I have a bone to pick.
According to the media and everyone else, Millennials are taking over the world. They out number us, out spend us, out tech us, out-young us, out-employ us, out-awesome us.
The rest of us are made to feel we must adore them and adapt.
For example, a dear friend at a very high-profile job at high-profile company explained how she spends more time coddling her highly sensitive team than doing actual work. "They demanded daily deliveries of granola, which I provided, only to be chastised because it wasn't gluten-free". Still another friend scoffed at how she faced more complaints about the lack of bottled water, made even more ironic by the fact that her company is about more natural hydration. To shut them up and "prove" that our Hetch Hetchy tap water is in fact very safe (and quite delicious), she took them on a field-trip to a water treatment center.
Had I been either one of those very patient and professional ladies faced with such lunacy, HR would be on the horn to police between my "are you fucking kidding me?" and "Go Fuck yourself."
Unfortunately, Millennials aren't going anywhere. But you know what? Neither are we.
As the clock ticks for us, it ticks for them too, and soon, they will age out into a cruel world that they helped create.
This world may look something like this:
It's the year 2040. My friends and I are lounging poolside, cocktail in one hand, cards in the other, at our resort-slash-communal home. We are happy, healthy, and have many years left due to advances in medicine and a social security system that took care of us before it ran dry. Millennials of yore now clean our pool and change our sheets. They have nowhere to eat, drink, shop or play because they bulldozed it all to make way for shiny tiny condos (since you could eat and drink and shop and play from your phone!) But all of those cellular waves were poisonous, impairing vision, hearing, mobility and causing a host of other health problems. And due to one too many selfies, Snapchat snatch shots, body shames, humble-brags, catty Facebook comments or negative Yelp reviews, they all hate each other.
Meanwhile, back at the pool, we ladies of a certain age reflect on our lives and our friendships and luck at being who we are, and flag our Millennial for another drink.
Cheers!
For more of our style musings where we give Father Time the finger, please visit Blank Stare, Blink. xo