Twentysomething: The rising rift between gen X and gen Y
Rebecca Thorman is 24 years old. I met her when I moved to Madison, Wisconsin, and spoke at an event she put together. I’ve been reading her blog, Modite, ever since.
By Rebecca Thorman – As the workplace weather changes, Generation X isn’t happy to see Generation Y as the rainbow in their persistent rainstorm.
Both generations have similarities, sure. Technological savvy and the willingness to rebel against boomer norms brought us together for a short time. But as more of Gen Y enters the workplace, Gen X is becoming increasingly marginalized, and the fundamental differences of how we operate are now dividing us along fierce lines:
1. Different job markets
Generation Y is a demographic powerhouse entering into our choice of jobs. With the world conspiring in our favor, we’ve already pushed the limits of the foundation Generation X laid.
Generation X tried to change the status quo while entering into one of the worst job markets since the Great Depression. They scorned the good ole boys, but had to play by their rules anyway, while millenials are able to create our own rules.
The fact that Gen Xers worked hard with little success beyond casual Fridays means that they are “only mentioned to be polite” in generational discussions. This is aggravated by Generation Y’s readiness to assume all the leadership positions when the Boomer generation retires. Gen X can’t seem to win and Gen Y reaps the rewards.
2. Cynicism vs. Idealism
Since the Gen Xers weren’t able to create the workplace change they desired, it’s no wonder that I get the feeling that Generation X is inherently skeptical of who I am. They’re weary of how easy success comes to me, of my desire to bring them into the mix, and of my idealism.
Unlike our older co-workers, Generation Y doesn’t operate out of fear or distrust, but the possibility of what can be done. I realize that Generation Y is new to the workplace. To Gen X, I just don’t get how the world works. And while it’s quite possible that we won’t change the world like we anticipate, why shoot for just the possible? Idealism is what changes the world.
3. You vs. Us
The Gen X focus on distrust makes them solitary workers, preferring to rely solely on their selves to see a project through, while Generation Y tends to want to support and work together. A Gen Xer is often found at the office, squeezing by on their flextime, and blocking out the world with their iPod.
Generation X is no doubt feeling like a stepping stone generation, and many are, in fact, choosing to align themselves with Generation Y rather than fade into the background. The founder of MySpace went so far as to lie about his age.
I say the more the merrier. There is strength and value to realism, and there is strength and value to optimism. That’s why we have to work together. What can I say? I’m a team player.
Rebecca Thorman blogs at Modite.
This post was an introduction for me to Rebecca and her site Modite. I think many of Rebecca’s postings on her site are very thoughtful and inspirational. However, I agree with several others that this posting contains some very broad generalizations that imply nothing short of a lack of experience in diverse settings. Rebecca’s other postings seem to show a little more careful thought and research. However, I’ve worked in three different organizations in the past 6 years (private company, public company, and government), and I’ve seen countless examples that completely rebut Rebecca’s statements about Gen Y. I worked with a team of “Gen Y’s,” only a little younger than myself that spent their office days listening to iPods, sometimes in full view of clients while working as consultants on-site. Some of my “Gen Y” teammates worried about flextime more than project deadlines and fully embraced casual Friday by wearing flip-flops. If you want to talk about working together, we saw a whole stream of “Gen Ys” leave our firm within their first two years because they saw their counterparts making more money at our firms (and openly said this was the only reason — a little reminiscent of the dot com era for Gen Xs). These are only examples, and many of these issues (such as being cynical, solitary, etc.) can apply across generations. Full disclosure — I am “Gen X.” I also never thought of the examples I’ve listed as generational issues — just cases of people who wanted something different for their own individual reasons. Why would we want to continue to define people in terms of generations?
Penelope,
Congratulations – you found someone even more naive and arrogant than Ryan….
I’m sorry, but the more I read, the more I am convinced that the only real differences in the groups being discussed here are the realization that comes with age, and the circumstances impacting their early childhoods. Boomers were famous for “not trusting anyone over 30,” no surprise here. Xers are noted for growing up in an age of plenty, but coming into their own during an age of austerity. Ys are Xers without the austerity. But what does this all really mean, and why is this important?
The inclination to use heuristics to simplify the world around us is natural, but taking these artifically imposed generalities to be of more significance than a clue to problem solving (as opposed to the actual solution) is unwise.
Most young people think they are the centers of the universe; most mature people think they know it all; and most old people know how little they know, so what? The cycle is ongoing and it all starts anew just when we think we have it all figured out.
People just enjoy the ride:)
@ Gen Y Princess
I went to LdarryArmstrong’s site and read the Gen X entry but couldn’t find the evidence I thought you were pointing to.
I did notice however that he claims that the TV Show, Friends, shows us how friends have become Gen X’s substitutes for families. But, indeed, I don’t know anyone in his or her 20s who wanted to spend time with his parents instead of his friends. So who is he comparing them too? Boomers? Hardly a great source.
