Y
CBMUSED at 11:50 am Category: GeneralTags: cbmused, gen X, gen Y, generation x and generation y in the workforce, management theory, stereotypes, y
Because he doesn’t want to do too much but call the shots.
Because she finds it too boring and menial but expects travel and techno perks.
Because his single mum worked three jobs to give him a home with his own room, own TV, BMX bikes and the latest Nintendo while he learnt to expect freebies from life.
Because her daddy splurged on his little princess and took a double mortgage to buy her an apartment straight after university so that she would not rent.
Because his mummy raised him to think part-time work while studying is beneath him but will gladly give her modest salary so he can trip around the world with his friends.
Because she insists on having Facebook at work or she’ll walk off the job.
Because management and recruiters are told to bow to the hype as if it is the new scientific management principle of the 21st century.
Because the media likes nothing better than to create a public backlash by boxing Gen X and Gen Y into predictable stereotypes.
Y not review our individual work ethics and practices, including our fleXibility and adaptabilitY instead of wearing a cheap designer label based on our birthdaYs.
April 29th, 2008 at 1:03 pm
Baby Boomers have spoiled their kids and the next generation is going to be even worse.
$500 for Hannah Montana tickets?
That kid is going to be expecting handouts like that for the rest of her life. Can you imagine when that $500 ticket for lip-synching recipient starts to date? Some poor slob will have to work three jobs just to take her out once a month…
Generation Y thinks their job should be both “socially meaningful” and lucrative.
There is usually an inverse correlation between the two, in fact–you can make a great chunk of change in tips by delivering pizzas, but it is not “meaningful” and “fulfilling.”
What they need is a haircut, a swift kick in the ass, a real job, and some real f***in’ music like Vic Damone, Frank Sinatra or Jerry Vale.
Wait–I’ve become my parents…
April 29th, 2008 at 3:43 pm
The fact that I find something wrong with youth of today testifies to cycle that is I’ve sort off grown older. The irony is, today’s new generation got to where they are because their parents worked hard to make sure their kids didn’t walk the path they did.
Unfortunately no one taught the kids that with every luxury still comes the price of getting them. That with every buck, there is the value of the work put in to earning it. Maybe that’s why I wouldn’t bother so much with the fact that people will always follow their own self-created stereotypes.
We all get what’s coming to us in the end. No generation is an exception.
April 29th, 2008 at 4:34 pm
What is a Baby Boomer? Or Gen X? Or Gen Y?
We submit ourselves to these labels for no other reason that to allow ourselves to be lumped into groups with other people, no matter that our own thoughts and feelings and experiences are completely different from one another. More often than not, it seems like these arbitrary groupings are used to sell us things; or to warn us of impending doom.
So what differentiates us from previous generations? Technology, maybe. We have ipods and cell phones and all the other gizmos that we’ve adapted to. But our parents had television and affordable cars. And somewhere, back in time, someone was probably complaining that Augustus was spoiling his kids with newfangled bronze something-or-other.
Is it the challenges we face? Each generation has it’s own; world wars, global warming, imperialism, oil and so on and so forth. How can these separate us when the response to so many of them is the same: sacrifice, bravery and optimism. In spite of the missteps, we are still here and that has to count for something.
Blaming the previous generation for the problems they created for us is nothing new. Blaming the next generation for not ascribing to the same values and tenets we hold dear isn’t either. All we can do is realize that we are all together for this brief moment, and that the things that separate us are far, far smaller than the things that bind us to each other.
April 29th, 2008 at 7:57 pm
Zen: I wonder if the next generation will teach their SUV and stater of the art pram driving parents different values. Funny you should say that. Similar conversation last weekend with a friend which ended with me telling him he sounded like our parents’ generation. It’s just difficult to accept that some people think, no, are taught that certain work is beneath them.
Kami: There will always be ‘something wrong with younger people’, as perceived by those older but now they’re asking the workforce to bend to their demands, because they were brought up that way by their parents. Facebook at work? Come on. In limited circled, sure, but getting paid for social networking? Something isn’t right. But will they get what comes to them if employers are told to accommodate them. Doubt it.
Mahd: Good comment :).
Nothing but labels, and the sources vary in their definitions, and you’re absolutely right, there’s always some doom forecast when generations are stereotyped. Each generation presents challenges and progress. We can’t stagnate as human nature and uphold nothing but values from previous generations. Yet putting a label on someone because of the year they were born is often wrong and misleading. Not all Gen Y are the same as their label, and some older workers are tech savvy; they’re probably the ones who’ve had to re-educate themselves in new skills.
April 29th, 2008 at 10:30 pm
I agree with Mahd… and of course I can’t express it better…
Once again I can keep it short !
April 30th, 2008 at 5:43 am
[…] really like this post. She nails a lot of what I hate about everyone my age that was not born on a dirt road in a […]
April 30th, 2008 at 8:03 am
I love people that think populations are only born once every 20 years.
April 30th, 2008 at 9:36 am
Despite what I said, being spoilt doesn’t always fall suspect to the way the parents raised their children. I’m starting to know many people born with a silver spoon in their mouth whom don’t act like everything should bow to them. Sure, they may take certain things for granted and live in a different world of their own because they didn’t really have to work for it. Yet, they aren’t pretentious, nor do they demand much.
But yes, social networking at work while may sound important doesn’t really include things like Facebook or MySpace. The thing is though…why would their employees be told to accommodate them? Unless they have something valuable to offer to the company, there is no reason why people should bow into demands like that.
Plenty of companies already ban sites like MySpace, Friendster or even Instant Messaging because it’s they believe it’s detrimental to the work ethic. I don’t see hoards of people walking out because of that.
