Gen X Retro Flashback: Rubiks Cube 1980

Your Gen X'er will be back with a new posting soon. In the meantime, enjoy these retro commercials for Rubiks Cube games from the 1980's. (I dare you not to laugh)

Love in a Plastic Bag

My last few posts have focused mainly on Generation X as a whole, on what's happening to us in the media, economically and sociologically.

This one gets a little personal, a little touchy-feely so if you are looking for another bitter diatribe against the press, et. al or society as a whole, I fear you will be disappointed.

I'm a Generation X'er certainly and I wear my day-glo badge with pride, I turn the radio up loud on 80's Friday nights, I'm a denzien of You Tube scouring the retro ads and TV shows of my youth. I remember exactly where I was when Challenger exploded on that frigid Florida morning in 1986, (Ms. Gilbreath's 6th grade math class)  when President Reagan admonished Mr. Gorbachev to "Tear down that wall!" and that miraculous night in 1990 when that wall ACTUALLY DID come down!  And in the last few months, I've also attained a new Gen X badge, my Gen X Unemployment badge. Yep, there, I've said it, I'm unemployed.

I am very aware that like so many of us, I'm just a statistic, another name on one of the thousands and thousands of resumes that whiz to and fro throughout cyberspace, resumes that carry our education, accomplishments, statistics and our hopes that maybe, just maybe, this will be THE ONE that defies the odds, lands us the job, and for the first time in a long time we can finally breathe. The ONE that will release us from the torment of haunting Craigslist, Careerbuilder, Monster, Hot Jobs, etc like Mr. Leroux's phantom prowling the dungeons under the Paris Opera House.

Every time the phone rings my heart leaps into my throat and like Pavlov's dog, my pupils dilate and my mouth waters with anticipation of what I'll say...what they'll say. Perhaps this time will be THE ONE, or at the very least I'll net an interview. Even an interview says that they kind of...want me.

After months of this process, interviews for positions that never materialize, the stress of analzying and scrutinizing every word I say, every word they say, worrying over things like "was there lint on my trousers ?", "did I sweat too much?" "is there any lipstick on my teeth?","did I answer that question properly?", am I too old, too young, underqualified, overqualified", I broke down. In a scary way. No, not suicidial or anything like that. I can't become an alcoholic, I can't afford to drink! Can't smoke, can't afford cigarettes (plus the smell of cigarette smoke makes me nauseous, there is that) In a way it became almost worse. The longest and most protracted period of depression I have ever known, in short depression has become a state of being for me. I never knew or could have imagined the hell that true depression really is.  The chronic insomnia (on the plus side I have greatly increased my knowledge of old movies, Time Life music offerings, and episodes of Married with Children), the weird almost flu-like body aches and pains, the total lack of appetite, lack of interest in anything.  Thinking back to how glibly I would toss off the phrase, "I am so depressed!" when faced with trivial things like a relationship not coming to fruition, a bad haircut or not finding a pair of shoes to match an outfit, makes me grimace in shame.

On this past weekend though, I had an opportunity to be the recipient of something so remarkable, a respite of sorts from the depressive state I live in, which came to me in the most unusual way. To celebrate the wedding anniversary of my mother and stepfather, members of our family took a day cruise. I have to admit, while wanting to be there for my parents, I equally DIDN'T want to be there. I wanted to be holed up in my cocoon, not facing the questioning stares of other family members, "does she have a job yet?", being irrationally angry at them for having jobs, having loving spouses, children, disposable income. I put on my happy face though and for a time I WAS actually happy enjoying the company of my family and their children.  My sadness though was never far from the surface no matter how hard I tried to ignore it. Something in me has been broken and I've been at a loss to discover how to 'fix the hole (whole)'.

The game changer came in the form of a green plastic bag. My mother throughout these weeks and months has been my lifeline, patiently listening to me as I poured out my fear, my worries, listening as I vented my spleen over the colossal unfairness of life, the abandonment I felt by the government, former employers, friends, and even God Himself. She listened and I selfishly thought, "She doesn't really get it... I mean she's got a job, she's not suffering like I am...". I cringe even I type these selfish thoughts.

Before I left the docks that day, my mother handed me a green plastic bag, the kind that newspapers come in, and as I waited for the car to cool down before driving home, I opened the sack. What I found there were weeks of newspaper articles covering every topic from depression to interviewing tips, books to encourage me, books that she'd picked up for me knowing the kinds of subjects I like to read about, a favorite movie on DVD. In short, love. Right there in a plastic newspaper sleeve. She WAS listening to me all the time. I cried, all the way home. In fact, I cried as I wrote this.

