Last year, I became the first person at the Business Journal to join AARP. I wore the card as a badge of honor. In the multigenerational makeup that is our office, at 44, I fall pretty much in the middle of the bell curve. The elders, whose names I’ll keep from throwing under the bus, poked fun while being secretly jealous of my newfound travel discounts and member tote bag.
 
I’m a generation in flux. Gen X is like the often-overlooked middle child. We don’t have a say in the current Gen Z/ millennials skirmishes. No one’s made us an insult hashtag a la #boomers.
 
Everyone pretty much just leaves us to our Reality Bites and Dinosaur Jr. nostalgia. (Though our greatest recent flex has been Top Gun: Maverick. You’re welcome, 2022; we knew you needed a win.)
 
But enough about our legitimate claims over this year’s Super Bowl halftime show. This is about you guys.
 
As you all know, the past couple of years has upended how people think of work and how best to work. The shifts in perspective, across all ages, have amped up discussions about how to communicate in teams that span the decades, particularly when it deals with recruiting and retaining talented people.
 
One thing I’ve noticed is that no matter the generation’s social media channel of choice, the common thread is connection – virtually, in-person, hybrid. The challenge is trying to figure out the best way to find the right formula for everyone.
 
All this comes to mind as we introduce a new project: Good Life Wilmington.
 
Good Life is geared toward the influx of retirees moving to the area or people scoping out where to land when it’s time to retire.
 
And as a – now-card-carrying – member of the sandwich generation, it’s also of personal interest as I learn more about caring for aging parents while also discovering how our family with two kids can live our best Wilmingtonian lives. (Click here, and you too can share in the wisdom.)
 
So, let us know what you think and what speaks, or doesn’t, to where you are on the generational bell curve.
 
And as Ethan Embry said in Empire Records – a Gen X classic, filmed on Front Street in Wilmington, by the way – “We mustn’t dwell … not on Rex Manning Day.”