Posted on 11/16/2009 6:11:30 PM PST by llevrok
CHICAGO – They’re antsy and edgy, tired of waiting for promotion opportunities at work as their elders put off retirement. A good number of them are just waiting for the economy to pick up so they can hop to the next job, find something more fulfilling and get what they think they deserve. Oh, and they want work-life balance too.
Sounds like Gen Y, the so-called “entitlement generation,” right?
Not necessarily, say people who track the generations. In these hard times, they’re also hearing strong rumblings of discontent from Generation X. They’re the 32- to 44-year-olds who are wedged between baby boomers and their children, often feeling like forgotten middle siblings – and increasingly restless at work as a result.
“All of a sudden, we’ve gone from being the young upstarts to being the curmudgeons,” says Bruce Tulgan, a generational consultant who’s written books about various age groups, including his fellow Gen Xers.
This isn’t the first time Gen Xers have faced tough times. They came of age during a recession and survived the dot-com bust of 2000. In recent years, though, more members of the generation – stereotyped early on as jaded individualists – had families or began settling down in other ways. It was time, they thought, to enjoy the rewards of paying some dues.
“We were starting to buy into the system, at least to some extent,” Tulgan says, “and then we got the rug pulled out from under us.”
Now, in this latest recession, nearly two-thirds of baby boomer workers, ages 50 to 61, say they might have to push back their retirement, according to a recent survey from Pew Research.
Meanwhile, on the other end of the age spectrum are Gen Yers, who are often cheaper to hire and heralded for their coveted high-tech knowledge, even though many Gen Xers consider themselves just as technologically savvy.
“It’s so annoying,” says Lisa Chamberlain, another Gen Xer who wrote the book “Slackonomics: Generation X in the Age of Creative Destruction.” “First, it was always the baby boomers overshadowing everything. Then there was this brief period in the mid-’90s where Gen X was cool.
“Now it’s, ‘What are the new kids doing?’ It’s like ‘Yo, hello, the Google guys are Gen Xers.’”
They can sound a little whiny. But there’s also some evidence that Gen Xers really are being taken for granted at work.
One survey done this year for Deloitte Consulting LLP, for instance, found that nearly two-thirds of executives at large companies were most concerned about losing Gen Y employees, while less than half of them had similar concerns about losing Gen Xers.
The assumption is often that Gen Yers are the least loyal and most mobile, says Robin Erickson, a manager with Deloitte’s human capital division.
However, she points out that a companion survey of employees found that only about 37 percent of Gen Xers said they planned to stay in their current jobs after the recession ends, compared with 44 percent of Gen Yers, 50 percent of baby boomers and 52 percent of senior citizen workers who said the same.
Everyone surveyed worried about job security. Gen X and Gen Y were most likely to complain about pay. But a “lack of career progress” was by far the biggest gripe from Gen Xers.
The Deloitte study warns of a “résumé tsunami” once economic recovery begins, especially among Gen Xers, and notes that many executives were largely unaware of employee complaints unrelated to money.
Jon Anne Willow, co-publisher of ThirdCoastDigest.com, an online arts and culture site in Milwaukee, is among employers who’ve recently been able to hire more experienced candidates for jobs traditionally filled by 20somethings.
They’re hungry to work, she says. And as she sees it, that gives her fellow Gen Xers and the baby boomers she’s hired a distinct advantage over a lot of the Gen Yers she’s come across.
“When the dust settles, they’ll be exactly as they were before and we’ll just have to sift through them and take the ones that actually get it and hope the rest find employment in fast food,” she quips.
Spoken like a truly jaded Gen Xer.
And you are a great Mom!
To the poor Gen Xers:
Just remember: YES,YOU CAN! live under a bridge
HOPE! they live through it when some vibrant person of color plays “panhandler and Grandma Dunham” with their sorry asses at the homeless shelter.
