This is just great news. As soon as the boomers retire, we'll have fewer workers, and it turns out most of those remaining workers don't want to work very hard. I obviously have no problem with that on an individual basis, but as a country we're doomed.
Honestly, I think you're absolutely dead wrong. Gen X is willing to work - get this - harder than the generation prior. I am 30 and in management - lower management, but I'm still in the top 150 and tagged in the succession planning. I've been generating ideas since out of college - the last one implemented here added an incremental $1mm to the bottom line. Could a 20-something have done that 30 years ago, back in the old caste system, "pay-yer-dues-junior" days? I've worked 30-odd hours straight and worked 80-hour weeks. I've done it, but it will not be a habit. But if it's needed for a project and it's an exception-type event, I'm a professional; get it done, find a way.
GenX wants to work on our terms, not the traditional ones. And our terms have been modified by what we've seen our parents gone through. Boomers tripled the rate of divorce and doubled the amount of kids born out of wedlock - isn't it natural to think we'd learn something from that? In the 80's, every accounting grad from college was going to make partner or be CFO. I don't know that I want that level of committment.
Ultimately, the boomers were willing to work hard for money. GenX will work hard for love. If we believe in it, we'll work like sled dogs - witness the massive hours pumped in at the dot-bombs. The people believed in what they were doing. Kind of a shame none of them knew jack about a business plan, metrics, profits, or organizational structure, but hell, everyone was blinded for awhile there.
At heart, I'm an optimist. Right now the company is in existance that will topple Wal-Mart. Some corporation is being formed, or dreamed, that will crumble the tower of Home Depot. It's easy to look at the GenX slacker image on "Friends", working at some coffee shop, and forget that the vast majority of us are career driven - but as we would say, not driven to excess. I want to see every one of my kids little league games. I want to see their first play. I want to be at home with them and raise them and impart my interest and values and see them grow. I am not willing to work 70 hours a week, regardless of the pay. I have friends that will, but they are the exception. I don't measure my success by a McMansion or a BMW. I don't need an Armani suit, or a riding mower, or a stainless steel fridge, or a granite countertop. The boomers were the first to discover that money doesn't lead to happiness. You know what they did? Buy bigger houses. Contrast this to X - Honda will soon be importing a smaller car than the civic; because Gen X believes the civic is too big and overpriced! Toyota started a whole new brand of cheap cars. It's not that X can't afford a Camry -
we choose not to.
So you're worried about the future? I disagree - those companies that adapt to their workforce and harness their talent to produce an exception product will always do well. But those companies with a mediocre product that don't respect their people and don't try and retain talent? Yeah, when the consumerism wave starts to fade, those companies are in trouble.
Wanna see the kids at the head of the class?
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4787767
They're not acutally true X-ers, but indicative of the change going on - if you've got talent, a company has a use for you.
Sunrunner4 - cog in the corporate machine.
PS - as a side note, who do the Boomers expect to sell those massive places to? I look at some of the 4000 sq/ft monstrosities and think. "gee, that's a lot to clean", and, "what would I do with a [whatever room]".
PPS - I say that but would secretly love an old victorian on a nice classic block and damn the cost.
