Difficult generation

Gen-Y are a big management problem.

According to all form of legitimate mainstream media and business commentators we are singled-out as some sort of major issue in the current workforce. It is said that Gen-Y needs to learn to be patient, demands everything right now, is greedy, yet is apparently under-skilled in so many ways – therefore a pain to employers and a management nightmare.

It is easy to be stereotyped into these categories, as it is for any generation. Though a problem I’ve observed from employers of Gen-Y staff is that they often treat them as though, because of their age, they assume that they are not mature enough to handle much responsibility, while assuming that because they are a web-savvy, computer generation that they should know everything that is remotely connected to a computer, inside out.

Baby boomers especially seem to have a real problem with Gen-Ys, but not so much with Gen-Xs. Noteworthy is that Gen-Xs were the last generation to actually be able to afford houses, so they are perceived in outdated views to be somehow more mature, reliable, rounded characters – just like the baby boomers.

Baby boomers own all the cards in Australia and much of the world, and receive the majority of government-bribes each budget and election cycle. They own everything; they also contributed to but also inherited a great deal from their parents.

Gen-Ys will only hope inherit the environmental and social consequences of the baby boomers excesses and lack of investment in infrastructure. An under-reported trend that separates the baby boomers from their parents is that many baby boomers inherited or stand to inherit significant estate. An emerging trend of among baby boomers now is to spend every last dollar they have access to on their retirement and leave the future generations to take care of themselves once they reach adulthood.

Baby boomers in many cases have worked hard in their childhoods to support their parents. They also had free university education, free health care, and all manner of government support including last of the pensions. Gen-Y have $100,000 degrees, forced $80 a month private health care, no government support (unless they start a family) and in many cases cannot expect any inheritance. It can be argued that the opportunities presented to Gen-Ys and the strength of the economy means that they don’t deserve an estate… an interesting double standard.

This generational attitude applies to the workforce as well. When a Gen-Y wants to simply do their job, not be belittled and even possibly get recognised for it, baby boomer employers exclaim “No! wait a minute, you are earning good money for your age, so no; I think you have done well and I want you to keep helping me“. Translated: “Make me look innovative, but I’ll take home the fruits of success”.

Don’t be so surprised that I left an employer when he told me exactly this; you see, he could find nothing but positive feedback in my work (from my clients) and I was personally generating one third of a million each year and taking home less than the interest they’d have earned on this cash in the bank each year. I actually had no overheads outside of the software I was using, the office space and utilities.

I should have reported such ageism to some sort of workplace authority, but instead I looked elsewhere for work and went to an employer that paid me even less, but respected my abilities and restored my confidence, and that respect extended right up to the personal recognition of the directors.

Because of the respect for my abilities and not for my age, I committed to work many more hours that was expected (12 hour days for a good year running) and overheard my Gen-X and baby-boomer colleagues demanding left-right-and-centre for increased pay, more conditions and talking up their work so that it would make them look good on paper – not in quantifiable results.

Many Gen-Ys are highly capable due to their open minds, with the ability to really consider the triple-bottom-line, not just profit and growth at all costs – and of course their adaptability. With such attributes some should actually be put in more positions of power and influence – except the baby boomers and Gen-Xs will not allow it.

This is why so many Gen-Ys want to set up their own companies and foster highly sociable cultures with their staff and have a drink with them, not jump into their luxury cars and drive home early on Friday afternoons to get away to their third or fourth investment property for the weekend.

Gen-Y workers and business owners can hope their efforts will be recognised through the output they produce – and not by the age on their licenses.

It is up to everyone to appreciate the Gen-Ys ability to adapt to change and be a positive influence in the workplace as much as the Gen-Ys look up to their baby boomer bosses for guidance and inspiration. Respect is a mutual thing, Gen-Ys would like to see their efforts appreciated and not to read about themselves as a problem to be managed.

5 things I’d like to see in 2008

Its a new year and everything is good!

