Are millennials ruining this country?
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In a letter to Ask Stacy, a reader (referred to only as “C”) calls millennials “a danger to the financial security of this country and workforce security.”
C even likens working with millennials to working with alcoholics — in that they let personal problems get in the way of their work — and accuses their parents of enabling them:
Ask Stacy: The Millennials Are Ruining This Country. What Can We Do? (moneytalksnews.com)
Stacy responds by pointing out that millennials weren’t the first generation to be looked down upon by an older generation. She discusses the irony of how baby boomers, who grew up during the ’60s and ’70s, are now complaining about millennials:
I suspect those doing most of the complaining are from my generation, the baby boomers. If so, it’s particularly amusing, considering that when we were young, many of us were growing our hair, smoking dope, starting communes, rioting, streaking, engaging in sport sex, and marching on Washington for reasons ranging from war to women’s rights.
If memory serves, my parent’s generation didn’t think any of this was a great idea. They were as convinced as C seems now that we were all the same and as a group would amount to nothing, except perhaps a drain on society.
Stacy also shares her own experience of having a millennial as her employee: at first, he spoke disrespectfully to her, and she was constantly threatening to fire him. But she valued his talent, and through compromise, they were able to form a work relationship that has lasted a decade.
All workplaces contain some sort of diversity, whether it’s age, gender, religion, or race. We don’t all share the same values, but by making the effort to understand each other and embrace our differences rather than reject them, we can all learn new things and grow as individuals.
Posted on October 2, 2014, in News & views and tagged advice, careers, employment, Generation Y, millennials, stereotypes, twenties, twenty-somethings. Bookmark the permalink. 1 Comment.
As a millennial myself, I understand why people of older generations would view us in such a demeaning way. Millennials are viewed to be narcissistic, lazy and lack goals. I understand why we’d be viewed in such a way, but it shouldn’t be used to define everyone in the group.
There are actually a lot of hard-working millennials who sacrifice so much to make ends meet – paying off student loans, rent, bills, and with the possibility of not being set with a legit career. With this outcome playing in a great number of millennials, they have no choice. It’s a fact that millennials are the most educated generation with the highest unemployment rate. For the most part, it is the outside influence of the economy, technology and social media affecting a millennial’s awareness of their current situation, as well as distracting them. It’s a little closed-minded for one (especially baby boomers) to judge somebody for not being as “accomplished”. Job prospects for the older generations were much greater.