I apologize if this has been covered before, but I wanted to let out some of my thoughts before I went to bed angry. I didn't watch 60 minutes yesterday (11/11/07), but I heard about one of the ever so intriguing stories today at work and on the radio. The story is here.. The topic was about "Millennials", people born between 1980 - 1995, entering the work force, though that was more just a cover topic to examine the supposed attitudes of this generation.

I'll let you read it. I'm just going to jump in and say that as a "Millennial" in the work force I think there were some elements of truth in the story but that it was overall derogatory, stereotypical, and shoddy reporting. The anecdotes and behaviors they describe are essentially illustrating the extremes. The 'field experts' they interviewed were particularly negative and bitter. Like this Marian Salzman:

quote:

"You do have to speak to them a little bit like a therapist on television might speak to a patient," Salzman says, laughing. "You can't be harsh. You cannot tell them you're disappointed in them. You can't really ask them to live and breathe the company. Because they're living and breathing themselves and that keeps them very busy."

Are you fucking kidding me? Sure there are young people who act that way, but that personality type spreads across more than just our "generation". Maybe that's the image the media would like to portray - that we were all raised in a politically correct environment and never experienced any hardships in life. No, we didn't survive the great depression or (some of us) didn't fight in the trenches, but neither did most baby boomers. Furthermore, I like how the story's focus was that employers need to adapt to this weak willed onslaught. Would it be so hard to simply not hire or FIRE those employees who don't perform well. Last time I checked the youth of America weren't exactly domineering the leadership positions of every fortune 500 company and shoving their supposed "new age hippie" work ethic down every hiring managers throat.

Anyways, am I wrong here Oldtimers? Are we really "generally" the most narcissistic, insecure, pampered, and hedonistic generation to have ever walked the earth? Do we put trust fund babies to shame? Can you trust us to be able to make it through the horribly 8-5 drudgery without throwing too many hissy fits? How about my fellow Y-gens. Can you put down the 360 controller and get off the couch for a long enough to hold a job for more than a month? Man, 60 Minutes has really gone down..err over the hill. Damn kids and their music.

Update:

Also, I forgot about this gem:

quote:

Wall Street Journal columnist Jeffrey Zaslow covers trends in the workplace and points the finger at the man who once was America’s favorite next door neighbor: Mister Rogers.

I don't know whether to laugh or cry. So now Mr. Rogers is to lazy crybaby 20 yearold's what Marilyn Manson is to school shooters. Riiiighhht.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: La La Love Pixies,

I wouldn't be too upset about it. That's just the constant push/pull between the young and old, pix. The same people making these comments were probably targets of derision from their parent's generation as well. The young generation is constantly "weaker" and "lazy", while the older generation is always "hard-working". I don't know about you, but I know just as many people over the age of 40 that are lazy pieces of sh*t as people my age.

Dork's quick guide to disguising yourself as a "Generation Y Worker", as informed by 60 Minutes:

-Apply excess eyeliner, purchase iPod with parent's money. Cut self in attempt to find deeper meaning, listen to "sensitive" music.

-Center entire life around self. Be rude, uncaring and inconsiderate to others, but especially old people. Because everyone from Generation Y thinks old people suck. Lose all respect for work ethic.

-Remember to lace up comfy slippers in the morning.

Having worked with this particular generation, I gotta say, they do seem to be a spoiled buncha brats, indeed. No offense, Mr. Pixie, but I was raised to EARN the job (you asked them for a job, they didn't ask you), but it seems most of these kids were raised with the thought, that if they were hired, they were needed, and that the company would collapse without 'em. You wouldn't believe how many teens I heard talk about how "this place would go to Hell without me"! They really couldn't understand my laughter. I mean, the company has been around for years, but NOW they can't survive without YOU?!

When I was a manager, I was told I was too hard on the employees. I would tell them what to do, expecting it to get done, but I needed to ASK them to do it and give them REASONS for why it needed to be done. Even worse, if the employee said "No.", I was supposed to "get to the root of the problem" by talking with them about their feelings. As you can probably guess, I never did this. Since when are you supposed to baby a person who you're paying for the friggin' job?! Their paycheck should be the motivation for working, not sweet talk! What really pissed me off about them was the fact that they lived their life according to "Waiting...". If you've seen that movie, you know the life of the teens I worked with. They partied after work EVERYNIGHT, would come in with a hangover the next day and they actually had the nerve to COMPLAIN ABOUT IT! They'd come in late, saying things like, "Man, I don't feel like workin'. I shoulda called in. This hangover is kickin' my @ss!" It honestly seems to be getting worse every year.

