Gen Y, I have news for you

By LINLEY BONIFACE

News of the New Zealand economy going belly-up has sent me looking for thrifty, belt-tightening measures to introduce into my family.

I've put an armed guard on the cheese, warned my husband that I will be rifling through the rubbish bins in search of the tell- tale Real Groovy bags that might indicate CD purchases, and started filling the children's lunchboxes with vile, brick-like homemade muesli bars instead of buying them snacks they might actually eat.

I've also found myself nervously updating my CV, in case I am sacked. This is a curious thing to do, given that I'm self- employed, but I've lived through so many slowdowns, economic downturns, contractions of the market and recessions that I can't rid myself of the fear that one day I'll be sitting happily at my desk when I'll suddenly announce to myself in a syrupy HR voice that the business has been required to downsize and I am now, unfortunately, surplus to requirements.

I will give myself one hour to pack my bag and leave the building – a double blow, as I work from home and will be sad to leave it. Anyway, I plan to fight this grossly unfair decision every inch of the way. When I'm not brushing up my CV, I'm mentally preparing a personal grievance case I'm confident will enable me to take myself to the cleaners.

But though I'm in full panic mode, I've been interested to note my younger friends seem blissfully unflustered about the possible impact that a tanking economy might have on jobs. As far as the under-25s are concerned, the notion of recession is about as relevant to them as cassette tapes, snail mail and phones with cords.

I recently met up with a Generation Y friend (this way of describing generations is enormously unhelpful to people like me, who can only work their way through the alphabet by singing, in its entirety, the alphabet song on Sesame Street) who was fresh from a job interview.

He had, he revealed, told the interviewer that his motivation for applying for the role was "because it sounded cool". Because it sounded cool!

To my generation (generation whatever; I can't be arsed singing that wretched song again), mentioning coolness to an interviewer is likely to be as successful as saying you want the job because it's a really good opportunity to steal office equipment, play poker on the work computer and goose colleagues on their way to the canteen.

I'd been in the work force a couple of years when the New Zealand economy effectively slashed its own wrists, and I arrived in Britain just in time to join the job queues.

My career is littered with almost farcical levels of failure, culminating in being turned down for a job as editor of the Brownie magazine (sample lead story: "How to Befriend Cats"), a week after being offered work on what was possibly the worst weekly newspaper in Britain on condition I had "a wash and brush-up" first.

About the same time, my husband hit a career nadir when he was refused a reporting job on a magazine about kitchen knives.

Of course, we were relatively protected from the worst effects of recession by being in journalism, an area that, even in boom times, is characterised by pitiful salaries, job losses and under- resourcing. For people in proper jobs, though, recession should be a deeply alarming prospect, and it's amazing that so many Generation Y workers have insufficient imagination to foresee a time when their services will no longer be fought over and cherished.

There are many wonderful things to be said in favour of Generation Y – and I have no intention of saying any of them; being wrinkle-free should be enough for the bastards – but they also tend to be high-maintenance show ponies with a sense of entitlement the size of Venezuela.

This is why people from Generation whatever-the-hell-it- is, like me, find Generation Y kind of creepy. We spent our early working lives being told that our skills, enthusiasm and talent were about as valuable as a pork roast at a McCartney family wedding, and we've mistrusted the job market ever since.

Here, then, younger readers, is a message from my generation to yours: shit happens. And it usually happens at work.