THE seismic shift in demography has rendered me—a baby boomer (born between 1944 and 1964), a minority in the sea of millennials (born between 1981 and 1996) and beyond. It’s a bitter pill to swallow, but with our dwindling numbers, defeat is only a matter of time.
I am now officially a member of an endangered species.
I belong to a generation who believes all good things come to those who wait. But as I write this, I feel great pangs of insecurity. Am I being silly? To a millennial, I must sound ridiculously archaic. I can’t blame them. As digital natives, buffering might be their only bar for waiting.
But by waiting, baby boomers don’t actually mean doing nothing. What we mean is that we are willing to work hard and wait for what we believe will come to us in due time—a pay raise, a promotion, success, recognition.
We look for longevity and legacy in our careers. This is why we don’t make demands. Instead, we wait. And we don’t leave when we don’t get what we want. We wait. Still. And work very hard every day at every task because we see each task as an opportunity for growth, if not advancement.
Millennials look for good pay, great benefits, flexible hours, strong connections with workmates and organizational goals. They don’t see any sense in waiting. If they don’t like what they do, they hop on to the next best offer. They do not see this as an act of disrespect or disloyalty.
On the contrary, job hopping is seen by millennials as an act of drive and dynamism, of adaptability and ambition. Millennials will not hesitate to leave when they no longer feel meaningfully engaged. They will not hesitate to get rid of jobs that no longer spark joy.
Baby boomers and millennials both believe in working hard. But they work differently.
Millennials work when they want to. They work the way they want to. They don’t believe in working harder but working smarter. So they will find ways to work less and to work only when they absolutely need to. Why? Because unlike baby boomers, they want a life outside of work and they will get it.
Baby boomers, on the other hand, are workhorses, corporate slaves, sacrificial lambs. We are used to long hours, backbreaking work and personal sacrifice. We also want a life outside of work but we accept that in life, we don’t always get what we want.
This self-sacrificing attitude, however, is alien to a millennial. They will not wait for something which may never come. In a heartbeat, they will leave without guilt and without looking back. To a millennial, this is an act of self-care. To a baby boomer, this is betrayal.
But we’ve been outnumbered. Defeat is only a matter of time. But we can’t go down without a word. We have to speak now before we are forever silenced. Endangered becomes extinct. It’s only a matter of time.