September 2014 – Canburak Tümer's Blog

Nowadays I hear a lot complains about my generation: Generation Y. People say it is hard to keep us happy. We become upset quickly, we expect too much etc. etc. So in this post I will try to focus on this topic with an internal view.

Generations

Let’s look at the “generations” closer. Scientist divided human race to generations, they’re separated by birth years and every group has common thought and behavior which differs from other generations.

When we check the generation list of western world (America, Europe) from Wikipedia we can see the list below:

Lost Generation (1883 – 1900): Who fought in WWI.
Greatest Generation (1901 – 1924): Who fought in WWII.
Silent Generation (1925 – 1942): Who fought in Korean and Vietnam wars.
Baby Boomers (1943 – 1960): Generation born after WWII is finished.
Generation X (1960 – 1980)
Generation Y (1980 – 2000)
Generation Z (2001 – …)

Last three generation does not have any distinctive historic event, they only have date intervals given by demographers. But I will write some common behaviors for these three generations depending on my observations in my home country, Turkey.

Generation in Workforce — Generations in Workforce

Generation X members are mostly have a stable professional life. Most wanted jobs are civil servant, branch manager in a bank or officer in army. They are hardworking in the sense of body power. For sure they are not lazy but they afraid of changes. They’ve seen military interventions in 70’s and 80’s. So they want a guaranteed lifestyle. They start to work in somewhere and usually get retired from the same organization.

Generation Y is the main topic of this post so I will have a detailed text below about them and their professional life.

Generation Z members are still in high school or in college. They were born into technology. They are mostly lazy because of “smart” devices. They are getting less social and more connected day by day. I wonder about their professional lives.

So, what Generation Y wants?

Generation Y is more free then Generation X. It is certain that we have much more possibility and opportunity than Generation X. We were born when there were homeworks done by help of encyclopedias, then we evolve with technology. First come the PCs and then internet connection. And our lives became easier and faster. That’s why we value and love the technology.

Members of Generation Y have an innovative and entrepreneurial soul. Early members of Generation Y earned some easy money using and developing technology. So late comers believed that it is easy to get rich and famous. And that’s what they wanted; become rich and famous easily.

But we’re raised by Generation X. We’ve raised with the belief of guaranteed standards is best thing in our lives. Entrepreneurship is a risk, and taking risks is stupidity. But at the same time we want money and fame. So we became the generation of white collars. We believed, partly guaranteed life standards, money and fame can be achieved by working in enterprise companies. That was true until a certain point in Turkey.

After crisis in 1999 and 2011 enterprise world renewed their budgets with strict ones. And to me, it is the point where they lost the Generation Y.

Why Generation Y changes job quickly?

Because we are not as stable as Generation X members. They’re determined. When we see that we cannot go any further in the organization we are in, we decide to quit simply for a better one but Generation X waits patiently even until their retirement.

I will give examples from my short professional life. It is short but it has enough job changes to use. It has been a little more than three years and I am in my fourth organization. Let’s have a look why I quit from every single one:

Part-time ETL developer in Turkcell Technology, I was waiting for a full time position, but since the budget was cut it was a low possibility to find a full time position inside. My manager was asking for me to wait but I was already graduated and wanted a serious job with a stable paycheck to pay my rent and other expenses. (13 months)
Java developer in OBSS, OBSS is really one of the best places for a consultant to work. But I wanted to become an expert in data warehouses, ETL and data mining so I changed my job when I got acceptance from Oracle Consulting (2 months)
Associate Consultant in Oracle Turkey Consulting, It was absolutely a dream job and a dream company for me until I became a part of it. It seems like it is the best source that I can learn DW/ETL so I made a sacrifice from my paycheck (it was a mistake I admit.) and I accepted a lower paycheck then my job in OBSS. I thought I am going to learn so many new things, I will become an expert in DW and Oracle. Unfortunately reality is not like that, I was alone in customer location, there were no seniors to ask questions when I lost in code. I began to feel I am not going any better and also I was losing money since the salary was not a competitive one. I decided to quit and start to search for consulting firms, where they pay you more money but no training. I was thinking to save money to pay for my own trainings to improve myself. Then I found my next job. (15 months)
BI & DW Specialist in MAKEIT Software & Consulting, finally the job I love and a competitive enough salary to give me a life standard, and company also encourages me to improve myself. Encourages me to present in events, prepare training materials for new-grad employees, give challenging projects and enough support when I feel lost. (9 months and counting up)

Looking through my experience, I can say Generation Y aims something and when it feels things are not working, it changes strategy to reach its aim.

My aim is to become an expert in DW, ETL and Data Mining as I said. So I always took the steps which is better in my path to my aim. I worked with an AceD (Mr. Gürcan Orhan) and tried to learn as much as I can while I was a part-time, the for a better future I felt I need to move to Oracle and I did, there I saw I am not going anywhere and I changed tracks for the destination. There is only one thing that did not change through these three years, I kept working hard to learn new things and improve myself, in every free time I made demos with new tools, I wrote blog posts, I prepared presentations, I read others blogs and presentations.

Conclusion

To sum up I can say, Generation Y members have an aim, which is a guaranteed life standard and fame. And they will change the path they walk when they fell they cannot get any closer to their aim. For Generation Y work life is not aim of the life, it is just a tool to reach to their aim. It is like a long flight to destination we may need to change planes on the way.