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New office crisis: Boomers won't leave!
Dan Drezner
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Kai Ryssdal: How you feel about the economy right now might well depend on where you are in the pecking order, generationally speaking. To use a personal finance term here for a second, financial horizons -- that is, the time any given person has left to work and save -- can vary widely. And in light of the great stock market crash of 2008, everybody's reassessing their economic future, including commentator Dan Drezner.
DAN DREZNER: The financial downturn has left all sorts of casualties in its wake: more unemployment, depressed wages, and greater economic uncertainty. But I'd like to direct my angst at a different target -- the baby boomers.
A hidden effect of this crisis is that, in the workplace, as in popular discourse, they simply refuse to get out of the way.
To understand my lament, you have to realize that the oldest of the baby boomers are on the cusp of retirement. For younger generations, this should be a cause for relief. For decades, Gen X-ers like myself have had to hear the standard declarations about the uniqueness of the baby boomers. Maybe they were not the Greatest Generation, but they were the ones who glorified the whole idea of generational identity. For decades, Gen X-ers have had to hear complaints about our political apathy, our popular culture, and our musical tastes.
We have suffered many of these critiques without complaint. Why? Because so many of us worked for so many of them. They were the bosses of the business world. And they were supposed to be retiring very soon, but the recession has changed all that.
In 2008, U.S. workers aged 55 to 64 who had 401(k)'s for at least 20 years saw their retirement balances drop an average of 20 percent. A recent YouGov poll showed two-thirds of this generation have not made the necessary adjustments in their financial planning. This is not a recipe for leaving the workforce anytime soon.
What does this mean for the rest of us? Younger workers who expected promotions when the boomers cleared out are going to have to stew in their own juices. With this job market, looking for a better opportunity elsewhere is not in the cards. Which means that Gen X-ers are going to have to listen to baby boomers doing what they do best -- talk about themselves.
Office politics across the country are going to get a lot nastier. Of course, it could be worse. Generation Y not only has to deal with the boomers, they have to cope with people like me complaining about them.
Ryssdal: Dan Drezner is a professor of international politics at Tufts University.
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Oh Gen X, I've been where you are.
When I got out of college, I was the junior copywriter in my small advertising office, assigned all the grunt stuff, with no prospects of moving up to the plum job unless my superior retired or moved on.
Guess what, I lost that job in the bank bust of the 1990s, when I was in my 30s.
I had to start over in another industry, which also went under.
I'm now on my third career, underpaid, still not in management, and I've never lived the high life.
Not all boomers have gotten the chance to take advantage of all that great high living.
Some of us- make that most, if I judge by my friends and colleagues - were and are just working folk who have had to do the best we can, and now will have to keep doing it in order to help our families survive.
My bosses now are younger than me, but I'm still here, learning to adapt to a changing workplace.
I was too young for Woodstock or the sexual revolution, but I'm still considered a boomer.
Hate the label. Didn't pick it.
I'm just a middle-aged white chick trying to get by.
And yeah I feel your pain. I've lived it, and still am.
I have worked with computers since 8th grade, and am now 53. No, I will not move over for you. Prove you are worthy and can do my job and add value!
Some ge'ns of the younger gens--
1)You have little or no business knowledge even after mommy and daddy spent tons of money on your education.
2) Most of you never worked a job that required you to do physical things, like clean the scum from a carwash, or build a stone wall, etc..you want to start at the top, when we are at the top.
3) I have seen pretty web pages displaying data from the modern "developer", but in my vast experience, the core of the data you work with contains little business logic. THE CORE OF THE BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE IS IN THE LEGACY AND ERP APPLICATIONS. It is cool to be able to display data on a screen..but do you understand how it was derived?
Could you build new logic to add accuracy to your companies data?
Go ahead and bash my generalizations, but read again what I am saying..and get over it all..sorry there is a recession when you just graduated after 30 years of education..i have a 4 yr degree from a fine school and have done just fine with it.
I love my profession and will not move over when I continue to be respected in my job and add value to the company.
What a fantastic conversation in the comments here. And so telling of the diff generations. Haha. I commented first (way down at the bottom). I am a first-wave GenXer and one quite familiar with Gen Theory.
Well, just a tidbit, folks. GenXers are THE largest gen. Add that to your thoughts about how Boomers aren't moving over in their jobs. The false story told again and again -- without fact-checking -- is that Boomers are the largest generation. But it just ain't true. Boomers were bigger than the gen prior to *them.* Yet, in the 2005 US Census, Boomers, 64.6 million; GenX, 81 million; and Millennials, 79 million. Just a tidbit. Li'l bit of fact to blow your minds.
We have been so patient, dear Boomers. If you're a Boomer, you just have no idea of how patient we have been. Nor, do you have *ANY* sense of the pressure we feel with Millennials behind us.
