random person walking into his workplace and telling him where to put the fucking jelly!

That’s what I find infuriating.

It reminds me of something I’ve been noticing more and more as I get older…

Age and wisdom are not automatically the same thing.

I used to think that the older you got, the more you knew. Now I realize that sometimes you just get older. That’s it. Some people accumulate wisdom through life experience while others only accumulate birthday celebrations.

Getting older doesn’t automatically make you perceptive. It doesn’t automatically make you knowledgeable. It doesn’t automatically make you better at understanding people. It doesn’t automatically make you good at your job. It sure as hell doesn’t give you some magical sixth sense that allows you to walk into somebody else’s workplace and immediately understand a job they’ve spent a decade mastering.

Experience matters.

Expertise matters.

Talent matters.

Knowing when somebody else knows more than you do? That’s wisdom, too. That’s the part these people are missing.

There’s something incredibly mature about being able to look at someone who has spent ten years becoming exceptionally good at something and say… “You know what? I trust you. You know what you’re doing.”

That doesn’t make you stupid.

It makes you smart.

It makes you secure.

It makes you respectful.

It makes you look like someone who has learned something in all those years you’ve been alive.

So yes, I’m annoyed.

I’m annoyed because I watch my husband work his ass off. I watch him create things that people notice. I watch him take an impossible retail puzzle and somehow make it beautiful. I watch him work within limitations that other people don’t even realize exist.

Then I watch someone who doesn’t have to solve any of those problems stroll in and offer a brilliant solution like… “I’d put the jelly somewhere else.”

I just want to scream…

OH MY GOD!!!!!!!!

Maybe before we start giving advice, we should make sure we’ve actually earned the right to give it! Maybe before we assume the person doing the job doesn’t know what they’re doing, we should spend ten years doing it ourselves.

Some people get older and smarter.

Some people get older and wiser.

And some people?

They just get older.

And occasionally, they get a little bit stupider along the way.

That’s not just annoying.

It’s fucking insulting.

Xoxo, AB 💅💄💋