Oh, dear heavens. Has it truly come to this? One minute, I was worrying about my Nokia 3310 flashing its dreaded "low batt" warning, and the next, I was sitting in an office surrounded by colleagues who were born in 2004. Two-thousand-and-four. A full nineteen years ago. That’s nearly two decades! How did we get here?
I did some swift mental math—because if there's one thing millennials are good at, it's overthinking numbers that make us feel things. And there it was. I have become the older coworker. The one gasping into their coffee, reminiscing about the golden age of Friendster testimonials and the pure, unhinged thrill of making ringtones from scratch.
I chuckled at the thought of explaining to my younger colleagues the true test of patience—waiting for a single MP3 song to download over dial-up. Or the art of recording songs off the radio, praying the DJ wouldn’t talk over the intro. Or the pain of a lost Tamagotchi. Ah, the struggles they will never understand!
But as the initial shock wore off, I took a deep breath. Sure, I’m surrounded by coworkers who probably think a floppy disk is just a weirdly shaped “save” icon. Yes, they might consider the anthems of my high school days as “classic rock.” And okay, maybe they’ll never understand the soul-crushing agony of accidentally nudging the CPU and losing three hours' worth of work because auto-save wasn’t a thing.
But you know what? It’s not all bad. Being a millennial in today’s workplace isn’t about feeling outdated—it’s about stepping up. We’re not just the older coworkers; we’re the ones who can bridge the gap, who know what it’s like to start from scratch and adapt as technology, trends, and workplace expectations shift. We’ve seen the evolution of technology—from CD players to Spotify, from loading screens to fiber-fast internet. We survived Y2K panic, used T9 texting like pros, and still managed to master Instagram filters and TikTok trends.
And as much as we joke about feeling old, we have a choice in how we show up. We don’t have to be the jaded, backstabbing, power-tripping senior employees we once dreaded. Instead, we can be the kind of mentors we wish we had—strict when necessary (because, seriously, tardiness and messy desks are still unacceptable), but never unkind. We can guide without condescension, teach without ego, and support without expectation.
We’re the bridge between two worlds—the last generation that knows what life was like before the internet took over, yet tech-savvy enough to keep up. That, my friends, is a superpower. We understand patience, resilience, and what it means to adapt. We are walking time capsules of knowledge, ready to answer every “Tito/Tita, how do you…?” question thrown our way—not to feel superior, but to genuinely help the next generation thrive.
So to my fellow 30-somethings feeling a tad geriatric in this Gen-Z-dominated world, hold your ancient heads high. We are not outdated; we are vintage, and vintage is always in demand. We are the generation that straddled the best of both worlds—the simplicity of the past and the innovation of the present.
And if ever in doubt, just remember: We once ruled Snake on a pixelated screen. We led group projects before Google Docs. We navigated life before GPS. If we could do all that, we can handle anything.
Here’s to us—the mentors, the leaders, the ones who know that success isn’t just about keeping up, but about lifting others as we go. Cheers! 🍻
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