don't judge me.

Generation gaps are everywhere you look. The most obvious is the parent-child gap, but, overall, the most difficult to bridge is inarguably found in the workplace.

When communication is pertinent to reaching your company's goals, it can be exhausting to account for this gap. With text message, email, mobile phones, landlines, voicemail, etc., the mediums are readily available; the obstacle is in the tendency to be creatures of habit. Since no one is technically wrong and we're all advocates of our own said tendencies, a simple solution does not appear to be within sight. Perhaps tolerance is the only workable approach.

I also find it interesting that the overwhelming majority [notice: I did not say ALL] of literature on this topic attempt to categorize, both by year of birth and by character trait, each generation with not-so-vague generalizations which appear to grow increasingly skeptical [fair to say negative] on their way down. This could possibly be a result of vested interest by the respective author in one of the categories, or maybe someone just left-off "bitter" from the baby boomer description. It's slightly appalling that, with respect to my date of birth, I'm categorized by a 'desire for instant gratification' [what I would call motivated to succeed] and seated directly next to those born in 2000; I don't find many 8-year-olds with a developed, and therefore categorizational, personality, nor do I see myself having much in common with one. This brings about the question, are these generalizations self-fulfilling prophecies? Or do we accept these ideas as true simply because an author with the means of publication claims them?

Ultimately, I know very few people whom I would consider 'similar' to me; I certainly do not accept the belief that I can be accurately placed into a bucket of behavioral characteristics based solely on my birth date falling within a common 20-year span.

Here is an older, but semi-accurate USA Today article that's surprisingly unbiased.