Your role now as a gen is "wise elder." You need to get out of our way. Not en masse. Not overnight. Not all of you at once. But you need to start as a generation to MOVE OVER. Not leave. Just MOVE OUT OF OUR WAY. We do things differently because we see the world differently than you do. And your generation is so in the way. I know you can't see it, but it's true.
Here's another li'l tidbit: The Boomer archetype (Prophet, in gen theory) actually shines brightest in elderhood. But it's in the role, as I said earlier, of wise elder, supporting the GenX (Nomad archetype) leaders in a time of Crisis.
Boomer leadership style and Boomer problem-solving is a hindrance in a Crisis Era. And if you ain't convinced we're in that era now, just wait another year or so.
Really, Prez Obama is the most explicit statement of this shift. He's a first-wave GenXer, true and true.
Pragmatic. Real. Raw. Stylin'. Functional. What works. Dirty work. Hard decisions. It's what our ratty, cynical gen of Xers is so well-prepared to do and be.
Regarding Dan Drezner's comments. He seems to be implying a generational conflict between him and the old fogies..like me. Well this 60 year old did not appreciate his deprecation. I'll tell you my story. I have been working in health care since I was 17. I am a pharmacist. I worked about 25 hours per week to pay my tuition during college. My salary during first year of marriage repaid both my husband's and my student loans. We lived on one salary. During my 37 years of marriage, my salary has contributed toward my husband's M.S. and my two children's private college tuition which cost over $30,000 per year. I also have been saving the maximum allowed for retirement. Since I come from a lower class family, I have no knowledge about investments. I have tried to educate myself and seek knowledge from a fee only financial planner. Well, the $150,00 which my husband saved is now worth $70,000. My husband and I would both like to retire. Does Mr. Drezner have any suggestions for us? I frankly feel that investing in the stock market is a gigantic scam to make a few rich people richer and schmucks like us feed off the crumbs.
Blame-throwing is about as useful as the Bush Policies were. The very idea of 'retirement' and suddenly becoming useless in our society creates even more burden as we age - and age we all will - even the 'as labeled' GenXers. Why not take some lessons from history and understand that we all have something to contribute that has nothing to do with some fictitious age after which someone is no longer viable. What shall we do? Set the Boomers out on the ice flows to be eaten by starving polar bears?? Let's work together and not create more divisiveness.
Not only are the Baby Boomers not moving on, but I have also found few willing to share their knowledge with younger generations. I can only assume that this comes from always competing with such a large field they have learned never to share what keeps their jobs secure. I know of some government agencies that require persons nearing retirement age to share their knowledge before moving on. These agencies are using a Wikipedia type system to catalog all this information. If only more companies had this policy. I am slightly conflicted, as my father has recently had to start a new job. I know he somehow raised 5 boys on a salary less then the one I received after collage graduation. I know he plans to work until physical unable then move in with one of us, so I understand why some will need to stay in their jobs longer. Maybe I should just find a field with less Baby Boomers, possibly something in the video game or heavy metal industry?
I've often worried about the very issues that Professor Drezner has raised, but I think that he actually understated the problem. When one generation fails to make room for the next it doesn't just leave the younger generation to stew in their own juices, it can also make them jump ship.
One place where this can be seen is in biomedical research, where talented young scientists are leaving science altogether because of a lack of job opportunities. Not only does this hurt the young scientists, but it hurts tax payers who helped subsidize their education only to have that education go to waste. Even worse, it hurts everyone when the person who had the talent to cure a disease leaves science because a more-senior but less-talented researcher won't give up a seat.
For more information on this problem I recommend a publication that I am not affiliated with called "Broken Pipeline: Flat Funding of the NIH Puts a Generation of Science at Risk." To find this, just do an internet search for "broken pipeline."
I completely agree with this story. My boss is well-above retirement age and unfortunately I work in a very small office, where movement will not occur unless someone above you leaves. And if my boss retiring? No! Economy aside, she was probably thinking she would die in her office chair, a very sad thing for me to hear. I am so frustrated, I am looking for other oppertunities. The future for us Gen-Xers, is filled with dispair...we will we will be unhappy and stuck in our sad little jobs forever because even after a babyboomer retires in the long run, we'll be too far past our prime to be considered to move up. Way to go.
"Babyboomers"? "Genxers"? What kind of stupid talk is this?Do terms like these really define antbody? yet this trite rhetoric is what he builds his thesis on? Has it ever occured to Mr. drezner that this might be class issue rather than a "generation" issue? Or does this fit "Marketplace's compromised format? At any rate, it scares me that Mr. Drezner is actually teaching international relations at a university level. Heaven help us!
Perhaps Mr. Drezner's next commentary should be titled: "The Boomer Problem, A Final Solution". From his commentary and the many Gen-Xers supporting him in this forum, one can add another item to the list of negative descriptors attributed to Gex-Xers, bigots.
Maybe all the Boomers out there should step back and let the generosity of the Xer's support Market Place.
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