Absolutely. My parents were dismayed more than once when I walked out on jobs because I'd had enough of their bullshit and didn't have another job to go to. Yes, I'm not financially secure in my mid-50s because I wasn't career focussed, but also "whatever".
I also remember working as an usher (when I was about 30-ish) in a beautiful deco cinema and very sternly telling an irate patron who had queued in the wrong queue for a sold out movie to "OK, calm down. I'll just seat you in this cinema and explain to the people who do have tickets for this cinema that an idiot with a big ego took their seats". They did calm down and my much younger co-worker looked at me in shock, like, how could I dare to raise my voice to a patron? Because I give no fucks for tantrums and I was a reliable worker who knew I wouldn't get fired for putting an arsehole in his place, that's why.
I'm regularly amazed at how timid and whiney younger generations are. So afraid of not being liked. I mean, sure, I want to be liked. But liked by arseholes? Couldn't care less.
How about this for a Gen X perspective? I've just been listening to a Wham! retrospective and I'm damned if their track Wham Rap doesn't 100% encapsulate the Gen X attitude in the mid 80s that we're talking about. Wham! is like the clean cut pop version of the Sex Pistols. Same sentiment. Different delivery :-D
I finally had a bracelet made that is embossed with Don’t Be An Asshole and bought a coffee mug that reads, “I am not responsible for what my face does when you speak”. I have no future in customer service, it seems. Loved your essay.
Yeah I'm not financially secure in my 50s either but even though my elder millennial sister (born in 1982) makes easily twice what I do, working that many hours would do my head in and I would be miserable. Kind of like she is. But she bought into all the family BS once she turned 30. I bought into it as a kid but started unlearning it in my 30s. We've gone completely opposite directions.
“I suspect Gen X is like this because we learned that most adults were a raging disappointment at an early age. So we collectively shrugged our shoulders and said “Well…whatever…never mind…”
As far as I’m concerned, not only was this true then, but many of those adults (even though we’re the adults now, or something like that) have become even worse in their old age. Talk about the inability to teach old dogs new tricks…
Fellow X'er here. 100% to this: "It’s more important to be respected than liked if being liked by someone requires diminishing yourself and taking their stupid shit."
TRUTH. We raised ourselves with a key on a string around our necks. We disappeared all day, rode bikes for miles, skinned our knees, fell out of trees (god knows where), dusted ourselves off and made it home in time for tv dinners. Some of us were influenced by punk rock. It was glorious. We’re a resilient bunch, sometimes to a fault. All I wanted was my MTV and dreamt about having blue hair. I wouldn’t have wanted it any other way as an X-er. I’ll admit, it is difficult now to watch younger generations struggle to be more resourceful and independent. Perhaps the dark days ahead of us will nurture and sprout more new fighters that won’t settle for the bullshit that’s currently being dished out.
My shoe string was dingy gray and visible in my 6th grade school picture with my new Farrah Fawcet haircut that made look more like Pinky Tuscadero. ❣️
Ironically, Gen X raised Gen Z.... so tell me again about how the younger generation is struggling to be more resourceful and independent when... you're raising them?
Obviously, the next generation doesn’t grow up to be like their parent’s generation, otherwise we’d all be the same from generation to generation. Each new generation reacts to how their parents operated and they move through the world a different way. Yes, you could generally say that GenX raised GenZ. GenZ are nothing like GenX. It certainly wasn’t a perfect parenting situation. The pendulum has swung from being on your own to being monitored and catered to 24/7. The younger generations that I have experiences with in life and work seem to need an awful LOT of feedback from everyone in their orbit, probably because they were raised while being told that they were #1 and the best at everything all the time. I observe reading comprehension is slipping too. The even younger generations had their parents doing everything for them, so by the time they should be tackling the world on their own, they have no idea how to feed themselves or do laundry. Sometimes, they end up living in their parent’s basements because they weren’t prepared to be self sufficient enough. It’s not all kids, of course. I have a nephew that didn’t want to get a driver’s license because his parents drove him everywhere. His thinking was, why bother when I already have a driver? Or, I can take an Uber because my parents will pay for it. My parents (who were post-depression era babies) would’ve wondered if I was insane if I’d tried to come at them with an entitled attitude. These are the struggles I see in younger generations. I don’t see a lot of autonomy going on. It’s worrisome to me because they are our future movers, shakers and leaders.
