The Change that Generation Y is Actually Creating
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Here’s the thing: people talk a lot about how special Generation Y is. I wonder if we’re getting a little too much undeserved praise.
We say we’re going to change the workplace, but are we really doing anything so far besides benefiting from the situation we’re in?
Generation Y has a huge population, and this has shifted power in the workplace to make companies more adept to giving us what we want in order to retain us. Furthermore, we have our Boomer parents who, for the most part, have paid our way through life, through college, and even beyond as we search for the perfect career opportunities that allow us to collect a fat paycheck while still being able to work flexible hours. We’ve spent our whole lives getting everything we demanded from our parents: a cell phone, a TV, a new car on our 16th birthday; and now we waltz into the workplace and expect the same treatment. Sure, older generations give us what we want; but begrudgingly, because, like everything else in our lives thus far, we did nothing to earn it.
It’s really no wonder that other generations resent us the way they do. We say we’re creating this massive shift in the workplace, but really, most of it has been created for us. Of course, we’re happy to take advantage of it, just as we were happy to show off and brag about our brand new cars to our friends, conveniently forgetting that we didn’t actually earn the money that paid for them.
Here’s how I think we are contributing to the workplace: longer hours. As much as we say we are not willing to sell our time, do any of us work less than 45+ hour weeks? No, because we’re so desperate to stay ahead of the other rich, bright, hard-working, degree-holding overachievers in our generation.
We insist we are too smart to do the crap work. We demand tasks and projects that are meaningful. But who, then, is qualified to do the busy work? An undergraduate degree is practically a prerequisite for getting a decent-paying job these days, and anyone with a college education is too busy and important to waste their time on administrative duties, says us.
I am reminded of the movie GATTACA, where science creates a superhuman race through genetic births, leaving anyone conceived the normal way left cleaning toilets. Is that really what Generation Y wants to be remembered for - the generation that divided the workplace into the over privileged vs. the underprivileged? The generation that killed off the middle-class worker?
While we’re on the subject, let’s talk then about money: how many of us are actually saving, or even (gasp) investing? Most of the Gen Y’ers I know are living paycheck to paycheck, and their higher salaries are going toward their rent and student loans. Oh, and the 54″ inch HDTV they had to own. And shopping trips for clothes and furniture they didn’t need.
If 30 is the new 20, retirements really are dead, as Ryan Healy says. Because we’re going to be so far behind in saving for a traditional retirement, and so focused on instant gratification, that we won’t be able to afford it. A conscious choice we are making, or the consequence of our “me now” upbringing? To me, a three month vacation now sounds like a sad consolation to having to work the rest of my life.
Don’t get me wrong, I love being a member of Generation Y. I want to believe we actually are special and can bring about the change we idealistically cling to. But right now I have more questions than answers, and I have to wonder if all the generational talk is making us forget what’s important - that every generation has contributed to where we are at now. That we all need to figure out where we belong in this new workplace we’ve been inching towards for the past 30 years.
And above all, Generation Y needs to consider the change we are actually creating, because, in the end, we’re the ones who will have to live with our choices.
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Monica O'Brien is the founder of Twenty Set, a website about personal and professional growth and development for the Millennial generation. She has been a blogger since 1998 when blogging was still in its “Dear Diary” form and in May 2007 began blogging for personal branding and profit.
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Monica, I like this post; very well thought out! I’m finally seeing some realism…
As always, I have to question something!
“We’ve spent our whole lives getting everything we demanded from our parents: a cell phone, a TV, a new car on our 16th birthday; and now we waltz into the workplace and expect the same treatment. Sure, older generations give us what we want; but begrudgingly, because, like everything else in our lives thus far, we did nothing to earn it.”
This finally explains a lot of what I’m reading. I’m not sure if you’re just making gross generalizations again, but I’m sure there are several of us who didn’t have parents that could afford to buy us cars, TVs, cell phones or “everything we demanded”.
Thus, I find your assertion that “we have done nothing to earn it” is perpetuating a very negative stereotype. Some of us worked 35 hours a week during college to pay for it; some of us bought our own cars and cell phones with our own hard earned money; some of us will buy houses without having our parents help with the down payment.
