There is something distinctly unsettling about working for someone so much younger than you that you could have been this person's baby sitter. And there's something a little uncomfortable about bossing someone around old enough to be your father.

This generational conflict is becoming more common in the workplace, as Generation-Xers move into the management ranks, and older workers have to answer to them. Sometimes this age difference is met with little resistance and more than a few jokes. But unfortunately, there are many cases where the generation gap becomes so wide that the workplace becomes unpleasant and perhaps even hostile.

"One of the major clash points seems to come when these generations try to give each other feedback," says Lynn Lancaster, a workplace consultant. "The younger generation wants to give feedback on the fly. The older generation wants to sit down and formally discuss the issues."

Lancaster, who has studied generation conflicts on the job, says the "differing expectations" between age groups can lead to real communication problems and possibly even affect productivity and efficiency.

"The real key is that people just need to spend more time getting to know one another," she says. "The older worker needs to realize that just because someone has funky hair and doesn't wear a traditional suit doesn't mean this person doesn't know anything. And younger bosses need to understand that older workers need to be given a chance to fly. They can't assume that because you've got gray hair you don't have capabilities."

Lancaster, co-author of When Generations Collide with David Stillman, says there are a number of ways older workers can learn to get along with younger supervisors, including: