Am I the only one who gets annoyed seeing the term 'Gen Y' being used?

Received an e-mail this morning, containing a little e-newsletter from one of our working partners. Skimming through the first two paragraphs, I confirmed my intuitive loathing for the subject, with phrases that seemed to categorise the 'generation' like so much cattle in so very big a pen.

Don't get me wrong, I just feel that maybe it's about time the masses (and in this case, employers, human resource personnel and recruitment companies) tried a different approach, as opposed to simply changing the alphabet every couple of decades or so.

One phrase that particularly irked me was: "They are among the youngest in the workplace, and are often seen as smart and brash."

Alright, fine — that actually does sound like me (with emphasis on the latter), but I guess my quarrel with this topic is on the generalisation (which is an argument commonly found in many other topics, thus diminishing your interest in this post by ten fold).

Another sentence from the article reads: "However, Gen Y's employers see them as individualistic, proud and disloyal."

And so my argument gets shot to shit, as I steady myself to fit the very mould that casts this phenomenon over the world's economy.

I feel branded. ):