It's All About the Generations

This week I had to write a good-bye letter to one of our industry friends.  He is retiring after thirty-four years of service to our industry.  In this colleague’s letter of retirement he really points out the fact that he learned a lot from the generations above him.  He really pointed out the value in the older generation teaching the younger generation today.  But he also pointed out the fact that the older generation must be accepting of the fact that younger generations need to learn and they should teach the younger generation.  I think there is a lot of truth to that.  Being a Gen Y’er, I go to college, learn how to conquer the world, and then graduate and shoot to kill.  I don’t listen to anything or anyone.  Big mistake!  I found I didn’t know everything and there were some things my alma mater couldn’t teach me.  Things you had to learn from a life of shop working or a life in concrete.  These are things that books can’t teach you.  This got me in big trouble as I graduated and wanted to change everything that our shop, Dalmaray, was doing.  I soon found myself digging Dalmaray into a hole.  Wrong, but the people who stood behind me were the older generations who told me, “Look Aaron you can’t change the world in one day.”  Older generations, not just my father and grandfather, but guys who worked for us ensured me that change was good, but don’t lose where we came from.  Keep our old school values, but put a new school twist on it.  That is what we are doing today.  Looking at how we did things in the past and improving on them every day. 

So moving forward the advice I want to give to my fellow Gen Y’ers is don’t ignore the older generations.  Yes they can be old and stubborn, but they can also teach us things we can’t learn on the internet.  And to the older generations Gen X’ers, Baby Boomers teach us.  We are not lazy individuals who do nothing but waste time on the web.  We know some things, you know some things, let’s work together to create new ideas that can change the world. 

Thanks for reading!