Job Security

“Generation” is a very term of convenience. A cheap, lazy way to refer to complex age cohorts. A practice that really went of the rails with the “Baby Boomers” following WWII. While not having quite as an overtly offensive and belittling a moniker as my own “Generation X”, the cohort dubbed “Millennials”, by the culture gods in charges of arbitrating such things, have really gotten the short end of the stick in terms of the cultural attitude towards them, largely being seen as self-centred, tech-obsessed brats, who want everything handed to them. Except they are not young. At least not as young as many assume. While there tends to be disagreements about the exact dates the general consensus is that “Millennial” refers to those born between 1983 and 1995. The youngest “Millennials” are, therefore, currently 23-years-old. The oldest group are turning 35. Mark Zuckerberg is a Millennial. As are Edward Snowden, Steven Crowder and Ben Shapiro. Say what you will about them personally, no one can honestly describe any of them as lazy or entitled. They may be fobbed of haughtily as “exceptions” but that does not mean they do not exist or really lessen the impact, because they are pretty striking exceptions that directly contradict everything currently being assumed about “Millennials”. 

One of the massively underrated aspects of the “Millennial” group is their near preternatural tech. savvy. The reason that it seems like second nature to them being that this is exactly what it is. What can look like “obsession” usually just being engagement with dominant cultural paradigm. Something that can help solve the problem of underemployment. Even in the contract work so prevalent in the “gig” economy, one can have a long and healthy career simply by becoming
indispensable (you will notice I said “simply” and not “easily”). The most direct way of becoming an essential asset is to suss out a skill that you either have or can develop that is both required and not 
everyone has and then either promoting the fact that you have it or acquiring it if it is not a skill your currently have. 

A criminally under utilized area just primed 
for growth is Cyber Securities. Why this is 
not a bigger industry with a more aggressive recruiting program is something of a mystery as well as a missed opportunity. Basically legalized hacking, the job is to break into a computer network to expose weaknesses and make the system stronger to prevent actual attacks by less well intentioned folks. It is the main employment taken by reformed “Black Hat” hackers, using their powers for good, or at least in a way that unlikely to get them arrested and has roots going back to the use of Privateers. Officially mariners of the Realm, who looked and acted an awful lot like outlawed Pirates,
working under the in the employ of Elizabeth I. The ability to test security systems to expose weaknesses is an essential skill in the world of online commerce. No matter how cutting-edge the company, innovative the idea or tech-savvy the executives (Steve Jobs and Zuckerberg were both hackers in their younger
days), if a Worm, or related malicious virus,  gets through and crashes the mainframe there is no longer a company to run. So take a page from the geniuses behind anti-virus software and make it your business to keep other businesses running smoothly. You may not get a lot of glory, or even thanks, but you may well have a job for life. Or however long you might want it.     


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