Not a whine, just curious what everyone thinks. I’ll admit I haven’t been paying much attention to social issues for the last few decades, having been caught up in career/kids/family for most of my waking hours. Now they’re launched, retirement is looming and I have time to look around. And am surprised to find that to some, I have become the enemy.
IRL, I seem to have encountered this a few times as well. As an example, this summer a young dock-hand at the marina made it clear he didn’t care about “some old rich guy’s boat” when I pointed out a bad leak in one of their customer’s cruisers* (bilge pumps working furiously). There have been a few other incidents that pinged my radar, but I’m uncertain of exactly what the deal was. Out of curiosity, I found that typing “baby boomers” into Google brings up “Baby Boomers Suck” as the third most popular, so there’s definitely something there.
So I’m wondering. Is it common for younger workers (esp in service industries) to be this hostile toward their retiree customers? Or am I just seeing a minority of really bitter people?
*Thankfully, a few phone calls were able to help relieve him of his arduous tasks involving old people and boats.
You have to realize pretty much everyone in the world hates old men who own big boats. It has more to do with their lavish big boats than their age though. Why, I’d go so far as saying the only group more hated than old men who own big boats are young men who own big lavish boats.
The answer is yes. I even wrote a polite OP on it myself once entitled Fuck the Baby Boomers and I feel it now more than ever. Not all Baby Boomers are horrible people but it is a generation that went terribly wrong collectively speaking. The biggest problem is that they never saved enough for retirement and are still clogging up the employment system with the expectation that younger people will pay for their many failures and short-sightedness even though there is no good way to do that even if it was remotely fair.
I already told my own Baby Boomer mother who still earns a ton but spends at least as much that, when her income stops, I can help her with a cot and basic nutrition but no more than that because she made her choices a long time ago and old age probably isn’t going to be fun when she has to stop working. I have two kids to support and I am not going to expend available resources on anyone that lived the life of a typical Baby Boomer and didn’t plan well enough for the future. That goes for all of them. I don’t want to hear about financial problems plaguing the elderly 10 or 20 years from now. They had a good run during the best times possible in world history while their kids and grandkids did not. It is time for Baby Boomers to admit their many failures as a generation and stop off the stage gracefully before they make bigger fools of themselves.
Whether or not there is real hostility depends on what Boomers ultimately decide to do about entitlements. If they do nothing, then they’ll have to live with less. That’s fine, since it is primarily because of said Boomers that entitlements are under so much pressure. They failed to act, and so they will do with less health care and less income in their retirement.
However, if they try to force us to pay more because they didn’t plan, either individually or collectively, that’s going to create some serious resentment. You won’t want to be one of those Boomers who survives till 90, because by then you guys won’t have the numbers anymore. The same voting power you used to force us to pay more will be used against you to cut you off.
I missed that thread the first time around, but wow, things got ugly. It does contain a great post by Manda JO, which predictably seems to have gotten completely ignored.
There is a growing consensus among millennials that the older boomers and silent generation really screwed the country up. They enjoyed all the benefits of the 40s, 50s and 60s w/o having to work for them (all the hard work for labor rights, etc was done before that period). They lived beyond their means, gave themselves massive tax cuts, bankrupted the economy, destroyed the ability of the economy to generate good jobs and now millennials have to pay higher taxes and get fewer services by working fewer jobs with lower pay to make up the difference. Boomers let themselves be distracted by social issues enough to let the plutocrats damage the country.
Our ‘thanks’ for paying our parents bills as well as our own is to be called lazy and entitled. So yes there is some resentment. Previous generations tried to work hard to make life easier for their kids. Boomers, as a general group, did the opposite. Even now I see some boomers in the tea party want to cut medicare. But not for them, for their kids. They want medicare to remain for them, but once they get on it and anyone under 55 needs it, fuck 'em.
I will give boomers credit on social improvements like civil rights, women’s rights, etc. Those improved a lot due to that generation. But on economics, it is a mess.
They seem to have forgotten that you have to pay this stuff forward. Everything Boomers have is because of the GI generation and their sacrifices. They should not be expecting stuff from Gen-X and Milennials. They are supposed to be making sure we have more than they did, and then we make sure the next generation has even more than we did.