The birds are singing, people walk around dressed casually for the warmth, the stock market is crashing and I am optimistic we are going to make some progress this year.

Five things I’d like to see this year are:

1. A global recession, another one we “have to have”, in order to bring some reality perspective back into the picture. Economic slowdowns lead to reduced environmentally destructive development- a positive.
2. Any one of the three Democrats to take the presidency in the USA. Not that it matters a great deal, the USA is much less significant on the world stage. Except for its battle-hardened military.
3. Australian Government back-flip on the proposed $31billion tax cuts at election time- they were forced into it, nobody needs it, and it only adds fuel to the inflation fire.. Ditch it!
4. An inspirational leader to step forth and lead a sustainability revolution.
5. For people to put selfishness to the side for just once and get behind the “revolutionary” leader/campaign.  Definitely need a swanky agency to come up with a more exciting label than “sustainability revolution”

Sounding more and more like a hippy these days… I promise I don’t have a beard (couldn’t grow one if I tried) nor do I posses any illegal or decriminalized substances. Trees, I like them but hugging them gets ones clothes all dirty.

My indulgence is food and wine, I unashamedly admit

Feel free to post the things you’d like to see in 2008 as a comment.

Where are the heros?

With each and every passing week of news the picture of the evidence of global warming are irrefutable, the consequences of our current trajectory are dire and gosh, it is easily to get depressed or and cynical about the future and say “eh, why bother, we’re stuffed!”.

The best way to ensure the massive consequences of the worst projections is to bury the head in the sand, point the finger at others and just carry on blissfully ignorant of the result of current lifestyles. Whilst we cannot ignore the onset of climate change/global warming, we still act as if it is something for others for fix for us and for some magical technology to solve for us. Something that can be simply bolted on to every appliance, every vehicle, every engineered piece of equipment and counter-balance everything we do in our lives. Fat chance people. The only way to do this would be to extract CO2 from the atmosphere- and I don’t see this happening through some scientific wizardry.

With all the false prophets propping up about so-called solutions, reduced impact power generation, lower-emission vehicles, carbon-offset this and that, it is as if corporations can benevolently and conveniently play with the fringes of our activities to fix it all. I even saw an advertisement for a credit card that donates money to offset programs and is squirted with green ink which obviously makes the owner feel better about their purchase when they buy that air-conditioner unit on the card then plug it into the fossil fuel grid so that they can pretend they temporarily live in a 20 degree climate at all times. Hilarious- but also sad at the simple way in which we allow ourselves to be conned into false prophets.

I despair not so much for the future and the consequences on our diverse peoples, wildlife, ecosystems and coastal communities that are going to dissapear. I despair for nothing more than the lack of the champion for the cause. I meant the real champion, not the Al Gore and a neat power point preso, not the Bono and Gedof with egos bigger than the continent of Africa. I mean we need a real hero. Someone that not only has charisma, money and power/influence, but someone that leads by example and is not afraid of ridicule and has no hidden agenda.

For me, Mr George Monbiot is the closest thing I have to a hero, he is capable of absorbing huge amounts of information and assessing them from a global perspective and writing some incredibly considered pieces. He lobbies for causes he believes are important for the future of communities, animals and the environment. He is prepared to reach out over the airwaves and the internet and through his own books to try and show people a more idealistic alternative to some of our problems. Many of the solutions run in such a way that caters for human-kinds rather selfish perspectives and also leverages our unique creativity.

It is hard to find someone that you agree with 100% and I disagree with his views on globalisation being a positive, as I feel that localisation is the only way forwards once you factor in the tyranny of distance and the carbon cost of goods and services over distance. Likewise his views on genetically modified food- if we can make crops more durable and less susceptible to disease whilst still preserving the original seeds for the future around the world, then lets move on and do it.

