Why Do Baby Boomers Beat on Our Generation?

     I'm not really going to examine why. Here's just another example of the insanity.

     In an article in the AJC today, polls suggest that 50% of workers are unhappy with their jobs. The most satisfied were those making over $50,000 (duh) and those aged 65 and older (duh - at 65, a large number of people who hated their jobs have retired. The ones who love them stick with it). The article quotes a woman who attributes a large part of the trend towards dissatisfaction to the fact that Baby Boomers are leaving these jobs and Gen X'ers are taking them. She says that "they will be increasingly replaced by younger workers, who tend to be as dissatisfied with their jobs, but have different attitudes and expectations about the role of work in their lives".

     This might be true. But the polls found that the biggest areas of discontent were related to company bonus plans, promotion policies, health and pension benefits, and pay. Well, is it a coincidence that the baby boomers have been eliminating and downsizing these programs for years? Hell, if I paid the same for health care that the boomers paid ($0 in my company) 10 years ago, I'd be a lot happier. My company still offers a pension, but I don't know a single one of my friends who can say the same. Why shouldn't we be dissatisfied? The boomers screw us so they can make more money with their stock options (and harm the long-term interests of companies) and then complain that we don't have the work ethic they did? We get dumped on by them and we take it, but when they ask and find out we're dissatisfied, it's our fault??

     This reminds me of 10 years ago when we were accused of having no loyalty to companies anymore because we job-hopped. Of course that had nothing to do with the fact that boomers were initiating massive layoffs and coined the word "downsizing" at that time.