It seems like yesterday when I started my first real job after college. My coworkers were a wide variety of ages, and I was the youngest. I was the first one of the newly coined Generation X.  

My workplace consisted of people in their late 20s and 30s: a little older than me, but settled in their lives and careers, people in their 40s had financial stability; homes, kids, daycare, 401(k)s, things I couldn’t yet imagine. The people in their 50s and 60s, lumped into one category and that was old. Yet suddenly, 35 years later here I am, in that last category. 

Back then, without the internet, we were not aware of the labels for every generation like we are today. We knew about the baby boomers, but Tom Brokaw’s book, The Greatest Generation, wasn’t published until 1998, and although Ernest Hemmingway did vaguely refer to the Lost Generation, those terms weren’t common. The term Gen-X was brand new and that was me! We were born after 1965; however, the tail end of Gen-Xers were still in elementary school.  

Currently my intimate office of eight is a generational tossed salad, which includes two Baby Boomers, four Gen-Xers, one Millennial and one, fresh-faced Gen Z. I am aware that our Gen Z is forced to tolerate the rest of our geriatric behavior without support of another young one. We reminisce about times when people smoked in offices and on airplanes, before personal computers, when typewriters and fax machines were the norm, when rotary phones were bolted to the wall and you didn’t need to dial an area code. Judging by her reactions when we tell our tales, I think she believes we are making it up. It’s likely that she feels sorry for us oldies — much like I did at her age — unable to comprehend age past 40, lumping everyone into the category of old. 

I must admit, it’s refreshing to have a young person in the office. She shows us what it’s like to not remember living in a prior century, or in a world without a smartphone and internet, references the latest TikTok trends, listens to current music and texts with thumbs instead of index fingers. 

And like every generation, Gen Z has their own vocabulary. The secret code to keep the oldies in the dark, scratching our heads. Terms like sus, no cap, simp, slaps, dead and slay (as opposed to my generation’s chill pill, yuppie, bogus and cool beans). I’m constantly googling Gen Z words, to avoid asking for meanings, risking an eye roll and chuckle.  

This is nothing new. Older generations are constantly trying to understand the younger ones, but the difference is, I’m on the opposite end of the spectrum this time. No one wants a weathered Gen X trying to sound like a Gen Z. Once we adapt, it’s not their language (or cool) anymore. However, not too far in the future, Gen Z will be struggling to understand Gen Alpha and Beta and their new vocabulary. Like when I see a Boomer hard press the keys on a tablet like you would a doorbell. And I roll my eyes and chuckle.