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.
The majority of them voted for it last year. Screw ‘em.
When I was young, I use to wander why the old farts didn’t just retire and let us young tigers move up. As I reached middle age, I realized that many of these old farts had much to offer and I should have patients and learn from them, my time would come. As an old fart, I now see the young tigers biting at my tail. LOL
Gen Xer here- (42). I did not vote for the one, I voted for Palin. I have been a stay at home mom for many years and homeschooled my kids (at least until the “liberated women” who wanted to work to keep up with the jones drove up prices so much that to just continue my goodwill/used everything lifestyle AND feed 3 teenage boys I had to find some kind of job)
At least my Gen Y kids (22, 17 and 16) will be able to take care of me and hubby when we retire. Oldest has no debt, getting married in Jan, has excellent work ethic and strong moral character (devout catholic abstaining til marraige and using NFP afterwards), middle going to seminary to be a priest, youngest chomping at the bit to do his thing (computers) after finishing homeschooling.
Hubby and I used to worry about retirement because we gave up pursuing money to instill values. Looks like ours was the better investment in this financial collapse. I feel bad for all those moms who thought that buying their kids ipods, cell phones, and cars and 50,000 16th birthday parties. Now that they are broke, and their kids are spoiled and self centered Baruka Salt types, who is gonna take care of them?
I head toward my golden years with a peace and calm that surpasses all understanding. I heeded the advice in proverbs and trained them up the way they should go and they are truly my most prized posessions and greatest inheritance.
I know a few of these types, children of friends, they are really crimped now that the clubs are folding up all over the place — And their discretionary funds have all dried up.
My sentiments exactly. They all wanted to vote for the "cool rock star". Well they forgot that rock stars are some of the most self centered narcissists on the planet, and they're usually clueless on top of it.
Some of the old farts do need to get off the stage. I can think of several sixties radicals in Washington that would fit that bill. Doesn’t mean just any Xer would do to replace them. Someone like Sarah, certainly. Okay, maybe she falls into Generation Jones, but we can make her an honorary Xer for the good of the country :)
The Gen-Xers I have run into refuse to learn. I have tried like heck to mentor them, but they fall back to their (generally bad) college instructions.
Those of us in IT learned discipline — in our work, not in a classroom. We understood many production concepts: reliability, extensibility, modularity, insulated, “bullet-proof.”
The Xers came when they had PCs and thus thought if they wrote a little application for Jane and Joan they were a developer. They didn’t (and don’t) understand the idea that things will change and you need to accommodate future changes. They don’t understand the underlying theories that make systems work and how those theories apply.
They think “well, it does what was requested” without understanding the milieu it operates in.
And yes, I understood all of those when I was in my 30s. Because I learned the fundamentals from those who knew them. I knew I did not know.
Gen X doesn’t even have a clue it is clueless.
lol just what I thought.
Gen x..ungrateful little snots.
Your fascist attitude is not going to set well with your bosses.
Those ole farts you want working in Fast Food paid your pathetic college tuitions.
But hey you elected the current nightmare ...NOW LIVE WITH IT.
Right, right...let’s all fall for the liberal inter-generational warfare. Divide and conquer - isn’t that a leftist strategy?
This article was written by a whiny lib who interviews whiny libs. Of course it is accurate and truthful and applies to every member of an entire generation.
This article is just as stupid as the articles blaming other generations for this mess.
Can’t we just face it: people across all generations like free stuff and believe lying politicians as if magic were real.
So he and his wife will use a not-for-profit after marriage?
LOL. No, natural family planning
“Some of the old farts do need to get off the stage. I can think of several sixties radicals in Washington that would fit that bill. “
They’re becoming our Mandarin Class.
I’m with you as a (41 yo) genXer. I sure the h$ll don’t recognize my fellow genXer based on the comments on FR, and I know of no one in my age group that admits to voting for bami. The vast majority of us recognize that we are paying for the government programs supporting many other individuals with the knowledge we won’t see a return on our dollar. The older genXer could care less about being cool and outgrew that about a decade and a half ago. We didn’t grow up with computers (I think Atari was as advanced as it got) and many of us didn’t see computers until a few years into our professional careers. And many of us look 10-15 years younger so I could see how many would think based solely on judging from appearances from afar, how you could mistaken us for GenYers. But if you’ve ever been in management, you would definitely be able to immediately tell a Xer from a Yer. We are the ones (generally) who act the least entitled, expect not a whole lot from “the man” or from the government and want to be left alone so we can do our jobs properly. So I’ll go wipe my snot nose now but will enjoy the fact that it will be many years before I’m relying on someone else to wipe my a$$ and when it’s my turn to be wiped, I’ll have saved enough of my own money to hire someone to wipe it because I understand that the CMS and SS ponzi schemes will have crashed and burned.
Just kidding. I love abusing acronyms!
AMEN!!! (from another 41 yo). I couldn’t have said it better myself.
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