Enough with putting down the kids

posted by Jeff | Tuesday, February 25, 2014, 9:35 PM | comments: 0

The spectacular flameout of a woman who runs an email job list in Cleveland after replying to a LinkedIn request with massive toxicity has been interesting to read about. It's funny because I'm not sure I quite get the value of LinkedIn, but sad because someone who seemed to be doing a community some good managed to show everyone what a jackass she really is.

My bigger issue, however, is that she took anonymous contact, described how trivial it was, and made it non-trivial by spending a lot of time on it, and then made far too many generalizations and personality assessments about someone she didn't know. Specifically, I grow tired of people dissing and generalizing about the kids and 20-somethings just coming out of college. Enough.

As a bona fide Gen-X'er, we largely were given the problems of the Boomers with very little in the way of mentoring or guidance from the sub-generation in between. The world was changing rapidly, and we weren't very well prepared for it, at least at first. We were labeled slackers, but as you well know, we've managed to wiggle our way into a lot of places once reserved for people 10 to 20 years our senior.

I'm sure that a subset of Millennials are everything that people claim they are, but as they've advanced into adults, I'm impressed with what they're becoming. They're practical and ambitious. They don't seem as likely to fall into the trap of SUV's, McMansions and status. They definitely seem more philanthropical (especially compared to my generation).

The point is, they're going to have your job if you're not careful, so stop discounting them. They need to be mentored and guided, as every generation does. Trying to tear them down serves no one.


Comments

No comments yet.


Post your comment: