Gen X: What GenX'ers Want

To celebrate the launch of this New Year, 2010, this week I will review What’s Next, Gen X? (Tamara Erickson, Harvard Business School Publishing, 2010). This is the THIRD post:

Erickson lays out some simple X’er wants: Self reliance, money (mainly for self reliance and sense of security), being good parents, having good friends, free to choose how to spend their time, and meaningful, rewarding and engaging work.

She observes that due to being sandwiched between the Boomers, who it appears will only retire kicking and screaming and the Y’s who want to be executives on the third or fourth day at work—many X’ers suffer from “middlescence” or being stuck in the middle. Thus, she notes many X’ers can at times suffer from the 3 B’s (my term, not hers): Burned out, Bottlenecked and Bored.