I'm part of what is called the “baby boom” generation, born in the late 40's. We seem to be an "in between" generation. I came up with a theory which I would love comments on.
When our generation started our careers we were doing a similar type of job as our parents and grandparents did, if it was manual, well it was manual, we used hammers and shovels and carried things on our backs or sat in front of sewing machines or behind counters and what not. Postmen walked their routes. Doctors and nurses still did there job without many technical aids as did lawyers and pilots and a whole range of other professions. When I started my sales career I had a territory, at the days end I would transfer all the sales from a customer card to an order form, bundle them all together and post them next day. At the end of the week I would do a sales return for my boss, toting up all the sales of various products and my calls and send it in the post on Saturday. This in turn would be manually added to all the other sales reps in our area and a league table sent out at the end of the month. It was similar, I am sure for most professions. In addition to this, the baby boom generation was bought up; at least in the UK, learning that men had their place in society and women theirs.
Then along came technology, don’t get me wrong I love the new technology and wouldn’t be without it and all the gadgets that go along with it; however from casually writing out orders at the end of the day, salesmen are now on their mobile phones the instant they are out of a customer visit and the order processed instantly and if it's not delivered next day, well that company isn’t keeping up with the times or are deemed efficient. Doctors have to keep up, not only with the latest in medical developments but also technology and the somewhat idiotic bureaucracy that now exists. Bankers and stock exchange no longer have the luxury of a day or two's wait to see how Tokyo or New York are dealing, it's all instantaneous. And so on and so forth. Life went from subsonic to supersonic in just a few years. And of course, from having "a job for life" it suddenly became, which one will get the chop next"?
And so my theory is this. The “baby boomer’s”; men and women alike, have had to make far greater changes in their attitudes, their way of thinking and their way acting than any other generation to date. The baby boomers made the final move from “hunter gatherers” to “technophiles” in just a few short years and that immense change and the striving to keep up with it has taken a massive toll on our physical and mental health and well being. In many respects, it's like starting to train a forty year old person to be a top class athlete, the body just cant cope as well as it once did and ends up with all sorts of “athletic injuries.”
What do you think?
I believe your theory is quite well fitted to reality and would like to add some minor extensions to it. First of all, we (I`m born in the sixties but most of your theory suits us as well) are the first to experience our parents as unfitted to mainstream occupational life, and hence we are alone to try to make our way without the more possible support our ancestors had in learning family trade etc. I experience this on an almost daily basis, with my parents fast moving towards their 80`ties. From their own expression, they are glad they don`t have to "make a living" today, since they can`t compile nor understand what most people do work vise. For you and me, it sums up with lack of early-life confidence. Attending school in the seventies was a somewhat amusing combination of outdatet skill education and social experimentation. The later maybe a more Norwegian variation. In fact what I have had the most use of in later life from those first nine years of school, was volountery classes i "computer". Since the school had no computer, we learned to write binary code with pen & paper. Since we did`nt have any computer at home either (who had that those days anyway ?) I was soon the classified nerd, like the few others in this class. My point so far is that these classes made me applicable to use one of the in all four computers at my next level school, which again was reason enough to let me in to economical studies and so on. Pure luck an curiosity, from my point of wiev, has led me to a position in life where my competence seem to bee appreciated. The more serious part of this is that non of this has any value for my children ! At least not the contents of what I have done so far. My to oldest sons no live and study in York UK. I tend to believe this could be partly because I have told the to do what they find attractive as they move along. (I have also emphasised the need of non violence and the ability to try to help if seemingly needed) There is uncertainty in being free, but I believe that if our children see themselves as good, in all senses of the meaning of the word, they are capable of handling the freedom of beeing the next to be chopped, for instance.
ReplyDeleteThis might not be of much help for the early retirees of today, more than leaving them hope for future generations :-)
I really do have to leave a comment on the mentioned "hopeless bureaucracy" as well, since this seems to have found another path of solution to the problems Stephen addresses. They don`t retire, they hire new competence, kicking old competence up ranks automatically limiting the possible positive effects of the new competence. That`s what happen when the access to funding don`t need to corrolate with the results produced. In fact there was a lot of hiring of new competence to bureaucracy in the nineties, of people able to define areas of values created by bureaucracy. Both in order to stop internal nihilism and to use as argumentation for larger funding. Me ? I`m just a f....ng observer :-)
JAFO
You make some interesting points and perhaps are saying that the technological evolution now occurring is going to effect several generations in more ways than one over the coming years?
ReplyDeleteI agree that in many cases we have leaders being promoted above their own competence making decisions based on outdated knowledge. But then, how do we merge youthful enthusiasm and utilise long experience? Or are we in a state of ground breaking where we have to throw all the old knowledge out of the window make the rules up as we go along? The middle aged will still be the losers in the long run.
As far as education in the UK is concerned that is a whole new blog, so I won't get started on that.
Yes, I believe that this is a process effecting us for several generations ahead. Even sounding far fetched, mining industry on the moon or other planets in our solar system is already technically available. Terrestrial resources though still cheaper to exploit. In y opinion long experience mostly is valuable as it comes to human reaction and cooperation. We don`t really change as species as our surrounding technologies change. There should be a focus on having experience valued as wisdom, not as a part of progression. We need to consult wisdom now and then.
ReplyDelete