CLASHING GENERATIONS
(Posted 2008-03-20 18:52:41 by ArchPaladin)

I've been reading a couple of articles on Slashdot lately that talk about
the tendencies and habits of technical employees in my generation.  The
articles themselves are mostly inflammatory, indicating that IT staff in my
generation have no job loyalty, demand overpaid salaries, have no respect
for older coworkers, and similar comments.  The comments on the articles
presented a largely mixed reaction with an obvious split: many older
posters agreed with the article, and many younger posters disagreed.

I've been finding all of this interesting, partly because my generation is
being examined, and partly because of all of my job hunting that's been
going on lately.  While I largely disagree with any thoughts that my
generation is arrogant or lazy or whatever, I do realize that wisdom tends
to correlate with age (though not always).  Thus, I acknowledge that my
generation may not be appropriately qualified to refute claims against them
because they don't have any other perspective to use to examine
themselves.

I know it's a common statement that every generation grows up thinking the
ones after them are lazy and arrogant, but seldom does anyone ask why that
is.  My personal thought is that all of this reduces down to a question of
parenting.  Current old generations raise up younger ones, and the younger
ones notice the flaws that the older generations have adopted.  The younger
generations then come up with ways to overcome those flaws as they grow,
and the older generations don't like it because it exposes their own
shortcomings and inconsistencies.

Here's an example.  There's a claim that my generation has no company
loyalty, and that we'll switch who we work for on a moment's notice.  My
thought is that this practice has arisen because older generations overpay
their top executives and show no loyalty to their underlings.  Older
generations look at this job-hopping and say that it is due to disloyalty
and arrogance, but cannot accept that perhaps this practice has arisen for
a different reason, and perhaps the younger generations have learned
something that puts the older generations in a bad light.

If my theory is true, that would mean the process of generational clashes
is a natural process of cultural evolution.  Thus, I think that older
individuals would do well to examine more closely why younger individuals
act in the disrespectful ways they claim, and that younger individuals
would do well not to brush off whatever lessons the older generation has to
teach us.

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