If there were ever a more important time to network, I can’t remember it. I’ve been to so many going-away parties in the last few weeks that I’m starting to wonder what I’m still doing here. People who thought they’d played it professionally safe — bankers, lawyers, significant others of bankers and lawyers — are suddenly finding themselves among the nation’s growing jobless. And even those who remain gainfully employed are hoarding their cash, certain they’ll be the next to go.

So we young people do what any sane person would do: We spin the old mental Rolodex. We note all the people who don’t hate us and might be of some use. And then we send messages that read something like this:

Hey, Person I Need!

Long time no talk! How are you?! Sorry I haven’t written you in 17 years — boy have I been busy — but here’s some contrived anecdote to show I’ve been thinking about you. Thought you’d like to hear these few random things that are going on with me, too. Oh, by the way, I was thinking you could hire me/refer me/help me in some other way I’ve been generous enough to dream up for you. And since I’m sure you’re dying to read my resume, it’s attached. Totally can’t wait to catch up!

Sincerely,

Most Transparent Jobseeker Ever

If that sounds extreme, believe me, it’s not. I have, in fact, received a number of notes not unlike this myself in recent weeks. And for the record, it isn’t that I wouldn’t be happy to help if I could. It’s just that the approach is so completely disingenuous that it’s actually detrimental to the person’s cause. (And we Yers tend to be more prone to it because of our sometime lack of social graces, the quick and familiar way we communicate, and the broad if not deep virtual networks we’re able to maintain.)

As understandable — and essential — as the urge to work one’s connections is in times like these, there’s still an art to doing it. It’s rooted in basic common sense and good manners, and it applies in every situation, whether you’re sending an e-mail, Facebook message, smoke signal, singing telegram, or (gasp) letter. So, in the interest of maintaining our networking dignity, here are a couple suggestions for reaching out the right way…

1. Be honest — no, really. It’s important that any networking note we write contains the usual niceties (a “hope you’re doing well,” and some punctuation, for example), but don’t overdo it. When we try too hard to be all “great”s and giggles — especially in an attempt to obscure the fact that we want something — it usually has just the opposite effect. Not only does it draw attention to our self-serving motives, it can also be fairly insulting to the intelligence of the recipient. Why not, instead, try telling the truth? “I know it’s been a long time,” you might say, “but I recently started looking for a new job and, since you’re one of the people who’s offered help in that arena over the years, I thought I’d check in.” (And if the person’s a legitimate friend, a light-hearted nod to the awkwardness often diffuses any tension: “I’m so sorry you’re only hearing from me now, when I need you, but I hope you won’t hold it against me forever.”) It’s nothing revolutionary, but with trust in short supply these days, a little sincerity goes a very long way.
2. Ask for advice, not a gig. It’s never really proper to ask for a job outright unless you’re in an actual interview. But with the job market in the state it is, and everyone worried about their own job, it’s particularly poor form right now. Some people may not even respond to you if they feel pressured to produce a possible job or broker an introduction, so focus your energy on seeking out good advice, insights, and resources. If, for instance, there’s a job you’re interested in at an acquaintance’s company, write to ask what s/he thinks of the department, not to look for the hookup. This tack is flattering — after all, who doesn’t like the idea that their perspective might be valuable? — and it puts you in the positive light of a potential protégé or close colleague, someone that your contact may think of (fondly, and maybe even first) should a job prospect arise. This way, if they have a post or person to share with you, they can do so on their own terms. And if all they have to give you is a few words of wisdom, at least they know that’s worthwhile to you, too.
3. Do not attach your resume. And for that matter, don’t attach any other representations of your wonderfulness that are likely to lock up people’s inboxes, even if you’re sure they like you. Not only can it seem presumptuous, it also looks a bit desperate. Even if you’re posting to a group of friends about your job search, it’s much more effective (not to mention safer) to just include a few sentences about what you’re looking for and what you’ve done, rather than giving them your entire work history, which they’re not likely to read anyway. As a rule, re-establish contact first, then ply with documents.
4. Facebook doesn’t change anything. In our age of social networking, it can be tempting to use the relaxed attitude of tools like Facebook to take the work out of networking. It’s so easy now to just “friend” a person you haven’t talked to in years — without so much as a, “Remember me from high school?” — then hit them with the old, “I really love your company, so…” But take it from me, that isn’t going to be received any better by a Facebook friend than it would be by anyone else. Even on the Web, people know when they’re being used, and they don’t like it. So apply the same amount of courtesy and concern there as you would everywhere else.
5. Show a little gratitude. Remember that everyone, from the C-suite all the way down, is under pressure right now. So thank them for their time, and if they make an effort to respond, even if they don’t say much, realize it means something — and say so. Not just because it’s the right thing to do, but because it fosters a continuing relationship. We’re so connected, and it’s so easy to maintain those connections in today’s world, that there really is no excuse not to build and nurture as many substantive relationships as you can. (And just to be clear, by substantive, I don’t mean poking and gifting, but actual communication, like with words.) That may seem like a big investment of time for not very much immediate return — and goodness knows many of us really need the return at the moment — but trust me, you just never know.