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Yeah – I don’t get that. As an X’er – thats the legacy I thought I was leaving and the ground I thought I was breaking. But if the Y’s are willing to work their way up the ladder the old way by working lots of hours and starting in unimpressive jobs… it makes us X’ers really look bad… and personally I’m not going back to the old way… so I wonder where that leaves me.
This article is banal propaganda. Stupid at best. Ageist at worst.
All I see is a resurgent economy and gen Y suckers falling for the same so-called ‘perks’ the Xers fell for in the late 90s. If the housing crash doesn’t derail it, the upcoming credit card debt collapse will. I’m sure the Y’s will feel a lot more like us Xers when those options expire worthless.
As for the idealism vs cynicism, I fail to see how that is attributable to a generation. Idealists just need to waste more time and run around in more circles before they figure out what the cynics already know. All generations have slow learners.
I’m still waiting for Gen Y to really take over pop culture. While I sit back and watch South Park and Family Guy, I still get every quip and reference, while the 20 somethings miss half. And yes I’m using cartoons to prove a point…
Hey look at my predictions having now come true. Now how much are the GenY’s accomplishing as they stand in line for a handout?
As far as I remember we were just as bolshy, ambitious, determined, and team-oriented when we were just starting out in our careers. This writer is assuming that Gen Xers were always as she sees some of them now.
I would really like to see these 20-something writers (and that includes Ryan) revisit these naive posturings in 15 years time. Put it in your calendars!
According to Beth, Generation X starts at 1965 and goes all the way up to birth year 1980.
This just goes to show you how woolly and malleable these generational definitions are.
Douglas Coupland coined the term Generation X in a magazine article in 1987 (this was a precursor to the novel). He was referring to people born between 1958 and 1966. He later widened the term to mean anyone who was a twenty-something between 1987 and 1991.
I was born in 1976, I finished school in 1993, I finished college in 1996 when I also turned 20. By the time I hit college age, the term Generation X was all the rage but it varied by definition whether or not I was actually in it. At that point the generation after me was supposedly called the “Nintendo Clan”. Now Gen X supposedly goes all the way up to 1980 – someone who was seven years old when Coupland was writing about twenty-somethings.
Beth, my point was not that generational differences do not exist but that they are exaggerated (especially on this blog), that other factors such as class, gender and ethnicity are more important, and that writing meaningfully about generations is more a job for historians than demographers. It’s impossible to define a generation this early in their lives. Even the generational boundaries keep changing, let alone people’s collective experiences, personalities and priorities.
Interestingly, the whole point of Coupland’s book was not to define Generation X but to argue why it’s impossible to define such a diverse generation. Hence the ‘X’.
The Gen Ys I have encountered in the workplace all seem to be a spoiled, self-indulgent group of people who want it all now with as little effort as possible.
Their coddled, techie upbringing has given them a skewed sense of entitlement – as if life should be handed to them rather than earned. While technology can bring efficiencies, business wants you to use those efficiencies to increase your productivity, allowing you to accomplish more work – not to allow you to surf the net or e-communicate with your electronic peer group while at work.
Gen Y has yet to bring accomplishments to our culture – they are too young to have done so yet. The invention of social websites really does not count – it is nothing more than yet another level of internet based distraction from what people should be doing every day – working.
I actually don’t know what generation I technically fall into. I should look that up…sometime…when it would actually have any bearing on my self-employed existence.
Anyway, it may surprise you to know that some number of years ago, the Gen Xers were acting just like the Gen Yers. You probably won’t believe me when I say this, but every single generation (or gradutation class or whatever) thinks that they have cornered the marked on idealization. By gum, they’re going to change the world! They’re leading the *right* way! They’re creating something of substance! And so on and so forth.
Before Gen Y came along, the Gen Xers were the idealists. Before that, the Boomers were the idealists. I’m going to guess that whoever came before the Boomers were the idealists of their age when they were on the left side of 25.
Come back in twelve years and tell us how you feel because your personal experiences and the experiences of your peer group do not a valid sample group make.
Idealization—>Idealism
…need coffee…
Get married, have kids, have a mortgage and car payments and then come talk to me about your flexibility. You won’t have any. Daycare costs more than college. Grow up Gen Y. Then you’ll realize you aren’t as important as you think.
Interesting, isn’t it, that the knee-jerk “get a life” comments (which I first composed and then deleted) subtly (or not so subtly) reflect the selfsame “you don’t know what you’re talking about” attitude they’re attempting to point out?
Many of the comments, however, are pure gold. Thank you for your thoughtful and self-deprecating insight.
Gives me hope that all us gen-x’ers aren’t hopeless cynics.
aaron – Nope. I’m a hopeful cynic. That’s sort of my definition of Gen X. Perhaps that’s just cuspers, but those born in the late 70’s seem to have a sense of cynicism that just keeps them steadily plugging along – working to make it better.
I originally had a long involved comment written for this post when it was first published. And then, I decided that I just needed to get back to work instead of try to explain where I think there’s a disconnect in Rebecca’s thinking. But it appears that everyone else has already touched on most of my points (especially the one about Coupland’s reason for writing the book – always good to READ the book you’re going to reference.) I really get a sense that the entitlement of the Gen Y crowd (I’m a cusper between X & Y) will really bite them later…and thus that might be a source of why they have entered the workplace with the idea that they will just MAKE it how they want it. Gen Y will experience the fall just like we all did when we “grew up”.
