What the candidates need to know about my generation

I was born in 1980, on the cusp of Gen. X and Gen. Y. I have traits of both generations, but do not fully fit into either.

People my age became economically aware in the recession years of the late 80s and early 90s. We saw in the news (and maybe even in our own parents) all about the layoffs, we heard how no one would ever be able to have job security at all ever again, and we grew up fully expecting that, throughout our adult lives, we would lose our jobs for reasons that were completely beyond our control, and we would have difficulty finding new jobs through no fault of our own.

We witnessed the dot-com boom first hand, but most of us were too young to take part in it, still being in high school or just starting post-secondary education. However, we heard about enough wunderkindern that we felt guilty for not being able to actively take advantage of the dot-com boom. We were surrounded by constant pressure to build a website and become a millionaire, despite the fact that we were still in school, and we worried about whether there was any room in this new economy for people who are comptetent but not quite exceptional, for people who are talented and hard-working, but not really entreprenurial.

Then we witnessed the dot-com bust, and felt like we had just missed the bullet. We were, after all, not that far away from being in the workforce ourselves. If our parents had met a year or two earlier, or the vagaries of our parents' birth control had been slightly different, we would have been out there ourselves, out of a job and with nothing to show for it but a handful of suddenly worthless stock options. Indeed, many of us were still enrolled in pricey computer science degrees that we feared would be worthless.

We do not feel economically secure, even when we have good jobs. We do not see a booming economy as panacea, because we've seen the aftermath thereof shatter people's dreams and lives. We do not believe education, hard work, good intentions, and the right attitude will necessarily be enough to enable us to support ourselves. Economically, we do not feel in control of our own destinies. Those of us who are doing okay for ourselves can't help but wonder when the other shoe is going to fall; those of us who are struggling find it very difficult to believe that it's ever going to get better.

So what can you do for us?