Every time I watch a confirmation hearing or hear talk of a stimulus plan or find out about yet another inauguration to-do, I can’t help but think about how much work there actually is to do.

This, I’m told, is a very Gen Y impulse, the product of being young, sleep-deprived, and raised on Mr. Rogers, who told us we really could do whatever we liked. But I think it probably has more to do with getting older, and coming to grips with what exactly our future might hold. Sure, we’ve got the Wii, and HDTV, and Google, but those only go so far when you’re unemployed, drowning in debt and lamenting the plight of the polar bear.

It’s a topsy-turvy world out there, and while every generation has experienced some of that, the real grown-ups in my life say that feeling does seem more pervasive than ever, reaching into just about every aspect of life – from foreign policy to the domestic struggles of young vets, from student loans to the greatest economic instability since the Depression, from joblessness at home to the perils (human rights, environmental and otherwise) of globalization abroad. Or maybe we just hear about it more.

Regardless, I know this worldview might appear a tad extreme, so in the spirit of sharing, I thought I’d give you a little insight into what I saw and heard this week to put me in such a lovely frame of mind - a small snapshot of one Y perspective.

5 signs of the apocalypse, and why they made me think of you…

1. Gold might as well be fur. Last night, I told my boyfriend I’m off gold. I’m not that flash to begin with – and I’ve been off diamonds for a while for obvious reasons – but after reading National Geographic’s January cover story, “Gold: The True Cost of a Global Obsession,” I couldn’t believe I hadn’t already known to eschew gold. “For all of its allure, gold’s human and environmental toll has never been so steep,” author Brook Larmer writes. At this rate, I’m going to have to take up an ascetic lifestyle. I already had to stop eating shrimp. My sister’s even done with Coca-Cola. And if anyone ever marries me, it’ll probably be without a ring (and not because I’m easygoing). It’s easy to dismiss as a whole lot of fanatacism, but with the amount and visibility of information that’s out there, we’re going to learn some things we don’t like. Ignoring them won’t make them go away. On the contrary, we should be grateful we do know, and doing our best to act on that knowledge when we can.
2. Everyone owes $50k! According to a financial aid counselor at a well-known Washington, D.C., university who my siblings chatted up last week, $50,000 to $60,000 in educational debt from undergrad is just about expected these days for her institution and schools of its caliber. There’s so much to say about that, and yet, no need to say anything at all. Because, as the College Board says, educational debt is an investment in your future, and a bachelor’s degree is all but essential these days just to be competitive (someone with a B.A. will earn $800,000 more than someone with a high school diploma over a lifetime), so young people hardly have a choice. But that doesn’t make it any less shameful.
3. Kids use Facebook for (not annoying) good. Believe it or not, and whatever you might think of the situation in the Middle East, I found the following rather encouraging: The 14-year-old daughter of close family friends recently updated her Facebook status – which people use to say everything from “Joey is ‘eating spaghetti,’” to, “Sarah is ’so, so, so excited to be engaged!’” – to read, “R. is ‘702 Palestinians murdered by Israel in Gaza (more than 230 children & 100 women) & 3100 injured. Donate your status.’” Now this is a little girl I’ve known since she was a baby, and whose young adulthood I’m so in denial about that I assiduously avoid her Facebook page, lest I find anything I don’t want to know. And Facebook is running out of ways to surprise me. But unlike the 101 groups for this or that cause, or messages from people actively proselytizing, this just had an earnest, honest, youthful sincerity to it that grabbed me. And  how nice to find that on Facebook.
   
4. The government hates animals. New York’s Governor David A. Patterson has proposed “an immediate 55 percent cut and elimination of zoo and botanical garden funds altogether in 2010,” writes Andrew C. Revkin on the New York Times’ Dot Earth blog. All right, I get it — the state’s in trouble, and the $5 million it’ll save by slashing the zoo’s funding will no doubt go a long way in stabilizing things. Doom a hedgehog, feed an investment banker, and all that. But really, how sad. It isn’t enough that we’re destroying natural habitats all over the world, now we have to target the artificial ones we’ve created to shelter the few animals who might survive us. What difference does it make if my kids never get to see a red panda or Bengal tiger? (Never mind the American pika, a cute-as-a-button rabbit relative that’s on its way to becoming the second animal to join the endangered species list because of global warming, behind the polar bear. NatGeo can be such a downer.) Sheesh. The Wildlife Conservation Society’s pithy but pointed video response to the budget cuts is perfect. I hope someone listens.
5. And I love my Mom, but what about the elderly? And in what could have been my own personal apocalypse, on New Year’s Eve, my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. And last week, she had surgery to remove it. It’ll be a few months of recovery ahead, but the way she handled it – bouncing right back better and bossier than ever – reminded me of that Boomer resilience that some say (and I hope) we’ve inherited. But it also underscored how important excellent health care is: While watching doctors dote on my mom was a relief, I couldn’t help but think about all the people who don’t have that, not just all over the world, but right here at home. And while nine million uninsured children is a disgrace, our aging population will be larger than ever in the coming years – because of both the number of Boomers, and their lengthening life span – and adequate health care will be essential for them. Not meeting those needs would be a disgrace, too.

