Corporate America and Generation X
How so many got a useless map to white collar success
Imagine being given a treasure map to vast resources in a far-distant land. You are told the journey will be long — decades in fact. But along the way you will be rewarded handsomely for your efforts… and if you make it to the end, you can relax and enjoy the fruits of your labor.
The offer sounds rather compelling, and is what was sold to Generation X for years. Now in our 40’s and 50’s it seems the map we were given to finding corporate success was somewhat useless, resulting in a wave of Gen Xers too early to retire and too burnt out to work twenty more years in the corporate machine.
Generation X are people born between 1965 and 1980. As of 2021 that puts these people between the ages of 56 and 41. So what happened to this “overlooked” generation who went to college in hopes of finding a good office job with great benefits? The short answer… Technology — more specifically, the growth of the World Wide Web and Dotcom boom which paved the way for powerhouse tech and social media companies. As with many creators, it would require the next generation to understand and utilize the full potential of what Gen X helped develop. So, we were stuck in the middle between the old and new worlds.
Generation X was raised by Boomers, people born between 1946 and 1964. This was a generation that could work for one company for 30+ years and retire with a nice expensive gift. I know, because my father still has a really nice Howard Miller grandfather clock in the living room given to him by his company. He worked for a bank for over forty years.
Being raised by a Boomer meant you were told to do well in school, and if you were smart enough for college that was your ticket to the office gig with the good benefits. Today, the concept of “smart enough” and “college” is somewhat laughable when an entire generation has learned to leverage technology to be just as successful without the corporate bag.
I remember my first corporate internship where someone described to me how the offices worked — the closer you were to the corner office the more important you were. Window offices facing the interior of the building weren’t as valuable as window offices facing outside the building, so newly minted managers got the interior ones.
As a Gen Xer you were expected to wait your turn, listen to authority because they had already done it, save money in your 401K, have two kids, and buy a house in the burbs.
Like many Gen Xers I know, we tried to follow this map of the Boomer way, but when it was our time to become office directors, the rug somehow got completely pulled. The goal line was moved, and those claimed riches that were on the other side of the rainbow, now looked tarnished… if not disappeared.
That whole talk about the hierarchy of offices… well, Generation X was the group that got to hear that open floor plans in the office was the new way to collaborate and everyone’s opinion is equally valid. I’ve often joked that the biggest office I had was when I was an intern just stuck in an empty office for the summer. My workspaces got smaller and more open the higher I went.
Ironically, twenty years later and all that time I saw Gen Xers chasing offices when the real prize was working from home… and that was before the pandemic. Now these same Gen Xers are finding that working from home is just as hard and requires a whole new skill set.
Even salary hasn’t been the same bill of goods. I remember hearing regularly about 15% pay increases for promotions when I was in my late twenties. That slowly has drifted below 10% for many similar positions.
Technology made things more efficient and more profitable, but that benefit has not been always directly passed to workers in the form of higher salaries.
Generation X had to report to Boomer managers even while Millennials entered the workforce — the group we would have to manage. We were taught having a job was a privilege and showing good work ethic was of utmost importance. I can remember getting emails from my “Boomer” manager while she was in the hospital, which sounded crazy, and on the very same day having a Millennial on my team put in a request for more time off on her very first day back from vacation. This Millennial was living her best life and I’m sure the optics of her prioritizing new time off, after just being off, didn’t phase her in the slightest.
With each generation there is an expected gap in how the next generation interacts in society. The former generation complains about the newest kids on the block, and on it goes. But the technology revolution created a wider gulf than ever before. With technology has come greater freedoms and greater knowledge about living a fuller life at work and at play. Social media alone has exposed people to different philosophies, different careers, different places to live and ways to live than people could ever learn 50 years ago.
Millennials at the office consciously or subconsciously decided not to make climbing the corporate ladder central to their world. Technology showed there were so many other ways to be successful and build more income if that’s what one needed. Even finding a new corporate job has accelerated due to sites like LinkedIn and Indeed. It’s almost impossible to think how people learned about new job openings in the 70’s and early 80’s.
The process of consuming and learning new things was more manual and time consuming for Gen X. You could easily live to be a full adult and never know about certain careers. Ignorance was somewhat bliss. Generation X was like Neo before taking the red pill.
Millennials on the other hand are like the people born free in The Matrix. They have way more tools at their disposal because of their new found knowledge and efficiency through technology. They literally have a better map, and it’s in HD.
Gen X was told, “Life’s not fair, this is minimum wage, these are the jobs available, get over it.” Millennials are like, “F… that, we’re gonna make things even, we’re gonna mobilize a lot quicker to get better pay, and if it doesn’t work we have more options to earn a living.”
Boomers said a good pension and social security would help support you in retirement, now Gen X is told that there probably won’t be enough in the social security kitty… and good luck finding a company with a pension.
Millennials are not sitting around waiting to see what happens to retirement. They’re fearless and developing multiple streams of income… they are full on Bitcoin to the moon and may beat Boomers at their own game… technology has enabled all of this.
Gen X is in the middle wondering whether to listen to their dads and keep plugging away at “old school” investments or follow these “young kids” in fear of getting left behind. Imagine if Bitcoin does hit $100,000 USD per coin?
The Great Wealth Transfer
More recently we have seen too many articles in the news about this supposed great wealth transfer. But this is somewhat disingenuous when thinking about the average Gen Xer. Many will not be beneficiaries of this great wealth transfer and we don’t have years to build a career on YouTube.
What’s easy to forget is that Boomers are still in charge in many areas with no signs of retiring soon. Even if Generation X does get some windfall, some may be too old physically and mentally to really enjoy it — I know too many people in their 40’s with therapists.
The corporate career map seemed like the best way to guarantee a comfortable life with a secure job. The map was especially important for those without generational wealth. Who knows what the next twenty years will bring, but whatever it is, our maps have long faded.