What is it about us 30-Somethings

What is it about us 30-somethings?  Or is it Gen Xers?  We can't keep our hands out of every cookie jar we see.  Our parents and grandparents spent their entire careers with one employer. My step-father for example was an IBM lifer.  They put in their time at the office (8-6, 9-5 etc), came home to their families and left their work at.... well, at work.  Their children seem to be wired differently.  I live in Schenectady, NY, the Electric City, so dubbed for General Electric's ubiquitous presence (even in the wake of the departure of its headquarters to Fairfield County) in the area.  40 years ago, I would no doubt be working for GE.  My wife's entire family has GE lineage.  However, in 2009, none of my friends or family (including in laws) works for the erstwhile monolith.  Why is that, I wonder?

Perhaps the series of layoffs, retractions and retrenchment by the Fortune 500 in the last several decades has impacted our perspective.  When I speak to innovation and entrepreneurial activities, I typically point to the uptick in innovation spawned during trying economic times.  Those engineers, scientists and IT geniuses being let go from large organizations will often take technologies they have created and attempt to commercialize them.  We have seen this activity; actually we have lived it for our entire lives as the GEs, Xeroxs and Kodaks of the world have been retrenching for decades.  So, maybe our tendency to maintain several side projects is born out of our fears and experiences.  Perhaps these projects are our way of contingency planning?

I will likely accept a full time position in the next 6 weeks.  However, some of the opportunities I have created in the months subsequent to shutting down our fund will be difficult to ignore. There are a few consulting opportunities, a board position or two and even a movie project (this one I'll definitely maintain) that I simply won't give up.  Kim and I have planned a diversified real estate company for years now.  Although not in our immediate plans, we will be in the real estate business in some way in the next few years.  So, I am clearly one of them.  I would not be happy arriving at the same office, parking in the same spot at the same time greeted by the same people and battling the same challenges for 40 years.  Understand that I make no value judgements here.  It's just not for me.

Of course there is another potential explanation for our approach to our careers; perhaps our unprecedented access to information in concert with our natural ADD-like tendencies dictates a somewhat erratic and unstable approach to our careers.  

I'll let you decide which explanation makes more sense.