Baby Boomers: 50% of Gen-Y is unemployed. Tell your friends. For the record, a lot of us think it’s crappy most of you have to spend your retirements greeting the masses at WalMart.

Gen-Y: Most baby boomers realistically can’t afford to retire. Even if they did, most companies would cease to exist because you were never trained to take their place.

Gen-X: Rock on with that Medicinal Marijuana stuff. Outstanding use of the free time you have since they wont promote you and you can’t quit.

Now… if we’re talking about money instead of age – then hell yes it’s Us vs Them; I think it’s high time we go to Wall Street and kick some ass. Everybody but Gen-X, that is (who’ve misinterpreted my use of the phrase “High Time”). Just point ‘em to the Cheetos.

“Every once in a while, declare peace. It confuses the hell out of your enemies.” – Quark, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.

I’m about the most rabid advocate for the millennial generation you will ever meet.  Usually this takes the form of me berating the “corporate bastards” on Twitter and writing angry blogs in response to ageist blog posts and magazine articles.  They, in turn, largely ignore these as they sit on gold thrones and count their rapidly shrinking piles of money.

What I’ve noticed is that for as rabidly and vehemently anti-young person these business “professionals” are, they quickly change their tone when you confront them in person with stats and figures.  In fact – most of this age-based tension is based on surface-level stereotypes ALONE.  It just doesn’t stand up to scrutiny.

Here’s my solution: practice tolerance and declare peace.  When an older generation does something you think is cool – promote the hell out of it.  When they screw up, be patient and explain why they offended you.  It’s very easy (and really fun) to write a snarky comment or e-mail in anger, but it’s just going to deepen the chasm between the generations.  Your call.