Gen Y Rocks – Don’t Take Us For Granted

Crissy Herron | November 4, 2009 | 0 Comments

I get A LOT of press releases from publicists pitching stuff about Gen Y… Most of them put Gen Y in a bad light.. Such as pushing tips on how to “deal” with Gen Y at work, how to get them to ‘actually work,’ and so forth.

Newsflash… I’m 32 and identify much more with Gen Y than Gen X, and the “career” info I offer on this site is for entrepreneurs, not the corporate set.

I recently came across a book titled Upstarts! How Gen Y Entrepreneurs are Rocking The World of Business and 8 Ways You Can Profit From Their Success by Donna Fenn. As you can see from the title, the book still tells older people how to use my generation for profit, BUT at least it gives us props for being innovative entrepreneurs.

And it’s true… most of the people I know that are my age have started their own business, and those that haven’t certainly talk about doing it. WE ROCK! We are tech-savvy, we understand social media, and we’ve grown up seeing our parents get laid off, down sized, bought out, and pink slipped.

Is there really any wonder about why we want to work for ourselves?

There is another new book coming out titled Y-Size Your Business: How Gen Y Employees Can Save You Money and Grow Your Business by Jason Ryan Dorsey, and while I haven’t read it yet, the pitch has me fuming mad. Here is an excerpt: “Dorsey shows you how to best employ Gen Y so they and your company come out ahead.”

And that’s nothing compared to this line: “Gen Y is cost-effective to employ, brings a timely skill set to the workplace, and wants to make a difference from their first day of employment.”

Um, gee thanks!!! Thank you for teaching greedy companies that they can pay us diddly-squat while using all of our talents! That is awesome! (about as awesome as getting poked in the eye with a hot stick!)

When are companies going to realize that Gen Y is the future and if they want to succeed, they need to treat us as talented individuals and pay us for what we are worth??