We’re dealing with a couple of employees of this ilk right now.
Trying to explain to them that this particular attitude doesn’t work in retail nor food production goes over their heads.
One of them is constantly looking for another job where she’ll will be awarded for the “I showed up every day!” She’s been through a handful of positions, none lasting more than a week or two. When you explain to her that people expect her to WORK, she looks at you like you’ve got two heads.
The other one has more of a work ethic but you have to keep on top of what he’s doing. This means babysitting him so he doesn’t suddenly up and go chat with his pal across the sales floor while leaving a trail of unfinished tasks behind him.
Me? I’m the nose-to-the-grindstone late baby boomer raised by first generation Americans. You work your ass off to put food on the table and maintain a roof over your head so help you god.
I’m a millennial and I never had to have my management talk to me about work ethic. Not from when I was in the military nor when I worked in insurance.
Some random musings:
I did the best when I had independence. Tell me what you wanted from me and when it needed to be done and I’d do it. If I didn’t know a certain program I’d play with it until I figured it out.
Someone mentioned hours upthread. I remember for a while we were completely swamped. We had too much work in our office for the amount of people. I remember talking to the manager, in an informal setting, where he asked what could be done. I said we needed to hire more people and fix the obviously broken pipeline for new hires. He asked if more authorized overtime would make the workers happy. I said no. Why would I want more overtime? I don’t want to be in the office. I want to be at home with my family.
Nothing drove me insane than teaching some of my more…seasoned coworkers stuff on the computer. Why are you typing with only two fingers? Why are you touching the screen? You don’t need to google google. If you press ctrl V it automatically pastes what you had copied, etc.
Thanks for your response. Not to be rude but I think your generation is too judgmental of people who make off color jokes. Particularly because,a s you said, you were raised different than we were (I’m 42). That’s not to say that I’m defending the idea of making those comments and having those attitudes. I used to have them. I grew out of them. It was really people your age who helped me change over on a different forum I used to go to*. And a lot of them were rather rude about it, as if it were taken for granted that I knew the rules as well as they did and I had chosen to disregard them. Maybe that is why people say your generation is Narcissistic. **
*Well, it was talking to people online and living in NYC where I got to know a large and diverse category of people.
** In case their is any confusion I am actually really glad and if I can say it without being patronizing, I am very proud of your generation for the social change and social equality you are bringing to the world. Like, really really proud.
Grrr. Go to your address bar and painstakingly type in www.google.com. Wait for Google to come up. Painstakingly type in your search terms. Slowly navigate your mouse to the “search” button. Click it - oh no, you can’t, because you have died of old age.
No, what annoys me most about “seasoned” workers is the mindset. Not all of them, of course, but some of them just have this mindset of “I don’t wanna learn and you can’t make me”. “Oh, I don’t know anything about the Facebook!” they’ll giggle, ignoring everything that tells them just how many millions of people under thirty are on Facebook. “Oh, who would want to tweeter anyway! I don’t know why everyone has to put everything online!”
STFU Grandpa! Like it or not this is the way things are now. The wave of the future and if you don’t at least try to ride it you will get left behind.
Your full-timers are presumably serious workers supporting their families. And you compare them with your part-timers, who…aren’t.
It may have nothing to do with the differences betwen the millenial generation vs other generations. It’s just that these are just college kids who know that this job isn’t important;…they’ll be leaving in a few months, the job has no future, and may not even get listed on their resume. So they goof off.
The problem arises when your department must meet a metric or have hours cut, and it’s your FT people who are breaking their backs to meet that metric while the PT people diddle around.
I must have been a weird 20-something because I was just as much a workhorse back then as I am now. I’d grab whatever hours I could. I’d ask to be cross-trained. I held down 2 PT jobs plus a FT job at one point and 2 PT jobs plus work study plus going to school FT.
I realize not everybody has my stamina nor my work ethic. But I’ll be damned if some “I showed up!” kid demands to be accoladed for such.
That’s actually what makes it truly awkward. At one extreme, if someone my age or younger does it, it has a pretty strong negative impact on my perception of them. On the other extreme, if someone in their 80s+ does it, they generally get a pass as long as they’re not being downright hateful. For everybody else it’s really hard to decide how to take it. You can go either way, or split the difference.
Only if by “search terms” you mean “the url of the site they actually want to go to”. That isn’t my coworkers, though, it’s my library patrons. Drives me utterly batty.
Can we stop slapping stereotypical generalizations on massive amounts of people based on the year they were born? It’s slightly more accurate than astrology.
We’ve bumped heads on this type of issue before. I don’t remember what about. When you talk to people, to try to confront them, how do you handle it. I’m implying of course that you are probably not too patient with them. If I’m wrong I apologize. If you are abrupt with people, well, it’s not the end of the world. How do you handle it?
Mostly what Boink said and maybe a little more. And mileage in the UK version of this sedan may be very different.
A movement began in “activities” shortly after I was in college to reward effort as much as achievement; hence anyone who participated got a reward. From there it has been progressing towards a point where, in a manner of speaking, no one gets a reward - those who excel get the same “trophy” as everyone else. Even if some of the “everyone else” didn’t show up half the time.
There are still some bastions of actual competition in interscholastic sports and other competitions, but even some of those are fading. Being replaced with “safer” activities chosen often by the parents. We don’t want to hurt our kids self-esteem, and that is a good thing for the most part. The bad part is many of them are becoming adults with a false sense of themselves and the world around them - and how that world will treat them when they don’t meet it’s expectations.
Not only that, but they are leaving school during the deepest recession for 80 years, and can’t expect to walk into a job like their parents did, so they need to work incredibly hard just to get a minimum wage job.
Working just hard enough to not get fired? Far more concerned about their personal lives than their professional lives? It sounds like they already know how to be employees. The OP seems to be looking for exceptional employees, and they’re as common as the name implies.
Why boomers see “talking” as different when it’s via IM or email, and somehow a less valid method of communication, I’ll never understand. It’s like saying that talking on the phone is somehow lesser than talking in person.
I prefer to email or IM for questions and quick conversations. It strips away all of the “how are you, do you have a moment, blah blah blah”, and I can just ask or answer the question. I look forward to the sheer numbers of Millennials making this preference acceptable, finally.
The majority of millenials I have had contact with lately through honors programs or graduate level classes I am taking act nothing like this. But, then again, from what I can tell from your description, it is unlikely any of them would end up in your applicant pool; so I think our observations are based upon a different sample set.
Do you have any cites for what you are reading? I assume it is from only the highest calibre journals.
**