The Real DEI Is the Work Bestie You Never Expected 🎶

People often joke about how you can be a young whipper-snapper 👶🏽- start off in your early-twenties or so, get a fancy office job 👔, and find yourself with a ‘work bff’ 👯‍♂️ that’s closer in age (if not the same age) to your parents than you 🫣.

It’s usually a mentor-style friendship, where you first connect because you found someone that appears to have an actual interest in you succeeding in your new role 🙌🏽. This is great, but there’s also the side of you seeing someone who is older than you, doing the same job as you, while having been at the job for more than ‘x’ years. Harsh words for sure, but in my opinion, unless there’s a strategic reason, unless there’s a strategic reason, staying in the same role for too long can quietly turn into career autopilot.

But We're So Different

What makes these workplace friendships interesting is that they’re often genuine and incredibly helpful.

For many younger employees, that older coworker becomes the person who teaches them how to survive the office without losing their mind. They explain the unspoken rules, help them navigate personalities, give career advice, and sometimes become the only reason someone doesn’t quit during their first six months 😭.

And on the flip side, older generations often enjoy mentoring because they genuinely value experience, loyalty, and helping someone “learn the ropes” the right way.

But spend enough time working across generations and eventually you realize everybody came into the workplace with a completely different soundtrack playing in the background 🎶💼. Once you realize every generation is operating from a different survival manual, the workplace starts making a lot more sense.

Who's Who?

Older generations have a tendency to play the long game and wait for their win. Let’s call them “The Slow Burners” 🔥.

They are anchored in patience and hierarchy. They go the traditional path of growth, waiting their turn and leaning on the “way things have always worked” mindset 💤. They believe in paying dues, climbing ladders one rung at a time, and staying loyal long enough for somebody to finally notice they’ve been carrying the department since 1997. Their theme song? “9 to 5” by Dolly Parton 🎶 because burnout was just called “having a job” back then.

The younger generation focuses on growth. Being bold and building their own table as opposed to waiting for a seat at yours is how this group rolls. We’ll call them “The Rollout Gen” 🚀.

This generation is less interested in hierarchy and more interested in momentum. They job hop without guilt, question everything, and will absolutely leave a company if the vibes, salary, or flexibility feel off. Loyalty? That’s earned now, not assumed. Their theme song? “Move B!tch” by Ludacris 🔊 because patience is not part of the rollout strategy. Even though technically, they “grew up” on that song because their parents had it on repeat.

If you couldn't tell, this leaves the group right in the middle. The Gen X/Millenials. Let's call them “The Pivot Crew” 🔄.

This generation mastered adaptation because life kept changing the rules mid-game. They can work a fax machine, lead a Zoom call, decode corporate gaslighting, and update a LinkedIn profile during lunch without blinking.  They were told to stay loyal, then survived layoffs. Told to specialize, then learned they would need 11-teen transferable skills and a side hustle just to be told the real problem was buying a morning latte. Their theme song? “Survivor” by Destiny’s Child 👑 because somehow, after every economic crash, corporate reorg, hiring freeze, and “we’re restructuring” email… they’re still here. Barely trusting the process, but still surviving it.

What's This Have To Do With DEI?

Well, none of these approaches are really right or wrong. They’re just different survival strategies based on the world each generation entered into.

The Slow Burners came from an era where stability was the goal. The Rollout Gen came into a workforce where stability feels almost fictional. And The Pivot Crew? They’ve spent years translating between both sides while quietly stress-updating their resumes just in case 💀.

What’s interesting is that outside of work, a lot of these age gaps probably wouldn’t naturally create friendships. Different music. Different priorities. Different life stages. But somewhere between shared deadlines, awkward meetings, and surviving corporate nonsense together, those barriers get smaller.

That’s part of why diverse workplaces matter so much in the first place. Not just race or gender diversity, but diversity in thought, experience, age, communication styles, and perspective. When people only choose to work around people exactly like themselves, unconscious bias quietly grows legs and starts making decisions for everybody.

The workplace may be one of the only places where a 23-year-old, a 42-year-old, and a 61-year-old end up trauma-bonding over the same meeting that should’ve been an email ☕.

And weirdly enough? That’s probably a good thing.