What’s the matter with kids today? Remember that song from Bye Bye Birdie? It remains just as relevant in 2015 as in 1963. It’s just that now it’s a different generation complaining about the current generation, which was kind of the point of the song in the movie.
And when I say “kids” I’m painting with a broad brush.
I was reading a friend’s 24-year-old daughter’s blog the other day and it got me thinking about what’s the matter with kids today? She was on a bus with a group of 20-somethings returning to Philadelphia from New York City where they had traveled to see a local Philly band making their NYC debut. The beer was still flowing fast and furious as was the conversation on the way home, and she overheard a group of guys, some recently out of college and others a few years into the workforce, bemoaning their dissatisfaction with their jobs and wishing that they could be doing something else, i.e. pursuing their dreams, more than likely something in the arts.
Maybe I’m missing something, but I don’t recall having the luxury to run off and pursue my dreams. I was too busy working to pay for gas, pay for my car, pay for my apartment, pay for food, and maybe even have a little left over for beer. Not that there’s anything wrong with pursuing your dreams just as long as you’re also earning a living while doing so without having Mom and Dad foot the bill. But what I picked up from that blog as well as conversations I’ve had with dealers is a sense of entitlement among the millennial generation. Whether or not that’s accurate or a sweeping generalization as in a May 2013 Time magazine piece that used adjectives such as narcissistic, lazy, and coddled to describe Millennials, is up for debate.
I’ve heard from more than a few dealers and even from those outside of the document imaging industry that some of these young people expect a generous salary without earning it first. Talk about a sense of entitlement.
Over the next few weeks I’ll be working on a multi-part series on Millennials in the document imaging industry, searching for the truth beyond the generational generalizations while acknowledging that I’m of a different generation myself and a different mindset no matter how madly I march to the beat of my own drummer.
Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s great that some people have been fortunate enough to chase their dreams and realize them. I wanted to be a writer since I was 16 and that’s what I became. I just never thought I’d be this kind of writer—not famous, but filling a needed niche. And I’m grateful for that.
This isn’t about millennial bashing because there are some Baby Boomers, Generation X’s and Y’s who have gone through life with a sense of entitlement too. The reality is whatever the generation we are living in a time and a place and likely come from a background where some of us have the luxury to either pursue those dreams or dream about pursuing those dreams rather than dreaming about how we’re going to feed our families or just survive from one day to the next like so many other people in so many other parts of the world.
I don’t want to get too heavy here, but I do want to get the conversation rolling. E-mail me your thoughts and anecdotes on the topic as well as how Millennials, Baby Boomers, and Generation’s X and Y can peacefully and successfully coexist in the workplace.
Thanks for reading.
