A Workplace Spin on the Leno - Conan O'Brien Imbroglio

Posted 3:08 PM by Michael Fox

One day it's Indian treaties, the next it's late night television, but it seems as if there is a workplace angle to just about anything these days. For example, the differences between various generational strata of today's workforce has received a fair amount of attention in the last couple of years.

Actually, I have not paid a lot of attention to the articles and speeches on the topic, but Chris Penttila, who has the semi-eponymous blog, the Workplace Diva, has a post that puts at least one aspect of that divide in concrete terms, Thoughts on the Conan O'Brien Debacle.

Read the post (and check out Chris's blog), but here's a short hand summary. Members of Generation X are waiting, not all that patiently for the Baby Boomers to retire and get out of the way so that they can move up to the bigger jobs. And they see Leno (Baby Boomer) shoving O'Brien (an aging Gen X'er) back down, and they don't like it.

Of course, it's not like O'Brien is making it easy. I am sitting in the airport and just saw a re-run of his latest comment - that if NBC wants to make sure he is not seen on TV for three years, they should just leave him on NBC.

If in fact there's something to what Chris says, and I must admit it does have a ring of truth, it no doubt will manifest itself in ways that will end up on employment lawyers' desks all across the country, where unfortunately it won't be all that funny.

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