Lowering the Boom-er Age

Posted by: Liz Ryan on August 13

For ages I’ve had a problem with inclusion in the Baby Boomer generational grouping. I just wasn’t feeling Howdy Doody or hippies. My older brother went to Woodstock. I stayed at home and watched the moon landing. I care way more about Blondie and Brian Eno than about the Who, not that I’m obsessed with any of them. Now I see that Wikipedia has conveniently slotted us into generational groups according to our birth years. Now I see that Wikipedia has conveniently slotted us into generational groups according to our birth years. The chart in this entry helps a lot.

Officially, I'm 366 days removed from the Gen X crowd, but given the long hold on the generational date-stamp that the Boomers had, it makes sense to me that I'd fall forward rather than back. I never understood the 1946-64 Baby Boomer designation that was tossed about for years; my baby brother was born in '64 and seemed to have no touchpoints whatsoever in common with my oldest siblings, born in the early fifties. He's Gen X all the way in my book, and now Wikipedia bears me out.

It makes no difference in any concrete sense of course, but I'm relieved to see that I can un-boom myself with the help of the world's most trusted communal authority (at least until Google's Knol tool pulls into view: this is Google's entry in the communal-knowledge-source arena, except with real-name attribution). The Boomer/X disconnect first showed up for me at work when my boss, Marty, said "I used to love music! Iron Butterfly, man, the Jefferson Airplane!" My gosh, I thought, at age 22 or 23; haven't you listened to any music more recently than that? My second break from the Boomer crowd happened when a more-senior-than-me manager said one day "The great thing about the Baby Boomer generation is that we have made the business world more humane and more authentic."

"Oops, excuse me while I hurl" was the thought that zipped through my brain then, as a 28- or 29-year-old cynic. I wasn't feeling a more humane workplace, not as a corporate HR person through the eighties and nineties. Now, with Gen Y in view, we may have a chance for that more humane workplace, especially if the Boomers start retiring at a rapid clip - although we've got the economy working against us in that department. Still, I hold out hope that I'll keep working long enough to see my this-workplace-is-broken rants give way to a celebration of a more sensible and human-centered ecosystem in corporate America. Don't scoff - it could happen! At least, I'm holding out hope. What's your take?