Thursday, December 22, 2011

Gen Y's Positive Traits?

Is it just me, or does this article make it sound like Gen Y is virtuous and marketable while also saying they will jump ship at the first smell of a raise elsewhere, will want to be praised for every job, regardless of how well it is done, and will also not know how to use the technology that employers expect them to know how to use?

13 comments:

  1. I love that this article, after discussing the merits of gen Y'ers concludes with the advertisement: it's never too early to retire.

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  2. Geez Louise, this article exemplifies style over substance as shown by a lack of specifics to back up what it "feels," much like Gen Y itself. For example, it boldly makes the assertion that Gen Y will profoundly change the workplace (something I don't doubt, and am dreading), without bothering to tell us how. Go back and do your homework, willya, and this time remove the earbuds.

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  3. Without wishing to ruin anyone's Christmas, have you thought about what Gen Z will be like?
    Predictions please...

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  4. "marketable while also saying they will jump ship at the first smell of a raise elsewhere, will want to be praised for every job, regardless of how well it is done, and will also not know how to use the technology that employers expect them to know how to use?"

    "will profoundly change the workplace (something I don't doubt, and am dreading), without bothering to tell us how."

    Replace Gen Y with Provost or Dean and these quotations still work for me.

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  5. @Brown Cow - you beat me to it! I noticed the exact same thing.

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  6. EC1, Generation Z will be staggering under debt, extremely sunburned, and looking for jobs abroad.

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  9. Perhaps not as elegant as Sagan, I imagine it to be a lot like "Idiocracy."

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  10. @PT: AMEN, BROTHER.

    "Ow! My Balls!" as entertainment--we're already there, and as for being outbred by idiots, yep, that's happening too.

    If things continue, I may have to emigrate...to Saturn.

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  11. Generation Y reminds me of Oscar Wilde's definition of a cynic.

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  12. @EC1: I think Carl Sagan got it about right in his 1996 book, "The Demon-Haunted World":

    "I have a foreboding of an America in my children’s or grandchildren’s time—when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the key manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what’s true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and [chaos]…"

    Demographics suggest that Gen Z in America will be a “lost” generation, like Gen X. There won’t be so many of them, unless we let in a whole lot more immigrants. Expect a decline in college enrollments, as with Gen X in the late ‘80s, with increasing pressure from university administrators to ease academic standards for our “customers.” This should become noticeable in about 2018, when Gen Z starts arriving for college.

    As far as positive traits go, I think it’s unlikely that Gen Z will have a nuclear war, because frankly they won’t have the technical expertise to carry it out. Virtually none of the physics majors will be U.S. citizens. You can forget about human expansion into space: never mind technical expertise, they’ll be too risk-averse. If the next person to set foot on the Moon is Chinese, the response in the U.S will probably be “Who cares?” Global warming will start becoming noticeable even to Republicans in their time, with the Arctic ice cap completely disappearing in summer as early as 2030, so it’s a good thing they’re so green.

    Another hopeful sign is that recent events appear to show that is it -is- possible for an American politician to be too dumb to be President. The U.S. President has to be smarter than Rick Perry or Sarah Palin, but need not be smarter than Ron Reagan.

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  13. "As far as positive traits go, I think it’s unlikely that Gen Z will have a nuclear war, because frankly they won’t have the technical expertise to carry it out."

    The US hasn't made a new nuclear warhead in 20 years, the weapons launchers have been designed to be operated by people with high school-level educations. If the missile launchers go belly up because Gen Z is too stupid to run them, then they will just strap tactical nuclear warheads onto drones and fly them to the target, vaporizing the target and the drone at the same time.

    Risk-aversion is a trait that can be broken, if they are willing to make the first step, and people from outside that generation are willing to train them.

    I do not see the situation as hopeless; hard yes, but not the end of the world.

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