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Vegas
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I wrote such a good cliffhanger last time that nobody even bothered replying: you’re all dying for my final installment of this trilogy, like were you waiting for Jaws 3.
The simple answer to the question I posed – what does this generation need to do? – is take responsibility for what will come.
That’s it.
Create a personal philosophy that reflects who you want to be and what you want to see in the world, do what you believe is the right thing, and take action. Accept what has happened, accept inevitabilities, such as death, taxes, and that bad things will happen. Focus on yourself and be the best person you can, and share who you are with others. It’s that simple. That is all that anyone has ever had to do.
There's no point in writing a long-winded third part. The fact of the matter is, I laid it all out in the previous two; it just might take a little work to see it. You had this answer already, I'm just making it official. Final answer.
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In my previous post I briefly described the impatient nature and the formative years of today’s 20-somethings entering the working world; a group of dynamic, hard-working, exciting, charismatic, and fundamentally flawed people who want big paychecks and top jobs immediately. Now that we have a deeper understanding of their environment growing up, the big question moving forward is: how will this affect the world in the future? While the answer is uncertain, there will be a few defining moments we can all look for to see which direction things are moving in. Some of these moments will happen soon, others down the road, and possibly the most important one will not be known for at least twenty more years. Lastly, we’ll have to look at their parents and how they responded to the world around them for some more insight into how generations have handled the future.
The first thing to look for will happen this year: how is this generation going to affect the Presidential election? Voter turnout in general declined steadily from 1960 until the 1996 election (with a spike in 1992), yet is has increased starting with 2000. Not only will the upcoming election be a pivotal moment in the United States, it will be interesting to see if voter turnout continues to increase and if this younger generation reverses the trend and becomes a significant voting force or not. I will admit, from the first Presidential election I was eligible to vote in (2000) I felt like information about the candidates was at my fingertips. With time I realize how connected we are, and how that might be the thing that drives us to vote and make our voices heard. If we turn out in a higher percentage than the national average, that would be a positive sign; it would point towards this generation as being proactive in their life and society as a whole.
Over the next five to ten years we will begin to see the impact of this generation on the business world. Many current 20-somethings will have moved into middle management or started their own companies. What we need to look for is who moves into higher positions, what skill sets they possess, and what direction they push the company in. Although many people in this generation seem to be weak fundamentally when it comes to written and verbal communication skills, it will be those who can communicate effectively with upper management AND people their age that will most likely advance their careers. If these people share the vision many people this generation has – a focus on work/family balance and a return to when companies took care of their employees – this would likely cause employees to stick with their employers longer and explore fewer careers throughout their lifetime. That is, assuming these employees are willing to sacrifice their rockstar dreams for a little stability and loyalty.
As I said before, many have already written off Social Security and expect to need to find a different way to pay their bills later on in life. What will be interesting is this generation’s spending and investing habits. Most Americans have barely any assets besides their home and little or no savings; people in most other developed countries are likely to save a significant portion of what they make. I pointed out that many, including myself, leave college with significant debt and less-than stellar paychecks compared to the past. How we handle our money once we’ve paid off that debt will be huge. Look at the economy right now – banks and lending companies are showing huge losses if they had not gone under already, because some less-than savvy businessmen saw an opportunity to make a quick buck. If this generation does not develop a better personal understanding of finances, investments, savings, and debt than we’ve seen recently, expect inflation to continue out-pacing the increase in wages and the economic cycles to be less favorable than past decades.
What I expect to be the biggest factor in how things will turn out is the way this generation raises their own children. This is where we have to look at the parents of this current generation. Most of them are baby boomers, which can be divided into two groups. The first decade of boomers lived through JFK, MLK, and the social revolution that happened in the 60’s. They are considered to be individualistic and focus on social causes. The second decade of boomers lived through Nixon, focused more on the Cold War, and grew up during rapid inflation and the gasoline shortages. They are considered to be more cynical and do not trust the government. On the positive side, they have pushed to create a more accepting society, causing dramatic shifts in what’s acceptable. On the flip side, many have essentially dubbed them a group of people who are selfish, short-sighted, and unwilling to accept simple realities such as aging and death.