I think sometimes I feel resentment towards some Boomers. Not the quiet humble ones, but the ones who lecture and preach about “kids these days” not working as hard as they did when they were coming up.
It’s laughable because it’s so untrue. Barring the horrible shite known as the Vietnam War, I don’t know of a generation that had it cushier than the Boomers. And I don’t begrudge them for this, but for them to turn around and act like they had it harder than their children and grandchildren? That’s crazy.
Sometimes there’s tension in the workplace too. I work with a couple of Boomers who should have retired five years ago, who are occupying positions that would be perfect for someone thirty years younger and equipped with modern-day technical skills. Like being able to set up a freakin’ Excel spreadsheet without asking for help. When I compare their paycheck with mine, it is hard not to feel a bit bitter. Yeah, yeah, they’ve got institutional knowledge. But institutional knowledge doesn’t count for jackshit if you’re sleeping through staff meetings and hanging out in the breakroom the rest of the time. Not all Boomers are like this. Just the ones that work my last nerve.
Did you go into search and look for threads written by Shagnasty that had the word ‘fuck’ in them to find that thread? If so, how many did you have to wade through to find the one you needed?
I know a boomer couple I’m a little related to. Actually I know more than one who fits the bill you describe. One earns about 200k a year in household income and has very little saved even though they entered the housing market before the boom and their home was worth many times what they paid for it. Another earned about 130k in household income (in a low cost of living area, where a decent house was 50k at the time). Both are going to be unable to make it in retirement and both are asking their kids for money when their kids have kids of their own they have to plan for.
It is a mess. As a counterpoint I know a boomer lady who makes ends meet on $300/month (although she has medicaid and doesn’t have a car).
But in general, I am with you about the boomers, as a group, causing a lot of economic trouble it will take at least 2 generations to fix.
**Monstro **don’t get me started on boomers int eh workplace who are grossly inefficient and totally lacking in productivity and technology skills, but who can’t retire because they planned their lives badly and who are still arrogant towards those younger than them. At my job I always worry I’m going to get in trouble. Not because I’m bad at my job, because I’m good at it. If my boomer coworkers take 7 hours to do a task, I get it done in 2. I worry me sitting around doing nothing will get me in trouble. That or I’m going to be asked to do my coworkers jobs for them.
Um uh oh. We have a retirement fund, but we haven’t planned on ever actually retiring. Partly for financial reasons but mostly because we just kind of like having jobs.
It never occurred to me this could be a cause of resentment.
Just hope your health holds up, because some people end up unable to keep working full time by their 60s (sometimes their 50s). Then again some people are fine well into their 70s and sometimes 80s.
The resentment comes from the fact that every person who doesn’t retire doesn’t open that job up to the next generation. In many jobs nowadays only the lower level positions are open, and there isn’t much room for advancement. My generation will have to pay higher taxes to fund the boomer’s retirement while working crappier jobs.
This thread is enlightening to me. Somehow this generation-gap resentment had completely escaped me. I had no idea it existed.
I’m on the cusp of Gen X and Millenial (I think? Last time I checked? Anyway I find myself identifying with some of what each seems to stand for) and had just vague warm fuzzies towards boomers–probably because they’re my frickin parents.
ETA: On second thought, if I start thinking about my mother-in-law, I start to get the hate.
On the third hand–she’s in age a bit more like “Greatest Generation” and in attitude even more so.
As long as you keep your skills current and you actually work, there will be no resentment from me.
I work in the public sector, so we get pensions upon retirement. Unless someone has made some really bad financial decisions, there’s no good reason for someone in my agency to keep working past retirement age UNLESS they just like working. I can totally dig working because you like to work. I can’t dig dressing up and play-acting like you’re working, but not doing anything. Meanwhile, there’s a long line of people waiting to put their newly minted college degrees to work at a “good gubmint job”, but they can’t even get their foot in the door. That’s what infuriates me.
Let me understand here. You called and got some young person fired, who had a crappy low-paid job? And you are bothered by the fact that young people are often resentful of your generation?
