No, Gen X Isn't Having a Career Meltdown

Our tenacity in the face of rapid technological changes is unmatched, man

Some 10 years ago, my photographer husband Terry had a boss who asked him if he’d photograph his upcoming nuptials and how much he charges for his service. Terry said he’d be happy to do the honors and emailed his boss an estimation. A week or so went by without confirmation of the deal. When Terry finally asked him if he was still interested, his boss scoffed at the amount he’d charge for his service by holding up his smartphone and saying the pictures a cell phone takes are good enough these days.

Real life image of my husband not getting the wedding gig

Steven Kurutz dropped a piece for the New York Times on March 28th called The Gen X Career Meltdown (thanks to Dana DuBois at genXy for bringing it to my attention!) and suffice it to say, it resonated. Calling it a “meltdown” is hyperbolic but the gist of his essay is true; many of the career fields GenXers were primed to dominate instead became obsolete.

You might be saying “But wait a minute Liz, you’ve written glorious masterpieces about how tech savvy and adaptable GenXers are and now you’re telling me we’re useless nobodies who deserve to be the Forgotten Generation?” Well, you’re kind of right—I have written glorious masterpieces—but I’m not dissing Gen X at all. I’m here to toot your horns.

Mr. Kurutz does a fine job detailing the various career fields that were hit the hardest when internet and smartphones took over the world, including interviews with GenXers who lost jobs due to the rise in automation, artificial intelligence, the phasing out of print media. But every story shines a spotlight on the Gen X ability to learn, evolve, and survive. A former Spin magazine editor went back to school and became a therapist. A photographer for Condé Nast opened up a surf shop. We’re the MacGyver Generation—we improvise and do what it takes.

We grew up hearing “follow your dreams” and “never give up on your dreams” by adults who didn’t know how to guide us toward achieving those dreams. We had to learn on our own, for the most part, a young adulthood filled with trial and error. Nobody warned us some of those dream careers wouldn’t exist, the best evidence to date that there’s no such thing as psychic premonitions.

Real life episode when she tells us our careers will vanish—NOT

Consider the evolution of technology GenXers had to navigate from the 1980s to now, and how much smaller the technology gap was for our parents. Not that much changed from the 1950s to the ‘80s, there weren’t enormously life-changing inventions in everyone’s home during that time period. In the ‘80s we pretty much had the same things they did in the ‘50s: landline telephones, television sets, film cameras, vinyl records, library card catalogs, and snail mail. Sure, some people had VCRs, home computers, and Atari, but for the most part we had the same things just with minor improvements: cameras got smaller and more portable, phones got mute buttons and answering machines, TVs got remote controls.

Now look at the technological advancements of the last 30-40 years: smartphones, home streaming movies and TV, podcasts, audiobooks, email, and AI. It’s exhausting just trying to list them all so I won’t, but you know what I’m saying: GenXers have had to constantly adapt to the latest innovations and cutting-edge science in order to compete in the job market, whereas our parent’s generations could remain comfortably loyal to a job in their chosen field without needing to repeatedly update their skills to stay relevant.

GenXers especially find sellouts and posers repugnant, hence why so many of us grapple with abandoning our career dreams for jobs that offer more financial security. But to me, the sellout isn’t the one who settles for stability during economically unstable times, it’s the one who gives up fighting for what’s right and sacrifices their values for wealth, fame, or power. You’re not a “sellout” for pivoting toward something that will keep a roof over your family’s heads and food on the table—your job is not your identity. Your passions define you, not the job you do for a living wage. Few people are lucky enough to have the two combined. So unless your name is Gwen Stefani, you’re probably not a poser sellout.

What I found most notably missing from Mr. Kurutz’s article was any mention that Generation X is also known as the Entrepreneurial Generation. Rather than melting down over vanishing career options, we picked ourselves up, dusted off, and started the dot com boom. We quickly took to it during every step of the internet’s evolution, teaching our parents how to set up email and create their Facebook profiles while we built websites and started businesses (the founders of YouTube, Google, and Twitter are all Gen X). A whole bunch of us started successful side hustles, too.

That said, we have some feelings about the industries that morphed in ways that made our dreams and skills less viable—not that anybody would know how we feel.

Look, the bottom line is that Gen X is too cynical, skeptical, nihilistic, and anti-authority to be devastated by career upheaval. We’re not known for being starry-eyed and naive—watching the Challenger explode in real time is just one way in which we absorbed the reality that life isn’t a fairy tale. Not to mention, we’re also known for prioritizing work-life balance, something one does when they don’t overvalue work or tightly intertwine their job with their identity.

We didn’t raise ourselves during the serial killer decades just to let technology bring us down.