The Impatient Generation grew up in an environment where respect, long-term vision, and facing reality were not required. Many are soft exiting college, at first not realizing that obstacles are the real opportunities in life, and skirting around them means they’ll never really grow or move up in the world. However, people are getting married and having kids later in life. It’s quite possible that this generation will face reality, get a grip on things, and let their kids understand life’s ups and downs. It’s also possible that they’ll follow in their parents footsteps and create a new legion of children who grew up on MTV and video games, with little regard for their grades and who turn out to be even more of a problem. We have a really good idea of what might happen and why. The question now is: what does this generation need to do to make things right?
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A lot of the articles I have read recently about the current crop of 20-somethings in the world have described us as impatient. We want change, we want promotions, and we want to be on top of the world as of yesterday. While many of these articles take two angles, presenting both positive and negative viewpoints of this attitude has affected society already, they all seem to skip past why so many young people are like this, how it will affect things over the following decades, and what needs to be done to lessen the glaring negative attributes. To figure out what’s going to happen, we should look at how this attitude could have come about in my generation, going backwards: our perspective of the job market (our ‘now’), our experience paying for college (the recent future), and how we were raised (the foundation, or lack thereof).
It’s been shown that people like my parents, the baby boomer generation, will have taken on an average of two or three career changes in their lifetime, while people in my generation will embark on at least half a dozen career changes. At that time people put in their 40 years and retired with a pension, social security out the wazoo, and a gold watch. Decades into their careers a thing called outsourcing began shifting the makeup of America’s workforce. In the 90’s, corporations readjusted what people were making, realizing that someone with 20 years of experience was no better at their job than someone with 5 years experience, except the person with less experience did not come with an extra 15 years of raises from simply showing up every day. These two events caused some to have a career change, maybe each time. It did not affect everyone, though, and many continued down the same career path. The majority of them will not be able to retire at 65, a dream that was sold to them from the day they were born.
Now, picture growing up in this world: you realize from day one that your employer will not offer you job security – forget about loyalty. Your dream job might be obsolete or outsourced in five years, and at any moment your paycheck could be cut in half because someone in another country, or even another cubicle, can do your job cheaper. Odds are you’ll pay tens of thousands into Social Security and Medicare and not receive a dime yourself.
There’s more to our perspective than just an unstable job market and economy. When the boomers were entering the workforce they left college with little or no debt, good pay, good benefits, and often times were already married or were about to get married and could afford to buy a house. We’re graduating with an average of $20,000 in debt, which is less than half of what we’ll make a year to start out, nothing in the bank, living constantly on the verge of financial ruin. Inflation has outrun starting pay since the year 2000. I’m no exception to this rule, and I found out what it’s like first hand to go from treading water to plunging into debt, just to eat, pay for my car to get to interviews, and find a job. My paycheck is a step up from where I was before, but it’s not enough to get me anywhere, and if I were getting married I could forget about buying a small condo, never mind a house.
Go back to how many people in my generation were raised, which is how the current group of high school and college students is being raised. Our parents were immediately dubbed ‘helicopter parents,’ flying in to save their children at the first sign of danger, giving them whatever they ask for, never really letting them experience how harsh life can be. My parents never did this, and I’m not sure why anyone would do this – eventually they have to face the real world head on. Still, someone growing up in this environment does not understand why the world will not simply bend to their beck and call.
The other overwhelming factor: keeping up with the Joneses. My parents never fell for this one either, but it’s the harder one to deal with. I was bombarded with sophisticated television advertisements since birth. In school I was surrounded by people who had parents willing to buy whatever sneakers or clothes were cool. By the time I was in college I had to laugh off the fact that I drove a car that was as old as me (and somehow uglier). It’s not being picked on or laughed at or feeling left out that still sits with me; what still lingers in my head is that I wanted those things, and I want to make sure my kids are not left out because I, as their parent, refused to drop a few extra dollars on the sneakers they’ll wear. Psychologically, it makes sense to me, even though it makes little rational sense. Even if I sit here and say I have no interest in keeping up with the Joneses, I want certain (nice) things for myself since I never had them. Pushing back nearly thirty years of social influence is harder than quitting cigarettes – at least you can make a simple choice to not buy cigs. I’d have to pull a Thoreau and live in the wilderness to avoid society.
The contradiction in all this is that the bosses who are complaining about dealing with a demanding and impatient group of young workers are the ones who gave birth to us and raised us in their own homes with the rules they decided on. They created their own problem, and now that we’re adults we realize that our parents had no more idea as to what they were doing than we do. Add in how connected we are as a generation and we’re quite the force. We are definitely the product of our upbringing.
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