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I'm not trying to be funny, but how old where you when you had computers? My mom is a gen Xer and she always used a type writer and had to take a course in computers as an adult.
Well...Weird Science came out in 1985 and Farris Bueller's Day off in 1986, if that tells you something...
Also around the same time as these films my father begin to say, "If you want to learn how to use your computer, ask your 12 year-old son/daughter."
This was around the time my mother almost bought a computer. I looked over the specs, saw the price, and told her to save her money...it wasn't worth it. In retrospect, I wish she had bought it...
My sixth grade class had a computer, but I don't think anyone actually used it. I took a computer programming elective in junior high. I ended up coding a game that was similar to Pac-Man, but instead of a Pac-Man there was a helicopter. I don't remember the language but it used typical proof and conjecture type of stuff with all of the if X than Y, if X and Y than Z...it was very pixelated. In my freshman year of high school, "typing" class was done on computers that displayed our words-per-minute. We would compete with other to see who could get the highest wpm. We also learned spread sheets and the computers were hooked up to a printer so we could print out our projects. This was with that old perforated style of printer paper that always gave you a paper cut. To waste time we would play Oregon Trail. My high school also had computer labs. There was a lab for each discipline. For example, there was a computer lab for English, one for Math, one for Science, and so on. In my junior year, the computer where updated to Apple's. Each had a cd-rom. That seriously blew me away. We were not allowed to touch them unless under close supervision. I went to a prep high school, by the way, albeit a public one. The school had "...Academy of Science" as part of its name. If I remember correctly, the school got its first computer lab in 1984. But still...
One day, while in my first or second semester of college, I went to the college library to see a friend who was doing work-study [at the library]. The library had computers and there were a couple of students "doing stuff" on a few of the computers. I didn't think much of it but my friend was having some sort of field day with them. I asked what was so funny about kids on computers and he told me they were doing this thing called email. I asked what that was, and when he told me I replied with "Email? That sounds stupid. Who would ever use that?". Turns out I, like all students, had an email account. I didn't even know. Never used it, though. I didn't set up my first email account until 1998 or 1999. Still have it...with the same password, too.
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Originally Posted by grmi66
But looking ahead at someplace like my current job, the last big bubble of baby boomers probably has about 5-7 productive years in the workplace ahead of them. Should be interesting to see what happens.
And politics, too. I know some young Republicans (under 40) who are active in their state's GOP. Let's just say there is a definite clash between them and the old guard. It will be interesting to see what happens when they take over; fiscally conservative but [generally] socially liberal.
Think just the sheer numbers of Baby Boomers in the workforce made it tough on some of us Gen X'rs. I'm at the front end of Gen X and ever since I started working in the early 80's I have had a Baby Boomer as a boss. My experience at the jobs I've had is that once a baby boomer gets in a position of power or influence they do whatever it takes to stay there. One of my boomer bosses told me that as a kid he had to fight for everything he wanted because of the sheer numbers of other kids his age. Had to fight for space in the classroom, position on ball teams, spots in college, so fighting for a good management job comes naturally. The boomers just plain outnumbered Gen X and to give them credit willing to fight and hold onto good jobs. But looking ahead at someplace like my current job, the last big bubble of baby boomers probably has about 5-7 productive years in the workplace ahead of them. Should be interesting to see what happens.
I think this is a very valid point. Also, may be why some boomers still at work are hanging on longer because it took them longer to get to peak earning than their older, more talented or more ambitious boomer peers.
The millenials imo will be facing the same thing. In fact, I think they already are and perhaps many don't realize it because they are still too focused on how special, educated and computer savvy they are.
When every job applicant has a degree and computer skills they all become a dime a dozen in that regard. The people who get the best jobs will have to bring more than that to the table. Nothing new.
As a younger Gen Xer (born 1977), I agree with the outnumbered sentiment. A large swath of X consists of very cool, chill people but there is a sizable number at the same time of workaholics, butt kissers, the humorless, money grubbers and assorted other fascists that, when combined with the huge amount of Boomers, kind of seems to erase the effect X could have had on the workplace.
For example, in 2000, I worked in an office with a room full of Xers (ranging in birth years from 1967-1981). The whole room was extremely laid back, easygoing and non-competitive but all of the work still got done. It was amazing. Such a pleasure to work in that environment. People would make off-color jokes sometimes but also call people out on b.s. (remarks like "Lila's phony", after something really insincere that this one girl said or how this one guy in my dept walked by management and gave them a fake smile just to get away from them).