A note for Rebecca – when stating that you “researched” something, it’s probably a bad idea to link to Wikipedia as your main source. Wikis are great and helpful reference tools, but not credible enough for “research”.
Rebecca,
From reading your website, it looks like you are the only person at MagNet. So much for being a big leader of people – you have to be kidding…
I really disagree with the whole entitled persona. Many in Gen-‘Y’ are willing to work hard for what they want. The thing is, they may be pushing themselves a bit too hard if anything. I know ‘Yers’ who worked full time while going to college AND grad school full time…not just for the money, but the experience. Some of these people took on extra internships or volunteer opportunities to get themselves ahead of the game. So I really have a hard time believing that this is a lazy group.
What is interesting is that this generation is accelerating the rich-poor gap. The “other half” of Gen-‘Y’…the slackers, the moochers, the people who ARE entitled and are waiting (unsuccessfully) for their so-called “just due” are living at home, making little if any money. Then you have the others who do work hard, and are earning a lot more than any other generation in history at this point in their lives, even after inflation. It is incredible how many 25, 26, 27 year olds in the town I live in (Boston) that are making $75-100K…more than most families make. This generation might end the concept of the middle class.
I devoted a great deal of my Master’s research to generational diversity and I have to say that your article is somewhat lopsided towards Millennials (or Gen Y as you call them). As Rick said above, I have also worked with a myriad of personalities that span multiple generations. The 1 item that parts water between Gen X and the Millennials is the latters work/life balance. Gen X works hard to get what they want believing that rewards will come. Millennials work hard but also play hard (not saying Gen X doesn’t play, too) and want rewards now. So my question is, will the Millennials be patient enough to get the rewards they deserve?
Team player? More like condescending little snot. I’m glad everyone from your generation doesn’t share your views.
Mark –
I don’t think entitlement=lazy. It can, but I really think when applies to GenY, it has more to do with an attitude. More than most people I’ve met, GenY tends to feel it deserves more. They may jump into the workforce and work hard to get it, but the generation as a whole isn’t yet fully acquainted with the fact that working hard or changing things does not always bring the reward you expect.
Of course, this could all be reduced to me being part GenX, and label the view as cynical. But GenY has had more of a coddled upbringing, and aren’t used to a world that doesn’t support that. That breeds an expectation of a certain atmosphere. And if it isn’t already there in the workplace, GenY may work hard to try and get what they want, but only because they perceive it as something they deserve. GenX will work hard to get what they want because it is desirable, without an expectation of entitlement.(Styrofeen actually says it pretty well above.)
I would also like to know when GenY obtained the “slacker” category. I thought that was always GenX? Perhaps another point for the idea that every generation undergoes the same categorization and that this is all a joke.
Lane,
Well, the workplace stereotype is that ‘Yers’ strut into the interview room, and ask for outlandish salaries, benefits, etc. that people who have worked for many years still haven’t acheived. Then when they start working, they ask for a promotion in a few months, and a corner office not too long after that. And they don’t want to work more than 40 hours a week doing that. There are some who are indeed like that, and the stereotype builds off of that, but most aren’t. We are willing to work hard to achieve these goals.
However, the thing is that they DO expect to reach these goals at some point, as you alluded to…and in not too much time. So they will put in the 60 hour week, and they will network like crazy and go to grad school while working full time. But they expect results immediately. And this accelerated career growth does pay off in many respects. There are many people here in Boston and in other cities in their 20s who are already mid-level managers, able to afford their own homes, and having a life that many people years older than them still dream about.
Man, every time some narcissistic arrogant naive twit starts speaking for ‘Gen Y’, I wonder how they can have grown up without knowing anybody who isn’t exactly like them. Was she one of those cheerleader idiots in high school who only talked to her clones, or what?
As someone born in the right year to be ‘Gen Y’, I would like Rebecca Thorman to start speaking for herself and her asshole friends, not me.
Every generation of 20somethings has thought they were brilliant, bold, innovative and destined to leave others behind in the dust.
Invariably they have ended up being only partially right.
The difference is that this current generation has the internet to give them the illusion that their opinions have far reaching significance.
Before the internet it was highly unlikely that a kid as arrogant and flimsy in her reasoning as this one could get published.
On the other hand, she makes Penelope Trunk look less naive and pretentious. I suppose that might be why she is allowed to post as a guest here.
And BTW, you really should stop putting little exclamation points after every reasponse (“Thanks for your comment!”). It projects fake enthusiasm and comes across as smarmy when you do it EVERY TIME.
Well, looks like the usual mix of thoughtful comments and mean-spirited snarkiness. :-) Smells like the blogosphere…
Just as an fyi per a previous poster’s comment: using occasional exclamation points in text communications is fairly common for women in business at all levels, including executives. This isn’t just some weird quirk of Rebecca’s, as the poster implied.
