THE SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA JOB MARKET: WHERE THE JOBS ARE : COPING : You Say the Boss is How Old?

Younger Bosses, Older Employees: It sounds like an episode of Oprah. But these days, it sometimes seems, whiz kids are overrunning the world.

Microsoft founder Bill Gates, America’s wealthiest man, is 37. TV news producer Jerry Zucker was handed the “Today” show at age 26; a year later, his grasp encompasses NBC’s “Nightly News” as well.

Macaulay Culkin’s kid brother just had his acting debut: No doubt his own production company is next.

Now it’s the White House. At 46, President Clinton is 22 years younger than George Bush. He’s three years younger than Mick Jagger. Treasury Secretary Lloyd Bentsen is old enough to be his father.

But this trend doesn’t just apply to the rich and famous.

Younger bosses are cropping up in all kinds of fields. And so, as Oprah herself (age 39) might ask, what’s America’s response to the sight of folks their kids’ ages jangling keys to the executive suite?

“Frustration,” declares USC sociologist Barry Glassner, author of “When the Music Stops,” a forthcoming book about baby boomer careers.

“Career crashes are the baby boom’s version of midlife crisis,” he explains. “The main problem for the boomers is that they’re such a large group: Correspondingly, a smaller percentage have gotten the top positions. So now that boomers are getting to midlife, they’re hitting ceilings.

“Meanwhile, younger people are getting partnerships and things boomers themselves may have been passed up for. Of course it’s frustrating. There’s a sense of not having your talents and achievements recognized, of being cheated out of your rightful place in the universe.”

Younger bosses aren’t altogether new, of course. Alexander the Great was king of Macedonia at the age of 20. Irving Thalberg was 25 when he took over MGM. But baby boomers, always sure that everything happens to them for the first time, are new to the role of old-timer.

In some cases, bosses are getting younger because of changes in a given field.

“The younger generation has an immense amount of specialized knowledge we never had,” says a 61-year-old consultant with a small computer firm who insisted on anonymity. “I think there’s been a change in thinking in the educational system. In my time, maybe one in 1,000 bosses was a ‘whiz kid’; today, it’s practically the norm.

“My boss, at 47, has an innate intelligence that is unbelievable. He’s a voracious reader. He makes incredible connections. But I’ve had a lot more experience in treating people.”

“It’s frustrating to see him make certain classical mistakes--like thinking you’re just a little bit faster, a little bit smarter than everybody else. He thinks he’s the one doing the manipulating. Like with a child, it’s only when you get older that you realize how much you don’t know.”

Certainly, there are indications that some of today’s workplace enfants can truly be terribles. In his book “Accidental Empires,” a history of the personal computer industry, Robert X. Cringely describes the terrors of working for eccentric young computer entrepreneurs. And Barry Minkow, the San Fernando Valley carpet cleaning whiz kid who later went to prison for fraud at his ZZZZ Best Co., treated even his parents like hired hands.

But a more humanistic whiz kid management style emerging, particularly in the age of Clinton, is consensus-building.

Consider Thinking Machines Co., a cutting-edge Cambridge, Mass., computer concern co-founded by Danny Hillis in 1983, when he was 26.

“I never think of myself as a boss,” he says. “I don’t tell anyone what to do: I just explain the situation. Bosses work for employees: Our job is to listen to what our people are saying, take these bits and pieces of intelligence, and synthesize them into a direction that reflects the total.”

For her part, 33-year-old Celia, a Southern California private school principal, wishes she could think of her employees so rationally. One of her older administrators has a personality that is all too familiar: her mother.

“She’s my mother’s age, and has a lot of her habits,” says Celia, who insists her real name not be used. “My mother sends me newspaper clippings; Dorothy puts them on my desk. She’s nosy--three hours after she gives me a phone message, she’ll ask out of the blue: ‘Did you ever call John Smith back?’

“In meetings, she’ll question my judgment in front of other people. She’ll insinuate things: ‘So-and-so in the blank department is a person who really gets out on campus.’ Meaning I’m not? Suddenly I’m trying to justify every move. Whenever I leave town, she directs people and tries to change things in my absence. It drives me nuts!”

Mike Zugsmith, co-owner of Encino-based Zugsmith-Thind, a commercial real estate brokerage, has been a whiz kid boss and lived to tell the tale.

“When I started this company in 1979, I was 28,” he says. “I was supervising salespeople who were 20 to 30 years my senior. It readily became apparent that simply because your name is on the door doesn’t mean you’ll get respect. You have to earn it.

“You have to remember to listen very carefully to what people have to say. You have to be flexible in accommodating older individuals who do things differently than you do.”

Since then, he’s noticed that his colleagues are getting a lot younger.

“I’ve seen offices swept clean of older associates in order to bring in ‘young aggressive trainees,’ ” he says. “What they really want is clones. If an older sales associate doesn’t do things exactly the way courses, seminars and tapes dictate, this can be threatening.”

TV comedy writer Bruce Kirschbaum too has come full circle on the age issue. He broke into the business at age 23, writing for the “Donny and Marie Show.” Seven years later, he began working in supervisory positions for such shows as “Off the Wall,” “Fridays,” “People Are Funny” and “Dolly.”

“Working for me were men in their 60s. And for the most part, these were people I respected, people who had written for ‘Get Smart,’ ‘The Danny Kaye Show,’ ‘Your Show of Shows’ and even ‘Hee Haw!’ ”

“I was supervising guys who’d hired me--or not hired me--years earlier. . . . But I always went out of my way to let them know I considered it a great thrill to know them, asked them all kinds of questions about the old shows. Let me tell you that it was painful to rewrite an older writer’s stuff--painful.”

But at times a cultural gulf would open up between generations. “In the ‘80s, what the older guys thought was hip was a kind of blue Las Vegas humor. Lenny Bruce swore on stage--that was considered cutting edge. Don’t ask me why, but bondage references--anything to do with leather--was considered very breakthrough.”

At 38, though, Kirschbaum now is the old guy on the block--at least if that block is on the Fox lot. His most recent stint was as co-executive producer of “The Ben Stiller Show.” Ben Stiller is 27.

“Sure, I have more experience than guys in their twenties,” Kirschbaum said. “But experience is not necessarily considered a good thing: It’s looked at as being out of touch. And it’s true, whenever they want to do a rock band parody, I go, ‘Great! Joe Cocker! Jethro Tull!’ And they’re saying, ‘Who?’ ”

Ultimately, “I was punished for my arrogance. I too once sneered at people in their 40s--they didn’t know what was funny! That exact same thing is happening to me.”

On the other hand, by and large, Kirschbaum doesn’t see too much resentment on the part of older employees working for younger bosses. After all, in TV--and this might be the final caveat these days for all those gainfully employed, whatever their age--”you’re grateful just to be working.”