If you become angry, who cares if there are customers? Yell, scream and cuss all you like! That's what they did almost constantly. I had one employee get upset because someone had put veggies in his coat pockets and he started going off even though he knew there were customers out front! What happened to him? Nothing. I was threatened with a write up if he did it again. ME! I was trying to shut him up and I was the one in trouble because I'm the manager and I shoulda had control of this brat of an employee! There was a time I was doing my job and a teen started cussing me out because he came in late and I had left on time. I HAD TO LEAVE because I needed to pick up my kids and I left a little work for him. It wasn't work he wasn't supposed to do. In fact, I was doing it outta kindness! I became upset and marched out to the manager, just as I started to yell, I noticed customers in the store and shut my mouth. I WAS EXTREMELY PISSED AND I STILL SHUT MY MOUTH WHEN I SAW A CUSTOMER! Why is it so impossible for anyone else? They would cuss over how much work they had to do or if we were busy. Even if we were slow, they were unhappy! There was one night, I was doing P&A (that's attaching coupons to tickets) about an hour before close and the other employees didn't think I was working hard enough for them, so they all walked out! I stayed extremely late getting the store as clean as I could and was still cussed out by my boss because I didn't get the store all that clean on my own. When I told the boss they walked out, she asked me, "What did you do to make them walk out?" When I first started working (waaaaaaay back in '93), if I woulda walked out on my manager, I woulda been fired. It wouldn't have mattered if I didn't think the manager was working hard or not. I actually had a boss who just sat in a chair and talked while we did ALL OF THE WORK! Did we ever walk out? Nope. We had a job to do and a check to collect.

There was one time I did ask the higher ups why we cater to these jerks, and they told me that if they treated them with anything OTHER than kid gloves, we'd have no one because of all of the other jobs available to 'em these days. Now, not EVERY teen was a spoiled brat, but at least 90% of the staff is made up of these types. That leaves about (maybe) 5 core employees that you can depend on to come in on time and ready for work. The workplace went from a job, to a daycare center for teens, in what seemed like, overnight. At least that's what it's like in the suburbs.

Monkey, you just wrote off an entire generation. You do realize that, right?

I'm one post away from putting you on the Ignore List and never removing you. Do try to make it good.

He put in a good word for 10%. Actually, if you substitute "students" for "employees", I'd probably say the same thing about my school, even if this year's classes are sometimes better.

As far as Pixie's original post, I'll agree that certain characteristics are shared by people of every age group, but the new technology may contribute to the fact that it seems heightened among the young.

Funny, I thought he was just describing some of the experiences he has gone through with these people and trying to freely state his opinion. I don’t think he was writing anyone off; then again I could be wrong.

In response to the last two posts:

quote:

Originally posted by Monkey_Boy:
Having worked with this particular generation, I gotta say, they do seem to be a spoiled buncha brats, indeed.

Hey, those are MY kids you're talking about and at least mine aren't doing it yet. And I notice Monkey says he USED to be a manager. I can see why that's past tense...doesn't sound like the job was a good fit. And even if he's only talking about writing off 90% of a generation, that's pretty damning...for the prejudices of the person saying it. If I spoke up against 90% of any group, I bet you'd think I was a jerk.

Yeah, but you are taking it way out of context. He wasn’t completely writing them off, he was simply stating that based on his experience with the generation, that’s how he feels about it (that’s his opinion.)

quote:

Originally posted by FragileKidA:
Yeah, but you are taking it way out of context. He wasn’t completely writing them off, he was simply stating that based on his experience with the generation, that’s how he feels about it (that’s his opinion.)

Then he needs to learn how to fucking write.

quote:

Originally posted by mark f:
I'll agree that certain characteristics are shared by people of every age group, but the new technology may contribute to the fact that it seems heightened among the young.

Brilliant, you're absolutely right mark. Websites like youtube, myspace and last.fm all contribute to a more shared personality. But to apply stereotypes and generalize to that degree is ignorance.

As for the Monkey, Dork, he's dealt with these kids and, like most people, when he comes away with a very negative experience, he over applies it. He cannot generalize like that. But that is a simple mistake most people tend to make, so correct him but don't ignore him.

And Monkey, both I and Fragile (correct me if I'm wrong fragile) lie in this age group and I think you would like to manage both of us. You know we would do a good job.

OK. He could lie and say they were all wonderful employees who never did anything but work their butts off. Is that a better thing to write, even if it's lies?

The point is that I know my students are good kids, so I don't write them off, but it takes a lot of work to motivate somebody who has gotten away with a lot in a classroom setting for several years so that they now feel that the reason they come to school is NOT TO JUST eat, drink, put on makeup, go to the bathroom and socialize. So, yes, I will treat them with kid gloves and try to talk to them like a therapist, especially when my class sizes are small, but when I have 43 students in a class, and 30 of them only show up half the time and have no intention of doing any work, I don't treat those students with kid gloves anymore.

