{"id":10937,"date":"2015-01-07T08:51:18","date_gmt":"2015-01-07T13:51:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/?p=10937"},"modified":"2015-01-07T08:51:18","modified_gmt":"2015-01-07T13:51:18","slug":"between-the-lines-talking-about-a-different-generation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/the-week-in-imaging-twii\/editors-blog\/2015\/01\/between-the-lines-talking-about-a-different-generation\/","title":{"rendered":"Between the Lines: Talking About a Different Generation"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"the-who-456\"What\u2019s the matter with kids today? Remember that song from Bye Bye Birdie<\/em>? It remains just as relevant in 2015 as in 1963. It\u2019s just that now it\u2019s a different generation complaining about the current generation, which was kind of the point of the song in the movie.<\/p>\n

And when I say \u201ckids\u201d I\u2019m painting with a broad brush.<\/p>\n

I was reading a friend\u2019s 24-year-old daughter\u2019s blog the other day and it got me thinking about what\u2019s the matter with kids today? She was on a bus with a group of 20-somethings returning to Philadelphia from New York City where they had traveled to see a local Philly band making their NYC debut. The beer was still flowing fast and furious as was the conversation on the way home, and she overheard a group of guys, some recently out of college and others a few years into the workforce, bemoaning their dissatisfaction with their jobs and wishing that they could be doing something else, i.e. pursuing their dreams, more than likely something in the arts.<\/p>\n

Maybe I\u2019m missing something, but I don\u2019t recall having the luxury to run off and pursue my dreams. I was too busy working to pay for gas, pay for my car, pay for my apartment, pay for food, and maybe even have a little left over for beer. Not that there\u2019s anything wrong with pursuing your dreams just as long as you\u2019re also earning a living while doing so without having Mom and Dad foot the bill. But what I picked up from that blog as well as conversations I\u2019ve had with dealers is a sense of entitlement among the millennial generation. Whether or not that\u2019s accurate or a sweeping generalization as in a May 2013 Time magazine piece that used adjectives such as narcissistic, lazy, and coddled to describe Millennials, is up for debate.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve heard from more than a few dealers and even from those outside of the document imaging industry that some of these young people expect a generous salary without earning it first. Talk about a sense of entitlement.<\/p>\n

Over the next few weeks I\u2019ll be working on a multi-part series on Millennials in the document imaging industry, searching for the truth beyond the generational generalizations while acknowledging that I\u2019m of a different generation myself and a different mindset no matter how madly I march to the beat of my own drummer.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t get me wrong, I think it\u2019s great that some people have been fortunate enough to chase their dreams and realize them. I wanted to be a writer since I was 16 and that\u2019s what I became. I just never thought I\u2019d be this kind of writer\u2014not famous, but filling a needed niche. And I\u2019m grateful for that.<\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t about millennial bashing because there are some Baby Boomers, Generation X\u2019s and Y\u2019s who have gone through life with a sense of entitlement too. The reality is whatever the generation we are living in a time and a place and likely come from a background where some of us have the luxury to either pursue those dreams or dream about pursuing those dreams rather than dreaming about how we\u2019re going to feed our families or just survive from one day to the next like so many other people in so many other parts of the world.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t want to get too heavy here, but I do want to get the conversation rolling. E-mail me your thoughts and anecdotes on the topic as well as how Millennials, Baby Boomers, and Generation\u2019s X and Y can peacefully and successfully coexist in the workplace.<\/p>\n

Thanks for reading.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What\u2019s the matter with kids today? Remember that song from Bye Bye Birdie? It remains just as relevant in 2015 as in 1963. It\u2019s just that now it\u2019s a different generation complaining about the current generation, which was kind of the point of the song in the movie. And when I say \u201ckids\u201d I\u2019m painting with a broad brush. I was reading a friend\u2019s 24-year-old daughter\u2019s blog the other day and it got me thinking about what\u2019s the matter with kids today? She was on a bus with a group of 20-somethings returning to Philadelphia from New York City where they had traveled to see a local Philly band making their NYC debut. The beer was still flowing fast and furious as was the conversation on the way home, and she overheard a group of guys, some recently out of college and others a few years into the workforce, bemoaning their dissatisfaction with their jobs and wishing that they could be doing something else, i.e. pursuing their dreams, more than likely something in the arts. Maybe I\u2019m missing something, but I don\u2019t recall having the luxury to run off and pursue my dreams. I was too busy working to pay for gas, pay for my car, pay for my apartment, pay for food, and maybe even have a little left over for beer. Not that there\u2019s anything wrong with pursuing your dreams just as long as you\u2019re also earning a living while doing so without having Mom and Dad foot the bill. But what I picked up from that blog as well as conversations I\u2019ve had with dealers is a sense of entitlement among the millennial generation. Whether or not that\u2019s accurate or a sweeping generalization as in a May 2013 Time magazine piece that used adjectives such as narcissistic, lazy, and coddled to describe Millennials, is up for debate. I\u2019ve heard from more than a few dealers and even from those outside of the document imaging industry that some of these young people expect a generous salary without earning it first. Talk about a sense of entitlement. Over the next few weeks I\u2019ll be working on a multi-part series on Millennials in the document imaging industry, searching for the truth beyond the generational generalizations while acknowledging that I\u2019m of a different generation myself and a different mindset no matter how madly I march to the beat of my own drummer. Don\u2019t get me wrong, I think it\u2019s great that some people have been fortunate enough to chase their dreams and realize them. I wanted to be a writer since I was 16 and that\u2019s what I became. I just never thought I\u2019d be this kind of writer\u2014not famous, but filling a needed niche. And I\u2019m grateful for that. This isn\u2019t about millennial bashing because there are some Baby Boomers, Generation X\u2019s and Y\u2019s who have gone through life with a sense of entitlement too. The reality is whatever the generation we are living in a time and a place and likely come from a background where some of us have the luxury to either pursue those dreams or dream about pursuing those dreams rather than dreaming about how we\u2019re going to feed our families or just survive from one day to the next like so many other people in so many other parts of the world. I don\u2019t want to get too heavy here, but I do want to get the conversation rolling. E-mail me your thoughts and anecdotes on the topic as well as how Millennials, Baby Boomers, and Generation\u2019s X and Y can peacefully and successfully coexist in the workplace. Thanks for reading.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[80,1638],"tags":[2033,328],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10937"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10937"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10937\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10939,"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10937\/revisions\/10939"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10937"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10937"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10937"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}