Gen-Wire Archives

Welcome to Gen-Wire.com, for Generation Y cohorts everywhere! Designed to encourage dialogue, give advice & provide articles that can be a resource for professional "Gen-Wire's"

Gen-Wire Archives

WHEN GOOD ENOUGH IS NOT ENOUGH 6/26/08
by Elizabeth Williams

My mother called me at midnight yesterday and asked what I was doing. I replied,

“I’m applying to jobs.” This is how the conversation went….

“Why are you applying to jobs?”

“I'm always applying to jobs. “

“You're not getting any younger you know. You need to get a civil servant job. Are you saving for your retirement? You’re going from job to job with no security.”

Okay, since when was 27-- old? And am I suffering from this Generation Y sense of entitlement theory?

Why am I putting my resume out there? Like clockwork for the past month, I come home and search for new opportunities. I constantly ask myself why I do this? I work at a great fashion forward marketing company. I have the opportunity to communicate with people of all levels in various industries. My career has grown since I started.

Well, I've been at this company for almost 3 years just to have some stability on my resume. The fact is that my supervisors are bad managers or maybe they don't know how to manage me. They're baby boomers and I wonder if all baby boomers suffer from their deficiencies with technology and are unwilling to try new methods and strategies.

Also, my mothers concern is kind of mine to. I don't have a 401 K. I don't have security and I have terrible health care. The salary is fair-I can afford to live comfortably in a one bedroom apt in a terrible neighborhood. But I'm starting to feel like it would be nice to really "build" something. I want to live in a safe neighborhood that's still close to the city. I want to get married and start a family and all of this takes money and job security. So I need everything I have now, plus great managers, job security, and a raise. Why shouldn’t I get what I want, what I deserve, and what exists…

Am I alone on this? Is believing that “good is not good enough” a bad thing?

Elizabeth works in marketing. This is her first blog and she chose Gen-Wire to share her views. She's always cruising job sites.

BABY BOOMER BOSSES 6/5/08
by Christina Morgan

I was watching a recent segment of 60 Minutes, and despite all of the world's pressing problems, it was devoted to the social behaviors of persons born between 1980-1995 who have just thrust themselves full force into the American workplace.

The CBS anchor delved into how this tech-savvy group of young people has seemingly outlandish expectations about a) how swiftly they should climb the corporate ladder, b) vacation time, c) and just plain ol' expect to run the show. That's right our bosses don't have a clue, so we should just take over as soon as we fill out our human resources paperwork.

But the supposed generation gap is easy to oversimplify. Baby Boomers are approaching 60, if they haven't hit that mark already, so really many Gen-Yers have bosses in there late 30s and early to mid 40s who probably border on the Gen-X and Me Generation of the 80s, whose supposedly equally self-absorbed attitudes alarmed those who grew up in the 1960s.

So is there really a massive communication problem specific to Gen-Yers and their bosses or a normal generational gap that reappears whenever a new crop of young people enter the workforce? It's hard to come to a concrete answer. But what do you think?

Christina Morgan works in book publishing. Her writing has appeared in JANE, BUST and Black Enterprise Magazine among other outlets. Her boss thinks her generation doesn't want to "pay its dues."