It seems I have lived long enough to be of value! I turned 67 last week. Am I too old to continue working?

The creaking joints scream yes, the brain takes a little longer than usual to think about the question and the eyes and ears are not sure if they have read or heard it properly.

So, while I am wondering about my place in work, in society and life in general, it was consoling to receive an email from a colleague.

She sent me one of these surveys we get over our desks from time to time and usually consign to the rubbish bin.

This one I will keep and cherish. It informs us that older workers are wiser and more productive than younger colleagues (I keep telling them that but they will have to listen now – it’s become official).

It says older people respond to pressure better and that young people are more inclined to take up smoking.

Those of my age have spent too many years trying to give up smoking to start again. Our way of coping is to yell at someone and pour another glass of wine!

The Wrike Digital Work report surveyed 3,000 office workers from the UK, France and Germany to come up with these results.

The survey showed that work demands have gone up in the past year and that workloads had risen most significantly in the UK. No surprise there, I guess.

Actually, although I am using this survey to promote the contribution of my generation, the survey was quite difficult reading.

It does show that the Millennials are having an increasingly hard time at work with a lot more pressure.

A significant number are taking more sick days than before and many are taking up smoking as a release.

It is all quite frightening really.

I have mentioned before the changes I have seen in my own working lifetime.

I started, in 1968, on a battered old typewriter. When I had long jobs, such as agricultural showswith a huge list of results, I would carry the typewriter with me – just like a very old, very heavy laptop!

Spelling had to be corrected by inserting a piece of correction paper between the letter and your key, striking the key, removing the word and then, making sure you were in the right place, typing in the correct word.

If you’d made a large mistake you would Twink it out and then have to wait for the solution to dry before carrying on.

Mobile phones? Those were phones with extra long cords. You could move around with them – until you reached the end of the cord.

Google? We called that “dictionary” or “encyclopaedia” or “old newspapers”.

Now, in my job alone, I have a computer and a mobile phone which do all the above in a fraction of the time.

I can type and correct and fact check quicker than it would take me to get off my seat and go and find a reference book.

If life is that much “easier” for us it must be for other workers, too?

Have you ever seen Little Shop of Horrors, the musical about an alien plant called Audrey? The more she is fed the more she wants fed and since her diet is human blood it all goes very wrong very quickly.

I think that is what has happened to us. The more the human race produces, the more the world wants it to produce. “Labour saving” is a contradiction because the more labour we save, the more work we have to do to appease the monster that is capitalism.

No more time to talk. Have to get back to being wise and productive and strangely tired!

I think I might go and take a nap. After all, I can always be productive later. Now, that is a wise thought.