Talking with a woman the other morning while dropping my daughter off from school, she told me she needed to hire an executive assistant—someone seasoned.
I asked what happened to her last assistant, and why she was so sure she wanted someone older. (I know some very capable younger folks who I had been thinking of recommending.)
She said the young assistants (plural—she’d been through a string of them) weren’t working out. The last one had quit abruptly after deciding the job wasn’t challenging enough. No other job lined up; she just… quit.
This story is far from isolated.
My favorite is the person who quit a rock solid job at a first-class institution in a high-demand role to wait tables at a ski resort for a season. (Look, if anyone understands about taking time off from life to go skiing, it’s me… but not even I had the chutzpa to simply check out from a good job.)
Gen Y, by quitting a game you don’t understand, you’re not avoiding older generations’ mistakes, you’re simply repeating them in a different way. If you have any interest in making sure all your hopes and promise don’t vanish and turn into a world of poo, you need to pull your act together… fast!
Start by reading these three posts:
- Get some perspective on why it’s difficult to establishing a career today.
- Learn why the idea of going off to “find yourself” is a total and complete waste of your time.
- Find out how to get passionate about the work you already do.
Life isn’t being fair, and it’s not playing nice, but it is your reality.
Play time is over, you missed the bell.
Time to start running.
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Great post, Jason.
I think this type of behaviour in Gen Y’s actually demonstrate that they are no different to any other generation. Though most of the press and research seem to be trying to “figure out Gen Y’s”. We all did this kind of stupid stuff at different times.
Time to start looking at commonalities and not differences.
@Bill—Thanks… yes, I think that trying to manage by the date of someone’s birth is astrology, not strategy. We’ll get a lot further when we accept that people are people, and Gen Y is how people react to the parenting/technology/politics/economics they have been exposed to.
Jason,
I’d love to BS with you on the phone sometime, I feel like we’d have a great conversation.
In short, I have to say that I’m up in arms over my generation’s behavior. We loathe authority, yet we’re nowhere near as entrepreneurial as we should be if that was the only motivation.
We love to have a Life-loaded work/life balance. Yet, we can bust out work for non-profits and for free like our lives depend on it.
It’s troubling when I hear older generations talk about us. There’s a lot of fear/loathing/misunderstanding and with the economy in the shape it is, a lot of us are either 1) fighting to find a space, 2) building to make more space, or 3) waiting until there’s more space.
I’m solidly entrenched in category #2, but a lot of my peers are wallowing in #1 and #3 simultaneously. It’s like they pine to be enslaved in cubes only to forfeit their jobs when a marginal improvement in the life side of the work/life balance is available.
I’m not sure what to do about that. Or if there’s anything to do. My only idea for a fix is world-wide systemic change. IE – the world is a mess, and I just need to rule it.
Thanks for the fun thoughts!
-Nick
@Nick—Option #2 is the only real option… 1 & 3 are illusory. As for ruling the world, get in line. Gen X is already queued up.