Letter to the Baby Boomers and Gen Y

The Harvard Business Review article "Gen Y in the Workforce" was the final straw. The nature of my work requires me to be very in touch with the latest research being conducted about generational mores, preferences and the like, and I can barely stomach what I read half the time. The worst purveyors of Generation Y ass kissing are also the most prominent media outlets: Harvard Business Review, Fortune, Business Week, The Wall Street Journal, etc. ad nasueam. No doubt the authors of this Gen Y/"Millenial" tripe are also the doting parents of the same self-serving Gen Yers overruning the workforce.

Before I get painted as the jealous Gen X middle child, let me say this. Young Talent shows itself in every generation. I have no doubt that some of the Gen Y movers and shakers of today are worth their salt, and will make a positive and lasting effect on society. But why has technological expertise surpassed such core competencies as relationship building, listening skills, and work ethic? And what about the culpability of the Boomers in creating these self-absorbed, attention deficit induced monsters?

I challenge you to do even a minimal amount of research on the four generations that currently comprise today's worforce: the veterans (roughly born between 1925-1941), the baby boomers (roughly 1943-1960), Generation X, (approximately 1960-1980), and Gen Y, or the Millenials, (roughly 1980-1995) - and you will see the same data regurgitated, over and over. The Veterans are authority-driven and need respect for their experience; the Boomers want to be recognized for their individual contributions and 'need to feel needed;' the Gen Xers are "cynical" and want more work/life balance, and the Gen Yers want more responsibility more quickly, mentoring, work/life balance, and more money.

The amount of information available on Gen Y is staggering, and slightly sickening, in that in all of it highlights the corporate pandering that is being done in the name of pleasing Gen Y. I wonder sometimes if this egregious over-indulgence is because we are stuck in a rut where the Boomers refuse to pass the baton to the ones they know will surpass their mark on the world and instead are focusing their energy on self-preservation by kowtowing to the people they believe they can still influence through verbal bullshit like "mentoring." The ones that 'remind them of their own children.' I think that although we aren't into grandstanding quite like our young successors, my fellow Gen Xers know that the Boomers are once again trying to pull the wool over our eyes in the name of "experience."

I have been so incensed over this Gen Y love fest that I began searching for other like minds, and came across Time Magazine's article in 2008 on Jeff Gordinier, a true spokesperson for Gen X: http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1731528,00.html. I cannot explain how relieved I was to find that not everyone had drunk the Gen Y kool-aid, and that someone finally put to paper the issue that has been niggling at us for years: what is so goddamn special about Gen Y and why are they so godamned self-entitled? Because they grew up with technology? In Gen Y "words," sfw. I particulary appreciated Gordinier's factual review of all of the tools that Gen X has created that have changed the face of business and society today: Google, YouTube, and MySpace to name a few, and his accounts of Gen X novelists and musicians who have made far more of a dent in the enlightenment and betterment of our society and culture than the creators of "Keeping up with the Kardashians." Need proof? Just look at our new president, a fine example of the mettle of Generation X.

We know the data. We know that Gen Y is about 20 million stronger than Gen X and we also know that given our recent economic plight, the Boomers will be occupying the leadership seats longer than we Gen Xers had hoped. But know this: we are not fools. We know that learning from the Boomer experience is critical to our success in the future. We know that times have changed, and the way we do business and the way we work and communciate has changed. We know that the Boomers represent about 50% of our current workforce, Gen X comprises about 30%, and Gen Y makes up about 20% of our workforce. We also know that while the Boomers want to hail the ingenuity and enterprise of their "sons and daughters," we Xers have been here the whole time: creating the technology that raised Gen Y, creating jobs for Gen Y, and most of all, making up for the short-comings of the Boomers to succesfully operate on a global scale in the new world of doing business.

So Boomers, know this. As much as we appreciate your expertise and your grit, we are only willing to wait so long before we need to politely excuse ourselves from listening to your war stories and get on with the business of putting ourselves in the driver's seat before we lose too much time. Gen Yers, know this: we can appreciate your technological know-how and your buying power, but we also know that when the Boomers retire, they will have about 3 trillion dollars more allowance than you (so this means we need to appeal to them as a consumer market even more than you). You may think that we were gutless, and just unwilling to push the envelope to get ahead, but you will learn that respect for experience, even if you are unwilling to do it with the same grace and fortitude of Gen X, makes all the difference when it comes down to one thing: people need to like you to do business with you.