Every generation seems to complain about successive generations.
According to “Boomers,” Millennials do (don’t do) something. Generation X doesn’t do (does) this thing. And look at the mess we made of Generation Z – they don’t get anything right.
What did the greatest generation have to say about the “Boomers” when we were rebelling when coming of age? It wasn’t complimentary. They didn’t like the hairstyles. They didn’t like the attitudes toward love and marriage, and they certainly didn’t care for how their children, their very own spoiled “Boomers,” were raising their children.
This litany of complaints goes back to the beginning of time. I think right after we entered a time of plenty, the second complaint was how the successive generation was going straight to hell because they didn’t work hard enough, fast enough, or that they just wanted to stay back at the cave and read scrolls all the time.
It was true then, and I can imagine that it’s going to be true going forward to infinity. It’s one of those things that just are, and it’s completely unjust.
The past few weeks I’ve been spending time running a crew that cuts grass, and my very own malapropism is “it’s not rocket surgery.”
There is not much to think about. Pick up the trash. Start the mower. Push. String trimmer work. Beware of the poison ivy. Load the gear back onto the trailer. Remember to hydrate. Off to the next address.
As my friend Tripp likes to say, “Lawn Zamboni.” Straight lines, smoothing out the blades of grass, and making it look good and smooth. It’s your basic summer job.
None of the young men on the crew is yet 21 years old, and I’ve been watching how they organize and interact, and how, like all of us, they look for ways to make their job easier. Don’t kid yourself, you did it, too. Wasted a little time here, cut some corners there, all the while hoping the boss didn’t call you on it.
When I hear one of them utter something I would have said slightly more than 45 years ago, I get a bit of a cracked smile, and I understand. Sometimes I need to remind them that, believe it or not, I was 19 years old once upon a time.
Sure, back then the tech was different, but people were the same. The attitudes and the needs of all of us remain constant. Why always asked, “How do I exchange the fewest hours for the highest reward for the good of my family,” and we figured it out.
Doing basic labor isn’t a whole lot different these days. Shovels are still shovels. Three tons of gravel that you need to spread weigh exactly the same, and it was hard work then, and it’s hard work today.
Working through a bit of discomfort is something that you learn to do. Yes, it’s hot, and yes, you’re sweating profusely. If you’re healthy, it’s not going to hurt you. Someone needs to do it, and you’re someone.
What they are doing isn’t fun. It’s work. For which I am willing to swap them, they are exchanging their hours for my dollars. I pay them more than market (and that’s significantly more than the “training wage”)
They work as hard as I did in the 1970s. They daydream like I did when doing tasks that were largely mindless. When faced with a task, they look to find a solution, and often it’s a different approach from what this “Boomer” would come up with, but if it works, then it works. It’s about the result.
Four young men, from wildly different backgrounds, all with different viewpoints and slightly different spins on their view of an increasingly complex world; definitely different than this “Boomer,” but we agree – the grass needs to get cut.
They are getting an experience, and I’m being reminded that, as much as things change, they remain the same. I’m supremely confident that Generation Z, the Millennials, and Generation X will do just fine when they are old enough to select their parents’ nursing homes.
I think we need to stop running them down and celebrate a generation that is going to do it differently than we did.
Different is not always better but better is always different. They got this – and we need to cheer them on. I’m a “Boomer”, and can you imagine how boring things would be if they were exactly like us?
Me neither.