Heros, it is an old-fashioned concept in a world where the anti-hero runs supreme and captures the media interest and sells magazines. I firmly believe that what the world needs now is a hero to step up and take the mantle and show us that we can and will overcome our short-sighted state of excess consumption and growth. Someone analyical, charismatic, compassionate but tempered by a long-term view that no matter who we are, we NEED the planet that supports us.

Any species that destroys its own habitat… soon destroys itself. We can do better than that!

Christmas cheer

Having eroded our accounts buying presents, booked up our calendars and committed ourselves to various social events- are we feeling the Christmas spirit?

Yes this is a rant about the meaning of Christmas and what it means to different people. To me it means, on a basic level- not working (hopefully). More than that it means getting some sun, going for a run or a cycle and shedding some more winder wobbliness from the mid-section or “contentment layer”.

Having moved away from immediate family for the first time it alters what Christmas is significantly. Although I will spend it with some of the family it takes on a new dimension. One is forced to choose where to spend Christmas, rather than having only one default option, a home.

Family is the ultimate support base, the rock, your friends and they are complex relationships. To choose to spend time with some of the family and not have the option to see the other due to the tyranny of distance is a dilemma. No matter what choice you make you are likely to offend some and please others.

This year for me will be different, though hopefully not difficult. I am in a new city that has a wonderfully rich culture, things to do and amazing places to eat- all highly important in my book. It is inescapable that times change and people move on, sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worse. In my case I think the jury is out on which it is- but I have no regrets. Only for missing the cat of course!! L

Christmas will be different in many ways this year and having moved away from any semblance of a family home it is less warm and feels like the last ties to being a child in some ways. By no means am I grown up but I do feel a much more grounded individual these days. Whilst I see so many petty things going on I try and look beyond the petty things that often occupy ones mind and focus on living a sort of life that I both enjoy yet am not ashamed of in any way.

Although slightly off topic, over the past month I also sense a change in the wind with people recently. Post-election in Australia people seem a little less tense, a little more relaxed, open… perhaps even happy?

I do hope that this Christmas is good fun and that the optimism of new government, a new year and an opportunity to create a more considerate national identity can be the revelation of the year ahead.

2008 beckons

Letter to the Minister – Interstate transportation & climate change

Dear Minister

There is a brief window of opportunity to utilise the resources we have access to now in order to build a future in which we can sustain ourselves.

We should build the low-emission infrastructure that will allow us to go on living in a way that we want to once the cheap access to materials we have now starts to dwindle. Fuel is only going to get much more expensive and far less socially acceptable to use beyond the next few years.

If we are to achieve real cuts in emissions than the first thing we should do is stop adding to the things that create emissions. We must stop building more highways that will only create more traffic and add more CO2 into the atmosphere. Electricity generation from fossil fuels is only one aspect of the emissions problem. The other large emitters are transportation, methane release from farm animals and a reduction in carbon sinks from deforestation (cumulative over the past 200 years in this country).

It is not an acceptable argument that Australia is a small overall contributor on a world scale, as Howard government used as another excuse for inaction. On a per-capita basis we are the worlds worst emitters and blaming other countries is no way to show leadership on the issue.

To be serious about reducing our emissions footprint means that we must ensure that people and goods can still be transported using very low or zero emissions methods. The only methods available to us that meets these targets currently are electric trains, electric road vehicles or don’t laugh- the horse and cart.  We can confidently assume that electric power will come from renewable or low-carbon release technology in the next 50 years- either through renewable, carbon-capture coal or nuclear.

So the logical step is to build the infrastructure that enables you to do the things that people need to do to get by in any foreseeable future, without oil or bio-fuel. People will need to be able to get around cities, between major cities and the country. In the cities there is no better way of moving large numbers of people than public transport using trains, trams and buses.

Belief that we can keep driving our own cars to anywhere we feel like it whenever we feel like it is just simply not feasible in a world of many billions. Moving to electric cars for arguments sake is possible, however the electricity and batteries required and all of the materials needed to be manufactured to create all of these vehicles is simply too huge to be feasible- we would not have the base load power available for electric cars for each individual as we have oil or gas powered cars of today.

