Generation Y Work

Following on the habit of naming successive generations, the Y generation follows generation X and the baby boomers. Each has its own attitudes, outlook and morals. Generation Y has a problem in the workplace. The economy is good, jobs are available in a host of occupations which would leave a generation X’r jealous that he only had an option of one McJob or another to choose from. Generation Y members have benefited from the shortage of workers and are hired for jobs for which they have little skill and are poorly suited.

The generation born in the 1970’s have been coddled and rewarded for mediocre behaviour because while they were growing up it was considered cruel to hurt anyone’s feelings by judging someone on his merits. All were rewarded equally, leaving those who were lesser lights, believing that they were gifted. Certainly it is wrong to crush all self esteem with unnecessary criticism, but as often happens in American, the baby was thrown out with the bathwater, and all criticism became wrong. Therefore a generation has grown up and entered the workforce who believe that all work is beneath their worth, that they only are required to make a token effort, that they are not rewarded handsomely enough for their lackluster performance, and that even showing up for work is an imposition on their specialness. If they are not coddled as they expect to be, they leave, often with no notice or thought to what their sudden departure does to their colleagues. This tactic works for them as long as jobs are plentiful, but because they have no sense of history, they act as though their actions have no effect on anyone else, and least of all do they understand that their own history will follow them.

This self centered attitude – which is common in the youth of any generation – will be more difficult for the Y’s to overcome, because they are a generation which has been nurtured on the need for environmental cleanup, the rightness of anti-racism, the spread of technology and other “One World” philosophies which are all in direct contradiction to their personal attitudes. These 20 somethings exclude themselves from this One World through technological devices that don’t require eye contact, smell, touch or taste. They want to be paid well so that they can consume the products whose manufacture makes the rich richer and the poor poorer. They grew up with children of all races but wouldn’t marry one. In the workplace, they look out only themselves and pursue their advancement with a self-belief that defies proof and borders on the fanatical. When they don’t get their way they pout like spoiled children and blame everyone else for how unfairly they are treated. It never occurs to them that if they have rubbed everyone the wrong way and are called out for their behavior, that this has anything to do with them – it’s just their fossil boss who doesn’t understand them. What they will have to learn is that the world is not their indulgent mother – that it has no great love for them and than in the mass of humanity on this earth, they are nothing more than another grain of sand. There are always others who are more adaptable who can easily take their place.

It has been said that the workplace needs the technological skills of generation Y, since they are the only ones who understand the rapidly advances in this field. This is an insult to any person with normal intelligence. Nobody in any situation needs to be at the mercy of a petty tyrant like this who believes that only he has special powers and cannot be replaced. Technological skills are easy to acquire, children can learn and therefore so can adults of any age. Generation Y makes the fatal error of believing that they are unique and have some secret knowledge which gives them power and superiority, but in truth their special status is based on an illusion.

Generation Y like all other generations before them will grow out of their bubble, and it will take very little for that to happen – a few eye opening realities of life for which they have no coping skills, a world economic downturn, a little more experience of how the rest of the earth’s population survives, and they will wake up from their coddled existence. The great leveler of course, is time, and in a few short years they will be forced to deal with their own children who will ridicule everything that they as generation Y believed. Their arrogance will come back to bite them.