And yeah, there’s research behind it; this isn’t just my personal opinion. (My current employer even has a training class for its senior salespeople called “Selling to Women Executives” which discusses common gender differences in workplace communications styles, buying behaviors etc; the use of exclamation points — many women do it, most men don’t, rather like head-nodding in meetings — is one of the things that’s discussed.)
“Just as an fyi per a previous poster's comment: using occasional exclamation points in text communications is fairly common for women in business at all levels, including executives. This isn't just some weird quirk of Rebecca's, as the poster implied.”
Mary,
The operative word there being occassional. When used consistently it begins to look fake and a tad giddy.
Just because a behavior is common amongst a given group (women in this case) doesn’t automatically validate it as being a good idea to use in excess. As it happens, I work in the marketing world and deal pretty consistently with marketing VPs and directors. Many of them are women. They must have missed the memo telling them to use exclamation points on every communication because I don’t see it too often.
This post obviously came at good timing — 60 minutes ran an interesting story on “Millenials” on Sunday. The story tracks with many of the observations I’ve made and seems to contradict many of Rebecca’s summary points about Gen Y:
(Link: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/11/08/60minutes/main3475200.shtml)
From the 60 minutes website:
“(CBS) Stand back all bosses! A new breed of American worker is about to attack everything you hold sacred: from giving orders, to your starched white shirt and tie. They are called, among other things, “millennials.” There are about 80 million of them, born between 1980 and 1995, and they’re rapidly taking over from the baby boomers who are now pushing 60.
They were raised by doting parents who told them they are special, played in little leagues with no winners or losers, or all winners. They are laden with trophies just for participating and they think your business-as-usual ethic is for the birds. And if you persist in the belief you can, take your job and shove it.”
Gen-Y promoters say they want to shatter systems that reward people simply for being around for a time and “paying their dues”. Regardless of your age, if you can produce real value you should do it and profit from it. Producing real value is something tangible like increasing sales, reducing costs, or creating something there’s a market for. Developing your “personal brand”, having strong ideals, talking about the concept of leadership, knowing the right people, and challenging the status quo do not count for anything unless you use those things to produce something tangible.
The tenor of the Gen-Y thing, as I understand it, is that the older generations want recognition for “paying their dues” and Gen-Y wants recognition for creating their “personal brand images”. The reality, though, is that what really gets recognition is getting things done. The main ingredient to getting things done is hard work. Thinking you should be recognized for your high ideals alone is as silly as saying you should be rewarded just for “paying your dues.”
I often think that the notion that a company should reflect X and Y about its junior employees is an analog to the notion that you can make a lifestyle statement by your consumption patterns – mother’s milk to the Boomers and their over-scheduled, corporate-team-building-exercise ready offspring. If your company donates a few pennies to local schools and you drive a Prius, good things are happening, right?
The sad truth is that for most 20 year olds, the prospect of innovation is in fact an ignorance horizon. The true innovators aren’t trying to understand the mysterious grumpuses in the office so that they can do “better” at re-arranging the economic furniture. They’re off making change happen.
I think the author of this patronizing tripe hasn’t realized that she isn’t part of the innovative asymptote. There’s no crime in that, most of us (myself included), are not either. Some of us even take the heretical view that paid work is not a self-actualization exercise, but that’s not a generational issue.
I think this post is hilarious.
I looked at your blog, Rebecca, and it appears you are on your first “real” job. Yet you feel somehow qualified to contrast Gen Y’s perspectives, opinions, and experiences with those of Gen X’s. As if you know anything about either.
Are you a statistician? An anthropologist? A social scientist? Why no real attribution in your post? Why not cite your sources?
(Linking to other blog posts doesn’t really count as backing up an assertion.) Did you do any research at all?
No, you just pulled these ideas out of your niavely biased nether-regions, didn’t you. Well done, my friend.
Let’s just take one example of something you didn’t bother to look up: “Casual Fridays.”
Unbeknownst to you, these were invented in the fifties (before Gen Xers were invented) by corporate big-wigs as a “perk” in certain companies. The concept was then reinforced throughout the nineties by the marketing departments of the GAP and DOCKERS (two companies founded by baby-boomers) who wanted to sell more khakis.
If you’d like to know how the trend evolved during the dot com era, perhaps you could check wikipedia.
You’ve heard of it, right? Wikipedia?
Check out this bio of founder Jimmy Whales. Notice his age? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimbo_Wales
Hmmm. Seems he’s a Gen Xer. Just one of many who’s “changed the status quo.”
Seems he “doesn't operate out of fear or distrust, but the possibility of what can be done.” Something you arrogantly claimed about your generation. Based on…?
Well, apparently without doing your homework.
Where have you been, girl? I could go on about all of the things you probably rely on daily, online and off, that were brought into being by Gen Xers (born between 1966 and 1980 according to the PEW research center).
Wikipedia, Google and Craigslist are a few of the most obvious.
