Although it happened last November, thanks to disgruntled Gen X'ers, the story of Kevin Colvin and the story of how he was
Busted by Facebook is still making the the rounds on the Internet. In case you missed it, Kevin, a senior at Holy Cross in Massachusetts, wrote a polite email saying he would be gone a few days from his internship at Anglo Bank in Boston. A little investigation by his boss revealed his true location, a Halloween party in Worcester. He was busted when his boss wrote to inquire if everything was okay at home, adding as an afterthought, '(cool wand)'.
An instructive story on the dangers of the illusion of privacy in the Internet era, certainly. But Kevin is far from the first person to make this mistake. (In fact, I was also fired from a bank summer job at 17 for calling in sick on my birthday, a good early life lesson.) So why has this become a prime example in the indictment of the Millennial mindset? Something in this story has touched a nerve with Generation X. Here is an example from
Radaronline, posted May 15.
My lack of empathy for Kevin comes from my sense of loyalty to the generation born between the years of 1961 and 1981. Generation X. Kevin is part of the generation born between 1982 and 2002—a Millennial, formerly known as Generation Y. (They got renamed after whining too much.) They're younger. They're healthier. They got to do anal in high school. They think updating a spreadsheet while simultaneously posting to a Twitter account about the latest gossip on perezhilton.com is an essential corporate skill. And, like Kevin, they're always doing stupid shit, but rarely getting called on it. What's more, Millennials pose a vital threat to my generation's cultural legitimacy, not to mention our position in the workplace.
Intergenerational conflict is nothing new, but it will be interesting to see if this squabbling over the positive or negative character of an entire generation will affect brands. Will Gen X'ers unite to distance themselves from the music, entertainments, products and services enjoyed by its younger cohort? Will Millennials even notice the slurs, or will they decide to fight back, and which brands will help them do it?
Although it happened last November, thanks to disgruntled Gen X'ers, the story of Kevin Colvin and the story of how he was Busted by Facebook is still making the the rounds on the Internet. In case you missed it, Kevin, a senior at Holy Cross in Massachusetts, wrote a polite email saying he would be gone a few days from his internship at Anglo Bank in Boston. A little investigation by his boss revealed his true location, a Halloween party in Worcester. He was busted when his boss wrote to inquire if everything was okay at home, adding as an afterthought, '(cool wand)'.
An instructive story on the dangers of the illusion of privacy in the Internet era, certainly. But Kevin is far from the first person to make this mistake. (In fact, I was also fired from a bank summer job at 17 for calling in sick on my birthday, a good early life lesson.) So why has this become a prime example in the indictment of the Millennial mindset? Something in this story has touched a nerve with Generation X. Here is an example from Radaronline, posted May 15.
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