Talking About My Generation

You may want to play the below tune (The who - My Generation) While viewing this blog post.

Some things just transcend geographical areas. One area of the US may be a little more ahead in technology, but in time everybody has an opportunity, regardless of location to follow basically the same drum beat as the rest of the country in terms of advancement…

I feel old blogging about this topic today, but it’s something that has been on my mind for awhile. I was  born in the baby boomer generation.........

A baby boomer is a person who was born during the demographic Post-World War II baby boom. The United States Census Bureau considers a baby boomer to be someone born during the demographic birth boom between 1946 and 1964, including 1964.

Many things have changed drastically since my birth. I go in and out of the work ethic discussion. One day thinking that today's generation do not  have the same work ethic as us baby boomers did growing up...I am a manager and I get to hire and fire people, I don't like to fire people, but have done so in the course of my career. 100% of the time it was for a bad work ethic, continually late or absent or just plain lazy and  not at all interested at the job at hand.....

But then I see some glimmer of hope in this current generation of our work force and it puts me at ease for a little while.

What exactly do they call this current generation anyway??

Yup, Generation Y.

Generation Y, also known as the Millennial Generation (or Millennials),Generation Next,Net Generation, Echo Boomers,  describes the demographic cohort following Generation X. As there are no precise dates for when the Millennial generation starts and ends, commentators have used birth dates ranging somewhere from the mid-1970s to the early 1990s.Members of this generation are called Echo Boomers, due to the significant increase in birth rates through the 1980s and into the 1990s, and because many of them are children of baby boomers. The 20th century trend toward smaller families in developed countries continued,however, so the relative impact of the "baby boom echo" was generally less pronounced than the original boom.

Characteristics of the generation vary by region, depending on social and economic conditions. However, it is generally marked by an increased use and familiarity with communications, media, and digital technologies. In most parts of the world its upbringing was marked by an increase in a neoliberal approach to politics and economics.The effects of this environment are disputed.

The affects of this technological environment are indeed disputed. Growing up in my generation, technology was this...

We had to be home to use them, we had no communication ability outside of the home while on the road  unless we came across one of these....

Today?......................... 

.............With these, you can communicate anywhere, to anyone, take a photo or video to document it, let people know exactly where you are at all times and what you are doing 24/7. They can even name that tune in 3 seconds!

Now, I am not saying that there is anything wrong with this advanced technology, Heck, I am using it now to post this blog and to tweet the post when I am done. Like anything else, in moderation these tools can be very helpful....But put these in the hands of our younger generation and you have them distracted to no end. A.D.D. gone wild......

.............. and they have to work too!!!?? Sneaking access to a social media site (s)  at work becomes an art form...............

  

It did not take me long to figure out why Sally or Johnie wanted to put 7 file cabinets, barb wire and a moat as obstacles to overcome if I wanted to look at their computer screen. 

When my company banned twitter and Facebook access on all computers, there was an upswing in younger employees bringing their handhelds to work.....  Now, making the following comparison, I do not want to seem like the quintessential dad type that would say to these young-ins the following.. "Heck, when I went to school, I had to walk 56 miles, in  the snow, in bare feet with a broken leg and carrying a refrigerator"..BUT...........

The only hand held I had on my first job was this...

You know, delivering papers at 4:am, barefooted, while studying for a math test, towing my dads Chevy ..all uphill. 

How about the conversion that this new generation is also called the "Entitlement" Generation? I don't know about that at this writing, I will need to look for further evidence here. But what I do know, this is my number one pet peeve....in any generation...

I guess an older generation has the advantage of being on this earth a little longer and seeing many changes as we advance. It may be that we are just getting older and remember the "good old days" and reflect how much better they were. When in fact, this current generation will do the same exact thing when they get older. Who knows what is in-store for us? I sometimes think that when you take all the advancements we have made away, we are all the same regardless of generation. Well, most of us anyway.

I wanted to be fair and also post a newer "My Generation" Music Video for my Y generation readers....... Enjoy.....