I was born the first year of Gen X, and my youngest sister was born during one of the last. She passed away in a car accident in Africa a few years ago at the age of 27. She was there working to educated teens about safe sex and reproductive health. Yep. She was motivated by the “possibilities” as well.
I run a non-profit media company staffed by a team of amazing Gen X/Gen Y women. We’re bitingly sarcastic and hella witty at times, but we’re far from cynical.
Sadly, we had to let two “team-members” go at one point early on, because they weren’t willing to do the hard work necessary to build their skills one step at a time. They wanted to step right into the senior producer roles, thinking they understood everything well enough and could just “figure out” the rest.
What they didn’t understand is that even the senior producers (both Gen X and Gen Y) were picking up the more mundane tasks. That’s what you do in a small, creative company like ours. No job is too small, and all that.
But when you’re full of yourself, some things are too small. Like fact-checking. Like not pulling a post out of your ass.
Interesting, isn’t it, that the youngest, least experienced individuals to come on board at our organization thought they were too good for some of the grunt work? Perhaps if they were more experienced, they would have *known* that no one is too good for the grunt work.
Should I chalk their mistake up to their being inexperienced? Or to their being members of Gen Y? Seems that second option wouldn’t be fair to the other rad Gen Y gals working with me.
To what should I attribute *your* mistakes in judgement and lack of reasoning? Unfortunately you’ve unwittingly illustrated, poster-child like, the negative stereotype of your generation. Your willingness to cut-corners by not researching your facts or by basing your opinions on even the most rudimentary foundation of experience or knowledge is too funny!!
Is it wrong of me to guess that you want to be taken seriously as a thinker and a writer?
You have the inclination. You’re willing to put yourself out there. Do yourself a favor and invest in yourself just a little bit more by adding some elbow grease and a little self-skepticism to the mix. The sooner you get over yourself, the sooner you’ll be able to develop something worthy of recognition.
I had a hard time not laughing as a I read this … I would give more explanation as to why, but honestly, I think the first comment pretty much sums up my reaction.
Hey!…Man i love reading your blog, interesting posts ! it was a great Tuesday
I fall into the Gen X category, and I’m suprised at the number of commenters in this age range who think the author’s comments about Gen X are offensive. Sure, no generational sketch can capture the diversity of personalities it contains, but it’s not intended to. That’s like complaining that a map of the US doesn’t show your house.
In broad ways that obviously vary tremendously from person to person, I’d have to agree that Gen X people might have a tendency to be a bit cynical and distrustful. But a better question might be, why shouldn’t we be? If you work hard and get relative jack for it in comparison to the previous generation’s easy home-owning and job stability (these are the same entitled people I recall needing rudimentary help with basic work competencies and sorting their email a decade ago), and if the majority of your adult work experience went into an industry that crashed and hung you out to dry, why would there be no effect on your attitudes about work? There’s nothing embarrassing about cynicism and distrust if it’s justified.
As for idealism — as others have pointed out, it’s not a characteristic trait of Gen Y, but rather an age-related thing we all go through to a greater or lesser extent in our 20s. Boomers certainly had their season in the sun with that. Gen Xers are distrustful of the naive idealism of Gen Y-ers only because we’ve had it — and lost it. Don’t worry, you’ll get there, too.
I enjoy the blog and the comments. I agree that there are differences between all of the generations, and they blur with time. In my mind the two biggest changes for college educated generations are the job market and the availability of capital for starting your own business.
Does anyone remember when an internship meant an opportunity to work for free for the summer, provided you could find a place for yourself to stay.
Also, if you left B-school in 1989 to start your own business most people assumed you weren’t able to find a job.
Gen Y is larger and the job market has changed, all for the better. But don’t bet on a mass exodus of Baby boomers to vacate those corner offices for you. Gen X’s have been waiting a decade on that promise, and just when it looked promising the boomer’s HELOC’s collapsed. I am afraid the Boomers will be taking their cushy VP titles to the grave.
Gen X DID change the workplace. We had to go to school and hear all the crap about how the ‘real world’ wasn’t going to allow our antics. We had to go against the grain while Gen Y just frolics in the fields we grew.
We changed the workplace because we took it virtual. The whole internet boom came from us; and all the snickering we had to hear while we built it. I used to work for cdnow.com and I don’t think Gen Y will ever know what sticking their neck out for what they believe really means. Actually be thankful for that. We wanted the world to change so if you end up fighting then we lost. But I feel you might just give it away since you didn’t fight for it.
You can tell just by looking at the music genres that came in each generation. All the different Metal & Rap subgenres show what kind of inspirational force lives in GenX. Even Grunge came from us. So no, you don’t own Cobain either.
Just look at the music recorded from ’85-’95 and see if there was ever a 10 year span like that. Think about that while you play Guitar Hero.
The author is evidently symbolic of her Generation-Y masses of anti-depressants pillheads, lacking the knowledge and the vision that so many of our pioneers had that have gone before us, no matter what Generation they may be. Gen X remembers a lot of the 20th Century that Gen-Y was in the crib for.
