*JENlightened~

1)     It smells.

2)     Sick days are for when you’re sick. Not taking sick days and being paid for them is ludicrous. Not only does it serve as a deterrent for people to stay home when they really *are* sick, but people aren’t entitled to be compensated for staying healthy. Why? Because they already are—it’s called a salary.

3)     People are unemployed and city workers complaining about not getting a fair shake. Gross.

If people only wrote when they were inspired, nothing would get done. There would be nothing to read on the back of a cereal box. Magazines would only have two articles. Manuals would be comprised entirely of graphics (think IKEA). Oh, and brochures just would not exist.

If you’re a TV or movie watcher, and I suspect you are, you’ll notice that some of the most memorable and interesting characters are writers—which may or may not be because the scriptwriter is egocentric. Anyway, it’s funny to me that the caricature of a writer is someone who is sharp and artsy and conflicted, usually carrying some sort of mood/personality disorder.

I guess it’s not altogether false—I mean, look at me, I’m a bloody genius, a psychological enigma. But writing is often associated with a romantic, almost spiritual experience that I find difficult to appreciate as a professional writer. I think it’s the people who don’t have to write every day—those who “write on the side”—who see it this way. These are the people who don’t receive briefs or word counts or deadlines.

Even writer’s block is portrayed as this internal angst that the writer has to overcome before creating her masterpiece. What they never tell you is when your deadline is in five hours, you don’t have time to go out for coffee and get introspective. You have to produce. Plain and, well, not that simple.

Writing has a very practical, tedious and uninteresting quality to it. Even the most creative fiction writers have to trudge through apathy. What does this mean? Most of us writers are generally grounded and sometimes even boring individuals. You heard it here first.

It’s not that I don’t like the caricature–it’s nice to be considered intriguing just by telling a stranger what I do. I just feel like telling the truth today. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to finish an article about a construction company, after which I will write about medical technology.

Lame t-shirt

I’m in the midst of researching an article on Generation Y (aka Millennials) and what we bring to the workplace. It’s been really fun so far, because research is essentially like reading my horoscope, only instead of being categorized in one of 12 months, it’s one of six 20-year spans. I get to read tonnes of material and feel validated because I relate.

Can we really lump millions of people into one category and call it an identity? Probably not. After all, not everyone born after 1980 is a tech-savvy, hyper-consumer with an Arts degree and a quarter-life crisis under his or her belt. There are plenty of exceptions to the non-rule.

However, if people are products of their culture, there could be something to the generational tendencies. While we don’t all line up on the Myers-Briggs personality test, we did experience the same social and political events in our formative years, which probably had an effect on our collective values. If nothing else, I think it’s worthwhile to pay attention to patterns of emerging paradigms, especially when they are as awesome as ours. The more I find out about what Gen Y is doing in the workplace, the more I’m glad I was born in the eighties.

Here are some highlights. Millennials:

• are less likely to accept command and control, top-down communication; we prefer collaboration
• are more likely to prioritize work-life balance over money
• are less likely to work for socially irresponsible and unethical companies

This is great stuff. We are a generation that wants meaningful lives.

Gen Y-ers aren’t always met with open arms—labelled entitled and whiney, much like our post-war predecessors. As a group, our reputation for job hopping is met with disdain, as is our lack of willingness to wait around and pay dues.

To me, these aren’t necessarily bad qualities.

Dissenting tradition will always be frustrating for those who have clung to it for a long time. But I think it’s called fresh air when earning company loyalty takes more than a paycheque and when quick solutions are more valuable than keeping up appearances.

Like us or loathe us, Gen Y is a group to be reckoned with. As children of aging Boomers, the Gen Y population is large enough to make the changes that Gen X couldn’t. Now it’s a matter of what we’ll do with the influence. As not to be too proud, I am reminded of the hippies who grew up to run the very corporations they once despised. I’ll revisit this topic when I have a mortgage.