Praise as Gen X rolls with the punches

FOR years I have been a quiet admirer of Generation X, not because of their work ethic and not because they fearlessly forged a new social contract.

I HAVE a confession. For years I have been a quiet admirer of Generation X, born in the late 1960s and through the 1970s. Not because of their work ethic, which I am sure is just dandy and not because they fearlessly forged a new social contract, although I think they did just that with their radical 1990s idea of postponing marriage from the early to the late 20s.

That particular notion would be later seized upon and embellished by Generation Y, who would extend the pre-commitment phase of life with novel concepts such as gap years and living at home.

No, the reason why I have always found Xers intriguing is because I think they are jolly good sports. They don't raise embarrassing questions on the subject of inter-generational equity.

Boomers got fee-free tertiary education over the 15 years to 1987 and yet when Xers turned up to uni what did the government of the day do? That's right, in came HECS tertiary education fees. And not a word from Generation X. Or, more correctly, not an organised social revolt, which I am sure would have been the boomer response a decade or so earlier.

This might have been a mere oversight; a unique combination of youth and circumstance. The late 80s and early 90s was a period fraught with economic change.

The noise of the introduction of tertiary education fees most likely paled in comparison with the daunting prospect of getting a job during a recession. Xers probably just shut up and got on with the business of getting a degree.

Perhaps Xers weren't fully aware of how the HECS debt thing would play out. As 23-year-old graduates, maybe they thought their degrees would mean they could earn so much that all debt would simply melt away. In either case, at that age life stretches endlessly into the future. There's plenty of time to address grown-up things such as debt.

Fast-forward 20 years to late in the noughties, when Xers in their 40s are patiently biding their time, just waiting to get their hands on the top job in corporate Australia.

And then they get the top job in the late 2000s either during or just after the full impact of the global financial crisis. I love these changeover ceremonies, usually a lunch or dinner, at which retiring baby-boomer management is effusively congratulated for doing such a great job over the previous decade. What, you mean they managed to deliver profitability during a boom? Extraordinary.

And yet Xers say nothing. They play along, saying all the right things and enabling boomers to waft off into the sunset deluded by the thought that they managed well. Maybe, maybe not.

The awkward fact of the matter is that the God of Prosperity delivered boomers into management positions between a recession in 1992 and a downturn last year.

These were good years. Far better to have been catapulted into a seven-year stint as chief executive then than from, say, 2007.

Who has the greater challenge? The 50s-born boomer (with free education) who managed the decade to 2007 or the 60s-born Xer (who paid off HECS debt in the 90s) who cops the GFC and whatever lies beyond?

I know which period I'd rather manage. And yet this point of timing is conveniently never made by successor Xer chief executives.

This is not to say the entire generation of boomers had it easy. Men born in the late 40s and early 50s had the misfortune to turn 18 at a time of military conscription and boomer women were at the forefront of a social movement that would radically improve gender equality.

But both boomer injustices and achievements are well acknowledged and frequently celebrated. It seems to me no one acknowledges the Xers.

Perhaps this is what lies behind Xer frustration with the whole generation thing. It's either all about the boomers or it's all about Generation Y.

Come to think about it, it's always all about those bloody baby boomers. They consume all cultural nutrients and oxygen, so there's no air left for Xers to breathe. Well, Generation X, I have come to a confronting conclusion. I am not entirely convinced you exist as a separate life-form. I suspect you are not a different generation born in the 60s and which is are defined by always having lived in the shadow of Baby Boomer Mountain.

I suspect you are in fact mini-me baby boomers who wandered off from the 50s herd into the wilds of the 60s. Perhaps that's why you can't bring yourself to criticise the baby boomers. Your DNA is too close to that of the boomers. Come out of the closet Gen X: admit you are and have always been Secret Baby Boomers.

Think about it. The generations with the most sharply defined characteristics are the boomers and Generation Y.

The boomers began life as hairy hapless hippies, then they morphed into dinks, then yuppies, then seachangers.

Gen Ys, on the other hand, are the feckless self-absorbed children of boomers. What do we really know about Xers? Demographers can't even agree when they start and finish. The reason for this might just be that Xers never did start. Perhaps that's why I am so intrigued by Xers: they are Baby Boomer Lite.

Bernard Salt is a KPMG Partner

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