Arguing on the Internet for Fun and Profit

Actually, nothing is less profitable than arguing with someone on the internet. It's a game where even if you win, you lose. And I forgot this cardinal rule when I posted a comment on another blog that ran contrary to the writer's thoughts.

The writer had gleefully announced that the current crop of Gen Y'ers entering the job market would bring a cultural revolution to the workplace. Gen Y'ers, unlike us Boomers and Gen X'ers, have high morals, are idealistic and more dedicated to family than work, thus have better lifestyles than the hopelessly overworked Boomers. When Gen Y'ers rule the workplace, she writes, there will be no crime in the streets, no homeless people and peace of earth.

Blather, I say. First, every generation enters the workplace with hopes, dreams and aspirations of making a positive change in society. Some of us are fortunate enough to have done so. The writer's supposition is that previous generations have started evil, and that simply isn't so.

Every generation also started out thinking they knew more than their predecessors. After all, we had shiny college degrees, and all they had was experience. What we rapidly learned, however, was that experience counted for something. I fear that the current generation, what I call the "ME Generation", is incapable of learning that fact. Their mommies and daddies have raised their precious little snowflakes in a cocoon safe from the normal challenges of life - the challenges that mold and make us into adults. Schools teach to the lowest common denominator, and no one ever fails - and that extends right through college. How else does Yale explain having 95% of its students pass with honors? To fail is seen as scarring the poor child for life. So everyone passes, everyone makes the team, and thus the ME Generation has come to expect rewards and success as their right.

Boomers and to an extent Gen X'ers know what it is to risk and to sometimes fail. Havelock Ellis wrote: "It is on our failures that we base a new and different and better success." Trying and failing is what gives us experience, and enables us to move forward. It teaches us what not to do, and what to do different in order to succeed. And the bottom line is, if you don't have practical experience, if you don't know failure and success, you can't lead the troops into battle.

And business is battle. The Gen ME'ers seem to think it's a social service agency, where there are great benefits and a paycheck every two weeks. I fear that we are coming to a time when business is going to be cutting back, and there will be massive layoffs and some plant closings. I wonder if the current leaders learned anything from the last time we went through this.

When I was in the oil patch, crude was running about $17 a barrel. And corporate blood was running in the streets. We literally went to work in the morning not knowing if we would have our jobs at lunch time. Companies whose role was to explore and drill for crude were laying off geologists and engineers. At one company I dealt with, they laid off my contact - a man with 30 years of experience along with the requisite degrees. He was replaced by two shiny new MBA grads. The 2 MBAs probably made about as much together as my contact. But when I called the new kids for information, it would take them a week or two to come up with the answer that the old guy knew off the top of his head. And by that time, the business opportunity had passed. Eventually, the company brought my contact back as a consultant, but keep the shiny new MBAs around as window dressing. Good work, HR department.

My point is this: Experience counts. Some people have the same experience over and over, so they aren't learning or accomplishing anything new. But successful people have a continuum of experiences that give them credibility in the workplace. You can't gain that credibility fresh off the bench. You have to work for it.

So good luck to the ME Generation. I guess they'll learn like all of us did. But it's going to be a tougher ride for them. Having gone through life protected from bumps and bruises, they are going to have to earn some scars before they have the right to lead.