But, some tiny shoots appeared today in the barren sands of my heart. And today, for the first time in a long while, I remembered to eat breakfast...

The Preferred Risk- Generation Y

One of the other galvanizing forces that compelled me to begin writing and sharing my thoughts as a member of a disenfranchised generation was an article that appeared on the MSN Money section a few
days ago http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43976881/ns/business-eye_on_the_economy/.

In this piece the writer, a Ms. Anika Anand giddily argues that Generation Y is the best chance the USA has to 'fix' this depressed economy. Yes, I take a liberty in stating depressed but I have always heard that an economy is in recession when your neighbor is unemployed and that depression is when you yourself are unemployed.  Getting back to this piece, which it should be mentioned, is a money article that most definitely falls under the heading of an op ed piece; for me it was another of those moments when my blood pressure soared and my hackles rose for once again it was seemingly another opportunity for the press to take an underhanded swipe at X'ers. On the surface this article is a masterpiece of rose-tinted optimism that any good ol' red-blooded patriotic American loves to read, the artistically tatooed hipster riding in on his eco-friendly Prius (steed) to save Mom, Apple Pie and Chevrolet (Volt of course). But if you delve deeper into the theory, far more sinister for me was the feeling that once again all the efforts of the previous generation, my generation, were forgotten and worse than that, that they failed to learn from us.

Wasn't our generation with its dot-com startups and killer apps the original modern day entrepeneurs? Where would Gen Y be if not for the efforts of X'ers like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs? There would be no Mark Zuckerberg -Winklevoss Feud to litigate if they hadn't had the shoulders of Sergey Brin and Larry Page to stand on. Who needs Jack Dorsey, et al (Twitter) if Jerry Yang and David Filo hadn't paved the road with Yahoo back at the inception of Internet 2.0?

To read Ms. Anand's piece is to flirt with the idea that since no one else, we're looking at you Generation X, because the Boomers have all retired to Florida to spend their social security and pensions drinking Ensure poolside, is willing to take up the task. (Sigh), "We'll have to shoulder that burden and save the world". I can't help thinking it calls to mind the world-weariness of Bruce Willis'
admonishing of the crew in Armageddon, "The United States Government just asked us to save the world. Anybody want to say no?"

She further goes on to cite a Kool-Aid drinking journalist tipsy on the promise of the messiah generation coming into it's own,

"This is a generation of serial entrepreneurs," said Donna Fenn, a journalist who wrote "Upstarts!," one of the first books identifying the Gen Y entrepreneur trend. "A lot of them start businesses in their 20s and many of them don't think that their first business will be their last. They're addicted to creating things, to the startup phase. By the time they reach their 40s, they will have started three, four or five companies."
She said the so-called Millennial generation is inclined toward entrepreneurship partly because they saw their parents lose corporate jobs in the downsizing movement of the era. They also witnessed a wave of ugly corporate scandals followed by the meltdown of the financial industry. The result is that they tend to have a lot less faith in large institutions like companies or government, she said.

And yet in a stunning but not wholly unexpected piece of journalistic hypocrisy, we are told that these same millenials who 'tend to have a lot less faith in large institutions like companies or government' are apparently looking to the who else but the federal government and corporation venture capitalists to fund these civilization-saving initiatives.

Aaron Smith, co-founder of another young advocacy organization Young Invincibles, is also working with Gerber on the Youth Entrepreneurship Act. He acknowledges that now is a tough time to get anything passed in Congress, but contends that a bill helping young entrepreneurs would give the government a good return on investment.

"Increasingly, Congress is looking at ways to create jobs at a relatively low cost," the 29-year-old said. "One of the interesting things about young people is that their barrier to starting a business is small, in terms of the monetary amount. We're talking only a few thousand dollars."
Matthew Segal, founder of a nonprofit that promotes entrepreneurs under 30, has a slightly different focus. He thinks getting consumers to support young business startups should complement any potential legislation.

Have none of these people taken a good hard look at the government, the Federal Reserve, the goings on the US Treasury? Have not the 1st Stimulus, the 2nd Stimulus, TARP, bailouts of supposedly too-large-to fail AIG, GM, Chrysler, Cash for Clunkers, all been cloaked in failure?  What about our recent politically charged debt ceiling debacle, our S & P credit downgrade?  Uncle Sam has his pocket linings hanging out, we're writing IOU's for debt we'll probably never be repay at the rate we are spending and China is knocking on our door with their hands out.