“just as we were happy to show off and brag about our brand new cars to our friends, conveniently forgetting that we didn’t actually earn the money that paid for them.“
Don’t get me wrong: If your parents can afford to buy you houses and cars, that’s great; you have a nice head start on life. I have a few friends like this. However, you don’t really have bragging rights, because as you mentioned, it wasn’t truly earned. It’s much more impressive to see someone who’s worked/earned the things they’ve got.
Bragging about material things is pathetic and even more so if there’s no accomplishment behind it…
This is a very well thought out post, Monica. A lot of your points are well taken, but I think they may only be applicable to a minority of actual Gen Y workers. It is very true that many (too many) of us had parents who were more than willing to do everything in their power to spoil us, making sure we wanted for nothing instead of taking the time to teach us that these things they bought us cost money, which comes from the trading of their precious life energy for that money, and that perhaps we would be better served not getting hooked on always having the newer, shinier, whatchamajigger. However, many (dare I say, many MORE) Gen Y’ers came from less than priveleged backgrounds, as Ian says, and earned for ourselves the money to buy a used car to get us from A to B, and the cell phone that we figured we had to have because, well, everybody else did.
As I’ve started my career post grad school, one of the things I’ve quickly learned is that I am NOT willing to hitch myself to the career-fast track that comes with a one-way ticket to work-spend-work-spend consumerville. You ask how many of us work 45+ hours desperately trying to stay ahead of the other overachievers - I, for one, am just the opposite, as not only do I refuse to put in more than the 40 hours per week necessary to qualify for my benefits, but I am rather exploring options about how to wittle down my working hours to be able to survive happily on what main stream society would consider “part-time” work.
So many in our parents generation got addicted to their yuppie lifestyles, working to the bone in their 20s and 30s, wasting the best years of their lives in pursuit of material excess, and only now as they approach middle age and retirement are they seeing the errors of their ways and attempting to simplify their lives.
Forty hours per week is entirely too long to do anything, in my opinion, except maybe sleep. Especially when the only things you are chasing are more money (to buy more crap you don’t need), more responsibility (equating to more stress), and even more time on the job (working more to get ahead now certainly won’t translate to working less in the years to come).
Let those privileged few that you mentioned spend their time feeling slighted when they aren’t handed everything on a silver platter by their bosses as they were their parents, teachers, and coaches in the past. They’ll feel slighted, and perhaps even work harder to get what it is they think they are entitled to.
I’ll be stepping off the beaten path, doing work that I enjoy on the hours that I set for myself, knowing that it does not take nearly 100K per year for me to have everything I need to be happy.
I sincerely hope that many Gen Y’ers will come to the same realization sooner rather than later, after they too have wasted their best years stuck in some cubicle farm of fluorescent lighting.
Cheers!
I’m not so sure the Gen Y experience is as universal as purported here, and it looks like that point is shared amongst those who’ve commented thus far. There are definitely a large portion of people in our generation who grew up well off, but who knows whether they’re the majority or minority. It’s pretty safe to say I grew up poor as hell though and that it has given me an interesting perspective on life.
I have to agree that there is WAAAY too much chatter about how our generation is going to change the world; similarly, there’s too much burden placed on baby boomers for ruining everything for us. I think that, for the most part, most people in both generations just go about out their daily life working whatever job just to make ends meet. Likewise, I don’t think there are as many people that are as idealist as claimed to be by most generational reporting. In the end, I think it really comes down to the individual and how hard they want to work to develop a lifestyle they can claim as their own.
I was just listening to a report on NPR about how gen-yers are more entrepreneurial, which I agree with and want to attempt to be, but I don’t think the rules will change just because we’re a young and ambitious group of people. The reality is that the majority of entrepreneurs are unsuccessful, and that trend will continue regardless of your generational identity. So, maybe we’ll see a lot more trail blazing millennials, but we’ll also see a lot more failed businesses and attempts to follow. The question is: what will be the backlash?
Ian and Simplified, thanks for the cross-post of comments. I’ve responded to your comments at Brazen Careerist.
Elliot, I really appreciate your insightful comment. I did use a lot of generalizations in this post, which were maybe over the top in hindsight. But I’m impressed that even though they clearly don’t apply to you, you were able to look past them and still understand the point of my post. And you pose some great questions that I worry about too - particularly what will be the backlash for all the changes Gen Y is predicted to make. Unfortunately, we won’t know the answers until we get there…
Monica,
The is the most dead-on comment I have heard in a long time. And not just about Gen Y, but about everybody
“As much as we say we are not willing to sell our time, do any of us work less than 45+ hour weeks? No, because we’re so desperate to stay ahead of the other rich, bright, hard-working, degree-holding overachievers in our generation.”
