The future is now. Should we worry?

I got up this morning and felt a new sensation. I felt old. I didn’t go to bed feeling old, but I woke up that way. Luckily, I know why.

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Last night, I was searching through my TiVo recordings menu to find watched items to delete. I ran across an old episode of “60 Minutes” with a segment that actually frightened me and made me concerned for our future as a nation. (Ahem, having “60 Minutes” set to auto-record doesn’t immediately qualify me as “old.”)

The segment, titled “The ‘Millennials’ Are Coming,” focused on a seemingly alienlike race of humans who will be entering the professional-level work force in droves. These so-called “millennials” are the generation that’s two steps after mine (generation X). Chances are if you’re reading this you’re either a baby boomer or a member of gen X or gen Y. You may have seen one of these mysterious millennials on the street or in your own house masquerading as your child.

What to expect -- not

If you believe the “60 Minutes” segment, businesses as we know them will come grinding to a halt in a few years when the millennials hit the professional workplace in full force. These millennials are characterized as self-absorbed, “narcissistic praise hounds” who think they are entitled to pretty much everything -- including your job -- just for showing up. They have been coddled by over-protective, cooing parents to the point that it’s their way or the highway. And they are not afraid to walk out and go work someplace else where they will be loved for being themselves.

The millennials have never punched a time clock or held summer jobs. Their lives revolve around themselves, their lifestyles and their friends. Work is not even part of their equation for happiness.

The segment both began and ended with the big money to be made to catering to this coddled generation in training both bosses and millennials on how to interact with one other.

My baby boomer significant other, who is also a father, summed up the situation nicely: “We wanted to give our children something better than what we had. We gave them too much.”

Back to the future

The report on millennials had a bit of déjà vu. I was just out of college when Douglas Coupland’s groundbreaking book “Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture” was published. I read it cover to cover and really didn’t see a lot of myself in the pages (although I latched onto the term McJob). When I went for my first “real” job interview, I was nervous about being characterized as a “slacker” just for my age by the boomer who was conducting the job search. (I landed the job.)

Is the same thing happening now? Are the millennials being trashed the way that generation X was slandered even before we entered the work force? Time will tell.

But in the meanwhile, you might want to take a look at where your business is headed and who you’ll need to hire to succeed in the future. A lot of growers have it easier, since many of you operate family-run businesses. You already know who some of your future employees will be. But you don’t know them all, so planning now makes sense.

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- Jyme Mariani

August 2008