We share our inherent perspective of the 20th Century that the Boomers share, simply by being witness to world events or shared experiences,–the invasion of the Faulkland Islands and Grenada; the assassination of Bobby Kennedy, Ronald Reagan, John Lennon, Dimebag Darrell—these were tragic events that changed all our lives, most pre-dating the spoonfed Gen-Y.
In dealing with Gen Y -especially at the workplace- I feel like I am their history teacher constantly filling in where their high school teachers or community leaders fell short. They are undeveloped little yes-men that shit and stay on the pot. They don’t know how it all fits together in the Big Picture– although they could setup my flatscreen tv for me. They embody everything that was right and wrong about the 80s– Vanity, bad fashion, sell-outs, imported-cocaine, insider trading, divorce, AIDS, & porn on videotape… These kids have dreams as shoddy as the particle board mini-mansions they grew up in. Most will end up in jail like Vick or have their kids taken away like their idol — Britney Spears… all because they never learned to take their own responsibility for things. Enjoy serving time for your crime, Gen-Y!
this is like the jerry springer is of blogs and should be ignored. Please don’t continue reading modite or penelope’s blog. This is provacative and just tries to slap out some pageviews for better pr. What our 24 year old friend doesn’t understand yet is reputation management, and that this blog will comeback in her pr campaign as a “regretful indiscretion of a misguided youth”
at best,
While I don’t think this author quite nailed it with the approach she took to this question, I do see some substantial differences between X and Y, enough so that I think they will be looked at by history as very distinct generations facing distinct challenges.
There are certain things about genXers that seemed to depart from broader trends. Normally, incoming generations in educated, industrialized countries tend to be more secular and more liberal than their parents. What I consider to be gen X is to be this little bump in the progression where there was a resurgence of sorts with young people supporting Republicans to a greater extent than their parents had at their age – and for many of the liberal ones, they seemed too apathetic to care, just too concerned with how much granola was in their granola bars to notice the world around them going into disarray. I think I was 15 years old when I realized that getting paid in stock options for some sockpuppets.com IPO was the most ridiculous, hairbrained idea ever. Some genXers didn’t seem to think so.
Many of the genXers that I’ve come across seemed to think that learning Visual Basic in business school was going to cut them out to be the next Bill Gates. Having come into the software world long after they’ve left their mark and after a stint in the Marine Corps, I’m confounded on a daily basis with having to fix software mistakes made by unqualified employees from the dot.com boom era, no matter if it’s at a big century old corporation or a 10 year old start-up.
If you look at genY enrollment rates in computer science departments across America, they’re actually taking a huge plunge even as projected demand for CS majors is growing rapidly. If you ask me, genY looked at genX and had no desire to make all of the same mistakes. I think that makes me genY. I think maybe there is some fluidity here – genXers who have seen the light could maybe call themselves genY since we’re really all so close in time it’s hard to tell. But many genXers are still out there and up to their old tricks – last I heard flipping real estate was all the rage in some circles. Too bad.
Unfortunately, the other thing that distinguishes genY is the challenges that they will face as they enter into the economy. The circumstances that set genY apart from genX is that genY is projected to be the first generation in a long time to be worse off economically than our parents’ generation. I don’t have the rosy optimism that the author of this post has.
It would be nice if the Baby Boomer generation picked up its own tab and actually paid for their own wars, or actually invested in the infrastructure like their parents had done for them. Baby Boomers and genXers alike have always prided themselves in seemingly paying for everything – their parents, their kids, themselves. But the reality is that they’ve all run up a huge debt and they’re more than happy to pass it onto their children. GenY are the first of those children.
I’m Gen X and I’m not going to have the same quality of life as my parents. And I’m paying the baby boomers’ debts just as much as you. Real Estate Flipping isn’t something you have to be a certain age to do you know, and I’ve seen bad code written by people from 15-50. Like John Lennon, half of what you say is meaningless. I agree with you about the stock options thing though. I watched lots of peers throw away their time on those empty promises back in the latter 90s.
Here’s something I noticed about the Y’s. As a trend, they have less concept of living within their means. I’ve read that the baby boomers are woefully unprepared to retire, and their children seem to live the same debtor lifestyle. But again I’m not sure you can attribute such short sighted stupidity to any specific age group.
Gen Y is totally marketed too and relish in it from their Boomer parents running corporate America. Just go into an Apple store and you’ll see what I mean. Who the hell pays a thousand dollars for an Apple computer just to go on Facebook and add a thousand strangers on their friends list? I’m typing this down on a cheap PC netbook from Target costing me around $200. I invested that $800 left over on short term/junk bonds and I have a fat smile on my face.
I’ve spent this evening reading across all the links and all the paternalistic synopses of gen Y until it made me mad.
Let me dispel at least one of these rumors right here for us all tonight, then. Why do genYers change jobs every two years? Is it because they’re spoiled, immature quitters focused on praise and gratification rather than process, loyalty, and hard work?
Or is it because if you don’t quit your job every 2 years, turns out your manager will think you’re a pushover and not give you a raise?
