A young raver, for instance, confronts the same problems as a middle-aged corporate executive.

It was not a normal corporation, in which trainees were smiled benevolently upon by middle-aged executives because they represented the future of the organization.

It was more like the kind of hotel where middle-aged executives take their secretaries for a weekend of strenuous sin.

Is it the classic "overqualified" lament made by many a middle-aged executive or worker suddenly thrust back onto the job market?

The girrs screams grew louder and two middle-aged executives burst through the staircase doorway into the outer room.

"I'm always skeptical of middle-aged executives getting together over marketing studies and focus groups and putting out a newspaper," he said.

A middle-aged executive with a pencil mustache wearing a regulation dark gray three-piece suit appropriate for corporation work.

On a fairly typical day he arrived at a Burbank restaurant for lunch with a middle-aged executive in the printing business.

But management experts, extrapolating from growing anecdotal evidence, say the adjustment is hard for young and middle-aged executives alike, though in different ways.

They behave, basically, more like boys on a playground than middle-aged executives steering a company through a record-setting quarter.