I have two Gen Z kids. We don't raise children in a vacuum and it has been a huge mindfuck trying to raise my kids to be resilient and self reliant in a world that sends them the opposite messages. They are now 20 and 17 and are finally seeing the wisdom of my parenting. They are choosing to move away from the typical Gen Z mentality and approach to life and embrace the Gen X Code. We're now very close with each other.
I used the last of my fucks about 18 months ago when I got laid off from the corporate job I had had for 15 years. After over a year of trying to get another corporate job, I realized that I DON’T WANT TO and decided to start my own business. It took me a long time to embrace the Bog Witchiness of it all, but I am totally Leaning In on it now.
"There's a way out of anything, man. Just keep your pecker hard and your powder dry, and the world will turn." - King, Platoon
Not giving a fuck is a powerful Stoic tool. I went through the disappointment phase when I was younger with what I was supposed to do, then I went through "Fuck this is all a joke!" phase.
At this point in my life I'm just Wu-Wei-ing this ish. It's about the present and working on what I want to be. So many things in mainstream society seem utterly stupid, wasteful, and pointless.
Glad I'm Gen X so I didn't get sucked into the horseshit.
Wow! Spot on. I know it bothers some of my boomer friends that I drive a 29 year old Toyota with faded paint. They don’t seem to get that I don’t have a desire to impress others.
Since GM killed Saturn, I decided to go German. I bought a (used) Audi A3 Turbodiesel. She's heavier and higher than the Saturn, so she doesn't corner as well but I still like her. I call her Frau Blau. ;-)
I'm installing rear brake pads on her today and bleeding the brakes among other minor maintenance tasks. Our neighbor has a lift. Saves us a huge amount of money.
Honestly, I cringed every time I had to use social media to build a platform for my writing over the years. I suddenly had to start caring about getting seen and heard, a feeling that was totally foreign to me 😆
That plus I knew there would be bullying and shaming. I’ve been a scapegoat. This experience provided me with an intimate understanding of human tribal behavior.
Absolutely. I decided at age 24, when my dad kicked me out of a house I didn't even live in because I told my parents I was gay, that I really didn't give a shit anymore about what people thought about me
I decided then I was living only for myself and people I cared about. Very liberating.
I literally had a ring made that says LESS FUCKS because most people and things aren’t worth it. My spouse and I also have the motto: don’t do what everyone else does… he’s an 80s punker and is constantly giving the establishment the middle finger.
I often wonder about the influence of technology on children; specifically in that it removes so many challenges from everyday life. My grandparents spent their childhoods without cars, telephones, or electricity. They HAD to be clever and resourceful. They wrote letters. Lit candles. Saddled up horses. Boomers and GenX had it easier, but still, we had no internet or cell phones.
When I was in college, we had to plan if we wanted to meet up with friends. If you had a change of plans, you had to go to your planned meetup place and leave a note. Or not. Sometimes friends just didn’t show up and you wouldn’t find out why until the next day. We got voicemail we could check from any phone so that was a nice solution.
If you wanted to know how to do something you had to ask around and find someone who could show you. There was no YouTube. You might wonder about something for months until you met someone who knew the answer.
We had cars but nobody’s parents could afford to get them a nice one, so they were breaking down constantly. Oh yeah, and we didn’t have cell phones. And we figured it out.
I know technology is a net gain, and up until recently, if one problem was solved, that just gave us time to tackle a different problem. I mean, the daily life mundane problems. But could we get to a point where everything is just too easy?
I hear you. For the most part modern tech is a net gain, but all that boredom and frustration we endured led to innovation, creative sparks, and the ability to be patient—all things the younger generations may end up lacking.
