Generation X Doesn’t Like You
- By Lance Haun • May 21st, 2008 • Category: Lead Story
- And who can blame them?!
- I certainly can’t. I would be irritated as hell with the work environment if I were a Gen X’er because they are supposed to be entering the earning years of their life (the one where you bank your retirement, put your kids through college and pay off your mortgage) and it is getting turned upside down by a variety of factors. Harvard Business Publishing throws some of these out:
- Most corporate career paths “narrow†at the top
- And then there are those pesky Gen Y’s.
- X’ers are the most conservative cohort in today’s workforce
- Boomer colleagues are annoying
- Your own parenting pressures are at a peak
- And this is why I am so indifferent about generational differences.
- For the complete article go to YourHRGuy.com
I loved this article. I enjoyed it for its insights, and enjoyed it even more since I am at the moment in a truncated p…ing contest with one of the op-ed columnists from a daily newspaper. She laments and otherwise whines about the Boomer generation co-opting her otherwise notable and utterly progressive Generation X. She referred to it as Boomer Cultural Imperialism. Gotta love a catchy phrase.
I think the point Lance Haun is making is quite a good one. In a nut shell, Gen X will eventually have its turn at the big brass ring. Right now, I suppose, to coin the old Steeler’s Wheel Song, “Stuck in the Middle With You,” Gen X is bordered by the omnipresent culturally imperialistic Boomers who still struggle to occupy senior executive positions, since they lack the decency to die off and allow the Gen X’ers to move in to the top spots. On other side, the new Gen Y’s with their techno savvy capabilities and their MBA’s are posing as much more attractive recruitment prospects than the graying or soon-to-be graying Gen X’ers. Uh, oh.
But as Lance attests, they too will have their day at the beach. The Boomers will in time fade out to the big be-in, and Gen X’ers will fill their spaces. Probably, as with the Boomers, Gen X will be resented by future generations. Perhaps they will be resented for rescinding their values or not having any real values at all. Young groups will make fun of their material desires and their oh so keen fashion senses. They will berate them for being far too conservative and for refusing against all temptations to ever really have any fun.
No matter. As the article attests every generation will face its own foibles and obstacles in looking for a job and advancing their careers. The thing in with any group is to conduct background checks and especially education verification searches to be sure they actually went to that college. Corra an help you there.
Check them out before you hire.
2 replies on “Generation X, Or How to Advance Careers Without Harboring Too Much Resentment”
…and not to put too fine a point on it, Gen X is a smaller cohort than either the Boomers or Gen Y and therefore in general should have an easier time getting to those places as there will be fewer people with similar experience for those positions.
Of course, I certainly hope that these plucky, peppy, ever-optimistic Millenial assumptions do come to pass, but as a skeptical, cynical, grouchy, grumpy (okay, you get the point) GenXer, the best I can do is be cautiously optimistic.
Consider that by time the reins of the world are finaly pried from the cold, dead hands of the Boomers, GenX may be pushing 50 to mid-50s. And if you think that is silly than you simply aren’t aware of the voracity (not to be confused with veracity, as I almost did just now)of Boomer powermongering or need to “be in charge” blah blah blah.
Combine that with the our youth-obsessed culuture and there is a good chance that many GenXers will simply be passed over by younger, cuter, go-getting, more “tech savvy” Millennils/GenYers.
Not that I personally am all the conerned since my “career path” does not lie (or is it lay) in the corporate world, as seems to be the focus here. Less than 4 years in cubeland made it quite clear that corporate America and I were not and never would be good match. I’ve never really give a crap about climbing the corporate or any other ladder for that matter. I also don’t care about building my person brand, whatever the hell that means. But that’s my damage, right.
Still, I agree that some GenXers will, and currently are, getting their due, a chance to prove what they can do, and that is all to the good. And since Generation X is much smaller than the Millennial generation I don’t see why the co-existence of these two cohorts in the workplace can not be a better more productive and less fraught one than was the case with the Boomers and GenXers.
But I’m not going to hold my breath for it. I’m not going to hope for it either. Like my old man, a member of the Silent Generation, I’m pretty sure, hope in one, shit in the other, see which one fills up first. But then he grew up quite poor in a coal mine town in West Virgina during The Depression. So, you know.