As soon as you start building roads you have congestion, safety and pollution issues that only spiral and grow- even with electric cars the safety and congestion issues persist. No highway has ever been build then abandoned- they only ever get more full and therefore requiring more roads and creating more pollution. Building more highways for motor vehicles condemns us to the carbon footprint of vehicles on those roads for the foreseeable future- don’t invest in them if you want a climate that future generations can live in. Building highways for road cars and trucks cannot be seen as a positive for society anymore, it can only be seen as locking people into one unsustainable mode of transport.

The airline industry and been working hard to try and convince journalists and passengers that flying is only a small percentage of global emissions and can therefore be ignored. This is a great mis truth and in fact flying moves only a minuscule amount of people at the highest possible carbon cost ever invented. Indeed when a plane goes through the sky the warming effect is amplified when compared to other emission sources- a cumulative effect can even alter weather patterns in cities.

Flying has no future for domestic travel in a world where we are serious about avoiding global warming and we must put in place an alternative system that can move larger amounts of people at high speed without producing emissions. No airpot expansion plans can be considered if we really want to create a future beyond the next 50 years where people can live in a habitable world.

Viable solutions based on proven technology are needed. The last estimate that was produced for the cost of building a fast train route from Canberra to Sydney in the late 90s was in the vicinity of 5 billion (AUD). As previously noted, the power grid will at some point in the future be low-emissions technology and we can therefore build electric trains to utilise this capacity for mass transportation- not just in the major cities but to major regional centers and between major cities.

It will cost tens of billions of dollars to build a national network linking all major capitals from, for arguments sake Adelaide to Melbourne, Melbourne to Albury, Albury to Canberra, Canberra to Sydney, Sydney to Newcastle, Newcastle to Gold Coast, Gold Coast to Brisbane.

Building this network would be massively expensive but it will have the following benefits:

• Reduce the carbon footprint of interstate travel of most of the 20+ billion population to virtually zero
• Remove the need for irresponsible, uncomfortable and high-stress interstate air travel
• Give people a viable option over air travel and avoid the excuses of travel times being too great for anything bar flying
• Create tens of thousands of jobs all across the country
• Utilise the expertise of large project construction, project management, resources,
• Revitalise rural communities through which it is built
• Put money in the hands of drought-effected farmers through land buy-back along the routes the trains pass through
• Connect major rural areas to the cities and appreciate their natural and cultural significance (rather than flying over them)
• Open up the existing rail networks to freight and inter-town only passenger travel- therefore taking more trucks and cars off the road and reducing road maintenance costs, accidents and driver fatigue
• Early movement will allow us to secure rolling stock and expertise to build it first while the rest of the world competes to catch-up
• Create a national campaign that unites the country, physically and psychologically
• Produce a public works that instills pride in the country as a sustainable piece of history that future generations can be proud of

On a state level electrified trains and trams need to be expanded across all major cities to take cars off the road and move people between home and workplaces and to tourist locations and major hubs. Buses and hire car facilities can take commuters further in the field where needed- but no one should have to be dependent on personal motor vehicles for day-to-day use past the year 2050.

Workers that are not dependent on specialised office equipment should be encouraged to work from home more often to save the wasted time and energy in long commutes back and forwards to offices. Web cams and high-speed broadband, VOIP and mobiles all reduce the need for many people to be in another air-conditioned office building- such reduced travel should be rewarded through incentive to businesses.

I appeal to you to revise all plans to build new roads and airports that will lock us into putting more emissions into the atmosphere and immediately invest in the rail infrastructure to take the cars off the road. Competition from around the world for technology that can facilitate a more sustainable living is already fierce and will be even more so the longer we wait.

Don’t wait any longer, invest the billions necessary to build the infrastructure and leave a legacy of magnificent foresight and bask in the gratitude of future generations.

Adam Gilbert