For that matter, does no one remember the dot-com bubble burst in 2001-2002? As a matter fact, yes. And I'll tell you who...the Gen X dot.com startups who were millionaires one day and wiped out the next. The people who woke up at Enron in the fall of 2001 to find the 'smartest guys in the room' had just gambled away their jobs, insurance, retirement and their hope. We learned our lessons well that day, trust no one...and most especially the government.

So before you go out there Gen Y, shaking your heads at us, bent on doing what we slackers, abdicators of our country's financial future seemingly are NOT doing, you might do well to learn from us. We have our reasons for being quiet and electing to not rush in to save what might not be sound in the first place.

Gen X Retro Flashback: The Great Space Coaster

A Moment of Epiphany

You've probably heard all the expressions by now...all the convenient definitions, 'Generation X', the 'Slacker Generation', 'Mall Rats', all of the ways in which sociologists, population experts, politicians, statisticians, etc try to pigeonhole and define what our generation is.

Until very recently, it never occurred to me to mind. Then, approximately 2 weeks ago I found myself sitting in a nicely appointed office in a surburban office park in Central Florida being interviewed for a position, in fact the very same type of position I had actually performed in a different capacity for another employer just a few years ago. All was going well with the first interview until the owner asked that I might 'spend a little time' with the employee whom I was interviewing to replace. (a bit of back story, employee was leaving voluntarily to move out of state) "Of course ," I said, "it would be a great opportunity to get a feel for the day to day operations of the position." She (the owner) went on giddily about how sorry they were to be losing this employee, (let's call her Leslie) they were so incredibly fond of her and she'd worked for them for 5 whole...months (have to say that I was inwardly stunned thinking surely she meant 5 years). Before I even met her, I have to admit thinking "I am going to interview with a person who is barely past the 90 day probation period!"

Leslie comes in dressed in hipster chic with modishly cropped coppery hair, highlighted with bright red and pink streaks and a huge celtic cross tatooed on her wrist, and like every other self-respecting Gen Y Millenial, her head bent down over her I-Phone-Droid-Blackberry device until she is inches from me whereupon she gives one final swipe to her gadget and sits down in the chair next to me. Her eyes appraise me in my conservative black trousers and blouse with discreet jewelry, my bobbed blonde hair, my filofax planner and finally my stocking clad feet in dark pumps. The contrast between us from that first moment could not be more pronounced.

 Her first question is the standard, "So tell me a little about yourself" and as I begin telling her about beginning in insurance in 1993, about the problems after Hurricane Andrew in 1992 and the residuals markets, the life insurance bailouts in the mid 90's, all the way up to 1999 when my employer at the time, a small health plan was seized by the Dept of Insurance and I went to work briefly for the state sorting out months of back claims, her eyes glaze over and I realise we have no common ground because while I was out working in the 'real world' ACTUALLY working in insurance, she was probably in middle school. We have nothing to talk about, no commonality of experience, in short we have a 'generation gap' that cannot be bridged. She knows nothing about rushing to get quotes from a fax machine that is beeping from lack of paper, or doing data entry on computers that have a green type on a black screen, the wonder of getting to work in office that had just upgraded to Windows 95, or having your company announce to you in a printed memo (not an email, mind you) that it has just taken steps to establish a non-smokers break room, and from now on Fridays will have a new title called "Casual Friday" where you can wear casual shirts and jeans if you like and on that day you are not required to wear stockings and heels!

My suspicions are confirmed when she asks me, "Just how old are you anyway?" Now, I know what you are thinking, she can't ask that, by law, she can't. But what would you do? If you do answer, you might be passed over (which I was, by the way) due to not being young enough and if you refuse, they are going to wonder what you have to hide. When I tell her she giggles and says, "Oh wow, I am 24!"

This was my moment of epiphany. For the first time in my life, I realised that I was no longer the younger generation. I mean, yes, there was evidence of this happening, the establishment of local radio station that specializes in 'oldies' from the 70's and 80's, reading an article the other day where Debbie Gibson was listed as age 40 and on a 'nostalgia tour' with Tiffany. (by the way if you are reading this and those names are unfamiliar, you probably have no business reading this in the first place)

But for the first time I could tell that for this office, my time had come and gone, that somehow I, and the information, the education, the experience I possessed were somehow no longer relevant.   That is why I have started this blog. I want a voice for this overlooked, undervalued, and marginalised generation. A voice that refuses to be silenced....