We were unable to load Disqus. If you are a moderator please see our troubleshooting guide.

Jarrod Ward • 9 years ago

This is a continuation of a discussion my good friend (who is a baby boomer) and I (GenX) have been having for the past year. None of my baby boomer parents have retired fully. They are squatting on jobs that should be opened up to fresh talent and new ideas but the stock losses in 2009 and the idea of 'idleness' keep them in their positions.

The vitriol of the baby boomers in the comments reinforces why it might be time for them to let go of the reins?

Great article.

MaryEllen Morgan • 9 years ago

Ha! This is funny! I'm in the boomer generation and I LOVE my job! I have NO intention of retiring and if a millenial were to "come and talk to me" to get me to retire, I would laugh at them! Get in line, kid! I'm not leaving anytime soon!

Oh, PS? My friends in this age-range? They feel the same way. So, you've got quite a wait ahead of you!

tetumbo • 9 years ago

I'm on the cusp having been born in 1965 but am essentially the youngest of "boomers" with a grungy hip-hop flavor. That being said, I second "Laura's" challenge to "millenials" and the authors who didn't even address the economic reality of boomer-retirement: finance the retirement and our jobs are theirs! I'll continue to troubleshoot and engage society with positive contributions and even more efficacy. after all, I've consistently done my best work when pay (or supervisors) aren't involved. Is that a "boomer" characteristic? . . . Peace.

cj mckinney • 9 years ago

This "discussion" shouldn't even be happening. No generation is entitled to work or not work and nobody should be obligated to step aside for someone else just because they're there. This should simply be a matter of who's most capable and best suited to do the work. And that has everything to do with skill, not age or generational entitlement. If millennials want to move up they need to acquire the experience and expertise to do that, not plot the best way to ask others to step down. It's about earning the right to move into those jobs, not some sense of generational entitlement that means that others who can do the work and want to do it must step aside.

carmella • 9 years ago

Thanks. Eloquently said.

DrGeneNelson • 9 years ago

At the bottom of the 6th paragraph is the gist of this article, without the sugar-coating. "...asking them (the baby boomers) to die...'
Looking at their photograph at MikeandMorely dot com, I deduce that both of these guys are Baby Boomers, likely born before 1964. Confirmatory information is supplied by the two author's backgrounds: we learn that Morely Winograd "...served as the Executive Director of the Institute for Communication Technology Management (CTM) at USC's Marshall School of Business from 2001 until his *retirement* in June of 2009...." Regarding Michael D. Hais, Ph.D., "Prior to joining Magid in 1983, he was a political pollster for Democrats in Michigan and an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Detroit." In summary, these two Baby Boomers are first-class hypocrites.

mikeandmorley • 9 years ago

Actually we are too old to be Boomers. We are members of the Silent Generation, the one nobody knows about that came before Boomers. And we are both retired.

DrGeneNelson • 9 years ago

As a Boomer, I appreciate your candor - but your definition of "retired" is a curious one, given that I would anticipate that the consulting fees mentioned on your website are substantial. It still seems to be "do as I say, not as I do."

Mary • 9 years ago

I wish I could afford to retire. I love the work I do and I hope to be able to continue as long as I can. It would be nice to do something more "giving"/less lucrative, but I don't see that happening for me in reality. I 100% agree with previous poster Laura.

Anneke9 • 9 years ago

Retire? Are you serious? What am I supposed to live on--Social Security? Snort. Sorry folks but it looks like I'll be working until the day they shovel my cold, hard carcass into the ground.

Virginia Postrel • 9 years ago

As someone who is almost 55, I second the substance, if not the tone, of Laura's comment. This article is bizarre. The one thing it demonstrates is that you can make a living these days blathering about millennials.

YF • 9 years ago

I so agree to this topic. I am trained as an architect/designer. I have my own design business in the 90s. I am now of my Neighborhood Council Residential Director volunteers to help community services. I know a few Millennial who are brilliant for their work. I know a few who are doing jobs that were not trained from their education, but because of the recent recession could not get the jobs they were trained to do. I was born in 1956, and I believe by hanging on to the work I once loved to do won't make my life happier and greater. I pulled back because I like the younger generation to have more opportunities to do great things just like we did when we were in our twenties and thirties.

Laura • 9 years ago

Mike Hais' and Morley Winograd's article demonstrates how
unfounded their self-proclaimed expertise about Millenials --and Baby Boomers-- is. They totally miss the point. No, not all Baby Boomers are idealists and workaholics, and not all Millenials are civic, or even civil.

We're late Baby Boomers, and the only reason we're still working is that we have no choice. We never had cushy retirement plans and have not lived lives of privilege, so we'll have to work until we drop. Having grown in the late 60s and 70s, we don't have the rosy idealism of our older peers, as we've experienced the fallout of the Vietnam war, the Cold War, major political scandals, oil shocks, terrorism and economic crises firsthand. In a nutshell: we're first and foremost realists.

As for Millenials --and using the same gross generalization tactic as Hais and Winograd-- we live among them in so-called Silicon Beach, and find them less civically engaged than any other generation. On the whole, they behave like spoiled brats, are self-entitled and self-absorbed, don't care about others or their environment, and shun anyone who doesn't fit their tribal profile. They carry that smug attitude into work, where their sense of self-entitlement makes them want everything right away (money, responsibilities) without willing to work hard for it. Their work ethics are questionable, and they're rarely dependable or eager to learn.

Hais and Winograd clearly don't understand the dynamics at hand. If Millennials came to me with all that BS talk Hais and Winograd recommend, I'd tell them that they have no clue whom they're talking to, and that it they give me enough money to retire, my job is theirs. And that is the case for many Baby Boomers.

mikeandmorley • 9 years ago

Oh come now. Most Boomers are way better off than their younger generational counterparts--both Xers and Milennials. I take it you live in CA and never bothered to buy a house? Because if you did you should be sitting pretty and ready to ride off into the retirement sunset.

tetumbo • 9 years ago

"I take it you live in CA and never bothered to buy a house? Because if you did you should be sitting pretty and ready to ride off into the retirement sunset". Unless one plans to relocate to an isolated desert community or transplant to AZ or NV, selling your Cali home to purchase another Cali home essentially results in an even swap that wouldn't necessarily include the benefit of an upgrade or much if any profit. I also don't know how much "better off" I was looking for a job out of high school in the 80s as my millennial counterparts. I do know that we were underemployed until our mid-20s before we were finally able to proceed beyond the threshold of gainful and stable employment.