I went to my feed reader today to get the daily dose of employment fodder and found that some folks were talking about Generation Y, those “crazy kids” who are just a little bit younger than I am. OK, so I’m 33 and firmly entrenched in the flannel-shirt-wearing, Nirvana-listening Gen X crowd. Side note: I still think Nirvana is a great band, but I don’t listen to them too much anymore. Also, I only wear flannel when I’m doing yard work or want to be really comfortable. Finally, I never was a slacker, so I wonder how far we reach when we assign “personality” to an entire generation.

You know, kind of like Baby Boomers always said they were the generation that made a difference. Now that they’re “sharing power” in the workplace and in politics, others point out that in their tie-dyed heyday, they were merely a bunch of acid-dropping do-nothings who were too lazy to get real jobs (or do much of anything, really, except come up with witty anti-war slogans that rhymed). They touted themselves as having accomplished something, but as far as I can tell from the Woodstock video footage, it looked like the spread of STDs, illegitimate pregnancies and brain damage was all that was actually accomplished (slightly tongue in cheek).

Anyway, the long and short of the back and forth (is that iambic pentameter?) is that some Gen Y folks are saying that they rock (and work really, really hard and are exhausted) and others saying “get back to work you little whippersnappers.” Or something like that…Then I read that MySpace is not a job skill. What!?!?!

OK, I admit that as a non-slacking “X’er”, the whole fascination with MySpace, Facebook, et al among the Gen Y crowd is a bit mystifying and, honestly, it seems to me that an entire generation is wasting A LOT of time doing nothing in particular and further contributing to the whole “tech bubble + media-frenzy” world that we live in. But really, aren’t the kids just following in the footsteps of their predecessors? I mean, the Boomers lazed about at Woodstock and rocked out to Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin in a chemical-induced haze. Xers followed up by defining themselves as slackers and forming garage bands that were forever on the cusp of “making it big” (in their minds). So now Gen Y has MySpace. It’s annoying, I’ll admit, but really, how much different is it than protesting the War? Side note: remove the Boomers who were protesting Vietnam because it was “the cool thing to do” and those rallies would have been small indeed. Not that the war didn’t need protesting, mind you…

What we see now is that Gen Y, or some of its more ambitious members, are saying that they’re the new generation and they want to be taken seriously. Anything wrong with that? No way. And to those who say “pay your dues, work for the man, yada, yada” I say, WHY?

Jay Hargis, commenting on the What Would Dad Say? blog, notes:

I did however learn early on, through my friend Peggy, that when you take a job, you sign-up to work your boss’ program not your own. You don’t get to set departmental or company direction, you’re not making strategy decisions. You are hired to do the work. I know this is really hard for our new Gen Y’ers in the office.Someday, you’ll be the boss. And then you can determine the program. But, until then, you were hired and are paid to work your boss’ program.

Truer words were never spoken Jay. But I hated that part of my first job too - I wanted to make the decisions, so I quit and did my own thing. Why shouldn’t Gen Y do the same? Rebecca Thorman actually describes a friend who is “straddling”, keeping one foot in the workplace and one in the entrepreneurial world. This isn’t a new concept, and I did that for a while too. Lack of sleep is pretty much the price to pay when becoming an entrepreneur and even when first entering the workforce, and I think that’s the real point that Recruiting Animal is making…that and the fact that Gen Y is just going through a point in life that we all go through, and that every generation goes through at some point. In short, that Gen Y is nothing special. That’s most likely true, but we all kind of think our generation is a little bit special, don’t we? It’s kind of like cheering for your favorite football team.

Anyway, I remember being a forlorn 22-year-old and worrying that there was no way out of 40 years of wage slavery. So I say to any “members” of Gen Y out there - continue with your spirits undiminished and don’t let “The Man” bring you down. To the aforementioned “Man” I say - watch how much you piss off the kids…in twenty years they’ll fire your old, shriveled-up ass because you refuse to follow their playbook.

Tags: baby boomers, Generation Y, millenials, new college grads

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