CHANGE! your underwear once a week at the Salvation Army
DIVERSITY is our strength—but you can’t eat it
Many of them (obviously not the FR Gen X ers) had their little wet dream and voted in BO, their hero—Mean ol’ Bush and Cheney are gone. The heroic black savior is kneeling in the Garden of Gethsemene praying for them. How’s that all workin’ for them?
>>Not quite a Gen Xer (I’m 30), but if I’m around someone who knows their sh!t then I will pick their brain for everything. I’m not afraid to learn.<<
You are rare for your generation. Good for you!
>>Not quite a Gen Xer (I’m 30), but if I’m around someone who knows their sh!t then I will pick their brain for everything. I’m not afraid to learn.<<
You are rare for your generation. Good for you!
A lot of baby boomers also voted for Hope & Change. Hopefully those who voted for Obama will get the Obama DeathCare euthanasia including Newt and Dede who helped get the bill passed.
I have a lot of sympathy for Generation X. From the very start, their role was one of gleaners, the Baby Boomers having harvested before them.
They got to be at the tail end of every Boomer fad and fancy, after it was no longer fashionable, and it had been adjusted for and taken into account. Congratulations, kid, you get to wear your older siblings bell bottoms and tie-dyed t-shirts, now that they are laughably tacky.
And it ran a lot deeper than that, in a host of ways. While the Boomers were fooled into thinking they were a gift from the gods unlike anyone who had ever before lived; the Gen X’ers were given cynical and unearned praise which they resented.
“You missed eight out of ten questions on your exam, but I’m giving you an ‘A’ anyway, because I don’t want to hurt your self esteem!” Is there any better way to hurt the self esteem of everyone in class?
While the Boomers were willing to “play the game” of 9 to 5 jobs, most of which was time wasting memo pushing, the Generation X’ers developed an “intelligent work ethic”, that was not appreciated.
“I’ll work, and I’ll do good work with efficiency. But when the work is done, don’t demand that I sit around playing with myself.”
This bizarre idea, that life is more than make-work, was innovated by the Gen-X’ers.
And right when they belatedly entered the work force, after the Boomers had finally been promoted higher than entry level, Jimmy Carter rewarded them with double digit inflation. So guess what, kid? You get only half the wage they got.
Up the career ladder, it was always the case of too many bosses and too few workers. And bless the Boomers, they were always in it for themselves, and to heck with everyone else. Crappy bosses.
The next innovation of the Gen X’ers was to be deprived of the American dream. Work hard, save your money, and there is no way you can ever be as prosperous as your parents, even if you do things just like they did.
Yep, I can see how they could become bitter about that. Now entering middle age, they still have to watch the rear end of the Baby Boomers ahead of them, who always managed to get pretty much what they wanted, and knowing that they, the Gen X’ers, aren’t.
The gleaners.
The new diversity is blacks and whites and hispanics all together at the day labor center.
Of course. So many of them are in academia and government that they want to continue the devastation. These punks were the protest marchers at Kent State.
I second the motion.
Cheers!
yefragetuwrabrumuy: You took the words right out of my mouth!
Billy Joel sand "We didn't start the fire..."
NO, Billy, but you drunken adulterous homosexual drug-addicted narcissistic liberal scum of the 60's and 70's went out of your way to pour gasoline all over everthing that hadn't yet ignited.
And then, as my wife says, you had the nerve to look surprised.
(And more than that, you were than indignantly self-righteous that what you had done "was the right thing.")
NO Cheers, unfortunately.
Guess who gets picked last.
Hey you Gen Xers: pay your taxes so I can have my retirement, healthcare, housing, education and beach house and remember that the world doesn’t OWE YOU ANYTHING!
Some of the stupidest comments you'll ever read at F.R. come from people bashing entire generations of other people. Right up there with bashing people because they live in a particular "blue" state.
>>Right, right...let’s all fall for the liberal inter-generational warfare. Divide and conquer - isn’t that a leftist strategy?<<
No, spinning bad, but true, news as equanimity is a liberal tactic. Conservatives can look a bare fact in the face without blushing.
It is PC “let’s not hurt anyone’s feelings” that does the most damage.
