Is Gen Y Irresponsible, Or Is It A Matter Of Perspective?

Generation Y gets a lot of flack for being irresponsible. My own generation (X) got that too. At the risk of making too broad a generalization, I think most generations look on successive generations as less responsible than their own. There’s also a tenancy to say that successive generations have it easier than their generation did. These traits are probably related, but I think at the heart of it it’s just a misperception brought on by a difference in perspective.

I remember one event with my grandfather when he was still alive that really opened my eyes to the difference in perspective between generations regarding money and responsibility.

My grandfather had spent a few days in the hospital after the flu turned into something more serious ( I can’t remember if it was bronchitis or pneumonia). About a month or so later, he received a bill from the hospital. My mother and I happened to be at his house when he got it in the mail and started grumbling about how he was going to pay this mult-thousand dollar bill.

My mother and I instantly thought there was something wrong because people just don’t get stuck with medical bills that big when they have insurance – especially for a relatively common illness.

Come to find out, the hospital billing department didn’t wait to receive any payments or confirmations from the insurance company and sent a bill to both the company and the patient (my grandfather, in this case)!

This memory was brought back to me this week when my wife received a notice in the mail that her medical bill was about to go into collections!

My first thought was again, something is wrong here because this doesn’t make sense…. It was a bill for over $500 from a medical laboratory company. It was for blood work from a month ago. I knew we weren’t responsible for paying it since the doctor who requested the blood work accepted our insurance plan and my wife and I had no say in what lab processed the blood work. If the lab didn’t accept the insurance provider, then it was the doctor who was going to pay because he’s the one who chose the lab and ordered the blood work!

When I called the lab billing department to clear this nonsense up, I learned that they didn’t find the insurance provider in their computerized system, so they assumed she wasn’t covered and sent her the bill. The provider’s name is an acronym and while the full name was in their system, the acronym was not and they were essentially too lazy to contact anyone about it so they sent us a bill instead.

But this episode brings to light the difference between my generation and that of grandfather. His generation felt obligated to pay the hospital bill – it was simply your responsibility to repay your debts. My generation is much more cynical and untrusting of “the system” and questions every assumption. My first thought in both cases – my grandfather’s hospital bill, and my wife’s lab bill – was that some bureaucrat dropped the ball and I have to clean up the mess.

I know for a fact however that my grandfather’s generation would view my response, at least initially, as irresponsible and representative of a sense of entitlement rather than the skeptical first reaction that it was.

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