This issue is too complicated to simply blame one generation or another.
I’m a Gen-Xer. My parents were pre boomers, born in 1934 and 1940. The boomers are better educated since public schools hadn’t been destroyed yet through PC. A HS graduate in 1960 probably has the equivalent of an associates degree today. Boomers have a much better work ethic.
Some boomers are why the public schools are failing now. The 60’s radicals took over education (Bill Ayers). My pre boomer algebra teacher could teach a rock how to do math. Her post retirement replacement, a graduate of a premier “teachers” program couldn’t sell water to a bedouin.
There are many positives and negatives to the Boomers. Painting them all with one brush is absurd.
Generation Y and the millenials to me seem hit or miss. I’ve encountered some of the most intelligent, motivated, hard working kids I’ve ever known among that group. Unfortunately there seems to be a large number of them that suffer from the “failure to launch” disease which IMHO comes directly from the destruction of the schools, total lack of personal accountability, and the PC culture of everyone gets a participation award.
“Generation Y and the millenials to me seem hit or miss. I’ve encountered some of the most intelligent, motivated, hard working kids I’ve ever known among that group. Unfortunately there seems to be a large number of them that suffer from the “failure to launch” disease which IMHO comes directly from the destruction of the schools, total lack of personal accountability, and the PC culture of everyone gets a participation award.”
Most of us just want the same things you do, a decent job, enough to raise a family and get married. What we are finding is that the only jobs that will hire us are all temporary, or contract work. Why? The business doesn’t have to provide for expensive things that boomers take for granted, like health care coverage, etc.
By keeping us on contract, they get the complete benefit of our labour, without having to deal with the rest of the nonsense, and the taxes associated with hiring people. It’s really just that simple.
Meanwhile, the boomers who are in their full time positions, with tenure and seniority, all under contract, are only to willing to meet their budget off the temps rather then cut back on their peers. If they can shave off the money at the bottom, then they can keep their benefits.
They can’t, in most cases, be fired, so they do the easy thing, hire temps, work us hard and then let us go when things get slow. Then we generation y folks are labelled ‘slackers’, ‘unreliable’, for not having all the things that you had when we were our age.
It’s a catch 22. I work for myself now, because I got tired of employers telling me I should be on disability. At least now, I can actually do things I enjoy without employers deciding how I should live my life. It would be perfect if my clients just paid for the work already done, and I’d be doing quite well.
Or even, gosh, giving me a job and a chance to show them what I can do. :)