Damn Kids
| Tue Oct. 21, 2008 4:25 PM PDT
DAMN KIDS....From the Wall Street Journal today, Ron Alsop writes about the upcoming generation of "millennials" who are starting to enter the workplace:
If there is one overriding perception of the millennial generation, it's that these young people have great — and sometimes outlandish — expectations. Employers realize the millennials are their future work force, but they are concerned about this generation's desire to shape their jobs to fit their lives rather than adapt their lives to the workplace.
...."They really do seem to want everything, and I can't decide if it's an inability or an unwillingness to make trade-offs," says Derrick Bolton, assistant dean and M.B.A. admissions director at Stanford University's Graduate School of Business. "They want to be CEO, for example, but they say they don't want to give up time with their families."
Damn coddled kids these days. Who do they think they are? For comparison, here's how kids viewed corporate work half a century ago. It's from The Organization Man, published in 1956:
On the matter of overwork they are particularly stern. They want to work hard, but not too hard; the good, equable life is paramount and they see no conflict between enjoying it and getting ahead. The usual top executive, they believe, works much too hard, and there are few subjects upon which they will discourse more emphatically than the folly of elders who have a single-minded devotion to work. Is it, they ask, really necessary any more? Or, for that matter, moral?
....Out of necessity, then, as well as natural desire, the wise young man is going to enjoy himself — plenty of time with the kids, some good hobbies, and later on he'll certainly go for more reading and music and stuff like that. He will, in sum, be the apotheosis of the well-rounded man: obtrusive in no particular, excessive in no zeal.
Damn coddled kids those days. Who did they think they were?
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Comments
If there is one overriding perception of the millennial generation, it's that these young people have great ? and sometimes outlandish ? expectations.
Just wait until they're living in their parents' attic -- as most of them will be. They'll come down to earth.
If there is one overriding perception of the millennial generation, it's that these young people have great ? and sometimes outlandish ? expectations.
Just wait until they're living in their parents' attic -- as most of them will be. They'll come down to earth.
Kevin passes over one of the better tidbits - the lack of loyalty of the millenials. The HR types are shocked that the kids would leave for a better opportunity without a second thought. Just like they would be laid off if it suited the executive suite.
If there is one overriding perception of the millennial generation, it's that these young people have great and sometimes outlandish expectations.
Just wait until they're living in their parents' attic -- as most of them will be. They'll come down to earth.
...the lack of loyalty.
Yeah, I guess they figured out early on, the corporate world is only loyal to itself.
It's a "they use you, or you use them" world. The kids got it right. Corporations have no loyality to people, only money, so I can't see where the kids went wrong here. Today's corporations live by a screw-em world, so you can't blame the kids for knowing that up front and turning the tables and living by same code of conduct.
So my question is WTF happened?
Corporations continued to over-reward those who can and will warp their lives, and gave all those well-rounded non-obsessed individuals mediocre reviews and paltry raises and no options. And if the non-performers didn't learn from that, they were "deadwooded", and replaced with H1-B imports who were willing to work long and forego a life outside the workplace.
In the relationship between employers and employees, employers currently have all the power. As our ruling class intended.
Submitted by skippy (not verified) on Tue Oct. 21, 2008 5:54 PM PDT.
and this piece from john bunyan:
ye children get thee off of my lawn!
I've been in the workforce since around 1990 and I think the big difference now is that none of the current younger workforce has ever gone through a serious economic downturn like we may be facing now. You could have been working for quite some time without having to contemplate that there will ever be a downside to this market (the mild-by-most-standards blip at the beginning of this decade notwithstanding). I also totally agree with the comments about how corporations have made sure that no employee has any reason to feel any sense of loyalty anymore. That's a potent combination
Submitted by elmo (not verified) on Tue Oct. 21, 2008 6:33 PM PDT.
No need for them to worry, everything will be fine as soon as 'Generation YouTube' get into the workforce...
Submitted by slag (not verified) on Tue Oct. 21, 2008 7:04 PM PDT.
You'd think, at some point, we'd make some progress in this arena. If we're always fighting the same battles, we're wasting a lot of energy. How about a little work-life balance for a change?
I wonder if they ever think to ask themselves what else about the work environment has changed?
