Is Gen Y going to be the most productive generation ever?

Well what exactly is "Gen Y" and "Gen X"? I am 24 and born in 1982... what does that make me???

 

the entitlement will sour them in their first ventures in the real world. of course, some of their parents will continue to enable that sense of entitlement, so who knows.

some of the people i go to school with have no concept of the real world or its troubles, so they have more metal energy, so to speak, to think about intellectual problems i guess. but i sense upcoming trouble when they have a hard time grasping that the world does not revolve around them.

i wish i felt more optimistic. the opportunities afforded to many members of this generation are indeed unparalleled. but it's created a generational attitude problem IMO.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(galaxee @ Jun 7 2007, 07:30 PM) [snapback]457755[/snapback]</div>

I believe you'll find precisely this sentiment expressed by every "adult" generation in uninterrupted sequence clear back to, oh, 100,000 BC - and perhaps further back than that, if dinosaur parents had any thoughts about their progeny (or more properly, their next door neighbor's progeny - any parents OWN progeny are of course perfect).

It's proved to be a belief as reliable as belief in fairies - and just as accurate.

Mark Baird
Alameda CA

 

I have lots of confidence, actually...but, really, who *wouldn't* succeed, given all these advantages...?

It's not like when *I* was a kid.

When I was a kid...

-----

They'll have their chance to compromise their sense of entitlement and demonstrate their resiliance, just as we all have. Some will; some won't.

I'm just getting to the point in my life where the breeze that's always been at my back has lost strength and grown still, turned gently and has begun to play against my face...

I can't help but feel that as I age, everyone young seems more entitled, more privileged, more dangerous, and more self-centered than the generations before...it's for me becoming more a question of my perspective than anything, I think. So I'm a bit hesitant to make any generalizations.

Still, that kid next door got a *new Jeep* for his 16th birthday, while I only dreamt of having a car when I was sixteen...

 

"Children today are tyrants. They contradict their parents, gobble their food, and tyrannize their teachers."

- Socrates

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(burritos @ Jun 7 2007, 10:56 PM) [snapback]457772[/snapback]</div>

What are people like me? Born in the last year of the Baby Boom, too young to feel like a Baby Boomer, to old to be a Gen Z person, what am I (and others like me)?

 

Same here. Born in the early 60s, I like Simon and Garfunkle, but I also like Nine Inch Nails. I loved the movie "The Graduate", but I also loved "Clerks". I don't consider Bob Dylan to be "My Voice", but I certainly don't consider Kurt Cobain to be, either. I read Doonesbury in an actual newspaper, and I watch Homestar Runner on my computer.

Basically, I think of myself as having the best of both worlds.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Stev0 @ Jun 9 2007, 12:14 AM) [snapback]458510[/snapback]</div>

That may be true. I love the Beatles, but also love The Rutles.

I read Zippy The Pinhead in the paper, and also watch CTR+ALT+DEL on my computer.

I am not of this generation, or that one.

I am he as you are me and we are all together.

 

I'm finding what you call gen Y to not know how to do much.

There are plenty of them who got decent grades in school, college educated, but they couldn't guess what any of the things are under the hood of a car although most would know that is in fact the engine.

Few could change oil on a lawnmower, but why do that when you can hire the lawn service.

Change a flat tire? Nah... trade the car off or wait for the guy in the yellow idot truck to come change the tire.

Are they 'above' doing these things, or do they just really not know how to do any of it and they lack confidence that they can figure it out and actually do it?

I'm not sure why they can't do much, I'm just sure they don't do much...

But, give me that 100k salary because I went to college and got my BS. I only work from 10 to 4 and never on fridays and yes, these flip flops are my shoes and in my generation they do go with my dockers and untucked white buttonup shirt.

 

Like any gen some will do well some wont. In this world there are bright people and there are people who are so stupid it is physically painful to me when they speak or try to do anything for them selves.

I see quite a few people getting out of college these days and they still have the same job they had in high school but with a college debt load. I also see a few who are doing quite well and started businesses hiring there old friends.

Just because people are more educated does not always mean they are more capable. Of course its hard to judge any generation when its right out of the box.

As far back as you go its the norm.
1800s it was go out west, sail the seas go explore and kill Indians and get rich...the world went on....

the 1898 gold rush to Alaska was hailed as man kinds last great chance of getting rich and to fight corporations by not being tied too them...it didnt happen, the world went on.

The 20's with jazz swing and flappers and watch out for the liqueur, it was so bad there was a constitutional amendment to ban alcohol as it was seen as such a threat to everyone.... the wold went on

The 30's had a much different outlook on life as the depression really hit people hard....the world went on.

the 40s and WWII again caused a lot of unification and hardships. if any generations had it bad it was the ones in the 30's and 40's, My hat goes off to them....but, the world went on.


the 50's and 60's saw a clean break as the baby boom happened. they were considered worthless and a threat to our way of life etc. With rock and roll and sex "discovered" I guess the WWII would not know of what there parents did in the 20's...its TABOO NOW! They had kids too and guess what, the world went on.

Then we had this X thing with only that to define it. The fact that it needed to be defined was bothersome in its self but it was considered worthless in the 80's and 90's too. Now this gen is taking places in the world just as the ones before it....the world is going on!

now we have Y...obviously named by X and will probably rename its self as X did as that was called the baby boom eco by boomer's. Again lame in all regards but these are people who are just that. they have a generation gaped like all the others by age and technology, Some of them will I am quite sure shine like stars and others will fall flat on there face, just as people in the previous gens did...and despite this. The world goes on.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daronspicher @ Jun 9 2007, 12:41 PM) [snapback]458735[/snapback]</div>

Isn't this typical, the older generation complaining about the younger one. As a member of the Generation Y here is a few things too think about Mr Boomer and Gen Xer's.

