The Next Generation

How I would love to regale you of stories from my time upon the starship Enterprise—alas, today is not the day. I have been thinking about who I am lately and I remembered a forgotten fact about myself—I love to be categorized. Now, that’s not to say I love organization or that I love flowcharts. That’s what Leah is for. She loves that stuff. But, I love and have loved being categorized.

There are reasons why I loved to be categorized. If I were to be academic about it I would say that—the Soveran’s (Zolnarov’s (originally) were immigrants from the Ukraine who did not hold unto that fact and being that I was neither the colonizer nor the colonized I have no definition in colonial Canada. If I were to be practical about it I would say that—I just wanted (want) to fit in somewhere.

I can remember in grade 7 and 8 that I wanted to be alternative. I wanted to be an alty. I wanted to wear ripped jeans and flannel shirts and listen to Nirvana. But I didn’t get it. I knew I didn’t get it, but I sure tried hard. First of all, I didn’t know anything about Nirvana really at the time. I think I owned like 6 CD’s and one of them was the Beach Boys. I used to ask—are you an alty? are you an alty? I think the whole point, like the punk movement, was not to be categorized. With my categorical desires, I was obviously not meant for this alternative world.

Lately, due to happenings in my life and a couple interviews I heard on the CBC I have been thinking about Generation Y. Before a couple of weeks ago I had no idea what Generation Y was. The only thing I knew about Generation X was that the movie Reality Bites was all about Gen-X’ers. It turns out that I am very much a Gen-Y guy.

Here is what Wikipedia has to say about Gen-Y’ers:

• 74 percent of employers say Gen Y workers expect to be paid more
• 61 percent say Gen Y workers expect to have flexible work schedules
• 56 percent say Gen Y workers expect to be promoted within a year
• 50 percent say Gen Y workers expect to have more vacation or personal time
• 37 percent say Gen Y workers expect to have access to state-of-the-art technology

Now part of me expects that those statements are like going to a fortune-teller—everybody feels those ways. However, I really feel them. All the time, everyday. And it gets frustrating.

The good thing about knowing more about being from Generation Y is not that I can finally place myself in North American society—because I still can’t completely—however, I can know more about my expectations and some times when I am feeling like I am not getting what I deserve then I can remember this and remember that sometimes my expectations are not fair. Sometimes I don’t deserve everything. Sometimes I do.

And here is something, from the Reality Bites soundtrack, that got me through this tough years in grade 7 and 8—Lisa Loeb’s Stay (seriously, I used to listen to this song non-stop).

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