The Trophy Kids Grow Up: How the Millennial Generation is Shaking Up the Workplace

2.4. GENERATIONAL COUNSELING

With four generations in the workplace at the same time, companies worry about how well their employees will mesh. Clearly, there's animosity among the generations, which include the millennials, generation Xers, baby boomers, and traditionalists. The older generations tend to write off millennials as a bunch of whiners who not only expect too much but also lack a strong work ethic. From their elders' perspective, millennials aren't as loyal and dependable as traditionalists, aren't willing to earn their stripes as work-centric baby boomers did, and are less self-reliant than generation X.

Here's what a 63-year-old critic had to say about the millennials in an e-mail to me after one of my articles appeared in The ...