I’m finding that for the first time in my adult life, my work group is made up primarily of people my own age. For most of my tenure as a civil servant, I’ve been the office “baby”, well into my late 30s. The federal service cadre I’be been part of is made up largely of Boomers sticking around to maximize their retirement benefits, and there hasn’t been a big trend in hiring younger up-and-comers behind me; maybe it’s different elsewhere. For my entire career, it’s largely been me in an office of chain-smoking fiftysomething divorcees.

But, this new office is different. I went out to lunch with much of my new team this week, and learned that I’m actually one of the older ones, though all of us are within a few years of each other, which means that for once, I share at least some common generational and cultural touchstones with my co-workers; we speak, on some level, the same language.

Plus, we’re all kind of geeks, which is cool – there are several board game afficianados here, and someone raised the topic of “A Very Potter Musical” and wizard rock in casual conversation about theater (we were comparing stories of kids’ activities) that wasn’t me – though I expect I’ll probably drop some “too-far” geek trump card sooner or later, but I’m trying to be a conscientious professional, while still leaving the door open for idle-time and after-hours geekery (and we did spin some Humdingers in the car – Scott and Kirsten have a couple of new fans).

It wasn’t at all surprising that among folks my age, we talk a lot of movies; and they’re the same movies that everybody of a certain age remembers – The Princess Bride (Which drew a rousing chorus of “Inconceivable!” when one person admitted to having never seen it), Labyrinth, and, sort of surprisingly, Willow, which is a great movie, but not one I particularly *love*, though I meet a surprising number of people for whom it’s a huge part of their childhoods (I met someone once who named their kid Alora).

It’s an interesting place to be, and one I look forward to exploring further. Suffice to say, for now, I’m pretty happy here.

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Unrelated – I saw Pacific Rim last night, and spent two hours with a huge smile on my face. You should really seek it out.