I guess I’m atypical and that’s why I resent threads like this, that elicit ageist comments and broad brush generalizations from people like Shagnasty. I worked hard all my life, kept myself debt-free even when I didn’t have much, earned the respect of my colleagues and later my employees for being even-handed and fair-minded, put money in the bank, and walked out the door at age 62 with over a million in cash and assets when I realized I no longer enjoyed what I was doing. I’m a burden to nobody, and never will be. The people our age who we are friends with are equally independent. I drive an inexpensive car and I don’t own a canoe, let alone a yacht. We donate time and money to charities, and I would be surprised to hear that any of the people who carp about boomers do the same.
I have no sympathy for those who haven’t provided for their own retirement; those who bankrupted themselves paying for their kids’ educations, or pissed everything away on expensive toys, etc., made those decisions knowing full well the consequences.
Despite the example of staying within our means, my kids, who are all in their late 30s/early 40s, and who are all employed, have zip point shit in the bank and are drowning in credit card debt, like a lot of people that age. I have urged them to please look to their futures and to not rely on anyone but themselves, but the advice falls on deaf ears. Well, it’s their business and their lives, and I suspect they’ll be the objects of their own children’s derision and disrespect when they’re older, whether it’s justified or not.
Oh, and this comment from adaher:
is complete bullshit. You’re owed nothing and neither are your children.
This inadvertently sums up much of the resentment. Most parents are going to feel an obligation to make their children’s lives better than their own. I recall when Egypt erupted in protests a few years ago, several people there were saying ‘we protest knowing we could be tortured and killed so our kids won’t have to do it’. During the civil rights movement fighting even in the face of abuse and loss of dignity was done in part to avoid your children having to fight those battles. The boomers (not all mind you, but collectively there is this mentality) seem more of a ‘fuck my kids, as long as I’m taken care of’ way of thought. Like I said, I’m not surprised that among the tea party the idea of gutting medicare but only for people under 55 is an idea being floated. The boomers still get high quality health care they didn’t pay for (the average medicare beneficiary gets 3x more out of the program than they paid, this includes all the people operating under the delusion they are taking less out of the government than they put in), and then they give their kids the bill as well as their kids having to pay for their own shitty, unaffordable healthcare.
There is a lot of crap future generations have to clean up:
Climate change
loss of good jobs
The iron grip the plutocrats have
income inequality
health care is unaffordable
higher education is unaffordable
Boomers haven’t saved enough for retirement (so we will probably face higher SS taxes, as well as personal loans and gifts)
As I said, our reward for trying to fix those problems will be to be called lazy. Many of us have to adjust to avoiding the doctor, being indebted to school, chronic job insecurity, higher taxes, fewer public services and living with roommates for a long time. Thing our parents didn’t have to deal with.
I guess we boomers didn’t live through the recession of the 80s when college grads couldn’t find a job, the housing market fell apart, construction came to a halt and mortgage rates were rising so fast that by the time you got a contract in on a house the rate went up enough that you no longer qualified.
We didn’t live through the era of corporate raiding when you never knew when your company was going to be bought out and your job would be considered redundant. Then after the company was raided and employees laid off the raiders would raid the pension fund.
Of course we women baby boomers never had to deal with sex discrimination, or being told that even though we were the better employee they had to give the promotion to the man because he needed to support a family and all we were going to do was get married, pregnant and stay home. Nope, none of us had to fight for equal rights in the work place.
Oh, the planet. I thought he was saying that we individually owe our children some sort of largess, which I disagree with. I agree with most of your list, and we tried to work to those ends. It’s becoming more difficult with the current crop of robber barons. People who were able to provide for themselves and didn’t should be put out on ice floes, which is very unliberal of me.
I believe SS should be based on personal accessible assets that are reevaluated every few years. It makes no sense to hand out government checks to an 80-year old millionaire, either to the taxpayer or to the millionaire. When we turn 70 and a half and start drawing down on TSP savings, it will exceed what we now get from SS by a large margin. I would just as soon the government keep the check.
I also have no idea why I’m allowed to use Medicare when I already have government healthcare from military retirement. It seems like double dipping to me.
I think Sahirrnee addressed your last paragraph pretty well. I don’t know where the notion of Baby Boomers having had a cushy life came from. It seems like one of those mantras that keeps being repeated until people accept it as fact, with little basis in reality.
