Generation Gap

I've been pondering the difference between Gen X and Gen Y recently. There have been a lot of theories on what Gen Yers need at work, including acceptance of their need to have access to all their social networking tools, many of which cause major security concerns for the corporate network, and all of which are productivity drains.

Personally, I don't care how wired you were growing up -- you don't get to play on Myspace and Facebook all day at work, because we don't pay you to do that. In the end, good employees are good employees, and contrary to this BS conventional wisdom, many of our recent college grads are actually doing really well, working hard, and waste no more time online than your average worker. That's not to say we're always on the same page, though.

Yesterday I was driving to lunch with three coworkers. Two are Gen Xers like me; the other is one of our really successful recent college grads. She may have the work ethic down, but she perfectly and violently illustrated the generation gap when "Lovesong" by the Cure (c. 1989) came on the radio. And out of nowhere, the young Gen Yer blurted out: "Oldies!"