1. It seems to me you’ve bought into the "we secretly hope the Xers fail for our sake" propaganda the Boomers laid on us so heavily that it was disgusting during our formative and young adult years.

Why would you continue to give those self absorbed twits that power? They wanted us to fail from day one! Why would you buy into that?

Listen… We carried them for decades. Do you not realize this? By doing the work they did not want to do and also by being mature enough to deal with their childish, self absorbed bullsh*t.

They danced naked at Woodstock trying to convince everyone peace freedom and love meant careless sex, rock n roll and doing too many drugs. While we grew up before they did trying to deal with their classic hypocrisy run. From hippie to dead beat materialistic scum suckers.

They were the ultimate hypocrites. We aren’t. We beat that garbage.

Don’t you get it? We’re a phenomenally strong generation. Who survived so much from the Reagan era cold war to the immense gang violence of the 80s and early 90s to dealing with not being nurtured and nearly ignored yet expected to take care of ourselves from a very early age.

We’re an extremely important part of history! We are unique, VERY STRONG, and many of us have succeeded.

Why do you continue to allow those ghosts created by a selfish, attention whore previous generation to effect you to this day?

We survived! They did everything in their God given power to hold us back and hold us down and we beat it!

Cmon man you’re still playing into that garbage. Let it go. We won!

That being said, attitude is an important part of the puzzle – at least on an individual basis. Simply being Gen X isn’t going to destory all hopes of success, just make it harder to acheive than for Boomers or Y’s.

Gen X does have a special job to do. Simply hold it all together as the Boomers effectively go socially supernova at the end of their lifespans. And believe me, no one wants us to fail at that.

I very much appreciate the well written comment to. Thank you.

As a loud-and-proud member of Gen Y, I tend to scoff at the cynicism coming off Generation X. My immediate reaction is that maybe if you hadn’t come into everything with such dismal attitudes, you’d have gotten further when it comes to work. But, thinking objectively, there are two key differences between the Generations X & Y, neither of which have a lot to do with attitude: demographics & technology.

Demographics is simple. You guys had to deal with the Boomers hovering over your head. They took all the jobs and were not going to let go for younger people. You never even had a chance in a lot of industries. Gen Y, on the other hand, is facing the equivalent of a job bonanza, as the boomers are all looking to retire within the next ten years.

Technology is trickier, but it has to do with employee who can bring something new to the table. When you get right down to it, there wasn’t a great deal of difference between the skills a boomer brought to the table when compared to a Gen X worker. Y, on the other hand, has the benefit of being on the cusp of all this business technology that, in a lot of cases, we understand (and can operate more effectively) than our older compatriots.

In any case, my point is this, I suppose: anyone who chalks the generational differences in the workplace up to simply attitude is missing the point.

Matt
yworking.com

I think that lumping in with Generation Y is a big problem. And it feels like all the market research is aimed directly at Generation Y and we’re tossed in there as an afterthought. Any time you hear a mainstream media news report about “Gen X and Y”, it’s actually about Gen Y.

I don’t think Gen X hates Gen Y. We’re annoyed by their constant chatter and what honestly seems like purposeless networking, but we’re also protective of them.

I think we’re hopeful for Gen Y. At least we know we need future generations. The Locusts plan to eat everything before we get there. Just look at reverse mortgages. The national debt. Social Security. They plan to leave us nothing.

Clean up on Aisle 5

We’re here to clean up after the Boomers… it’s not Gen Y’s fault for that, but we’re kinda jealous that they will reap more of the benefits from it than we will.

I remember reading Coupland in college and thinking the whole book was a joke. Then I realized that was his point and he was so right. My apathy and cynical disposition about what he was saying — was exactly what he was saying? I guess I really was that latch-key kid, distrusting of anyone who was older than me.

nice post!