Stephanie Bane would appreciate if it people would stop tossing insulting labels around about millennials.

But not because she is one.

"As a Gen X-er, I'm used to it," said the advertising executive who was born in 1969. "I remember being called a slacker."

After she graduated from college in 1991, the economy was going through one of its cyclical downturns. Instead of working in her field, she sold shoes at Horne's department store and did temp work until 1993, then served in the Peace Corps from 1993 to 1995.

Now director of account planning at the Smith Brothers Agency on the North Shore, Ms. Bane is a member of the generation squeezed in between the mass of babies born in the post-World War II years and the only slightly smaller hordes of children born between the early 1980s to the late 1990s.

There are so many boomers, so many millennials that those two generations sometimes seem to take up all the air in the room. The Pew Research Center issued a report in June acknowledging as much, just with the name alone: "Generation X: America's neglected 'middle child.' "

Paul Taylor, author of the Pew report, seemed to think the generation whose members range in age from the mid-30s to late 40s -- they'll start turning 50 this year -- have a case to be made for being overlooked. In many ways even beyond the chronological ones, they are a transitional group somewhere betwixt and between, he said.

Gen Xers share more selfies on social media than boomers, but less than millennials. They are more likely than boomers to want a bigger government with more services, but less so than millennials. They ride the middle ground between the other generations on everything from being married young to being religiously unaffiliated.

They do stand out by being more pessimistic about having enough money to retire than either the generation before or the one after, according to the Pew research.

Retirement funding concerns have more to do with the economy, the opportunities, their responsibilities and the shift away from fixed pensions -- not because the generation that grew up with movies like "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" and "Wayne's World" hasn't worked hard.

A critical juncture

The next decade could be an important one for this generation, in the opinion of Warren J. McCoy, a diversity specialist in the University of Pittsburgh's Office of Affirmative Action, Diversity and Inclusion.

"I think the focus is probably going to be on the Gen X in the next several years or so," said Mr. McCoy, a self-described 52-year-old boomer who sees coming retirements of leaders from his generation as offering opportunities for those ready to step up.

There's some debate over whether the Gen Xers have grown frustrated that the boomers aren't moving on fast enough or whether that's just the perception of boomers caught between lackluster retirement investments and employers pushing through layoffs and buyouts.

Mr. McCoy spends a good amount of time talking about how different life experiences explain some of the disparate views the various age groups hold. In 2011, his office at Pitt began offering a workshop titled "Please Respect My Generation" to faculty and staff, in addition to others on harassment and safety.

"The generations one is probably the most popular one we provide," he said. In addition to offering sessions each spring and fall, the workshop has gone to branch campuses, been invited into different Pitt departments and even became part of a BNY Mellon event.

Developed with information provided by ATS Media, the materials used in the workshop divide the workforce into five generations.

Mr. McCoy's list shows the "traditionals" as being born between 1930 and 1945; boomers arriving between 1946 and 1964; Gen X children between 1965 and 1976; millennials between 1977 and 1990; and a group bearing the early name Generation 9/11 -- because the World Trade Center tragedy was a defining moment -- as those born after 1991.

Those dates don't necessarily sync up with guidelines that others use to define the generations.

A presentation in March by William R. Emmons, senior economic adviser with the Center for Household Financial Stability at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, put the Gen X labels on those born between 1965 and 1980 and the millennial or "echo boomer" tag on those between 1981 and 2000.

Then there's the Gen X Files website -- a less serious source, to be sure -- that says the generation includes those who arrived between 1961 and 1981.

No matter the definitions, the Pitt workshops are meant to foster better relations between people of diverse ages. Participants discuss traits that they think are commonly found in particular generations and they role-play scenarios.

"Usually, what happens is that a group that's not there, they get beat up," Mr. McCoy said wryly.

He keeps a whole list of characteristics -- good and bad -- that have been attributed to each generation over the years.

Mr. McCoy's literature describes Gen X as a self-reliant, resourceful generation that's comfortable with change. "They need flexibility between work and social life," he said.

Gen X on the job

Gen Xers also fall somewhere between other generations on the issue of changing jobs. The boomers might have had two or three jobs on their resumes (more than the traditionals), while millennials think nothing of frequent changes that leave eight, nine or 10 jobs on their list of experience, Mr. McCoy said.

Jeff Hennion's resume seems to fit the Gen X pattern.

In September, he returned to Pittsburgh health supplements retailer GNC in 2010.

He sees one of the main roles of Gen X in the workplace right now as mentoring the millennials. At Branding Brand, he worked with 180 people whose average age was 26.

"The millennials are a powerfully smart, connected generation that take for granted many things that didn't exist in the Gen Xers' youth," he said. "But they also want everything and want it now."

That means they need to be coached to find the best ways to use their skills productively, Mr. Hennion said.

In June, he gave the graduation speech to the Class of 2014 at Sewickley Academy. He told the students that, unlike him, they will be entering a world without a lot of guidelines about what to wear and what to do all day.

But, he said in a comment that the school's blog helpfully set up for easy tweeting, "Don't mistake the lack of guidelines for the lack of expectation. Work is still work and responsibilities are still responsibilities."

That's true even, he said, if employees are in jeans and a T-shirt sitting on an exercise ball.

A generation of caregivers

If the Gen Xers are busy mentoring the millennial masses, they are also spending a lot of time juggling responsibilities in helping their own parents and their own children.

Sarah Welch, director of the Career Development Center of Jewish Family & Children's Service in Squirrel Hill, said this smaller generation is likely to spend more time sandwiched between the demands of their jobs, their parents and their children than previous groups did.

Boomer parents didn't have as many children as the traditional generation did, so there are few siblings to carry the load, even as the elder generation is living longer. The recession didn't make it easy for the younger generation to move out on their own, either.

The Jewish Family and Children's Service offers a mix of programs meant to help -- from career services to programs helping older people get to medical appointments and do grocery shopping so their adult children don't have to leave work for a few hours to make that happen.

Both the Gen X and the millennial generations seem open to starting their own businesses, said Ms. Welch. And, if new workplace opportunities are finally starting to open up for the Gen Xers, she vouches for this small but resilient group.

"They're ready," she said. "They've got the knowledge base. They've got the experience."

If sometimes they get a little frustrated with the millennials and that group's eagerness to get to the good stuff right away, they won't be the first generation to feel that way. In the 1960s and 1970s, the term "generation gap" was commonly used to describe how parents and children at the time couldn't relate.

Ms. Bane, at Smith Brothers Agency, admits the agency recently had to take a stand on the use of smartphones and devices in meetings after a few too many incidents where people weren't paying attention to important matters at hand.

"How could you possibly think you're giving me your best thinking when you're watching Vine videos?" she asked in exasperation. "The meetings take twice as long."

Yet she hears the sweeping generalizations being tossed around, often unkindly, about millennials and thinks they're probably getting a bad rap.

But she and her peers survived that sort of thing and came out with a new, improved reputation.

In the Pew report, Mr. Taylor summarized the Gen Xers this way: "For everything we know about them, they're savvy, skeptical and self reliant; they're not into preening or pampering, and they just might not give much of a hoot what others think of them. Or whether others think of them at all."

Teresa F. Lindeman: tlindeman@post-gazette.com or at 412-263-2018.

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