Gen X are mostly the children of the Silent Generation. A few GenXers have Boomer parents, though. The children of the Baby Boomers are mostly Gen Y and the Echo Boomers, also called the Millennials. These are the kids of "attaboy" schooling, where they have been highly praised for average achievements and keeping no score in sports events where everyone gets a trophy. They are having a difficult time in college and the dog-eat-dog working world where they are not getting the positive reinforcement they have come to expect.
This is the kind of crap the old people at work always say. These are the people who define doing a good job as coming in at 8, leaving at 5, taking a half hour lunch, having a clean desk, and never pursuing opurtunities outside the company. They think thirty years in one job is some kind of badge of honor or something. In my experience the Millennials work circles around the boomers. They are more agile, able to take more on at once, and are not nearly as siloed.
I think it's a little of both. A lot of my friend are highly motivated, entrepreneurial, and very creative with thinking about ways to be successful. However, I know many others who still live off of their parents. Their parents build them houses, pay living expenses etc. I guess it just depends what circles you run in.
Your first sentence suggests you may have been smoking too many of those cigarettes you want to legalize. The Republicans took the House in 2010 in one of the greatest landslide victories in recent years. What planet were you on at the time? You sound like a Ron Paul Libertarian based on your social views. Whatever, you are dead wrong about the "new" Republican Party caring only about fiscal issues. Social issues will continue to be a vital part of the Republican platform for the foreseeable future.
Universities aren't like that. There is every age range working here. There is no time-punch mentality. You do the job excellently or they find someone else who will. People who survive 30 years of cut-throat competition for grants and positions can talk the talk and walk the walk, Jose. No, I've watched all of these generations pass through college, work for me as graduate students, and later as staff. I've observed the differences first-hand. These are college students mind you, the best and the brightest. But they definitely do not all possess the same ambition, sense of entitlement, need for encouragement, complacency, work ethic, mental agility, responsibility, morality, or focus. every generation has both achievers and slackers, but generalizations can definitely be made.
