Well, I didn’t quite pull a Don Imus, but my inbox was overflowing with nasty responses to recent comments of mine. A few weeks back, I expressed in print what I had heard a hundred times in conversations with executives — that the younger generations have a different view of working, that they lack the old notion of “work ethic.” The new attitude toward work these executives described is, to my mind, a better one, combining a bit of skepticism about corporate life with a zest for life outside the office. However, I failed to get that point across because … well, an excerpt makes the point:
“I could not even finish your short article because of the vomit forming in my throat.”
I can now say with confidence that young people do read the newspaper, that they write bracingly articulate commentary on society, and they now regard one Dale Dauten as playing for Visitor. (I guess that sticks me as suiting up for the Hopeless Geezers, with team colors of Gray and Slightly Darker Gray. “Two bits, four bits … ah, ah … does anybody remember how the rest of it goes?”)
But while I might whine about being misunderstood, there’s a more important issue here: a deep and sharp resentment of what the boomer generation has done to the country and the economy. Here are samples, starting with two from people who, understandably, asked to remain anonymous, and then two who were willing to be named:
“I would strongly argue that 20-plus years of downgraded cubicle/‘hoteling’ work environments, terrible managers, promotion strategies that have nothing to do with skill or competence, relentlessly short-term stock-market mentalities, lousy pay, dwindling benefits and worst of all — zero job security — mean that today’s young workers know full well that working hard doesn’t get you ahead; it only gets you more work. And then you’re downsized, and your job goes to Bangalore.”
(From the one with vomit in his throat): “My generation has no work ethic because we realize that the jobs we are working at are creating undeserved profits for those running the businesses. I honestly feel that those who do work hard so that others can make an absurd profit are mindless. Old-timers like you probably can’t understand such a feeling, but the world I see around me has helped me to see and form my truths.”
April Fournier: “I work in an office where the majority of employees are under 20 and many are under 25, and sometimes I feel like all we ever do is work or talk about work after leaving the office. I’m tired of the young and lazy stereotype. It’s time someone pointed out all the older employees who don’t pull their weight like they did when they were younger and not so jaded.”
A Lost Legacy
Damian Gray: “We 20-somethings live in a world where manufacturing, blue-collar work and the middle class have been sucked out of this country faster than you can say ‘globalization.’ We live in an economy where an income that once afforded a home and family barely affords the rent. We can’t get by with just working hard because reminiscing boomers like yourself are running these companies that don’t offer a wage that is even close to keeping up with the rising cost of living. Before you go blasting the young guys who are trying to make their way, why don’t you take a good look at the boomers who have kicked so much dirt over the trail that was nicely cleared out in front of you.”
Yes, it’s true, boomers were given America at its best, gloriously alone in economic power, and what was our contribution? So far we have sucked the silver right off the spoon. So to my young colleagues, I admit that my generation made a fundamental mistake: We thought that a better world was there for the taking, but it was really there for the making. It still is, my young friends, and I hope you’ll remember that some of us still want to be of help.
(The point of the prior column, that mostly got lost, was that the best of what young workers offer is the same as what the best of older workers offer, a Contribution Ethic. I have put this list of attitudes of noble achievement in a document you can find and print out at www.dauten.com.)
Dale Dauten is the founder of The Innovators’ Lab. His latest book is “(Great) Employees Only: How Gifted Bosses Hire and De-Hire Their Way to Success”.
