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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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After hearing Mr Drezners commentary I did a quick Google search because I was not sure what made one an Gen X-er. I was relieved (but not surprised) to see that my children do not fall into that "category". They are not at all like Mr Drezner. They do not judge people based on their age or for that matter the color of their skin, their religion, their sex, their physical disabilities, their sexual orientation, or their national origin. They are hard working and caring human beings that want to make a difference in the world.
As a member of the first wave of Baby Boomers and a mother of a Gen-Xer, I feel stirred to respond to Mr. Drezner's remarks. First of all, Professor D., your parents' generation may not have been the greatest, but at least we were not the greediest generation. That spot was reserved for your generation, the one that got us into this economic mess. And we did provide you with ideas like peace might be better than war, women have rights too, skin color should not hold people back, maybe we shouldn't destroy the environment we live in, education should be relevant to life and society, and other novel concepts, plus actions to match. My experience with members of Gen X (and, granted, we spoiled them) is they know how to do little but play on the computer. Gen Y (I also have one of those) seems to have a better work ethic. I have worked, raised children, and been a caregiver for dying family members for 42 years. I am only too happy to retire this year and "get a life." I have a suggestion for the professor and his ilk: why don't you volunteer to double or triple your Social Security withholding so your parents' generation will get out of the way and let you move up the ladder. We would be only too glad to let you see if YOU can cut the mustard.
What a waste of airtime, and now of pixels. I suspect Drezner does not have children - he seems too selfish and bitter. As for me, I am 51, but do not think of myself as part of a "generation". Rather, I am simply taking care of myself and my 3 children as best as I can. Drezner has no right to judge me, or my motivation, or my future plans. If I work til I'm 80, then so be it.
As one of those Baby Boomers who isn’t going away any time soon, I take issue with Dan Drezner’s whiny lament. Every generation feels it has a monopoly on righteous indignation. For decades, we Boomers have had to hear complaints about OUR political activism, OUR popular culture, and OUR musical tastes. If the good professor wants us activists to “get out of the way†of his apathetic generation, all I can say is that I’m glad we’re still in charge so stuff actually gets done!
As a 55-year old mother of four Gen Y/Millenials, daughter of products of the Twenties baby boom and the Thirties baby bust, I have at times reflected on this boom/bust cycle. First, it alternated during the 20th century, starting with a boom after World War I. Those children got to fight in World War II. Depression babies got to fight in Korea. The GI Bill raised the returning soldiers' economic level by creating a large middle class, by offering education and mortgage benefits. Those folks raised Baby Boomers before reliable birth control was available. The Pill became legal for married people in the mid-Sixties and in that context GenXers were born from then through the Seventies. GenXers can be thankful to have missed much of the tumult of the Sixties, to have grown up when nuclear disarmament was a growing possibility (you never had to have fallout drills in grade school, to duck-and-cover just in case of a nuclear attack), not to have had to fight in the long years of Viet Nam. (As a reference point, the Viet Nam war began when I was in first grade and ended when I was 21--I remember hearing casualty figures over the radio, while I ate my breakfast, much larger figures than we experience today) Fewer GenXers may have experienced middle child syndrome, coming from smaller families to begin with. GenXers impressed us all by being more collected and directed when it was time to go to college and begin careers. We Boomers struggled with the draft and the uncertainty that caused, and later with the 74 recession. Women and minorities who were Boomers often faced prejudice in the workplace, which was far less diverse than it is today. Our two generations, Boomers and GenXers, essentially were dealt different hands to play, and it has been up to each of us to do the best we can with the cards we have been dealt. Maybe it is tough to come up behind a large generation, but for a GenXer, there is a larger slice of pie at any comparable stage of life than for a Boomer. Economically, GenXers have and will continue to do well. Boomers have always known that they need to work as long as they can, and not count on retiring early. It is economic reality. It sounds like Mr. Drezner is articulating the feelings for his generation that one would normally associate with a mid-life crisis. I am happy to say, having just been through my own moment of truth a few years ago, that life can become more meaningful after 50 if one can give thanks to have made it to that point, and pause to reflect on the lives of those who didn't. So cheer up GenXers, and count your blessings! A world out there needs your talents--try volunteering in your spare time to help youth or any other cause that inspires. Office politics will seem less important when you put aside jealousy and give from the heart. You are not the first smallish generation and won't be the last. Time to stop whining and instead give a thought to how you would like your life on earth to be remembered--what can you do to make things better than you found them?
What the? In the first place: this guy claims that Generation Xers have listened to "standard declarations about the uniqueness of Baby Boomers", and have listened to critiques from Baby Boomers "without complaint"??
Where has Dan Drezner been? I can assure you, I have heard and read far, far more whining from Generation Xers in the media about Baby Boomers than vice-versa, for a dozen years and counting. (In fact, among people I know, I have actually never heard a fellow Baby Boomer complain about Generation X, or even identify themselves as a Baby Boomer, or a younger person as a Generation Xer. Yep--that's right, never once have I known anyone to identify themselves or others that way, unless they were a part of the media. Not one person I have known personally has ever done so. To be fair, neither do the younger people I've known refer to themselves as Generation Xers.)
Second of all: he wants older people to "get out of the way"? As in, "everybody quit your jobs and give them to 'us'"? And then what should we do, exactly? Starve to death?
Of course, if young people want to support all us retirees once they take our jobs, then sure, I'll retire. I'll do it today! Of course, I have no children. But surely Mr. Drezner thought out his position well enough to realize that he'll be supporting me if I retire?
i only experienced intergenerational conflict when i encountered US companies trying to make profits on empty under 35 year olds. i was astounded at the lack of respect for experience and knowledge in this group. What they do understand is power and political correctness. That is what has been passed down to all current generations. Blaming one generation serves little purpose. We need to restore the value of honesty, merit and integrity instead.
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