April 30th, 2008 at 9:46 am
Any generation who fails to go through the obligatory restaurant job-phase will lose out on the simple pleasure of getting a hummer in the walk-in cooler from the silverware set-up girl while the Greek manager runs around hysterically around the restaurant looking for them, cursing in broken English, because their tables are bitching for their dessert and their check.
I don’t know how you put a price-tag on memories like that–but for me, my spank bank would be a lot emptier.
April 30th, 2008 at 9:05 pm
Sidney: He’s a wise man, Mahd. And there’s nothing wrong with a man of few words
Casey: The mind boggles when labels are cast. And I wonder who makes that stuff up any way.
Thank you for the link to this post and the kind word. You might be interested to know it is my first ever trackback. I feel I should celebrate with a Martini!
Kami: Being born with a silver spoon and being spoilt don’t necessarily go hand in hand. One of the examples I cite, the mother who took 3 jobs to give so much and taught him to expect freebies is a reality. He didn’t come with a silver spoon, but he expects it in life.
We all check private email from work, even blogs etc but to demand it as a right or else, and as an employer to be told to accommodate it is unfathomable. Some management advice out there is to entice Gen Y at interviews by offering them perks and opportunities before they are even hired. And here I thought, employers asked, “what do you have to offer me” instead of the other way around.
Zen: All right! Sounds like there were some good memories there… maybe good memoirs waiting to be written?
April 30th, 2008 at 11:36 pm
If it’s a trackback from me, you better wash it down with cheap bourbon, not some fancy martini.
May 1st, 2008 at 1:02 am
“Memoirs of a Waiter”?
It doesn’t have the same cachet as “Memoirs of a Geisha.”
May 1st, 2008 at 9:17 am
Casey: Bourbon to you is what Martini is to me, not fancy, just the plain old dry Vodka Martini. With an olive. So cheers to my first ping. I’m no longer a trackback virgin.
Zen: Um… no. You need better marketing, so going back to your comment no 9, ‘Diaries of a Spank Bank’.
Now I’m going to hell.
May 1st, 2008 at 5:40 pm
Does not compute. Does not compute. Must have Facebook. Facebook owns me.
May 1st, 2008 at 10:17 pm
Egan: Work. Work. Facebook addictive, worse than blogs. Mind you, I just can’t get into it.
May 2nd, 2008 at 12:39 am
“What they need is a haircut, a swift kick in the ass, a real job, and some real f***in’ music like Vic Damone, Frank Sinatra or Jerry Vale.
Wait–I’ve become my parents…”
Zen Wizard totally read my mind. Seriously - you have no idea how many rants I have had about those damn haircuts some of these boys have. Ridonk! And the skinny jeans? So not awesome or flattering.
No, but seriously…I hate how there is this divide between people in the workforce based on what generation they are supposedly in. I kind of consider myself in between…I’m not really X and I’m not really Y. I’m me, dammit. And while I can’t even begin to fathom demanding my work bend to my demands (like so many of the kids starting right out of school are doing) and I will adapt to how things already are, I also believe that change is necessary for any business to continue to thrive. But not many people are like that…they are either on one side or the other and that is where the labels come in and it’s really too bad.
May 2nd, 2008 at 8:31 am
Sicilian: I’m the same in that I don’t identify with generations in the workforce, but with work ethics. And I’ve worked with various age groups without labelling them, it’s all on their performance, aptitude and attitude to work and change. As for the kids out of school, I’m tolerant to fashions and styles even when I don’t like them, but what I find in your face is the young women’s (girls - they’re girls!) fashions being way too sexual. And they wear it in the workforce.
May 5th, 2008 at 1:47 pm
Hmmmm…. I really dunno where to start replying to this… I’ll just say it’s something VERY close to my heart and a topic I have given a great deal of thought. I feel so many of the “prescribed” Gen-x attributes keenly, but at the same time, I am surrounded by several exemplary examples of Gen-Y. I think there is a big difference though, in that Gen-Y don’t feel as if Gen-X is in control of their lives. On the contrary… they seem to see us as a bunch of whiners insistant on blaming the Baby Boomers for not achieving all the things in life we dreamt of - when they instead just ask for it. In a way, I can sort of empathise.
BUT, given most Gen-Y’ers came of of school or Uni and stepped into a climate of high employment, low inflation, and affordable comfy lifestyle, their view is bound to be skewed. They haven’t seen rates at 17%. They haven’t seen highly qualified former execs in suits and ties standing in the queue at Centerlink alongside spotty, dishevelled dope smoking dropouts. I shoveled shit and fixed people’s cars for 2 years, because despite my newly acquired qualifications, no-one was hiring. But it was no shock… I did it before I studied and I always believed things would pick up. I didn’t like it, but I coped.
I’ll be very interested to stand on the sidelines and see how the FaceSpace generation respond when they inevtiably are faced with the same issues - while carrying a $300,000 mortgage, zero savings, and $20,000 worth of unpaid for gadgets and furniture on the VISA card. If it as I suspect, they’ll chew up the budget surplus at a rate hitherto unhread of. Now, who encouraged them to spend like that?
May 5th, 2008 at 4:14 pm
Gboy: Like you, I’ve worked with both Gen Y and Gen X who just get the job done, hence the last sentence of my post.
With what you describe, Gen Y ask for it and expect it to be given to them. Gen X don’t always expect it as a given, and I think that’s where the difference in attitude is.
Let’s see what the current economic climate will do to them, with high interest rates and cost of living. But wait….wouldn’t their mums and dads pay for it?