We're All Millennials

Someone has left a spoor by the hole. Can't tell the size or height from the mark, but the colour of the paint would indicate a City employee or City contractor.

When I still worked for a living, I was uncomfortable with the habit, most prominently displayed by the HR department, of categorizing the workforce according to generation. You know, Boomers, Millennials, Gen Z and so on. 

I wondered why it was OK to say people had particular characteristics because of when they were born, but absolutely not OK to do so because of their race, religion, or other personal attributes.

You could call the HR mavens full spectrum agists, but I don't want to dwell on that here.

What I want to do, as a person marked Boomer, is talk about how, even though I was 34 before I owned a computer and 55 before I owned an iPhone, I have been "millennified" (just made that word up), meaning my expectations and behaviours as a consumer have been completely conditioned by the Internet.

For example, we're in the process of having three floors of our home painted. We need to pack away books, papers, knick knacks and other crap so we can move bookshelves and other large furniture into the middle of the room so the painters can have at it with our walls. 

We decided to rent some boxes. A pre-turn-of-the-century company name sprang to mind. I got on line, found the company and saw they couldn't give me a quote right away. Their website seemed to say the best way to contact them was with a phone call. This struck me as old fashioned.

So I called. No one answered. I left a message. By the end of that day, no one had called me back. So I sent them an email with my request for a quote. I wondered if there was another company out there that wouldn't make me work so hard to give them my money.

I looked on line. I found a company that could give me a quote right away, promised free delivery and pick up (the other company charged for these things; that's why I needed the quote) and wanted me to book right away. 

So I did. 

Some time after that, I got an email with a quote from the first company (more expensive than the second) along with a little lecture about how I should place my order quickly because I was renting during a period of peak demand.

Then my phone rang. It was the company that had just sent me the email. Someone named Susan called to lecture me again that due to anticipated demand, I'd better make my mind up quick.

Of course, I had already made up my mind, but I was so overwhelmed by talking to a human that I lied and said I was waiting to hear from another company.

After a decent interval, I emailed her, thanked her for giving me a quote, and said I'd gone somewhere else for my rented boxes.

So let's check for signs of millennialism. I wanted to complete my transaction with as little effort as possible (✔️), wanted the lowest price possible (✔️), and was annoyed with the grown up (✔️) who not only lectured me (✔️) about something I was well aware of (✔️) but who also called me "dear" (✔️). But I couldn't possibly say that to her directly (✔️).

I would put that up against any eighteen-to-thirty-five-year-old out there.

Thanks for reading!

Karen