Getting Old

The Youth of Yesterday

Rather like that Douglas Adams quote and the xkcd comic about getting old and fearing technology, it seems that once you reach a certain age you become gripped with the feeling that the youth of today are nothing but no good layabouts who know nothing and expect the moon on a stick to be handed to them on a plate…

You know. This sort of thing, which popped up in my Facebook feed earlier today:

Kids Today

Hang on a minute, though. What’s that you say Mr Gates:

Rule 3… You won’t be a vice president with a car phone

A car phone? What’s that granddad?

This, plus the Friends reference in rule ten, are your first clues that maybe this wasn’t a recent speech to today’s no good kids. In fact, Snopes tells me it’s from a 1996 newspaper column written by some guy you’ve never heard of called Charles J. Sykes.

So those no good kids that this is referring to, with “no concept of reality” and “set up for failure in the real world” would be in their mid to late 30s now…

Hang on a minute: I was doing my A-Levels in 1996. Is he talking about me? Are you saying I’ll never be a VP driving around with my car phone?

At least we have wifi now. I probably could do my job from the coffee shop…