Opinion - The Australian

Today I had a little study break and ventured down to the main street of Healesville (Nicholson Street.) As usual I had a wander, more on that later. Today I chose to have a coffee and raspberry and white chocolate muffin at Healesville Harvest. This is adjacent to the Healesville Hotel which has won, and continues to win, many awards and has exceptional reviews. Healesville Harvest doesn't quite have the ambiance of Cheese Freaks. I think the Cheese Freaks people are more my type of people. More to follow.

Today I read the papers in hard copy (normally I read them but the ones that are out there in cyber space.)

This is an interesting piece I came across. I'm not a generation Y person (according to the categorisation in the article) nor was I ever a generation X. Once I came across a document defining these categories, and the qualities of the people in these categories: what they were about; their priorities; interests and concerns. It also provided the 'age brackets' so you knew when generation Y began, when the baby boomers finished...so on and so forth. Don't know where this document was or is. Anyway, I had a laugh at the following. Despite some rather harsh generalisations and judgmental remarks, I did enjoy the closing line.

Y the younger generation is so different
Thursday, November 16, 2006
Bernard Salt

I’VE had it up to here with Generation Y. They are the youngest, they are the prettiest, they are the cleverest generation in the history of mankind.
Did you know they discovered sex? Yes, apparently it’s true. And, courtesy of their penchant for the internet and MSN, they have been credited with being the first to truly think on a global scale: they have “chat friends” all over the world.
Well, what about the baby boomers? We discovered Bali. And we went on a Contiki Tour of Europe in the 1970s. We even have the photo albums to prove it, replete with obligatory pic “holding up” the Leaning Tower of Pisa and a pasted-in ticket-stub from our very first trip on the London Tube. Top zat, globe-trotting Generation Y!
The fact is I’m more than a little jealous of Generation Y. Here they are in their early 20s and they have the entire business world a-frettin’ and a-fussin’ about whether they are happy in their jobs.
Are you feeling valued, Generation Y? Is anyone being mean to you, Generation Y? Are we paying you enough, Generation Y? Can I get you a pillow, Generation Y?
What is it with Generation Y? Who are they, what do they believe and why is the spotlight on them and not on the boomers where it belongs? Let’s look at what separates Generation Y from the rest of humanity.
Generation Y do not fear the future. They have never experienced recession; they think the world is happy and rich all the time; they think, “Why won’t the future be just like the past?”
If their job doesn’t work out, then, no worries, toss it in and head off to London and if that doesn’t work out, come back home and live with mum and dad. Ah, for Generation Y “life is but a dream sh-boom sh-boom”.
Generation Y think money is an elastic concept. “Gosh, my mobile bill is a bit much this month (pause) - dad?” Boomers, on the other hand, understand the money has a hard edge; they learnt financial planning skills when establishing their first household at the age of 23. Boomers also learnt money management skills from their frugal parents who “touched” the Great Depression.
When the money ran out in early boomer households there was no safety net: it was a freefall to the rocks below.
Generation Y do not fear authority. If a young baby boomer got into a lift with the CEO in 1978, they would wedge themselves into the corner, avert their eyes, and barely squeak out a hello for fear of saying the wrong thing. Today, a Gen Y getting into a lift with the CEO would see this as a great opportunity to introduce themselves - “Hello, my name is such and such” - and to offer a few tips on how the company should be run. Gen Y are bold and unfettered in their thinking. “Why wouldn’t the CEO be interested in who I am and what I have to say?”
Generation Y have been mollycoddled from a young age. Their school reports shied away from the hard-edge grading of A to D. Instead these kids were given esteem-building commentary based on bland notions like “consolidating” and “building” but never, ever “failing”. The question is whether Ys were well or poorly served by a less than transparent assessment of where they stood in a competitive world.
My most damning indictment of Generation Y is that they cheated in the game of pass-the-parcel. When boomers played this game in the 1950s there was only one winner. Mothers’ deft manipulation of the music ensured that it was always the birthday-boy who opened the final wrapper to claim the single prize. Not like today; under every wrapper there is a prize. No kid loses; they’re all winners.
And now that Gen Y has entered the workforce they are again being shielded from the economy’s sharp edges by the fortune of our prosperous economic times. (What this lot need is a jolly good recession.)
Generation Y do not value corporate loyalty. Boomers see the fact that they might have worked for one firm for 30 years as a “badge of honour”. Here is evidence of corporate loyalty. But tell this to a Gen Y and they will say, “What sort of loser are you?” Gen Y believe that career and personal development are intertwined: “You should have spent three years at one firm, four years at another and so on”, and all the while collecting relationships and experiences.
Life’s there to be sipped, supped and sampled, not to be bogged down with the burden of marriage, mortgage, children or, “like, you know, a career”.
Generation Y value work-life balance. Work is an important component of Gen Y’s life but it is not the only component. Boomers come from a different bloodline which can be traced back to the extremism of the 1980s’ Gordon Gekko.
The reason why boomers are at the top of the heap today is their application and commitment over three decades. Boomers organised their lives around their work. Gen Y is different. They organise their work around their life.
This might mean pursuing flexible working hours or time. It might mean putting their career on hold while they do volunteer work in Africa. There was no option other than work for boomers who were committed from an early age to family and mortgage.
Generation Y’s tribe is the new family. This concept derives from the fact that Gen Y were often single children with both parents working. Their notion of what boomers will recall as “the Sunday roast” is more likely to have been “Friday night dinner at the local Chinese”.
As a consequence, Gen Y has filled the vacuum left by the receding family with their very own tribe. Connect with their tribe and you connect with Y’s emotions. This shift is reflected in popular culture: the big TV hit of the 1990s was Friends. Ten years earlier it was a program called Family. In 10 years’ time it may be Singleton. Ten years beyond that and it could be Oblivion.
But much of the problem with Generation Y is not Generation Y. It is Generation Y’s baby boomer parents. It isn’t Gen Y’s fault that they have been born into small families in prosperous times. If they were indulged, who did the indulging?
And for what purpose? To spoil the child or to assuage parental guilt? And who was it that put that prize under each wrapper?
Who is it that pays the monthly mobile phone bill and then whinges about it publicly but is privately proud of their ability to remain at the centre of their kids’ universe? The answer is, of course, the boomers.
Just as all roads lead to Rome, all generational guilt seems to beat a path back to the baby boomers.