So that’s what I’ve been thinking about, guys. What does it all mean? I don’t know yet, except that there’s a long road of recovery and rebuilding ahead for us, too. Have I fallen off the maudlin cliff, or do you feel it, too?

Just when I think the Gen Y conversation’s gone stale, a new theme emerges that proves me wrong, and this year, it was a social one. But perhaps not the one you’d expect: It wasn’t social responsibility, or even social networking, but (our lack of) social connection, and by extension, aptitude. If it seems I’ve been harping on this a bit (witness “Making true connections in a Facebook world”), I have — because this might be the area where we have the most to learn, and the most to lose if we don’t learn it.

What better time to start those lessons, then, than right now, as many of us head home to family and holiday parties galore this December, situations that often traditionally elicit at least as much dread and drinking as goodwill? So this December, I vote we actually (gasp) talk to people, and (double–gasp) mean it. As New Year’s resolutions go, it’s a basic one, I know. But after all my cheerleading and translating for our cohort, I’ve also learned a few things about where we fall down. And making substantive connections, whether they’re on or off the web, is increasingly becoming one of those places, especially if what I’ve been hearing from you all is any indication.

Consider Hannah Seligson’s November New York Times story, “For Help Finding a Job, Friends in Low Places.” Hannah, a Gen Y author I met when I wrote about her book last year, told me I might be the “contrarian” voice in her piece, which explored Yers’ efforts to utilize their peer network — instead of, say, their parents’ friends — to find job opportunities. Hardly in a rush to read my curmudgeonly comments, I waited a while to read the story.

And then an odd thing happened: I started to get e-mails and calls from people (my own younger sister included) thanking me for being honest and realistic about what one Yer might have to offer another, especially over something like Facebook. “It’s very easy to just send out a friend request,” I’d told Hannah, “but when you are looking for jobs, you want to make sure your peer network is comprised of people who can speak to your qualities, not just vouch for you as a friend on Facebook.” It certainly wasn’t revolutionary, but it resonated, likely because — like me — many of you are finding yourselves drawing that new distinction between Facebook friends and real ones, too. And let’s just say Facebook friends don’t always make great references, mentors, or, well, friends.

So in the interest of having real relationships, let’s treat every connection we make from now on as sincerely as possible. And let’s keep the connections we already have from going generic. That friend you only see on IM? Drag him or her out to lunch. If you’re home this break, take the time to catch up with old friends in person, rather than updating them via Facebook status (or relying on that most formidable of networks, the Former PTA Moms Phone Tree).

Or if you run into someone you haven’t seen in a while on Facebook, take the time to write a quick note instead of sending a blank friend request. This makes you a person, instead of a profile your would-be friend has to poke around in till s/he remembers who you are and confirms that you aren’t insane. (And this goes double for people you don’t know, but would like to; they’ll be much more likely to respond to an “I love your work!” than nothing at all.)

Even when it comes to folks who’ve made themselves available as part of your university alumni network or company mentoring program, reach out to them first as an individual and second as an opportunity. And always do it with some humility and gratitude. After all, there’s a huge difference between an e-mail that says, “You’re in a field I love, and I’d really appreciate a bit of advice,” and one that says, “Here are the three jobs I’d like at your company, and my resume’s attached.” (Both of which I’ve gotten, by the way.)

The moral of the story: Use all the tools available to you, but use them to build relationships, not just networks, social or otherwise. A Boomer parent/executive stopped to chat with me recently about the seeming contradiction between Gen Yers’ affinity for technology and our need for interpersonal connection, and as we wrestled with it, he said something that stuck with me: “The technology is actually getting us back to where we used to be.” A few generations ago, one’s hometown alone offered a lifetime’s worth of deep connections. In today’s sprawling, mobile, hyperactive world, not so much. And while technology’s helping us to (re)create some of that community online, we’re still a long way from replicating the lasting bonds that used to form naturally in our neighborhoods and help shape us into the people we were supposed to become.

Good news is, those bonds still do exist in the real world. So, as a present to ourselves and everyone who’ll ever have to know us, let’s go get them back.

Just a quick update from one of our Gig authors: It’s a new online comic strip, corporatetoolz, from Jake Greene, the author of Whoa, My Boss is Naked: A Career Book for People Who Would Never Be Caught Dead Reading a Career Book. (You may remember him from our “Could ‘Rock of Love’ boost your career?” post.)

My personal fave?

Of course, as soon as I saw this, I thought of about 15 more I’d do (if only I had a shred of artistic talent!), but I bet you guys have even better ones than I do. Care to share?

Did you all see “Not-So-Personal Finance” in the New York Times this weekend? It’s a story about young people sharing their salary figures with each other — which has long been considered bad professional behavior — and the generational politics of openly discussing money and other traditionally private matters. The Times writer paints the issue, er, vividly: “As Ilana Arazie, 32, an online video producer for a media company in Manhattan, said, ‘If we can talk about how many orgasms we have with our mate, why can’t we discuss how much we make?’”

