I was recently invited to speak to three separate groups of California employee benefit professionals, who were gathered at several events organized by Tom Sher and CSAC-EIA. Okay, I know that first sentence was a mouthful. But to simplify a little: these folks are service providers who try not to pull out their hair as they do their best to explain complicated insurance issues to various local boards, mayors, citizens, and me. Needless to say it's stressful, thankless work that most of the time will only get noticed during those moments when I's are being crossed and T's are being dotted. So, why the long setup? Well, as you might guess, government work like this is not a relaxing fit for our often unfairly maligned millennial generation — and with many of our government Obi-Wans edging toward retirement, it's looking like there may be a looming shortage of up-and-coming young Luke Skywalkers and Princess Leias with the temperament and training to replace them. Who knew?
Well, Tom Sher and EIA know. So along with my usual keynote speech, this team asked if I could tackle the issue of this whole millennial generation gap that's springing up: the gulf between those of us who are old enough to remember seeing Star Wars in the movie theater during its original run — without having any idea who Luke's father was — versus those who grew up watching it on DVD, posting their own light saber battles on YouTube, and having nightmares about Jar Jar Binks.
Rather than do a lot of tedious research, I opted to dog-paddle by staging a generational quiz show right in the middle of my presentation. I asked a few people to come up on stage who were under 25, and a few people who were over 50. That way I had the extremes of the generational divide represented. And I had two sets of questions, one for each group.