Who didn't fund Social Security and Medicare for decades, robbed the surplus to shore up the general fund, all the while passing bigger and bigger entitlements? Now you expect my generation to pay for you to retired just because you couldn't be bothered to save for yourself? Fat choice, lets just can the whole pyramid scheme now.

You complain that we have no loyalty to our companies and float from job to job only concerned about ourselves and the pay. That's right! And you trained us to be that way by killing off pensions and anything else that might make think about staying with one company for our entire career? Is the company loyal to us? It don't thinks so! The first down turn in the stock and the young guys are out on the street so that the CEO can pocket a couple more million. Why should we be loyal?

Of course you complain about how we dress just like your parents complained about "those damned hippy bell bottoms". Maybe we just figured out that tying a noose around our necks every morning doesn't do anything to improve performance.

Oh and BTW, maybe we don't mow our grass due to simple economics. A decent lawn tractor starts at $5000. I can pay the mowing service for 5 years before I would break even on the purchase price of the tractor let alone maintenance and gas, line-trimmer, edger, blower, etc. Go ahead, spend 1 1/2 hours a week mowing your grass if it makes you feel manly and superior.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(jhinton @ Jun 9 2007, 11:26 PM) [snapback]459007[/snapback]</div>

Judge, I'd like to enter this as Exhibit A.

We're so screwed...

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daronspicher @ Jun 11 2007, 11:52 AM) [snapback]459558[/snapback]</div>

You may think so but explain to me why I should be loyal to a company that shows absolutely no loyalty to their employees? I've seen it in with my parents and I've seen it myself.

Example: When the aerospace market tanked in 2002, my company fired 60% of the people at my plant. In the engineering department they started with the 2 oldest engineers, one who was only a year from having full company-paid health care when he retired. (BTW, company paid healthcare in retirement and pensions are no longer offered at this company) They axe a guy who has been working there for 29 years so they don't have to pay his health care. Makes me really want to do my all for the company. :angry: Then the started firing all the new hires. The funny thing though, they didn't fire any managers, in fact they got bonuses for all their hard work "cutting costs"

You see the same thing at GM and Ford. The ranks of the blue collar and white collar workers are being decimated while the CEO and board of directors are each bringing in more than the entire management staff at Toyota combined.

For my generation there is a paycheck and a 401K. We do the work, and get the paycheck. But don't expect us to be hanging around if a better offer comes.

 

I am not so sure about my current generation. Many people I am in school with feel entitled to their education. As if they merely pay the money and get a good grade, not having to actually work or learn anything. Same thing with them when they work. Why should they do a good job, if lessor performance keeps them employed?

I would label my generation as the "entitlement generation". Completely oblivious to sacrifice for the common good. We celebrate our differences, and mourn our common connections. We feel that we shouldn't have to work to get paid, and that our supported teen years should go on much longer, well into our 20's.

It will take a serious system shock for my generation to fix itself. Or at least for reality television to go off the air.

 

I'd say they will not.
Not because "them darned teeagers are up to no good" though, as other doubters feel.
It will be due to reduced energy supplies and increased costs for everything, as well as the geopolitical strife that will be caused by it. Yet they will be the generation shouldered with the responsibility of adapting an entirely new energy infrastructure.

Here kids! Here's a HUGE debt we left you, and giant suburbia's built on car travel. Go build a new infrastructure with the scraps of easy energy that are left and prevent societal collapse. Oh...sorry about the heat, and don't eat the fish or drink the water, there's mercury in there.

Compared to the ages of easy oil and a seemingless unendless wilderness, they are going to have it pretty tough, and there'smany more people to support then there was before.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(daronspicher @ Jun 9 2007, 12:41 PM) [snapback]458735[/snapback]</div>

What an idiotic post!

Gee, just because my husband doesn't mow our lawn, he's a loser. Sometimes I don't feel like doing the laundry too!! OMG!! (Do you need a translation old timer? It means Oh My God) My generation is worthless! I'm not a waitress down at the sockhop! How about he's too busy working 100+ hours a week. No, not in flip flops. In a suit and tie.

I guess I fit into your 1950's ideal though, since I don't work and take care of the household like a good housewife.

Plenty of people I graduated HS with do "manual" labor type jobs which I guess is your measuring stick for success.

I wasn't given a car at 16. My college education was not paid for. My husband chose to work straight from high school -gasp- in PEST CONTROL!!!! Man, he sure was a spoiled child to chose to kill vermin in order to pay his bills and get an apartment instead of mooch of his parents.

Boy am I glad that I do not have a parent like you. My parents are happy that I am able to pay for a lawn service, laundry service and eat out at restaurants. They feel proud of me for working hard in order to afford these luxuries.

P.S. I know how to change my oil but WHY WOULD I? It's messy and I can pay someone $20 to do it quicker and better since their oil is in a gun and they can dispose of my old oil more efficiently than I.

Please stop talking trash about a generation you obviously are learning about from watching MTV.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(jhinton @ Jun 9 2007, 11:26 PM) [snapback]459007[/snapback]</div>

Couldn't have said it better.

My husband was just kindly laid off along with the entire company because the company was being investigated by the government. Mind you they knew they were going down the crapper for 3 months and kept telling them to stay loyal and everything would work out fine. Then -poof- no job. And because he is in sales and 100% commission, his severance package was continuation of our insurance for 2 months and nothing else. GEE THANKS. Also, no unemployment for those 2 months because "technically" you're still employed. So much for being loyal, you get it up the nice person with no lube.