Gen X needs a reality check. And is getting one in the workplace.
Amen... and my i add two more that were drummed into me real quick. 1)don't start anything friday you don't want to have to spend the whole weekend babysitting or fixing
2)write it/do it right the first time, cause it's your name on it if goes bad on Christmas-Eve/Morning/etc and has to be fixed
>>“You missed eight out of ten questions on your exam, but I’m giving you an ‘A’ anyway, because I don’t want to hurt your self esteem!” Is there any better way to hurt the self esteem of everyone in class?<<
And yet, your entire generation felt that self-esteem was more important than hard work and were shocked SHOCKED to find that it was work that was the coin of the realm — not good thoughts about yourself.
>>While the Boomers were willing to “play the game” of 9 to 5 jobs, most of which was time wasting memo pushing, the Generation X’ers developed an “intelligent work ethic”, that was not appreciated.<<
Yes, stereotyping hard work that created real results is certainly “memo pushing” to people who coined the term “intelligent work ethic” — meaning “pay me for what I think about myself and not what I do.”
>>“I’ll work, and I’ll do good work with efficiency. But when the work is done, don’t demand that I sit around playing with myself.”<<
Translation: “I will sullenly put up with these silly restrictions of dress and working enough hours to get the job done and then do booboo lips because you can’t see I am as great as my parents say I am. Which surprises us because many of us had our parents call you when we were hired and have them call you when we are unhappy.”
>>This bizarre idea, that life is more than make-work, was innovated by the Gen-X’ers.<<
Are you kidding? The Boomers said “turn on, tune in, drop out.” It was later when they realized that wasn’t a really good success strategy in the long run. But they carried the idea that a man is more than his work into corporate America. It was Boomers who came up with the idea of “work/life balance.” Gen-X gave us “life/life balance.”
>>And right when they belatedly entered the work force, after the Boomers had finally been promoted higher than entry level, Jimmy Carter rewarded them with double digit inflation. So guess what, kid? You get only half the wage they got.<<
Yes, we had to work harder than our parents, since the same class of idiots as the GEN-Xers who elected the TOTUS-reader gave us the peanut-farmer. Try living through stagflation and thriving. You have no idea how good you have it.
>>Up the career ladder, it was always the case of too many bosses and too few workers. And bless the Boomers, they were always in it for themselves, and to heck with everyone else. Crappy bosses.<<
That has been the way of life since Corporate America existed. And are you suggesting Gen-X isn’t spouting “the heck with everyone else?” A more self-centered group of narcissists has never been seen on Earth. The difference is your generation grumbles “we were promised riches just for being ‘special!’ Why won’t those who have worked for all these years recognize us for being ‘special?’”
>>”The next innovation of the Gen X’ers was to be deprived of the American dream. Work hard, save your money, and there is no way you can ever be as prosperous as your parents, even if you do things just like they did.” <<
Not with your attitude, no. Thank God we have Gen Y/Millenials — they are trainable, I hope.
>>Yep, I can see how they could become bitter about that. Now entering middle age, they still have to watch the rear end of the Baby Boomers ahead of them, who always managed to get pretty much what they wanted, and knowing that they, the Gen X’ers, aren’t.<<
Excellence always wins in Corporate America. Excellence is what you do, what you produce, how you move the bottom line. It isn’t what your mommy and daddy tell you.
>>The gleaners.<<
Says a spokesperson for The Whiners.
Generation X’ers are more conservative than their baby boomer parents. More religious. Still got good educations before everything went indoctrination crazy. I’ve been listening to Rush since 1990 in college.
We didn’t push Obama over. It was the boomers and their commie loving ways and vague promises of ‘change’ and finally dealing with all their white guilt all these years by voting for a clean articulate (as VP Joe said) black guy who likes Saul Alinsky and his ghostwriter terrorist friend Bill Ayers.
Amen.
Well said.
41 years old here...and very conservative...and very much pissed at what the boomer generation has left for us. Thanks guys...now go forth and hope we can pick you a good home.
Just something to think about.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.