Monkey was talking about the 'burbs. Where I live, everything is urban. I don't care what you think of me, but I am not exaggerating a thing, and yeah, I have a 16-year-old daughter who I'm very proud of.

quote:

Originally posted by mark f:
OK. He could lie and say they were all wonderful employees who never did anything but work their butts off. Is that a better thing to write, even if it's lies?

That's not the point. To illustrate it VERY offensively, it'd be like me saying that 90% of the black people I'd ever met were hoodlums and layabouts, and thus 90% of all black people period were as such. I'm not acknowledging my own subjectivity or limited scope of experience at all, just ignorantly throwing away an entire group of people.

My experience with young people is that they can be difficult to motivate. They seem disinterested in life, even the things they are supposedly "passionate" about.

They're certainly not bad people, but I do think there's a serious problem (moreso than there ever was). I was born in 1978, and I realise these things about myself as well. I don't think about the "long term" very well. However, I am excellent at thinking about 5pm.

I don't think this is so much a case of Generation Y acting any different than any past generation. I think it has more to do with Gerenation X finally growing up and seeing a bunch of punk kids, and not realizing they were just like then ten to fifteen years ago.

WOW! It's been a loooong time since I got a thread worked up like this! Geez, Dork, don't ignore me, I don't know if I could take that kind of rejection!

quote:

Originally posted by Dork:
Then he needs to learn how to fucking write.

No. You just need to learn how to read. I said "Now, not EVERY teen was a spoiled brat, but at least 90% of the staff [of the places I've worked] is made up of these types". Since when is it politically incorrect to call a bunch of terrible employees terrible? Your comment about blacks (and I noticed it was about blacks. THAT was very inappropriate!) makes no sense. I wasn't trying to be offensive, I didn't even put down 90% of the generation! I worked with very young, very hard working teens, but they paled in comparison to the chaos their peers tend to create. Those "good employees" were as pissed about the bad ones as much as management was. They were usually the ones left to clean up the mess!

I didn't leave because I couldn't take it. I left because my medical problems had become too much of a problem to stay. Those 90% don't last real long on the job. Not long enough to force someone to quit over 'em, anyway. There will always come the point when they will just walk out and never come back or the big boss will FINALLY get tired of their garbage and fire 'em. That's the promise that kept most of us coming in everyday! If you don't believe me, check out the staff at the next restaurant you go to and see how long it takes before you begin to see new faces as old ones disappear. Sure, some went on to better things, but most were replaced because of their attitude. I've been away from my store for just over a year and it's basically an all new staff with the exception of a few. The very few that always did their job.

Just for the record, this wasn't a single place, this was several. It was the same everywhere I went. Except for ONE place! Every teen there was about the work and gettin' it done. Sure, they partied afterwards, but they never came in complaining or late because of it. That's the kinda employee employers should hire and wanna keep because they make working a breeze instead of a tiring effort. For those who thought my post was waaaaay outta line, you either work at that store (to which I apologize because they were fantastic!) or you've never worked in fast food.

What a ridiculous series of statements. Relegating mass amounts of people into one category is always a result of pure idiocy. But then again, I am part of this so called generation, and I couldn't feel any less motivated about everyday labor that I care nothing for. I guess you must be right monkey man. I mean, why the hell should I find such satisfaction in something as silly as working to make money? What a fucking useless way to waste ones life. Working purely to earn money. What a unproductive waste of time. However, that has never stopped me from treating other people with dignity and respect, as well as working hard and doing a good job wherever I was hired. After all, someone has invested their time and money in me. I hate anyone who acts like how the whole of this "generation" has been prescribed to act, nor do any of the bullshit you figure we all do. I've never seen the movie "Waiting", don't care to, and would never live "my life according to" and dumbass jocular teenage sex flick. Watch where you use "they". I could group all "old people" into prejudiced stereotyping dumbshits like monkey over there but I don't. Seriously, grouping people into clusters is damaging on many levels. Maybe the problem is that too many people are completely full of shit. It seems any person that I find genuine and honest sticks out in my brain more than they should. Monkey, you're a sad piece of work. Enjoy your 9 to 5 life, with your petentious air of self satisfaction of how productive your spending your life on a payroll. Working for money is not worthy of pride. Treating customers in a dignified manner because you're paid to do so is for scrubs, you should do so because they're human beings. I wonder how you would treat them outside of your job.

*Ignore List*

quote:

Originally posted by Dork:
*Ignore List*

That's the nicest thing you've ever typed to me!