I don't know how many Generation X people are in futurework , but I
think
it is important to understand their perspective as they will hold
enormous
power in the near future. As I am a Boomer I sometimes feel out of
touch
or disillusioned certainly by how the media portray the upcoming
generation
as extremely materialistic, cynical and bitter--have we Boomers
created this?
I draw your attention to an article in the November issue of the Globe
and Mail's
Report on Business Magazine, "Rebels with a Business Plan: Old
Paradigms
Got you Down? These Enterprising Gen-Xers Created Their Own?" by
Richard Bingham. He refers to a book "Control Your Destiny or Someone
Else Will"
Bingham defines the boundaries of Generation X in this way: If you
graduated from
university in anything other than computer science without encountering
a computer,
you're too old; if you can't remember a time when there were no video
stores ,
you're too young. He outlines the differences with this chart.
Boomers Generation
Xers
1 Dress for success 1.Think "casual
Fridays" are pathetic
2. Want the boss'sjob 2. Want the boss's
stock options
3. Fear or loathe computers 3. Are contemptuous
of computer illiteracy
4. Have careers 4. Have
contracts
5. Work 9 to 5, Monday to Friday 5. Prefer flex-time
6. Are comfortable in hierarchies 6. Are indifferent
to/frustrated by hierarchies
7. Expect to retire in comfort at age 65 7. Expect to work until
they die, but take
long sabbaticals throughout
Did they really create this paradigm, (I scratch my head) or was it
forced on them?
When I look in the newspapers, more than half of the IT jobs are for 3
month or
6 month contracts? OK, well, if that's what he says...
I quote from Richard Bingham's article below:
"The first great downsizing and re-engineering wave in the early 90s
shell-shocked a
vast swath of boomer workers because they still clung to a quaint notion
of reciprocal
loyalty between employees and companies.
It's a dead idea.
It may have been an illusion all along, but now hardly anyone even
bothers to keep up
the facade. The only loyalty is to shareholders. Companies encourage
employees to
think like independent contractors and to assume that their career
management is their own responsibility. The corollary of this way of
thinking is that benefits--that part of
the employment relationship which recognizes people have lives beyond
their mere
utility--are going the way of the passenger pigeon as more companies
shift jobs
to contract positions.
This is the world my generation takes for granted. And we're
comfortable with
it. We're also comfortable with technology and the culture of permanent
change
that technology has engendered. Paradigm shifts don't faze us because
our entire
working lives have paralleled the greatest work-place transformations
since the
Industrial Revolution.
We like to work, but we negotiate work and leisure differently from
our parents.
And most of all, we are an entrepreneurial generation, as much in
frustration with
the boomer pig ahead of us in the python as with the inertia of large,
hierarchical
companies. Gon an idea your company is too slow or too stupid to move
on?
Start your own company. If it tanks, try something else. And if it
flies, make a
killing on the initial public offering and move on to the next thing
that you find fun.
Fun is a key word for the Gen-X worker.We are a paradox in that, one one
hand, our
self-esteem is very closely tied to our work--hence, our willingness to
work stupid
hours and erase the boundaries between time on and time off; on the
other hand,
we retain an ironic distance about the seriousness of it all: It's only
a job.
We see ourselves as in the system, but not of it....
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