Arges
Freelance Unincorporated
Ushra'Khan
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Posted - 2006.10.18 16:18:00 -
[1]
 Originally by: dennyreborn
Okay to understand what Generation X is you must understand a differnt generation.
the baby boomers. babyboomers are the children of the WWII genration
For instance I am 26 years old, My dad is a baby boomer and my grandfather wasa WWII VET.
However there are poeple my age who due to parents haveing children at a young age that it was thier great grand dad was was the WWII VET So they are generation Y.
generation Y simply means children of generation X'ers.
The next baby boom will not come until we have a large drawn out war again aka WWII where most child producing age women are spereated from thier men.
then when the war ends thier will be a baby boom as the couples make up for lost time.
That's not completely accurate. People from generation Y (also known as generation "why?") are not the kids of people from generation X.
If you only look at the historical periods from which the generations are from, you will only see the tip of the iceberg. Each generation have shown to have very strong differences in their attitudes and mentalities (and it has been mostly studied in a work environment). Still, from their behaviors at work, you can clearly see the characterial types of each generation.
The Baby-Boomers are indeed children of the war. They were born in a period of growing prosperity and have, for most of them, enjoyed a long and lucrative stability in their employment. They are loyal to the death to their employers and will show very little interest in change and innovation. They are the ones who whine about loud music and about how much harder they had it in their youth (which is mostly true but then again, they never had it as rough as their parents did).
Generation X is not about the extreme sports, Tony Hawk and all that jazz. Generation X is called that because it is a generation who is seeking its own identity, its own place in the "grand scheme of things". They often have the feeling that the Baby-Boomers are hugging all the good jobs and there is very little room left for them to grow. They will often be more loyal to their projects rather than the actual employer. If they have a more interesting project elswhere, they will go there. They strive on adrenaline an constant pressure as well (both at work and at play) which did have the side effect of bringing the whole "skate" cutlure to life and eventually, the rest of the extreme sports. Generation X is out there to prove itself to the Boomers.
Generation Y (or "why?") has had it easy for most of their life. They live in an age of thechnological advancement and have natural affinities with whatever has buttons and a screen (DVD, VCR, PCs, video games, etc.). They are the ones trying to teach their parents how to programm the freakin' clock on the VCR. They generally have a higher level of education as they have been told for most of their life that no higher education means no higher salary. That has brought a massive influx of over-qualified people on the job-market and they now have a hard time trying to fill the *****s between the Boomers and the Xs. They know their abilities and will want to know why they are asked to do such and such things (whence the whole generation why thing). They want to know the reason and the effect that whatever task they are asked to do will have. They don't want to do anything if the only reason to do it is "because it needs to be done". They are also seeking gratification from their superiors for a job well done and usually believe that it is only natural that their success and natural abilities be recognised.... often.
To the OP, I could still go on for a while about this and have only skimmed the subject in this post but you can see that there are a lot of thing to take into consideration when doing a generational comparison. Read your books, they will hold a lot more info than anyone on this forum can give you.
Cheers and good luck.
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