Found on the Blog: The Perennial Millennial, by Blake Sunshine. I like how Blake reminds us of the danger of stereotypes... not all Millennials are hip or on Twitter, or even want to be!
Actually, Blake, you do make it look easy. I did find your blog via Twitter. And who is Zac Effron anyway? But I understand your point. Thanks for sharing.I know what you are thinking as you read this post’s title: WAH WAHHH being a millennial is sooooo hard. But, what you may not know is that being a part the youngest, smartest and most influential generation comes with heaps of responsibility. Mostly, as a millennial, especially in the work place, you are expected to be perfect. So in order to live up to our name here is some advice for others on what it takes to be a good millennial:
1. You have to know everything. And I mean EVERYTHING. You have to read newspapers, watch tv and follow every blog. You also have to offer business insight with each new article you read and share it with all of the other folks you work with. You have to know old, you have to know new, you have to know it all.
2. You have to be hip. Besides being on the cutting edge of almost every trend in your business area, your coworkers also expect you to be hip. They want to ask you about new songs, celebrities and what Zac Effron was wearing at the Oscars. You have to be hip, even if in your real life you aren’t really hip at all.
3. You have to be online. It’s a pretty safe assumption that as a millennial you know way more about being online than your colleagues. But the real truth is that most millennials could care less about any social networking tool but Facebook. So when people want me to teach them about Twitter or other new online tools I am usually learning about it right before I teach them.
4. You have to pretend it all comes naturally. In addition to the above mentioned difficulties, the hardest part of being a millennial is pretending like it’s easy! And it’s not, trust me.
So next time you see a millennial take it easy on them. Being perfect 24/7 is hard work!
Posts
Is this post serious or tongue-in-cheek? I suspect you intended it to be serious. If so allow me to say this to Blake:
ReplyDeleteBlake - no one makes you do anything. If your identity relates to knowing all those things and you don't like doing them, STOP. Work to shift how people perceive you. Your friends and family will adjust to the Blake you want to be.
John, you're missing the point. This is isn't about friends and family who take you for who you are, this is about co-workers, particularly Boomer co-workers and managers. Many (not all) are behind on the "new" technology/music/style and they come to Millennial co-workers for help, which is great. You show them the new stuff but the fact is, we're young, and we really just finished learnng the new things ourselves, so we're not untop of everything. When you don't know a new trick, or emering style you invariably get a comment like "I thought you were the whiz kid", which is part jest, but is also part disappointment.
ReplyDeleteIt think Blake's final line "So next time you see a millennial take it easy on them. Being perfect 24/7 is hard work!" is tongue-in-cheek. We do this to ourselves, we want to be untop of the new, we're driven to learn and be at the top of the "class". Blake's the rest of Jake's post isn't whinning, it's one runner saying to another "We just ran 13 miles uphill, I'm a little winded" As the other runner it's nice to know you're not the only one, but you both know there's 13 more uphill miles, and neither of you plan, or want, to stop.