Generational Diversity or Why Do the Twenty-Somethings Look So Young?
I have a fabulous new job that I love. So fabulous that I feel as though I have been reborn. Or at least my career has been reborn. I get to do all the things I love and they pay me well. This was the life I had up until 2001, when I suppose things changed for the worse for many of us.
Earlier this week I had the chance to visit the home office and "roost" for a few days. The purpose was to meet my co-workers in person and to get a better handle on a new process. Suddenly not only do I have a great job but I work for a great company and there are 15 different kinds of freshly ground coffee in the breakroom. I don't even drink coffee and I'm impressed. What's even better is the huge wall-sized cooler filled with chilled Diet Coke.
I saw old-timers I'd worked with at other companies years before. They told me about their grown children and they politely held in check their Schadenfreude upon learning of my relative newborns--ages 8 and 11. Sometimes I swear you could cut with a knife the smugness that oozes from the pores of Empty Nesters. Yes, I am envious--but I still want to smack them. My only consolation is that they usually look much older than I, even though we may be the same age. Hmm..maybe that annoying adage about children "keeping you young" has some merit. I know that the one about chasing toddlers providing enough exercise to keep weight off is total BS.
So there were Empty Nesters, but there were even more Twenty-Somethings and a few scattered Thirty-Somethings. But mostly Twenty-Somethings--many under 25. I have to say that I really enjoyed being around them. It was like being in a forest with a flock of colorful birds that you had once seen on a regular basis but somehow they'd migrated elsewhere. And you hadn't really noticed.
There were anorexic young women from the marketing department dressed in the standard uniform: black slacks, black Star Trek boots, black jackets with a brightly colored button front shirt for plumage. In "my day" marketeers both male and female always wore a certain shade of deep blue plumage. Now the plumage appears to be mostly a variation of deep rose. I guess pastels just don't cut it in Marketing Land. Perhaps lighter colors are considered indecisive? These people tend to be in their mid or late thirties and they are very serious in demeanor.
Millenials round out the flock of exotics and they're much more varied. These are younger birds and they look fresh out of the nest to me. In fact, they don't look much older than my kids. These are the cool ones. They all sport iPod buds and they are always within reaching distance of fresh bottled water. Their dress is beyond casual. Bed Head is a popular hair style with the males. The females sport forgettable hair. The clothing for both genders is completely forgettable--call it "Post Collegiate".
Then there is us--the tail end Baby Boomers--women mostly in our forties. Our plumage is the brightest. We're all trying to make up for our fading beauty. Our wan complexions. Our skin tags, our sun spots, our wrinkles. We wear low cut blouses in the current style. Florals are a must. They serve as a distraction--at least a distraction for us. "How old are these people?" one colleague asked in dismay one morning. "They all look twelve", she added. What I did not say was "imagine how ancient we look to them". Not a pleasant thought.
There is a telescoping effect as we age and most of the time I seem behind the curve. People say things like "in a blink of an eye, your kids will be grown up" or "it seems like only yesterday she was a baby". I never feel this way. Maybe I'm too close to the action. When I look at my kids, I don't think "it was only yesterday". For now, I can remember the discrete time periods. The days when we did not wonder when our daughter would finally walk but everyone else did. It does not seem like yesterday. It was 10 years ago--a decade.
This week, when I looked at the various age groups I did experience my own version of the "telescope effect". The twenty-somethings look the same age as my daughter and I can see her wearing the uniform ten years or so from now. That's a little bit scary, I admit.
Earlier this week I had the chance to visit the home office and "roost" for a few days. The purpose was to meet my co-workers in person and to get a better handle on a new process. Suddenly not only do I have a great job but I work for a great company and there are 15 different kinds of freshly ground coffee in the breakroom. I don't even drink coffee and I'm impressed. What's even better is the huge wall-sized cooler filled with chilled Diet Coke.
I saw old-timers I'd worked with at other companies years before. They told me about their grown children and they politely held in check their Schadenfreude upon learning of my relative newborns--ages 8 and 11. Sometimes I swear you could cut with a knife the smugness that oozes from the pores of Empty Nesters. Yes, I am envious--but I still want to smack them. My only consolation is that they usually look much older than I, even though we may be the same age. Hmm..maybe that annoying adage about children "keeping you young" has some merit. I know that the one about chasing toddlers providing enough exercise to keep weight off is total BS.
So there were Empty Nesters, but there were even more Twenty-Somethings and a few scattered Thirty-Somethings. But mostly Twenty-Somethings--many under 25. I have to say that I really enjoyed being around them. It was like being in a forest with a flock of colorful birds that you had once seen on a regular basis but somehow they'd migrated elsewhere. And you hadn't really noticed.
There were anorexic young women from the marketing department dressed in the standard uniform: black slacks, black Star Trek boots, black jackets with a brightly colored button front shirt for plumage. In "my day" marketeers both male and female always wore a certain shade of deep blue plumage. Now the plumage appears to be mostly a variation of deep rose. I guess pastels just don't cut it in Marketing Land. Perhaps lighter colors are considered indecisive? These people tend to be in their mid or late thirties and they are very serious in demeanor.
Millenials round out the flock of exotics and they're much more varied. These are younger birds and they look fresh out of the nest to me. In fact, they don't look much older than my kids. These are the cool ones. They all sport iPod buds and they are always within reaching distance of fresh bottled water. Their dress is beyond casual. Bed Head is a popular hair style with the males. The females sport forgettable hair. The clothing for both genders is completely forgettable--call it "Post Collegiate".
Then there is us--the tail end Baby Boomers--women mostly in our forties. Our plumage is the brightest. We're all trying to make up for our fading beauty. Our wan complexions. Our skin tags, our sun spots, our wrinkles. We wear low cut blouses in the current style. Florals are a must. They serve as a distraction--at least a distraction for us. "How old are these people?" one colleague asked in dismay one morning. "They all look twelve", she added. What I did not say was "imagine how ancient we look to them". Not a pleasant thought.
There is a telescoping effect as we age and most of the time I seem behind the curve. People say things like "in a blink of an eye, your kids will be grown up" or "it seems like only yesterday she was a baby". I never feel this way. Maybe I'm too close to the action. When I look at my kids, I don't think "it was only yesterday". For now, I can remember the discrete time periods. The days when we did not wonder when our daughter would finally walk but everyone else did. It does not seem like yesterday. It was 10 years ago--a decade.
This week, when I looked at the various age groups I did experience my own version of the "telescope effect". The twenty-somethings look the same age as my daughter and I can see her wearing the uniform ten years or so from now. That's a little bit scary, I admit.
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