I think it was being told at high school , that there was not going to be jobs for life , we wouldn't amount to anything and your parents saying, why can't you get a real job? Well we did keep getting real jobs but you just didn't get that the Arts was a real job, or were too scared or jealous to ask us about out high paying jobs to understand what we did and dismissed our achievements because boomers are so immature and a bit thick . And then we bought cheap houses and did them up ourselves slowly with a sense of fun, and we don't really want our parents visiting. Successful GenX people also knew our boomer parents were going to blow through any inheritance we might get or live to 100 , so we made out own money.
I pity the sad genxers who were counting on their parents making them rich and now they are fifty and totally forgot to get the skills, jobs, assets and have spent their lives travelling and finding themselves, unfortunately they have found them selves wanting.
GenXers also know how utterly shit vinyl is. When you're 14 and your favourite imported Fear the Record LP warped in the sun and you wished there was a way to store the sound in pristine condition for ever on a small shiny device that is smaller than the Hitchhikes Guide to The Galaxy , then an only then do you know that you have reached the acme of genx contempt of everyone and everything.
Absolutely. My parents were dismayed more than once when I walked out on jobs because I'd had enough of their bullshit and didn't have another job to go to. Yes, I'm not financially secure in my mid-50s because I wasn't career focussed, but also "whatever".
I also remember working as an usher (when I was about 30-ish) in a beautiful deco cinema and very sternly telling an irate patron who had queued in the wrong queue for a sold out movie to "OK, calm down. I'll just seat you in this cinema and explain to the people who do have tickets for this cinema that an idiot with a big ego took their seats". They did calm down and my much younger co-worker looked at me in shock, like, how could I dare to raise my voice to a patron? Because I give no fucks for tantrums and I was a reliable worker who knew I wouldn't get fired for putting an arsehole in his place, that's why.
I'm regularly amazed at how timid and whiney younger generations are. So afraid of not being liked. I mean, sure, I want to be liked. But liked by arseholes? Couldn't care less.
Exactly! 🙌🏻
Your story reminds me of the time I told a super rude customer that he was being “an ass”. Except I did get fired from that job. Oh well 😆
How about this for a Gen X perspective? I've just been listening to a Wham! retrospective and I'm damned if their track Wham Rap doesn't 100% encapsulate the Gen X attitude in the mid 80s that we're talking about. Wham! is like the clean cut pop version of the Sex Pistols. Same sentiment. Different delivery :-D
I finally had a bracelet made that is embossed with Don’t Be An Asshole and bought a coffee mug that reads, “I am not responsible for what my face does when you speak”. I have no future in customer service, it seems. Loved your essay.
Thank you!
I want that mug, too. Any chance you remember where you got it?
Yeah I clearly didn’t belong in customer service either 😆
Amazon. Some days, I feel like getting that tattooed on my forehead, though.
Yeah I'm not financially secure in my 50s either but even though my elder millennial sister (born in 1982) makes easily twice what I do, working that many hours would do my head in and I would be miserable. Kind of like she is. But she bought into all the family BS once she turned 30. I bought into it as a kid but started unlearning it in my 30s. We've gone completely opposite directions.
HARD relate to not buying in to the family BS.
No fucks for tantrums. Count me in!
“I suspect Gen X is like this because we learned that most adults were a raging disappointment at an early age. So we collectively shrugged our shoulders and said “Well…whatever…never mind…”
As far as I’m concerned, not only was this true then, but many of those adults (even though we’re the adults now, or something like that) have become even worse in their old age. Talk about the inability to teach old dogs new tricks…
Precisely this
Fellow X'er here. 100% to this: "It’s more important to be respected than liked if being liked by someone requires diminishing yourself and taking their stupid shit."
“Never gonna give a fuck” - Rick Astley needs to do a comeback tour 😂
I’m enjoying saying “No” without a qualifier.