Thanks for voicing the trend we are all following.
- Mike
I think you bring up some really great points. However, every generation gets tested. I think Gen Y’s test will start when the boomers begin retiring in large numbers. At that point, every Gen Yer in the workforce will have to capitalize on our generation-specific strengths do the job of multiple people.
Hey Monica, Congrats on the site launch! Everything seems to be coming along well.
Great post, Monica. I definitely agree with your thoughts on Gen Y and the workplace - including how quick we are to take advantage of the things we never really earned. Oh, and the car (or other material thing) flashing that so many people our age do. It especially drives me nuts when I KNOW the person didn’t have the money to pay for it.
Thanks for the Gattaca reference too (Love that movie!)
Gosh Monica, what an amazing article. You’re so right about Gen Y. Every generation paves it good for the next ones, but I don’t think many GY’s appreciate it enough–myself included. Sadly, some not at all.
GREAT FANTASTIC POST!
I feel you on these sentiments, although my experience has been very different. Firstly, I’m on the tail end of Gen Y and I actually grew up without a cell phone and Internet (gasp!). My family is lower middle income and I had to work shitty jobs all through HS, college, and graduate school just to make ends meet. I also have a lot of student debt and a job that on paper should allow me to live comfortably, but it doesn’t…because the money doesn’t go very far. I’m one of those pro’s who lives paycheck to paycheck.
My opinion, and this is PURELY my opinion, is that the Gen Y thing is way overblown and is in no way special. We just a product of the Internet Age and we like to blog about it a lot. Sure, we’re educated, but that doesn’t mean we’re smart. We’re interested in being entrepreneurs and working the 4-hour work week and traveling to Bali, yet in reality we don’t have the people skills, the street smarts, or the savvy to execute this. Sure, some of the Brazen Careerist folks might have their nice little startup, but how many of us are really cut out for the hustle of owning a business OR have the discipline to toil away in a mega-corp until we get VP status? Very few. Probably the same tiny percentage that previous generations had.
I totally agree with what you’re saying…although I have worked VERY hard since I was 16 to have the things that I coveted (i.e. my pager, cell phone, car, computer, etc.) The best thing my dad could have ever done for me was to literally cut me off financially at 19 and only pay for my schooling. I was forced to get a job waiting tables during college, and I had to learn how to juggle school and work. It was hard at times, but that caused me to be the hard-working, over-achieving 26-year-old I am now! Thank you, Dad!
By the way, I think the label “Generation Y” isn’t the best one to give people in our age group. I think the term “Generation NOW” is more appropriate. We have to have everything we want, when we want it, no matter the cost. Yes, I am one of those people. I HAD to have a flat-screen TV for my house even though I had four other TVs to put in every room of the house. I HAD to get a new car even though the one I bought myself after graduating college three years earlier was in perfect working condition. I know that I am going to be in debt for probably the rest of my life, but I like to have nice things (and more shoes than I will ever wear, for that matter!!).
But, that’s just how the people in my age group are now. We’ll get our acts together as we get older, but why not enjoy the nice things in life while you’re still young enough to enjoy them? Besides, once you have a baby (which I don’t yet), all of your time and money goes toward that baby. So my mentality is, why not spend the money on myself while I still can?!
Monica…
Maybe YOU had everything handed to you, but I’ve worked to be where I am, and so have most of the middle and even upper middle class young people I know.
Kid M - I haven’t had everything handed to me. In fact, my entire undergrad was paid in scholarships. Merit-based ones.
My point was there are plenty of kids in our generation who are spoiled - in my experience. And I grew up in southern Illinois, not Los Angeles or NYC, so I don’t think my experiences are too far off from what other Gen Yer’s across the country might experience. This is not to say there are no Gen Yer’s who don’t work, or didn’t pay their way through college, but this group is probably the minority.
Which is shocking, really.
I admire that you cannot identify with my post, but I think a lot of people probably can see a bit of themselves in it. For those of us who can, we should be grateful to the generations before us who have given us opportunities and a leg up in the workplace.
Jun 19th, 2008 at 11:08 am
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