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As a core member of Gen X, I’m usually content to sit and watch boomers and millennials lob rhetorical bombs at one another. I and my cohort quietly plug away as an underrated influence on society, and especially the modern tech industry; despite our occasional complaints about being forgotten, many of us relish operating out of the cultural limelight. But recently I’ve come to recognize some of my generation’s worst pathologies in the extractive, divisive models promoted by Silicon Valley’s venture capital class. Which makes sense: So many of them are Gen X, especially Gen X men.
June 29, 2021
Early in her career, Tori Armendariz worked a job based in Tennessee. While she did have coworkers that were respectful and supportive, there were also people who were much more narrow-minded.
“I was talking to a supportive co-worker about my girlfriend, and the manager of that location took me aside and said that I couldn’t speak about things like that,” she said. It was made clear that the manager wasn’t accepting of Armendariz’s girlfriend and the LGBTQ+ community.
Now a technical people operations generalist at Trainual, a Scottsdale, Arizona-based e-learning company, she’s in a much better work environment. But that experience in Tennessee was a turning point for Armendariz. She wanted to make sure no one else would have to feel like an outcast at work just because of who they are.