Now, for the record, you’re not likely to find me talking about how many orgasms I have with my mate anywhere ever (and certainly not in the Times), but I’ve often been told I’m conservative in this respect. And maybe that’s why I might find it strategically suspect — never mind just plain icky — to do compensation roundtables with friends. Or worse yet, to post salaries on Facebook, as the title of Times article’s web page — “Sharing Salary Figures on Facebook” — seems to suggest is happening. (The story itself doesn’t include an instance of this.) It’s one thing to share that number with very close friends or mentors, but with your whole happy-hour crew or Facebook universe? Not so much.

For those of you who aren’t yet furiously writing a comment, here’s why: If you’re a recent grad or working in an industry where early-career salaries are more or less set and/or public, it makes sense to try to get as much information as you can about what you’re worth, which often means giving specifics — such as what you’re being offered for a particular job.

But once you’ve been in a gig or in an industry for a while, salaries become an increasingly sensitive topic. Why? Because the friends you’re showing your paycheck to are often your colleagues. And if you’ve all been at your careers long enough, significant differences — in how you’re compensated, your job responsibilities, and even the level of respect you get from your superiors — are bound to emerge. Mishandle these, whether by inadvertently flaunting your own success or becoming jealous of someone else’s, and you’re in for some serious professional tension.

For instance, I have a journalism friend who is constantly coming up with cute ways to ask what I make, and judging from his/her eager expression, these inquiries aren’t made in the spirit of sharing. It’s competition, pure and simple, and while I adore this person, I’m pretty sure that if I shared the information s/he wants, we’d be the Lauren and Heidi of the friend group faster than you can say “TMI.”

Of course, I also have a colleague here at Fortune whose encouragement has been invaluable when it comes to asking for raises and whatnot. But we only talk numbers on a relatively vague, need-to-know basis. Keeping these chats hypothetical keeps us close and — in a positive sort of way — competitive, since we never quite know exactly where the other stands. (Don’t believe that the taboo still exists? Check out Fortune senior writer Annie Fisher’s latest column, “Tax rebates: A clue to co-workers’ salaries,” which is all about how to use rebate time to surreptitiously figure out what your coworkers make.)

But whatever my squeamishness, I did find the Times story’s generational explanations of this behavior amusing. As with so many things, it’s all about our childhoods. Salary.com chief compensation officer Bill Coleman cited Gen Yers’ affinity for teamwork as one reason why we might seek friends’ help to decipher salaries. And Barbara W. Keats, an associate professor of management at Arizona State University, says that our “relative lack of manners regarding salary can be traced to the self-esteem movement embraced by baby boomer parents.” As she puts it, “They’re special, and however they say things is very cute.”

It’s reductive, yes, but I don’t necessarily disagree. Many of us are still young enough that we haven’t yet had the chance to feel the backlash of revealing too much detail about our personal and professional lives. And it remains to be seen if there really will be one, or if corporate etiquette will adjust to us, the way that other corporate structures have. But regardless, it just seems to me that, in the average office, showing your economic hand can go either way — and the benefits don’t outweigh the consequences of oversharing, no matter how old you are.

But maybe I’m already too old to understand the rationale of these young movers and shakers. What about you?

I sat down Tuesday afternoon in Mountain View, Calif., with Dan Nye, the newish CEO (he joined earlier this year) of LinkedIn. That’s the company that is like Facebook for grownups, a businessperson’s social networking site. Nye’s looking for press because LinkedIn plans to unveil some nifty new features on Dec. 10. (I got a look, but agreed not to divulge anything yet.) I was interested in hearing what he had to say, in part because of the rumors flying around that LinkedIn plans to sell the company early next year to News Corp. (NWS)

The buyout gossip began with an item last week in the UK version of TechCrunch. Never mind that LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman (a made man in the PayPal mafia and a buddy of mine) categorically denied the rumor in the Daily Telegraph. Anything that suggests that Rupert Murdoch would expand his social-networking empire is sure to set tongues wagging. Breakingviews.com wrote an intelligent summary of why a LinkedIn acquisition would make sense, largely because of the opportunities to leverage LinkedIn’s tools with the Wall Street Journal readership.

Not surprisingly, Nye didn’t deny that News Corp. made an offer for his company. Instead, he said that when he joined the company he told the board — comprised of Hoffman, Sequoia’s Mark Kvamme and Greylock’s David Sze — that he was only interested in taking the job if the goal was to “go long.” But is he selling out anyway? “We’re excited about building this company,” said Nye. “It would take a helluva lot to get us off that path.” Does that mean $1 billion? “A lot more than that,” said Nye, who worked at Procter & Gamble (PG), Intuit (INTU) and Advent Software (ADVS) before joining LinkedIn.

