That is the title of a book, so you see it isn’t just me who thinks that. I stumbled across it while searching Amazon.com for other books about Gen X, specifically ones that were not guides for fucked head Boomers on how to manage us snarky, ironic, sarcastic, slacker shitheads.
It was only about 8 bucks so I figured, what the fuck? Why not! The title alone seemed worth it. Unfortunately, most of the rest of the book was not. Overall it’s a pretty mediocre book, and that’s being kind I think. Sorry, dude. Just speaking from the heart, you know.
Still, Harrison Finley, the author, makes some interesting points, though he could benefit from a bit more information to back up his assertions, not to mention closer editing. A bit more wit would hurt either. He’s trying to be funny, I know, but at best he’s mildly amusing. I guess mostly he just seems too pissed off to be very funny. I know, I know. I should talk. I’m usually too cranky by half myself to be very funny. And I do a lousy job of editing this blog, but in my defense this is just a blog and not a book. A book is an artifact and should be taken more seriously.
Also, I get a kind of right-wing, conservative, overly seriously religious vibe from the guy that doesn’t really sit well with me, but maybe I’m just paranoid. Still, as Kurt Cobain once sang: “Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean that nobdy’s following you.” Or something close to that anyway.
Still, even if he isn’t that witty, Harrison is pretty dead on on some of his points. Such as his gripe that some Boomers can’t seem to accept the fact they just aren’t cool anymore, which of course ties into how some Boomers are more concerned with being their kids buddies than being their parents. I am a 40-year-old Gen Xer and I accepted some time ago that I am no longer cool. At least I can preserve some diginity by not trying to pretend that I still can be cool, not young people cool anyway, which allows me to still be older dude cool, maybe….
Harrison brings up another point that I have not been privy to. And that is apparently the need that he sees on the part of Boomers to be friends with people that they work with. Harrison complains that they all want to have a relationship with you, and that they are such good friends with other people that they deal with that it makes for bad business. I’ve not experienced this first hand but then I don’t work in the corporate world, which is what I think Harrison is using as his context, but I can see this being the case. And it is fucking infurating, because at hight levels this kind of business as a validaiton of close friendship is no doubt behind some of the fucked up economy, which tickles down to moes like me, messing with my already meager retirement savings. Perhaps had I spent more than just under 4 yeras in the corporate world I might have noticed this trend more acutely. I did have a supervisor who just loved her job and took every fucking opportunity to tell you so, but then she wasn’t a Boomer, not by age anyway. In fact, she was younger than I. Perhaps she was one of those Xer whose brain has been poisoned. Sadly, it happens.
I haven’t read all of Harrison’s book and I’m not sure that I will finish it anytime soon. But I applaud his efforts and I will keep it my small but growing Gen X library at home.
junkdrawer67 