“Millennials get a lot of grief because of their supposedly unrealistic expectation that work should fit around their life, rather than the reverse. But they really deserve our collective thanks for opening the door to a new discussion and understanding about the meaning of work.”

 

“Youngsters today… They don’t know how to work. Quitting if they can’t work from home, or they don’t like their co-workers. Expecting big money and a promotion just for doing their job. Back in my day, we worked 10 hours a day without lunch. Took every bit of overtime we could get. Yes, we knew how to work.”

I’ve been hearing a lot of these conversations recently. Perhaps that’s because of my and my peers’ firmly advancing Gen X status—mature adults griping about how easy kids have it today is surely part of the cycle of life. Go back in time and you’d probably find Ice Age parents grunting about their upstart youngsters with their cozy fire.

But today’s age-related tensions seem to be more than the normal intergenerational squabbling; as if they are, in fact, the modern equivalent of the Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus metaphorical argument. We just don’t seem to understand each other, and that’s completely understandable.

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