TRUTH. We raised ourselves with a key on a string around our necks. We disappeared all day, rode bikes for miles, skinned our knees, fell out of trees (god knows where), dusted ourselves off and made it home in time for tv dinners. Some of us were influenced by punk rock. It was glorious. We’re a resilient bunch, sometimes to a fault. All I wanted was my MTV and dreamt about having blue hair. I wouldn’t have wanted it any other way as an X-er. I’ll admit, it is difficult now to watch younger generations struggle to be more resourceful and independent. Perhaps the dark days ahead of us will nurture and sprout more new fighters that won’t settle for the bullshit that’s currently being dished out.
Yes, agreed! 💯
My shoe string was dingy gray and visible in my 6th grade school picture with my new Farrah Fawcet haircut that made look more like Pinky Tuscadero. ❣️
Ironically, Gen X raised Gen Z.... so tell me again about how the younger generation is struggling to be more resourceful and independent when... you're raising them?
Obviously, the next generation doesn’t grow up to be like their parent’s generation, otherwise we’d all be the same from generation to generation. Each new generation reacts to how their parents operated and they move through the world a different way. Yes, you could generally say that GenX raised GenZ. GenZ are nothing like GenX. It certainly wasn’t a perfect parenting situation. The pendulum has swung from being on your own to being monitored and catered to 24/7. The younger generations that I have experiences with in life and work seem to need an awful LOT of feedback from everyone in their orbit, probably because they were raised while being told that they were #1 and the best at everything all the time. I observe reading comprehension is slipping too. The even younger generations had their parents doing everything for them, so by the time they should be tackling the world on their own, they have no idea how to feed themselves or do laundry. Sometimes, they end up living in their parent’s basements because they weren’t prepared to be self sufficient enough. It’s not all kids, of course. I have a nephew that didn’t want to get a driver’s license because his parents drove him everywhere. His thinking was, why bother when I already have a driver? Or, I can take an Uber because my parents will pay for it. My parents (who were post-depression era babies) would’ve wondered if I was insane if I’d tried to come at them with an entitled attitude. These are the struggles I see in younger generations. I don’t see a lot of autonomy going on. It’s worrisome to me because they are our future movers, shakers and leaders.
I have two Gen Z kids. We don't raise children in a vacuum and it has been a huge mindfuck trying to raise my kids to be resilient and self reliant in a world that sends them the opposite messages. They are now 20 and 17 and are finally seeing the wisdom of my parenting. They are choosing to move away from the typical Gen Z mentality and approach to life and embrace the Gen X Code. We're now very close with each other.
We can hope!
Wow, this fits like a glove! I had no idea that my meandering life pattern life was a generational thing. :)
Yes , Right!?
I used the last of my fucks about 18 months ago when I got laid off from the corporate job I had had for 15 years. After over a year of trying to get another corporate job, I realized that I DON’T WANT TO and decided to start my own business. It took me a long time to embrace the Bog Witchiness of it all, but I am totally Leaning In on it now.
I told my corporate job to shove it and left to start my own thing last year.
They didn’t deserve you and you deserved better.
Thank you! And best to you on your new endeavors!
"There's a way out of anything, man. Just keep your pecker hard and your powder dry, and the world will turn." - King, Platoon
Not giving a fuck is a powerful Stoic tool. I went through the disappointment phase when I was younger with what I was supposed to do, then I went through "Fuck this is all a joke!" phase.
At this point in my life I'm just Wu-Wei-ing this ish. It's about the present and working on what I want to be. So many things in mainstream society seem utterly stupid, wasteful, and pointless.
Glad I'm Gen X so I didn't get sucked into the horseshit.
Wow! Spot on. I know it bothers some of my boomer friends that I drive a 29 year old Toyota with faded paint. They don’t seem to get that I don’t have a desire to impress others.
The car of choice of billionaires fwiw
I drove a Saturn SL2 for 29 years. I cried when we had to junk her.
I had a 96 Nissan Sentra for 20 years. I, too, cried when the engine finally gave out, and I had to buy a new car. Bought a Nissan Sentra...😂
Since GM killed Saturn, I decided to go German. I bought a (used) Audi A3 Turbodiesel. She's heavier and higher than the Saturn, so she doesn't corner as well but I still like her. I call her Frau Blau. ;-)
I'm installing rear brake pads on her today and bleeding the brakes among other minor maintenance tasks. Our neighbor has a lift. Saves us a huge amount of money.
