John Mack writes about an ex-drug rep who wrote a tell-all book about selling Viagara for Pfizer. I don’t think Reidy is an apt characterization of Generation-X. While I – like Reidy – use “Dude” in select daily vernacular, I should point out that both I and Reidy live in Southern California where Dudes are fixtures to beach communities as Googlers are to internet communities.
As a member of Generation-X, I’ve noticed the stratification within Generation-X, which I have not seen addressed anywhere. The younger Generation-X (ones born in late 70s and in the 80s) were born into cultures of corporate cynicism. The older Generation-X (late 60s early 70s) like me grew up believing in employer loyalty and then evolved to see the errors of our ways in face of glorified lean operations, rainbow belts in six sigmas, and business process reengineering that usually means laying people off.
Forget the Way of Employee Empowerment, what Generation-X and Generation-Y have seen and continue to see is the Way of Dilbert and management doublespeak. We have grown up seeing management preach one thing and practice another: at the helm of drug industry scandals are senior management serving as examples to Generations X and Y as how one would get ahead at the company. There are members of the Baby Boomer generation who don’t question dubious actions of management because one should “toe the line.” There are members of the Baby Boomer generation who through their actions have taught members of Generations X and Y that when your connections are powerful enough or concealments clever enough, one does not have to play by the rules.
This is not about greed abounding and compassion lacking across generation divides. This is simply about greed knowing no bounds and compassion being made irrelevant when your performance is solely judged on how many pills you have sold this week.