In my field I am supposed to pretty much double my income within my first 6 years of work based on AVERAGE salaries nationwide. Bur how do I do that when anything above a 10% annual raise seems to be considered exceptional (read: above average)? When I entered the industry I turned over every rock trying to figure out if I was missing a vital piece of information. Only answer I came up with is that no matter how much I will want to stay, chances are I’ll have to switch jobs. Easy 20k raise done by updating a resume and posting it on Monster.
As far as confetti parties and fancy but otherwise worthless job perks go, they just expose ineptitude of management who will end up paying the market rate for the labor they hire no matter how hard they try not to. In addition, they’ll face losses from high turnover and the time and money they waste on worthless perks.
Casual Friday must have seemed like it was some great progress to earlier generations – but it’s not. All it means is that I have to buy more clothes than I actually need or want or otherwise get to wear for any additional utility of covering my hide in a way not already fulfilled by all the crap I already have. It’s a sham and has always been a sham just as the rest of the fake job perk movement is a sham. Civilian employers learned something from the military here – you give people bright shiny objects as a reward and then you won’t have to pay them as much. That’s all there is behind this stuff.
So the real question here is not, “how does Gen Y build on the Casual Friday progress built by Gen X and prior generations?” The real question is, “why is the Casual Friday movement that worked for Baby Boomers and GenXers failing to work the same way for Gen Y?”
There’s a lot of small factors that add up. More education means greater ability to negotiate – being able to do for themselves what unions had to do for less educated workers in the past. Changing views on family – accepting the very simple idea that family and career are both too important to attempt to juggle at the age of 19. At the same time rejecting all the societal status symbols associated with marriage – something Gen X and Baby Boomers have done a great job of demonstrating how over-rated it is to gen Y. Also, the secularization of youth – not believing in a god has a great effect on how much value one places both on doing meaningful work and being fairly compensated for it within one’s lifetime. And gen Y is the most secular in American history. Accepting the corollary to an information economy means that more value is placed on steep learning curves in order to stay current in the marketplace. And on and on…
3 Words that characterize Gen-X:
1. Whining
2. Complaining
3. Rudeness
Gen-Y, Gobble-em up!
Those 3 things are a Gen Y trait. You forgot #4. No creativity and have to bite off Gen X. Here’s an example? Who created Friendster and Myspace? That’s right, Xers! Who copied those two social networks? A stinking rat named Mark Zuckerberg from Facebook (I can’t believe I have to use this social network). Plus your music sucks. Rihanna? She can’t even sing. Little Wayne has nothing on 2pac or New Jack Swing.
Here you go, you oversized sunglasses wearing Hipster:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1Btoj1uBGk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQYC1sY3jp4
And,
Baby Boomers are carrying:
Their miserable, hateful parents and grandparents of the “greatest generation” and,
Their children and grandchildren of Gen-X
and Gen-Y, only to hear Gen-X with their unwiped butts complain whine and endlessly blame.
Gen-Y is giving Gen-X the same garbage ‘whatever’,’gag-me-with-a-spoon’ (eyes roll) attitude they’ve given the Boomers and like the eternal amateurs they are and always will be, they CAN’T handle it! Ha! Ha!
X Gen have stood up and challenged baby boomers in a constructive way, pushed some boundaries and learnt some lessons along the way… as have the baby boomers. Baby boomers are starting to see the big picture now with regards to technology… which is heartening.
X Gen are kinda getting worn out with the lack of support and respect from the Y Gen… they are not bringing up the rear… like little sisters and brothers they seem to want everything without having to go the hard yards. Basically, Y Gen are whiney little brats who wouldn’t know reality if it smacked them in the face.
Z Gen will be the ones who really pay for this calamity.
Baby boomers… stop holding onto the Y Gen and get them out there doing something useful… lest big brother and sister go postal on the lot of you. Get your act together.
Gen X are the only generation that have one foot in the past and one foot in the future. You don’t know what came before the tech revolution, and we do. We remember the world before computers, and we know how they took over everything, and we know how to survive in the world they created. It’s not cynical or flawed to believe in both the past and the future.
We can be individuals without being narcissists and have always been a deeply conscious and idealistic generation. Look at films like ‘A Scanner Darkly’, ‘Lord of the Rings’, ‘Matrix’, ‘Gattaca’ ‘Moulin Rouge’ — the people who made them? born 1960-1974 — our visions, our ideals are right in front of you. The only reason they got past the boomer censors was because of boomer greed. Sure, you’ll have different ideals and experiences and hit different cultural benchmarks, but we aren’t done swinging yet. Most of us are in our thirties right now, getting kicked around by boomer managers, and finding our feet and, contrary to the slacker image, working our asses off.
– Our figures, people like River Phoenix, Kurt Cobain saw the darkness and the light.
The boomer generated hype about slacker culture that dismissed us in the 90s as ‘generation x,’ a nameless, useless group of people — never truly defined us. If you believe that hype, it just shows us that you bought the line, believed the advertising, never thought twice about what you were told. That doesn’t say much about you.