LinkedIn clearly is playing to win. The company has mushroomed from 60 employees when Nye joined in February to almost 200 today. At the time, LinkedIn had 9 million members; today it has nearly 17 million. Nye predicted revenues will range from $75 million to $100 million next year.

LinkedIn has the virtue of having survived adversity. Before Facebook and MySpace existed — back when Friendster was hot — LinkedIn was just getting going. It’s still going. Independent or part of News Corp., it’s fun watching this plucky company succeed.

It seems hardly a day goes by anymore where Facebook isn’t the topic of conversation in business circles – as a mild annoyance or the mother of all marketing tools. We’ve even discussed it here on The Gig, where the Facebook stragglers among us had to ask how, in the name of goodness, to avoid undesirable associates trying to “friend” us.

But this weekend, in the wake of Thanksgiving, that most American of family holidays, the Facebook drama finally hit home for me with a distressed call from my sister, Lisa: “Kamran won’t be my friend,” she all but wailed. Turns out our 18-year-old brother, Kamran, who’s a freshman at RIT this year, had officially ignored her friendship request. When I intervened, reassuring him that, unlike Mom, we’d ignore any teenage Facebook indiscretions — his pic was a shot of him smoking a cigar in some nondescript club — he promptly informed me that 1) he was at a perfectly respectable cigar bar watching Bloomberg in that photo, and 2) “Facebook and family don’t mix.”

Now that’s not exactly news; lots of parents have written about their quests to friend their children, with varying degree of success — especially when it comes to naughty gifts, at least according to the New York Times. (As for our own mother, briefed on the family Facebook imbroglio, she squawked, “Facebook?! Isn’t that where the child rapers are?” Lucky we’re such trustworthy kids.) But we’re siblings; we’re supposed to be friends. According to Kam, evidently, not so much.

Before I became too indignant, though, he reminded me of my own slow introduction to Facebook. Having graduated from school in 2002, I just missed the explosion of Facebook on campus, so I didn’t find my way to the wonders of Scrabulous until — gasp — some senior Fortune folk forced the issue. And as a result, Facebook for me isn’t so much about poking, spanking, and gifting as it is about keeping up with colleagues.

Am I missing out? Maybe. As Kam seems to know instinctively, some relationships are best lived outside the realm of status updates and party pics. And great as it is to build extra-office relationships with co-workers, I live in fear of the day that some publicist-cum-stalker tries to friend me. (Or worse yet, that a person I idolize in the office engineers his own fall from grace via The Wall or something like.) That may be a small price to pay for the increased connectivity, but I’m not sure yet.

Perhaps it’s just a matter of creating an internal version for our offices so that we can have all the functionality of Facebook without the potentially uncomfortable colliding of worlds. Or, as in the case of my little brother, we’ll just be dragged along whether we like it or not: Lisa, the family’s true Facebooker, took matters into her own hands and started recruiting every Tom, Joe, and Stanley to her new group, “Can my brother please be friends with me on Facebook?” (Apparently, when she hits 200 members, Mr. Too Cool For School will relent. Make your voice heard here. Comedy.)

Predictably, I cringed — why involve perfect strangers in this disgraceful bit of familial strife? — but maybe, once again, I’m just a big curmudgeon. Of course, it’s only with this little fracas that Kamran and Lisa have become really engaged with and excited about Facebook; it’s the randomness that’s attractive, the prospect of sharing an inside joke with untold numbers of outsiders. And perhaps that’s the crux of the problem: For them, it’s meeting random people that keeps them at their keyboards. For me and many other sometime-cynics, it’s the threat of random people that keeps us locked in our offices.

And while knowing everything there is to know about one’s “friends” might be attractive, there is such a thing as knowing way too much. At a certain point, if it isn’t about Scrabulous and party pics — i.e., the young person’s footloose and fancy-free life — doesn’t Facebook become just another bit of work we have to do? (Or, in Kam’s case, another thing to protect our parents and big sisters from?) You tell me: Can family, be it at home or in the office, mix? And even if they can, should they?

I saw something more than a little scary last week at Google (GOOG): A calm, confident, friendly management team that seemed more comfortable in its own skin than I’ve ever seen them.

For the first time, Google invited a handful of journalists to its annual Zeitgeist conference for advertising partners. Afterwards, Larry Page, Sergey Brin and Eric Schmidt held an on-the-record chat with us over sandwiches. They talked about their interest in wireless spectrum. They fretted that their biggest challenge (still) is managing their growth. They even showed their sense of humor. When I noted the unusual stability of the top executives beneath the ruling troika (as a prelude to asking if that stability would continue), Page quipped, “Emotionally or physically?” More seriously, he predicted continued stability and suggested a leadership training program is helping. (The word is that many of Google’s “economic volunteers,” a term that’s actually used within the company, will be retiring soon and that turmoil will hurt.)

The arrogance remains, of course. Schmidt held forth on how much the company is doing to address the concerns that caused Viacom (VIA) to take Google to court over YouTube’s policies regarding content it doesn’t own. He said filtering technology is in “various stages of rollout,” as if that were good enough. He said Viacom “rushed” into litigation. He obviously has the luxury of knowing the suit has done nothing to blunt YouTube’s advance.

