Generation Gap

Most of the companies today have employed staffs and personnel from different age brackets. This situation somehow triggered the generational gap in the workplace. In an organization, the boss will ask the researchers to make a proposal about a considered strategy. One made a research through the internet, and the other preferred the help of books and manuscripts in the library.

The two researchers, one 25, and the other 55, display one of many variations of the different generations on how they are going to get things done at work. Both get the job done, only in a different approach. Generation gap can hurt a company’s effectiveness because of the disparity in attitude, character and reactions to stimuli. The younger and older ones might find it difficult to reconcile in the workplace if the management will not give it proper attention.

There is no other choice, but to strengthen the work relationship between and among the different generations in order to achieve the company’s maximum efficiency. The workforce of today has three generations working side by side: the baby boomers are those who were born between 1940 – 1960, on or after the World War II; people born between 1960 – 1980 are the Generation X, and the Generation Y or the Millenials, from the late part of the 80’s up to the present.

The focus of this essay will be between the Baby Boomers and the Generation Xers since they basically compromise the workplace. These generations have somehow extreme differences maybe because of their distant age and difference in life orientation. Baby Boomers who were born between 1943 and 1960 are the postwar babies (Zemke, Raines, and Filipczak, 1999). Baby Boomers invented the phrase “Thank God, it is Monday”, and the 60-hour work week.

Boomers are eagerly concerned about participation in the workplace, about bringing heart and humanity to the office, and about creating a fair and level playing field for all (Zemke, et al. , 1999). With this, we can say that baby Boomers are driven, interactive, and often have good personal skills. They are sometimes reluctant to go against peers, overly sensitive to feedback, selfish and judgmental of those who don’t see things as they see them. (Zemke, et al. , 2000).

Leo Tolstoy said: “All families are happy in the similar way and unhappy in its own way”. And happiness or unhappiness of any family mostly depends on relations in it. So many families so many family relations. Each family establishes its own relations in its own way. It has its own traditions and customs and its own unwritten constitution including rights and duties of every member of the family. They are also different in different families. So the problem of misunderstanding becomes urgent. Some people can it generation gap.

And both sides (parents and children) should be patient and tactful and it’s the only way to settle down all the problems and stay friends. Youth is a very important period in the life of man. This is the time when a person discovers the world and tries to determine the place in the universe. Young people face lots of problems which are very important for them and do not differ much from those that once their parents had to deal with. At the same time every generation is unique. It differs from the one that preceded it in its experience, ideals and a system of values.

The adults always say that the young are not what they were. These words are repeated from generation to generation. To some extent they are true, because every new generation grows up quicker, enjoys more freedom. It is better educated and benefits from the results of the technological progress of the time. Young people of today do not directly accept the standards of their parents who believe that they are right because they are older. The adults don’t want their values to be questioned. The young on the other hand can not accept the values of their “fathers”.

All these differences generate a generation gap when the young and adult do not understand one another. As a rule the adults, dissatisfied with their own lives, teach the young how to live. Unfortunately, the adults apply old standards to the new way of life. They can not leave behind their “good old days”. This burden is very heavy. They think that the world is going down hill. They gloomily look ahead unable to understand the optimism of their children who want to pave their own way in life. The majority of the young people do not want to live in the past.

They have their own ideals. They want to make their own mistakes rather than to listen to the warnings of the adults and repeat the mistakes of the older generation. They want to overcome their own difficulties without looking back. However, the life of the young is frequently determined by the adults. I think that parents will never understand their children. And children, in their turn, shock their parents with their dress, language, behaviour. Traditionally, young people were looking at their elders for guidance. Today the situation is different.

Sometimes the young people share information and experience with their parents. I think that it is not bad, especially when the adults really try to understand what is going on in the lives of their children. Moreover, young people grow up so quickly that they almost do not have time to enjoy their childhood. So, as you see, it is very difficult to be young nowadays, as it always was. But you only can be young once, and some wonderful things can happen only when you’re young. So, it is be to enjoy youth while it lasts.

Old thinks him as gold, young’s calls the old as fools. The fight between the old and the young is not new and has been bound in the culture of every nation of the world. The generation gap is a more modern term for the difference between generations, or another term for the “clash” between the opinions, the attitudes and the behaviors of the younger and the older generations. The inevitable progress of time and technologies makes the introduction of new ideas, new believes, and new values unavoidable.

Difference between the present generation and previous generations are made evident through their different experiences, attitudes, and values. Old people always have fixed beliefs, practices, customs, and they think every aspect of their belief is the best whereas youngsters think that the customs, beliefs, practices by the old are useless and backdated, so they must be replaced by the new rules, ideologies, dreams of the new age. In the era of globalization and liberalization, the gap between the young the old has reached its zenith.

The key factor that makes the generation gap wider is the open mindedness of the present generation. The older generation seems to be more closed minded to different ideas and viewpoints, while the present generation seems to embrace them. The youngsters have free mind and aspire freedom more than anything. They do not want anything which acts as a barrier to their thinking and when old people acts as a block to their aspiration there is a clash between the two and this enlarges the generation gap and frustrates both the young and old. Now the life has become very competitive and fast.

So, youngsters have to run very fast to cope up with the competition of the world and prove themselves as the best. But the old generation can never cope up with the speed of the younger generation. Laziness, selfishness, and greed have infected the present generation. Since the previous generations have made life so much easier for us, many do not truly appreciate it and take it for granted. Many members of the present generation are entirely self-focused. They only care about what they want and how soon they can get it. Many lack the value of hard work and achievement.

It is rare to see someone genuinely work hard for something. Also, they have this mentality that they can do anything they want without consequences or punishment. The technological advances play a great role in enlarging the gap as the younger generations are quicker to accept and adopt these technologies and consider the conservative elders of their families as very old fashioned in their, tastes, opinions and out looks toward life. On the other hand, the older people consider the young generation shallow, lacking knowledge and moral depth.

This difference can best be seen in the difference of interests and hobbies. The difference includes the moral and social values, as the different generations see notions such as marriage, love, happiness, decency, and decorum from different perspectives. Within the family sphere this leads to much arguments and sometimes clashes between the young people and the elder family members. Thus, generation gap is destroying the basic human relationship and is obviously a threat to the social stability of family relations. This can be curbed only if both hear the voice of the other carefully and with sympathy .

The youngsters must realize that the older members of the family are their responsibilities, as they have been taken care of by the elders during childhood. Close relationships with parents and trust are important. It so happens that many parents don’t approve of their children having their own way and frequently become unreasonable dictators trying to impose their views on them. Teenagers in their turn don’t understand that their parents are more experienced and they want only the best for them. These realizations may help to fill up the generation gap.