In my retail job from '96-'97, our dept was largely run without management even being really involved. When management tried to, you'd have remarks like this one said to me when I mentioned what the store manager wanted us to do. My co-worker replied, "Man, fuq Sean".
A few years later, my Gen X manager (born 1969) in the office where I worked, really was a huge influence on me to document everything, nail down extraneous details and work together. Structure what you're doing. But not in any kind of fake way, just a very easygoing but matter of fact way.
Now, the downside was people like my later managers (a husband and wife team - both Xers - with the husband born 1966 and the wife born 1972) and they were humorless, money-grubbing jerks.
This is one of the reasons why I consider we GenXers to be very independent. We realized that NO ONE else was going to take care of us. So we did what we had to do, but we made it work for us in the long run.
My post-college experience was a little different from yours, though. When I graduated in the early 90s, my neck of the woods was in a pretty deep recession. Jobs weren't exactly plentiful, though I was always able to get a job. The economy did around by the mid 90s, and then we entered the next boom.
My brother graduated in 1992 and I remember him going to grad school to wait out the slowdown. The slowdown was pretty short lived and he had an easy time getting a job when he finished his masters. The unemployment rate was very low for much of the '90s. In general, we had good times to start our careers and there was no need to feel as if we needed to "stomp" on our elders.
As a gen Xer, I first started programming in 4th grade when I was 10 (~1983). By 6th grade, I was programming on a C-64 in machine code using peeks and pokes. At 14, I had my first IBM XT clone that I had built from parts. I had a high school typing class, but I also had English classes that required word processed papers. For the most part, the rest of the world had not caught up to what Gen X kids were doing and was still very analog.
But my experience and your mom's experience were both typical ones for Gen Xers, it all depend on where you grew up and what your family could afford.
I don't think it is a matter of what people could afford as much as the fact that computer technology and its availability changed very rapidly in the 1980s through the 1990s. Those of us who were born earlier in GenX did not have much formal computer exposure as those just a few years younger. My father bought a home computer when I was in college (1983-1987) so my brother had lots of computer exposure before he graduated from high school and he is only 4 years younger than I am.
I know I said that I had minimal exposure to computers when I was in high school but this thread made me remember something. My friend's father was a teacher and he was developing a computer program to help students study for the SAT on a computer. They had a computer at home and he used us to help him develop his program. It was very exciting for us and I remember feeling very sophisticated using a computer to study. This was around 1981.
We are only 5 years apart and it feels like GENERATIONS....
1979 seems to be the big divide year for Gen Xers and computers. That year brought out VisiCalc, the Apple+ with BASIC included for free, and the Apple Education Foundation. Most computers in education stems out of those three events.
Home computing took off with the release of the PC in 1981 and the C-64 in 1982, and that, in turn, led to Gen Xers who were extremely comfortable with computers at a low level.
Then you have the Apple IIe release in 1983 that made computers in school ubiquitous. That meant that many of Gen Xers in elementary school at that point saw some level of introduction to computers and even programming.
I don't think it is a matter of what people could afford as much as the fact that computer technology and its availability changed very rapidly in the 1980s through the 1990s.
Well, a C-64 was still over $1k, and while middle class districts could afford an Apple II lab, I know districts here in St Louis that, to this day, have never had a computer lab. Like I said above, I think 1979 was a big dividing line, but even after 1983 there were many areas that were mostly untouched by home computing and computers in the school simply because of affordability.
Well, a C-64 was still over $1k, and while middle class districts could afford an Apple II lab, I know districts here in St Louis that, to this day, have never had a computer lab. Like I said above, I think 1979 was a big dividing line, but even after 1983 there were many areas that were mostly untouched by home computing and computers in the school simply because of affordability.
I still think age is the biggest driver of early computer exposures for GenX. I agree that 1983 was a big year. That was the year my father bought a computer for the house. I was already in college.
A place of respect ...as people I can learn from, be it their success or their failures.
I don't give credit to others for my success, I sure as hell don't blame others for my failures. I own and take responsibility for both the positive and negative decisions I made in my life.
- signed a late Generation X'er (or a Y ..or whatever..since the labels are ridiculous) who has works in high tech, and work with many boomers who developed (and are developing) the very devices that are in your pockets today.
Last edited by gnomatic; 03-03-2014 at 04:15 PM..
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