With 1.8 billion of us worldwide in 2021,
millennials officially became the largest living
adult generation.
There's only one generation that has seen such large numbers
before this a cohort of people all
born in the aftermath of World War II, otherwise,
known as The Baby Boomers.
I am a millennial.
And chances are if you're watching this video,
you are too.
And although I believed I was acutely aware of the many ways
in which millennials differ from their Boomer counterparts
from thoughts on marriage, to housing, and even
climate change, I wasn't so consciously aware
of the Boomer attitude towards careers and employment.
That is until I found myself working for one.
While boomers are typically near retirement age,
they're working longer than previous generations.
With some adopting new ways to stay relevant
in an ever changing workplace.
My dad is a Boomer.
And one thing he's always taught me is that experience
doesn't always come with age.
He regularly works with younger people in his field.
Combining his learned skills with their fresh
takes on tired strategies, often reaping the rewards together
as a team.
But while some boomers are open to learning
from younger generations seeing their employment
as opportunities to help their businesses
adapt and grow in exchange for their guidance and mentorship.
Others are under the impression that simply hiring younger
people to work for them will have the same end
result as nurturing mentor or mentee relationships.
I interviewed for a job that admittedly sounded a little
weird and out of the ordinary.
But it proposed a lot of personal growth
among responsibility and decision making.
So I chose to see the opportunity
when the offer came in.
When I told my father of the working situation with a Boomer
CEO as the only other employee, he earnestly
advised me to stay true to myself
and not be intimidated by what could be an old way of working.
I observed many things from my stint
working for someone fitting the OK, Boomer stereotype.
Here are just a few.
Number one, boomers value confidence and work
off intuition and charm.
When I had been working for my boss for less than a week,
they revealed to me that although they'd
received 200 resumes for the role,
I was the only person interviewed
before being offered the job due to my confidence
when answering their tricky and often personal questions.
Whilst flattering to an extent, it
did start to make me question other scenarios where my boss's
intuition was guided more by the charm, grand gestures,
and sometimes utter flamboyance of our pitches,
rather than the actual quality, although I
feel we shared this instinct of intuition and gut feeling,
I feel more likely to see through sales
tactics as a millennial.
We've been constantly bombarded by them
through most of our lives, particularly on social media.
And so take more time to assess from all angles
before committing to the shiniest proposal.
Number two, boomers believe age plus authority
equals experience.
Working for my Boomer boss was often like the scene from
Matilda, where Mr Wormwood says to his daughter, ''I',m smart,
you're dumb; I'm big, your little; I'm right,
you're wrong, and there's nothing you can do about it.
Though I'm not implying I was intellectually
superior to my boss in the way Matilda clearly
was to her father.
It was still very frustrating to work with someone
who had less direct experience with the projects
we were working on, but would insist
that being 30 years my senior was reason
enough to routinely cut me off mid-conversation.
This happened embarrassingly on more than one occasion
in front of clients making me feel dumb little and wrong.
Number three, boomers believe you should just
be grateful for a paycheck.
When I first started working with my boss,
I had to regularly clarify what my role was.
Generating ideas, meeting with clients,
helping build a company from the ground company
was what I was hired for.
Booking taxis, organizing their home office,
pandering to their children, I was not.
When I had a frank chat with my boss,
although they took these points on board
and my role started to form into what I had originally applied
for, my boss also reiterated the belief
that it didn't matter what I did,
I still got paid at the end of the month.
One time, when we were having yet
another uncomfortable conversation in a SoHo
bar about a lack of pay increase,
despite previous promises.
I saw one of the servers slyly point to our table
and mouth to his colleague sugar daddy, which
came just after my boss made the comment I pay for your life,
so you should be grateful.
Which among many toxic comments leads me to my final learning.
Number four, boomers don't care what people think about them
way past the age of midlife crisis,
my boss had reached a milestone that I think
we all hope to reach one day.
But is particularly synonymous with the Boomer generation.
They do not care what anyone thinks of them,
ranging from poorly themed jokes, outrageous fashion
choices, one day they sauntered in wearing a full kimono,
a hairstyle that should have been left in the 1980s,
and sending food back despite knowing
it was likely to be spat in.
My boss did not give a damn.
What this no forks given attitude did
teach me is that there are some situations in which I perhaps
need to lighten up and not take life so seriously.
But more importantly, it taught me
to follow that millennial intuition of mine
and speak up when I think something is wrong.
Despite what people think of me regardless.
Working for a baby Boomer was not
a wholly negative experience.
At times, it was odd when they'd remark how alike they
thought we were, because in my mind they were wrong.
But I learned more about myself by being around someone
who was both generations apart from me
in age and attitude on life.