From Genies to monsters

I remember that we were told not to run out into the road because it’s dangerous and we could get killed. The emphasis was on taking personal care in a quite hazardous world. I’m early Gen X. I don’t want this to be another “in my day” diatribe but I do want to reflect on the psychological effect of people who are allowed to think they are the centre of the universe.

I’m not just theorising here; I have significant practical personal experience. I have provided financial counselling for long enough and for enough people to see a distinct pattern. There are an awful lot of Millennials (Gen Y) and an increasing number of Gen Z who are astounded that the impressive array of debts they have are not being magically vanished without them having to do anything different to their lifestyles.

You see if people are imbued as early as possible that the world is dangerous, uncertain, and that at some point (which is getting ridiculously later), they will have to survive and then thrive by their guile and prodigious application, you get a certain kind of person. If people have the idea that they are all individual Wunderkind, everything they do is amazing and whatever they feel they want, the world should be altered to provide it, you get a different kind of person.

I am not suggesting that Millennials and Gen Z are not highly intelligent and resourceful as a cohort. They have learning aids which we gen X could only imagine (actually, we did, and we built them…). What I am suggesting is this fearless self-centredness, the post-Gen X un-bottleable genie, is turning out to be, on the whole, a collective monster which from what I’m seeing, is now turning on its parents and grandparents as the only possible source of any and all distress…

… because it can’t possibly be their fault, now can it!

I am not suggesting that Gen X or baby boomers are Godlike paragons of virtue and industry and productivity… at least not without getting a lot wrong in the process. The growth of a Capitalism that is now virtually indistinguishable from Feudalism or Medieval Baronial exploitation has been accepted by a generation that got its break from post-world-war Egalitarianism and Socialist tendencies, ideas, and policy.

The problem now is that ‘everyone’ that is born into modern society is filled with the idea that they are middle-class and that they have individual rights. They don’t have responsibilities in terms of society, just rights. These rights extend (you may have to trust me here), to such things as holidays, nice cars, takeaways, good housing (I think this is a good thing if it means good quality btw), nice clothes, having children, having pets, ‘coffees’, even having hair and nails ‘done’. They are in my experience ‘maxed out’ on credit, in every conceivable way, and they don’t own any assets of any value. Even when they have bought a house, it must be right on the edge of what they can afford at a time when interest rates have been artificially low for a long time. Guess what’s going to happen next?

In my experience with giving financial counselling, I am as aghast that people think I am going to tell them how to click their fingers and make the nasty bad debts go away as they are when I suggest they may need to stop living as if I or someone else, could.

Companies, like car drivers, and schools, now must adapt to the expectations of this cohort. The magic parent and grandparent like company is going to magically pay for all this, from the magic pot of money. Companies must adapt to them doing whatever they want, or they will all resign… and then join other companies that are WAY better than the beastly toxic ones they used to be with. That’s where we are now btw.

I am strongly in favour of developing work as far as possible so that the people involved have the best experience they can and produce the best work and outcomes possible. I do think that management herding people into corrals so they can be watched and checked and picked over for their bright ideas that the managers claim for themselves, is abhorrent. Clocking in and clocking out is industrial. It’s factory work. It is the only way sometimes, but for offices it’s ridiculous. However, we have a problem, don’t we? Do we? Are people to be trusted to organise themselves into productive and valuable entities? I think so because it’s easy to keep up to date with output. However, if this is a cohort of people that thinks the universe revolves around them…

If had had the privilege to work from home, in a café, on the beach even; if I could choose not to commute and have all those costs and hassle and stress taken away and be treated like an adult, I can assure you I would not be asking for the stick upon which to place the moon. I would equip myself with whatever I needed, somehow, to take advantage of this. I would not have the barefaced gall to insist, with a straight face, that my employer provide everything I need to do this. Don’t believe me? I did, 22 years ago.

I don’t have a solution; I’m only reflecting and contributing to general sensemaking. I know I’m generalising and there will be many illustrious exceptions. I am keen to see how the crop of highly funded Millennial start-ups fare over the next decade, I’m sure some will be great. Most will fail, and there will be a wave of how awful the world is for these entrepreneurs and how much support they need.

Boomers who are spending their wealth on themselves… probably a good plan…