My ears prick up whenever I hear the term "Generation X" and all that goes along with it. I am a child of Baby Boomer parents, ergo, I am Generation X, born in 1974. I guess I'm at the accepted tail end of this group which, apparently, ends with those born in 1976 or so.
Anyway, yes, Generation X....it's funny how they put the label on a whole group of people like this. I was listening to a podcast today, and I'll be buggered if I can't re-find the link, but anyway, a few points of note came up.
We, Gen Xers have found our careers quite 'hard' for a number of reasons. Firstly, when we left school in the late 80s and 90s, the economy of the world was dire. Jobs were hard to find, parents were being retrenched left right and centre and there was no financial stability. It sapped our confidence in the world at large, we were happy to take a job, any job, just to survive. Now, as a generation, as we move up to higher level positions (those lucky enough to have one) we are again finding our pathway stalled by world economics. On top of this, we have stubborn Baby Boomers who will work until they're 90 years old keeping us waiting for our chance. (I guess we kinda feel like Prince Charles in a way.) And it is not only Baby Boomers, but the Gen Y's behind us, who have no knowledge of 'hard times' have confidence that we could only dream of, hence many of us are being overtaken on career ladders.
The Classic Gen X movie, Reality Bites, says it all really. The general state of apathy was never more poetic.
We have been disenfranchised with the world the Baby Boomers left us, and yet, we needed to conform to survive. We're the buffer between them and Gen Y, who now have things very, very easy.
Technology is leaving us behind. The internet was in its infancy when we hit the work force. Computers were things that were hideously complicated to operate. (Try and get someone under 25 to use Telnet for instance.) But Gen Y, with all their tech talk, are very well versed in modern technologies. The Baby Boomer CEOs just get them to do the tech work, and not us. We're forgotten and left on the scrap heap before we even had a chance to do anything.
Oh, and are we pillaged by society? Of course! We get no tax breaks, no rebates, nothing. We can't afford dental surgery because we're paying for someone else's teenager to have porcelain veneers. We're even paying paying for the next generation to learn about 'healthy eating' and that drugs are bad.
We're paying for the baby boomers to enjoy cheaper phone and electricity bills than we could ever have dreamed of, oh, and we're adding very nice sums to their superannuation funds, which, knowing our good fortune, will go belly up just in time for our retirement, because as if those baby boomer CEOs really give a toss after they've cashed in on their gravy train.
Yes, that is a chip on my shoulder....got something to say about it?? |
5 comments:
Okay, this theme has been going around a bit, mostly started by a Harvard Business review columnist who wants to write a book, and how better than to get a whole load of people indignant? Everyone on teh internets has been responding and she's gotten loads of free "research".
I disagree with a bit of that, because I think it's tarring a lot of people with a single brush. A lot of us ARE actually tech savvy and heavily involved in Web2.0 apps etc. DrH doesn't like having to adapt to new tech that much, but that's his personality- isn't ME nor is it most of the GenXer's I actually know.
A lot of us left the rat race of career ladders in big companies etc, yes because we were frustrated but more because we want to do more than just.one.thing. in our lives. A lot of us are creative and passionate and see endless opportunities if you have guts to follow it.
Health care and pension plans are worse for us than the Baby Boomers, but they're also not going to be getting any better for genY. And WE were educated on AIDS and car accidents at the cost of the boomers.
That's all I have to say. You can keep the chip if you want - go through my blog archives and you'll find YEARS of chip carrying - but it's far more useful to use the rightous indignation to either change the world through action or to change your perception of it.
Oh yes, I totally agree with you. Many Gen Xers are technophiles. THe average age for a gamer is something like 30-32. And yes, I concede that we were educated about AIDS and car crashes. But don't you think Gen Y are getting things a little bit easy? I suppose like the youngest child in the family, they always gets away with more than the eldest. I think the coming economic crises that might inflict the world is going to be rude wake up call to them. There are already a great many 20-25 year olds who are now declaring themselves bankrupt. Maybe, since we've been through it already, we're better prepared for it? Dunno.
I have some issues with how GenYers have been raised certainly, but I'm still quite sure that EVERY generation has bitched that the younger one gets it easier. The Boomers did it about us, GenYers will do it in a few years about the Zer's (especially if they've had to suffer through an economic collapse of some kind by then).
Maybe it is a little like older/younger siblings, but at some point I also had to accept that my sister didn't have things as easy as it always seemed to me. There are also problems coming with being the youngest and there are reasons they tend to have to shout to make themselves heard.
I'm not trying to "take their side" by the way, I just truly don't see how I will move forward in life if I blame huge swathes of society for my current lifestyle. Regardless of whether genY has it "easy" or just "different", bitching about it won't make me happy but accepting and working with it probably will.
Well, at least our HECS bill was smaller than it is nowadays.
I think that generation before the boomers had the real rough trot...the depression of the 1930s, second world war, the threat of nuclear war afterwards. Man, terrible. And who would they blame??
Anyway, I like belonging to Gen X. I think we are uber cool... at least we were in the 90s. I'm still not convinced that the boomers have done a good job at passing the baton, but we will survive, we will push on.
Well ....being a member of the dreaded baby boomers society am feeling somewhat offended at being tarred with such a broad brush Mr Stonefree.
For some reason I cannot remember having such a "rosey" life in any way. Except perhaps in the employment stakes. Yes ... jobs were easier in the 60's being able to choose from more than one position on offer. But it still didn't mean we didn't have to prove ourselves and work hard in much the same way as you X'ers and Y'ers are having to.
And what about when mortgage interest rates hit 18% in the eighties? That was no walk in the park either.
Being female I remember being declined a $4,000 loan by the bank unless I received my husbands approval. To say I was indignant about that is to say the least, especially as I was an independent, employed and financially savvy individual. Credit cards were non-existent, so one had to manage one's finances with cash or cheque - meaning that one had to have the "ready" available on the spot.
It's just the same cycle repeating - technology and all. As you say stonefree - it's all relative.
Post a Comment