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To make a long story short, I had a 20-something’s worst nightmare; where the idiot down the hall gets a promotion and I don’t. Not too big of a deal in the huge scheme of things because it was just a dream – wasn’t it?

This week’s show is going to be the second part of the examination of the 20-something psyche and what we are currently facing. The basis of this show will be the results of the survey about 100 people took a couple of weeks back on work, life and 20-something behavior. Its resulted in some interesting data and I know that if I can keep my voice up long enough to record the episode, it’ll be one for the archives.

My main conclusion is that there is a slight crack in the Gen X/Millennialas theory. That crack is a result of the current 20-somethings who are hitting the workplace just as society is realizing that the Ritalin-abused Millennialas might be a bigger handful than anyone might have thought.

The resulting situation is one where we have a highly charged generation, reaping the technology boom of the Gen Xer’s but still roughly confined by the perception that the younger working set should be seen, abused but not heard. The data yields some interesting perspectives on what this latest working class is experiencing and gives us some clues what we might be doing right not to mention what we might not be doing so well.

It’s going to be an interesting ride, no doubt. Tune in and hear what the entire buzz is about tomorrow morning for Episode #38.

In roughly 3 years of working full-time professionally and at least 2 years prior to that part-time, I’ve met resistance in just about as many forms as possible. I have been discounted because of my appearance, walled-off by indifference to change, and ostracized because of my ambitions. I play to win. I don’t, and can’t, hide that.

When someone hires me to do a job, I have one directive that’s my own – leave a place better than I found it. I will keep every other direction that you give me but frankly I am not content to wallow in my own mediocrity and neither should you as my co-worker, boss, or friend.

As the newest generation enters the workforce, I feel like there is a growing tension between the ages. Once content to withstand the yolk of entry-level doldrums, the workers that are now emerging are eager to stretch their legs and apply ever–evolving tactics to age-old problems.

We were the generation inspired by “Doogie Howser, MD” and the tech-savvy boom brought on by Generation-X. I can only imagine what it must feel like to be a manager of someone like this; cringing like Jerry Seinfeld hearing Newman is coming down the corridor at the prospect of keeping one of us under control.

In the same way, we are also the generation of spell-check, snood, and the 5-second attention span. Ritalin was just a drug before we came along. We made it a lifestyle. It’s no wonder that if you want something big, you call us. If you want something done right – ask someone still on a first cup of coffee.

I picked up a book last week (ok, so I didn’t go to the store…I got it on Amazon) on Millennialas, the proper name of this workplace terror. It describes the newest generation of workers as the “next, great generation.” This moniker is of course derived from the WWII generation. They gave their lives and their livelihoods to wipe a great evil off the face of the planet.

Do we really deserve to be the ones that follow in their footsteps? Are the feats we are going to achieve going to be that great?

Our predecessors can only make that determination. I can say one thing for certain, though; if it’s going to happen, it’s going to be because we embrace our reality more than simply our potential.

It’s not enough to be good at what you do. You have to be willing to embrace the faults as well as the strengths and figure out how to profit from both. I’ll leave the rest for fate but I will leave this thought off with one story:

In high school I worked for a small bagel shop. About 6 months in, the manager made me a shift manager. This was my first promotion ever and so I was very excited. I got the keys to the store, my own security pass code to the register system, and the responsibility of the weekend operations of the store.

Another 6 months passed and we got a new manager. This one was 180 degrees opposite from the old one. She promptly demoted me and handed the reigns of the weekend operation over the head baker who was about 15 years older than I was. After a few missed shifts and middle-of-the-night calls to her to open the shop in the baker’s absence, I asked her “Why won’t you trust me with this shift? You know I can do it and I am as reliable as any other staff member we have and at least twice as eager.”

Her reply was something that still sticks with me today; “If you want to be a manager, you better well damn start acting like it.” This struck me just because as long as I had the keys and the skills, I didn’t think anything else was necessary.

As a generation, we have the skills – its time to earn the keys. If we want them, we better damn well start acting like it.