A Discriminating Age

Maybe I’m just getting old and don’t remember the insecurities of youth as clearly as I once did: lack of confidence, lack of motivation, lack of money…but I do know I had them. Young people these days don’t seem to suffer from the same maladies as generations past.

For one thing they are very confident—about everything. Whenever you try to explain something to them they say, “I know” before you ever finish a sentence. They have dreams of celebrity, wealth, and power without any backup plan, talent, or education. They never worry about paying bills, but always have money for eating out, shopping, or going to the movies.

Maybe this is why America’s corporations are hiring younger people for top positions more than ever before. Even President Obama has twenty-somethings working all around him in the White House as though he’s allergic to wrinkles and gray hair as well as experience.

At the Target Corporation young people are pushing their way up the ladder, shoving anyone over thirty-five to the ground. You can see what this trend has done for customer satisfaction at the actual “hard” stores. I for one, “can’t get no satisfaction.”

Kids think in terms of temporary, freaking people out with shocking pink hair, and listening to music that sounds like a jackhammer mating with a dying cat. So in Target stores we are met with clothes made from recycled plastic bags that shrink to the size of a Barbie bikini after one washing. The colors are magically delicious and bright enough to put your eye out. I only mention shoes because they remind me of the seventies and some singing group called, KISS. The kids that ordered them probably didn’t have a clue that everything they bought and thought was original is just recycled fashion rejected years ago. Bringing it back does not make me happy. It’s not retro or cute. Some things are better not relived. Bad perms, bell bottoms, one size fits all tube tops, and double knit polyester mini skirts are historical failures like the Titanic that should never be re-invented or dredged up.

My biggest complaint with Target and their adolescent management is that recently they moved every last item in the store to a different location. I now feel I need my GPS to locate a roll of toilet paper. After fifteen years of finding Q-tips on the end cap of isle 6, some moron decided Q-tips were better served on isle eight, between hair color and travel notions. Shopping is now like playing hide-and-seek on a thirty-acre farm. To navigate the store you must think like a twenty-something adolescent. Where would your daughter place Midol if she worked at Target? In the Ice cream isle of course! Along with chocolate, potato chips, and tampons.

I’m sure they shook things up for a reason. I just happen to know the reason was stupid and probably had something to do with a computer program written by a seventeen-year-old who doesn’t shop for Q-tips or ever bother to clean the wax from his ears.

If looking hot, acting cool, and having the right circle of cell phone friends is all you need to succeed in life then this generation should do well. But just in case there is something more to this being in charge of the world thing—you twenty-somethings should probably let a few older folks help out. At least until you get that Euthanasia law passed.