On the subject of social networking, and Facebook in particular, they made it very clear just how interested Google is in getting into the game in a more meaningful way than its Orkut service. (Read my colleague Josh Quittner for a contrary view on how much Facebook worries Google.)

Bottom line: From my perch, these guys were cool as cucumbers. Genuinely relaxed, engaged and at the top of their game.

By the way, Google reports earnings Thursday. The company’s worth $200 billion. And its founders give off the vibe that they’re just getting going. As I’ve written in the past, Google’s management isn’t perfect. Its previous quarter was sloppy. My gut tells me this one won’t be.

Here’s a question I’ve heard a lot more than I might’ve expected in my reporting on Gen Y. Let us know what you think, and thanks for all the well wishes. Have a great weekend!

*****

My boss is in her 30s, and I thought, since we’re close in age, that we’d get along well. Instead, she’s harder on me than my older bosses have been. What’s up with that?

When Boomer bosses complain about their Gen Y charges, says researcher Tamara Erickson, she just asks if they have any kids. “I see the difference immediately,” says the co-author of 2006’s Workforce Crisis. “But I haven’t found anything that effective for Gen Xers. When I try, I often run into a fairly grumpy reaction: ‘Well, I had to do it, and they ought to do it.’ They’re much more rigid about what they went through and not being sympathetic to Yers.”

It seems counterintuitive. These Xers are our big brothers and sisters, they taught us all our best bad behavior, we idolized them. While that appears to be true in retrospect, speaking as a big sister myself, I never miss an opportunity to remind my sibs how much they got away with because I’d paved the way. “When I was little…” has started many a bitter conversation. And we’re only talking about curfews and phone privileges.

So imagine how Xers in the workplace, where the stakes are so much higher, must feel. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there are 48 million Xers to the almost 80 million of us and over 78 million Boomers. “People are paying attention to Yers to a degree that they didn’t necessarily pay to Xers, who are basically sandwiched between these huge globs of people in a very frustrating situation,” says Erickson. “They have annoying people like Tammy Erickson saying we have to retire retirement, so they’re not going to get rid of Boomers when they thought they would. And they’re already thinking that by the time Boomers actually leave, Yers will be perfectly positioned for those jobs. They’re very threatened by Yers.”

Which may help explain their sometimes less than loving attitude toward us in the office. But they needn’t depend on your empathy alone. For the Xers struggling to manage Yers — and their own emotions — more effectively, Erickson has a few thoughts. (That, incidentally, might be quite useful if e-mailed anonymously.)

Realize, she says, that Yers are very good at seeking out expertise, and they’re much more attuned to that than hierarchy, so Xers shouldn’t get offended if the Yers in their charge choose Boomers for mentors. “There’s great evidence of relationships forming between Boomers and Yers,” Erickson says. “Yers are sussing out who really knows how to do the job, and often it’s these old Boomers. But Xers can’t get caught up in that. They have to have the confidence to encourage Yers to team up with Boomers and make that an accepted part of the culture.”

And speaking of confidence, Xers also need to build some when it comes to technology. They’re very concerned about Yers’ greater technological sophistication, says Erickson, who points out that while Xers are perceived as very tech-savvy, some don’t feel as comfortable with technology as the perception indicates. Erickson recommends addressing that insecurity directly: “The Xers do really have to make sure that they’re experiencing the technology. A lot of what Yers know is not about them using the technology better, but about using it differently. Xers need to use the technology enough to develop some of that experiential knowledge.”

As an “older” Yer, even I didn’t quite understand what Facebook meant to my recent-grad sister and her friends until I finally started using it semi-regularly. Understanding how Yers use sites like this — that they aren’t just for e-mail or networking, but practically for conducting life — could go a long way to ease Xers’ technology anxiety. And insofar as that helps Xers to be more open and flexible in the way that they think about work, Erickson’s a fan: “It’d be great for Xer bosses to sit down with Yers and say, ‘Let’s think about all the time we spend scheduling meetings or doing conference calls. How much of that could we do with text messages or an internal Facebook site?’ Thinking like that will help Xers stay a step ahead.”

But whether your Xer boss is forward-thinking or as backward as Kris Kross, chances are that s/he’ll have a loopy episode sooner or later, so when it happens, don’t despair. Just remember where it’s coming from and try a little tenderness.

It’s become cliche for people in the know to say that MySpace, the News Corp. (NWS)-owned Internet company, isn’t cool anymore. Facebook is the site that’s got the momentum, these people say.

An recent interesting throwaway line in a really fascinating article shed some light on this debate:

The kids all said that a) no one listens to the radio anymore, b) they mostly steal music, but they don’t consider it stealing, and c) they get most of their music from iTunes on their iPod. They told us that MySpace is over, it’s just not cool anymore; Facebook is still cool, but that might not last much longer; and the biggest thing in their life is word of mouth. That’s how they hear about music, bands, everything.

That’s a quote from Mark DiDia, head of operations for Columbia Records, which is owned by Sony (SNR). It comes from an article in last weekend’s New York Times Magazine, “The Music Man,” about Rick Rubin, the guru-like record producer that Sony hopes will save its slowing dying business. The “kids” DiDia refers to are recent college grads in a focus group. I’m certain that the management team at MySpace and Facebook will tell you a million reasons why the kids are wrong and that their business story will continue for years. Still, the thing about focus groups is that they don’t lie.

For what it’s worth, the kids may think Facebook is about to become uncool, but the oldsters are just discovering it. When I returned from a weeklong vacation I had 23 “friends” requests at Facebook, 9 from people I actually consider my friends or meaningful acquaintances. I go to Facebook about once every three weeks just to see who has asked to be my friend. I quickly leave, however, and suspect most of the 30-year-old-plus people who are now finding out about Facebook will do the same.

For August’s question, a desperate plea from a good thirtysomething friend who’s running into a somewhat twentysomething-induced situation:

“I’ve had this problem lately about what to do when someone who wants me to add them to my Facebook contacts and I don’t like them/respect them/want to be associated with them,” she writes. “I ignore their plea, but it could get awkward. I don’t really want to decline outright… Not as big of a deal on Facebook, which I don’t use anyway (okay, I don’t really use any social networking), but what about for LinkedIn, which is more of a professional network site. I don’t want to recommend or be linked to someone who might bring my whole professional reputation down a notch.”

I had to laugh when I received this because I’d been having the same issue recently myself and was starting to worry that I was either 1) an insufferable snob, or 2) not cut out for social networking. So I called on some people I thought might know how to solve our problem — namely, my 22-year-old sister, Lisa, and her recent-grad, extremely Facebook-savvy friends.

Evidently, our reader’s instinct — ignore, ignore, ignore — is right. According to my little Facebook focus group, the rule with most of these social networks is that a pending friend-request, even a prolonged one, can mean any number of things. True, it may mean that the other person just doesn’t like you and would rather chew gravel than be your “friend.” But it could also mean that he or she simply isn’t much of a social networker. Whereas, an outright denial leaves no such room for interpretation.

And while it might be awkward to run into someone who’s still “pending” on your friend list — Lisa, my own sister, actually called not long ago to ask why I hadn’t confirmed her as my Facebook friend yet — you can always say you just don’t really go in for the whole social networking thing. (In my case, it’s true; I didn’t even know Lisa was — horror of horrors — pending, but thankfully, she forgave me and a grave family crisis was averted.) Most normal people will get the hint, and if one or two pending people don’t and pester you about it, well, then at least you know you made the right call.

Because, as our reader rightly points out, befriending the wrong person — on Facebook, LinkedIn, or MySpace, as in life — can have dire consequences. Not only do you suffer when you open this sort of direct line of personal and semi-friendly communication with a — let’s just say it — wack person, but all your other friends suffer because you’ve made them even more vulnerable to friend requests and communiques from said person. And again, in social networking as in life, you often are who you hang with, virtually or otherwise. The point of these networks is, after all, to keep existing friendships and associations current and bring new ones — between people with shared personal or professional interests — together, not to force you to be friends with people you don’t like, respect, or want to be associated with. (Or for that matter, people who want to steal your identity, like this Sophos release points out.)

That said, I’d be remiss if I didn’t say a small something about those people many of us don’t want to be associated with. Often, I’ve found, it’s the people we don’t want to befriend in real life who — unable to overcome this condition — try to push for a friendship online. These are also usually the same people who, if the Facebook newsfeed is any indication, seem to have more vibrant lives there than most of us do in reality. This doesn’t make them bad people, just in many cases, people who haven’t been as socially successful as they might’ve liked, and have found in these social networks a chance to finally change that.

So help them (offline) if you can, and if you think you might be one of them, try putting some of the energy you spend Facebooking and whatnot into building some good, strong, face-to-face interpersonal relationships. We’re getting older, and while, as my brilliant colleague David Kirkpatrick says here and all the time, Facebook and its ilk can be wonderful tools, they’re just that, tools, not ways of serious adult life. So use them, don’t stress them. And no matter what kind of social networker you are, don’t bet they’ll be replacing old-fashioned people skills any time soon!

Thoughts? Feelings? Rants?

What with all the exciting stuff going on in the Web world of late — Google (GOOG) laying a rare earnings turd, Facebook becoming the next Google, Yahoo (YHOO) losing altitude fast — a morsel from eBay’s (EBAY) earnings call last week was undereported. CEO Meg Whitman, vowing to rejuvenate eBay.com’s core listings, promised to market more offline. She also commented briefly on eBay’s recent spat with Google. Consider this from the New York Times:

Last month, eBay temporarily stopped buying keyword advertising on Google, the Web’s largest search engine. EBay said the suspension did not have had significant effect on its bottom line. “We learned a great deal from that test,” Ms. Whitman said. “It actually had no impact on the financials of the quarter, and we learned a lot about where we want to spend money and where we think we can save money on Internet marketing.”

Think about that. eBay, once and perhaps still Google’s largest advertiser, saying that perhaps online advertising isn’t all it’s cracked up to be anymore. That’d be fine, say, if Procter & Gamble (PG) decided it had had enough of this newfangled form of advertising. But not eBay, an Internet pioneer. Internet advertising taking a back seat to offline marketing? The horror, the horror.

My former boss Eric Pooley published a juicy, access-laden cover story about Rupert Murdoch in the current issue of Time Magazine. There’s a small amount of news, like Murdoch confirming that he discussed combining MySpace with Yahoo (YHOO), a conversation he had with former CEO Terry Semel. Pooley also describes how Murdoch threatened to walk away if the Bancrofts didn’t submit a more reasonable response to his $5-billion bid to buy the Wall Street Journal. Murdoch also voices support for newly installed Journal managing editor Marcus Brauchli. All in all, it’s a good read, with the cover line “The Last Tycoon”, after the Fitzgerald novel.

There’s also an intriguing throwaway line from Murdoch deep in the story, regarding MySpace. “It was an education for me, the way it took off,” Murdoch tells Pooley. “It was the cool young site. Now the average age is climbing.”

What’s intriguing about Murdoch’s point is that MySpace CEO Chris DeWolfe went out of his way to make a similar point to me Wednesday morning over breakfast in San Francisco. He told me 40% of MySpace’s audience is 35 years or older. The reason for stressing this is to counter the assumption that rival site Facebook has a better plan for growing beyond its youthful audience. I don’t doubt that more older people are using MySpace, and Facebook, for that matter. When I asked DeWolfe, however, what percentage of time spent on MySpace is attributed to the 35-year-old-plus crowd, he said he didn’t know but agreed with my assumption that the figure would be well below 40%.

I still doubt that adults, the kinds with careers to build and families to raise, will spend much time on sites like MySpace and Facebook in years to come. The owners of those sites disagree, of course. Their businesses depend on it.

David Kirkpatrick and I have been having a cordial argument about Facebook. He thinks it’s going to be the next big thing. I think it’s really annoying. He likes to send me messages through Facebook, which then notifies me, by email, that I have a message on Facebook from David. I ask him to send me emails instead. I just can’t see myself ever spending significant amounts of time on Facebook. It’s cute and all, but, well, I don’t know, it’s just not my thing.

That got me thinking about just how difficult it is to change one’s behavior online. I believe that kids use Facebook and love it, and I’m sure many will keep using it when they grow up. Most, however, will have to attend meetings and do actual work during the day — unless, of course, they become journalists — and therefore won’t have the time to see who is “poking” them on Facebook.

Similarly, I was stunned by news that Google (GOOG) now has 56% of the U.S. search market, up from 49% a year ago. Then again, I’m sort of surprised anyone doesn’t use Google. I keep meaning to spend a whole day using Ask.com’s search. (Jim: LOVE the new commercials.) But then I forget, so ingrained is Google in my search psyche. (The IAC (IAC) unit also didn’t do as good a job of helping me find a news story about search marketshare as Google did.) Then there’s Google Finance, which is doing some really neat stuff — and has started a new blog (Katie, you’re a blogger!). I like Google Finance. But I rarely use it. Yahoo (YHOO) Finance has been my browser home page for about … forever. I just can’t conceive of not seeing Yahoo Finance when I go online.

What will it take to change that?

I didn’t attend Zuckfest in San Francisco Thursday. (I was busy, not uniterested.) But I did read David Kirkpatrick’s comprehensive report on what Facebook is up to with its new platform concept, as well as a whole bunch of other descriptions of the attempt by CEO Mark Zuckerberg – whom I’ll always remember for his one-of-a-kind business card – to create Macworld-like drama the way Apple (AAPL) CEO Steve Jobs does. (Particularly worth reading is a contrarian take by paidContent.org that throws a fair amount of cold water on Facebook’s dramatic announcement.)

What interests me here is whether anyone over about 25 will really use Facebook, including folks who use it in college and then go out into the real world. Last fall, when Facebook started expanding to allow corporate e-mails to be used to establish accounts (around the same time the company reportedly turned down a billion-dollar offer to be bought by Yahoo (YHOO)), I asked Facebook to start one for Fortune’s editorial employees. I then invited everyone on staff to be my “friends.” Three accepted, and I’m not naming names, nor did I take the rejection personally. It was more that no one seemed to care. Since then I’ve been steadily getting invitations from all over the place for people to be my “friends,” many from people I’ve never met or met only once. My hunch is that adults are finding out about Facebook and then inviting everybody they can think of. But will they actually visit the site and see who is “poking” them? I seriously doubt it. I don’t use LinkedIn much either, but I know that lots of people do, and I understand why: It’s got content that helps them do their job. And even then, it’s not like you’re going to spend a ton of time on LinkedIn, the main premise behind Facebook and News Corp.’s (NWS) MySpace. Professionals get in and get out. They’re too busy to do otherwise.

(Will adults use Facebook? Have your say in this poll.)