I still think Facebook is a retarded social contest.
Honestly, I cringed every time I had to use social media to build a platform for my writing over the years. I suddenly had to start caring about getting seen and heard, a feeling that was totally foreign to me 😆
Still not on it. Never will be. I never engaged in social media (except LinkedIn) prior to Substack.
Substack is it for me. I made a LinkedIn years ago and never used it. It occurred to me early on that users are the product for most social media.
That plus I knew there would be bullying and shaming. I’ve been a scapegoat. This experience provided me with an intimate understanding of human tribal behavior.
Oh dear god, I’m a gen x stereotype! It all makes sense….
Literally what I exclaimed aloud, too 😆
Same here.
Absolutely. I decided at age 24, when my dad kicked me out of a house I didn't even live in because I told my parents I was gay, that I really didn't give a shit anymore about what people thought about me
I decided then I was living only for myself and people I cared about. Very liberating.
Absolutely! What a horrible thing for them to do. Have they ever apologized?
I literally had a ring made that says LESS FUCKS because most people and things aren’t worth it. My spouse and I also have the motto: don’t do what everyone else does… he’s an 80s punker and is constantly giving the establishment the middle finger.
I feel like exclaiming “we’re soul sisters!”
But that’s probably giving too many fucks so… 😆
I often wonder about the influence of technology on children; specifically in that it removes so many challenges from everyday life. My grandparents spent their childhoods without cars, telephones, or electricity. They HAD to be clever and resourceful. They wrote letters. Lit candles. Saddled up horses. Boomers and GenX had it easier, but still, we had no internet or cell phones.
When I was in college, we had to plan if we wanted to meet up with friends. If you had a change of plans, you had to go to your planned meetup place and leave a note. Or not. Sometimes friends just didn’t show up and you wouldn’t find out why until the next day. We got voicemail we could check from any phone so that was a nice solution.
If you wanted to know how to do something you had to ask around and find someone who could show you. There was no YouTube. You might wonder about something for months until you met someone who knew the answer.
We had cars but nobody’s parents could afford to get them a nice one, so they were breaking down constantly. Oh yeah, and we didn’t have cell phones. And we figured it out.
I know technology is a net gain, and up until recently, if one problem was solved, that just gave us time to tackle a different problem. I mean, the daily life mundane problems. But could we get to a point where everything is just too easy?
I hear you. For the most part modern tech is a net gain, but all that boredom and frustration we endured led to innovation, creative sparks, and the ability to be patient—all things the younger generations may end up lacking.
If you’re curious, I wrote about this: https://open.substack.com/pub/genxcellent/p/why-this-gen-xer-is-eternally-grateful?r=oqdsc&utm_medium=ios
Just to let you all know…I don’t give a fuck!! Carry on 😎
500 dollar wedding and 30 years.
I think it was being told at high school , that there was not going to be jobs for life , we wouldn't amount to anything and your parents saying, why can't you get a real job? Well we did keep getting real jobs but you just didn't get that the Arts was a real job, or were too scared or jealous to ask us about out high paying jobs to understand what we did and dismissed our achievements because boomers are so immature and a bit thick . And then we bought cheap houses and did them up ourselves slowly with a sense of fun, and we don't really want our parents visiting. Successful GenX people also knew our boomer parents were going to blow through any inheritance we might get or live to 100 , so we made out own money.
I pity the sad genxers who were counting on their parents making them rich and now they are fifty and totally forgot to get the skills, jobs, assets and have spent their lives travelling and finding themselves, unfortunately they have found them selves wanting.
GenXers also know how utterly shit vinyl is. When you're 14 and your favourite imported Fear the Record LP warped in the sun and you wished there was a way to store the sound in pristine condition for ever on a small shiny device that is smaller than the Hitchhikes Guide to The Galaxy , then an only then do you know that you have reached the acme of genx contempt of everyone and everything.