Wait til the boomers decide to define /your/ generation, with their second mortgages on their homes, their pension disaster, world war 3 and anything else they can dream up. Wrapped in unconverted egotism that never healed – they are your parents – but they will leave you high and dry. In ten years – you’ll be asking us for help. As for leaving bright sunny condemnations of us in the blogosphere, remember — we play here too.
Looks like you genYers are about to get your first taste of a recession. You weren’t really in the workforce for the last bust. The video games at work/free soda pop/pool table seems much less cool when you don’t get your raise/bonus — or worse yet, take a pay cut, have you or your buds get laid off, benefits taken away, and stock options expire worthless.
As a gen x’er I have to say the gen y’ers that work in my office are on the whole lazy and expect instant gratification. They leave the burden of the work to the baby boomers and gen x’ers to do. We have at least 4 that do absolutely nothing all day. Cannot figure out problems, expect everyone to spoon feed information to them and expect everyone else in the office to clean up their messes. One of the girls didn’t know how to microwave popcorn, she had to have it explained to her because “her mom always does it” and she wasn’t smart enough to read the bag. They want the high salaries with having the knowledge or experience that the senior jobs require.
In essense gen y is a very spoiled generation that’s in for a rude awakening.
What a narcissist this blogger is. Gen Y are a bunch of brats who don’t want to work for anything. They’ve never experienced hard times and the poor little things will get such a shock when the global economy takes a turn for the worst and they won’t be able to afford a new phone plan or those new shiny boots. Nevermind mummy and daddy boomer will be there to help you out.
Generation Y will be so overshadowed by Generation Einstein they will be demographically divided back into X or forward into Einstein. Either way, a Crisis is coming and Einstein will be coming of age in the middle of it, the next Hero Generation like the GI Generation. Such is history, future and past. Read The Fourth Turning by William Strauss and Neil Howe.
I googled “dealing with gen y employees” and eventually found myself browsing through this blog. Whew! I never realized this whole generation talk is stirring up so much talk. While I do agree with some who think we’re making a big deal out of nothing (it all depends on the circumstances you’re in), I’d have to say otherwise. Its a major concern of mine as I’m now being put in a position to handle both gen x and y employees.
In the IT department where I belong, the employees were majority Gen Xers. I characterize them (or us?) as being the silent, efficient, execution experts. In a word, plug-and-play. Currently majority are still Gen Xers. Even the management team are composed of Gen Xers with our boss being the baby boomer. However, Gen Yers are starting to find their place in our department.
Gen Yers are the most vocal, saying what they feel and expressing themselves freely. But work-wise, they’re less reliable and can easily veer off course with minimal guidance. Managers handling them have to work overtime, constantly following them up, giving mentorship and guidance.
Gen Xers are more reserved, focusing on getting the job done and thats it. They’re basically maintenance free.
For a company, it all goes down to how much contributions an employee has given. Between x and y, I know most of you can guess which ones I have more preference too. However, I still believe that Gen Yers have lots of energy and passion that if properly channeled could create a huge impact in the success of an organization. Unearthing it is the biggest challenge every Gen X manager can face nowadays. If only those gen Y dudes would listen more….
Funny. I overheard some generation Y kids at work talking about generation X, and we started talking about the definition. This led us to google the term, and ultimately to this web site. Many of the things they were attributing to us (Xers) were the same things we were saying about the boomers when we were their age. They accused us of causing global warming with our big SUVs, as well as urban sprawl. Wow. We always thought that was the boomers, cuz we couldn’t afford SUVs, and didn’t want them anyway. We led the trend to moving back to cities and new urbanism. We made it cool to live in cities again. Then I read this article and I’m amazed yet again at the revisionist history from kids who were playing little league when we were redefining the economy, starting new businesses at record levels because nobody was hiring. It was either, start your own company or move in with your parents and work in fast food with a MS in engineering.
I have noticed that I expect more from these kids than they are able to give. They cannot be pointed at a problem and then be expected to solve it. If they run into road blocks, often they just wait for you to check up on them again and tell them how to solve the problem or what to do next. Hopefully they will eventually develop the ability to think independently, solve problems on their own, and not rely so much on others to get work done.
I was also very shocked to see the author of this blog suggest that Xers get by on flex time or don’t want to work long hours. My generation was working 90 hour weeks on startups when this generation was being driven to soccer practice in their boomer mom’s SUV.
All amusing stuff, but not very useful for more than conversation.
Interesting perspective, and it reminds me of how idealistic I felt in my early youth (and to a great degree still do, but that idealism is tempered with a little realism these days, and with children and mortgages – a little risk aversion).
One thing young people won’t realize until they’re a little older: most all young people are idealistic, adept at the latest technology, risk-takers, vocal, and feel like they can change the world. That’s not unique to this generation, but an aspect of every generation’s youth.
What’s different today is as others have commented – you’re constantly standing on the shoulders of those that came before you. So your success may seem easier than mine.
Newton didn’t create calculus out of thin air. He built it on mountains of science that preceded him, and the work of giants that built those mountains.