Hmmm... could it be that some professions essentially give you a wireless 24X7 leash called a smart phone, allowing work to creep into our home lives on the weekends and evenings? Ask IT people in particular. I'm in that field and I take calls and emails many evenings and work many weekends. Damn straight I expect work to accommodate my life, since my life has had to accommodate my work.
I work with a lot of 20-somethings, and I find that they are very sharp, work hard and expect less in return than older colleagues. They're paying off serious undergraduate debt, and most of them are pursuing graduate degrees. I get so sick of the lame "the young generation is inferior" crap. Mostly it comes from lazy, bitter old people.
I love the new generation (the millenials). They are much more authentic and tolerant than the overly PC Gen Xers and the overrated boomer generation. I am of the Gen X generation, and feel much more comfortable around Millenials than I do those my own age.
The "damn young people" is really a pile of crap. I've seen plenty of lazy older people.
The new trend among millenials is just about selfishness.
It's about a generation that considers employment an economic exchange of compensation for labor, not a moral requirement with compensation determined solely by your corporate masters.
It's a generation entirely prepared to treat employment the same way employers do, in other words.
I am of the Gen X generation, and feel much more comfortable around Millenials than I do those my own age.
That's me. Loyalty is a two way street, and corporations have thrown loyalty to the employees out the window. What did they think was going to happen?
Generalizations are dangerous here BUT I think many of you are confusing loyalty with the willingness to work hard. American business gives workers few, if any, reasons to be loyal and Millenials seem to have figured that out --- good on them. However, what I find lacking among many of them is a pride in effort and hard work (for its own sake). It's not about life/work balance it's about putting in minimum effort to get something right. Millenials, all being very special people, seem to think they ought to be rewarded just for deigning to show up (late) in the morning. I'm not that much older (like the guy above, also a Gen-Xer) but I am perplexed that Millenials somehow expect me to applaud them for showing up, even if work is sloppy, incomplete or just inadequate. Although effort is important, the notion that just because you (in your own estimation) tried really, really, really hard you did great (even if you did get it wrong and the customer/client was not satisfied) seems new and odd to me.
Maybe 'twas ever thus, but count this new manager/supervisor among those who find the Millenials as annoying as Boomers.
Loyalty is a two way street, and corporations have thrown loyalty to the employees out the window. What did they think was going to happen?
They thought (and still think) that when they say "jump" you'll either ask "how high?" or be fired.
The sense of entitlement is something. My neighbor (whose son recently graduated from Yale) says that he and many of his friends still aren't working because the jobs offered to them weren't "good enough -- they didn't give them enough responsibility."
Hello? You just graduated. Work your way up, buddy, the same way I did. I hope you like being unemployed and living at home.
I'm on the border of Gen X and Millenials, and I'm pretty damn sick of seeing this attitude, especially from the goddamn Baby Boomers. Yes, we spent our entire lifetimes growing up dealing with the failures of your revolution of individuality (for your cohort, not for us). Your constant zeal against systems has left us without union protection and at the mercy of economic forces you never faced. And now you complain that we're aware of how little our employers will do for us out of decency and so demand outright what should be ours? We want high salaries, so we can pay off the student loans you never had to pay? We want time off, since we didn't get the years after school to 'find ourselves' you did? You poor bastards - you might have to do some work rather than delegating it to us!
The best response I can think of comes from Generation X.
"Do you really think we enjoy hearing about your brand new million-dollar home when we can barely afford to eat Kraft Dinner sandwiches in our own grimy little shoe boxes and we're pushing thirty? A home you won in a genetic lottery, I might add, sheerly by dint of your having been born at the right time in history? You'd last about ten minutes if you were my age these days, Martin. And I have to endure pinheads like you rusting above me for the rest of my life, always grabbing the best piece of cake first and then putting a barbed wire fence around the rest. You really make me sick."
One reason I am very excited about Obama becoming president is that it's a sign of leadership moving from that entitled bratty generation with their insistence on fighting value wars while the entire fucking country falls down around them.
Today's youth are like the guys following the elephant in the parade - they have a lot of sh*t to clean up!
I feel sorry for them, myself. They have no hope of having as rich or secure of a life as we had growing up. They are inheriting a world decimated by war, debt and pollution (thanks to the GOP). God help them!
Submitted by Jeff (not verified) on Wed Oct. 22, 2008 7:49 AM PDT.
Amen to that, Parvis. I am of the Obama generation and I have lived in the shadow of the boomers my whole life. I make now what my father made when he was my age, but 26 years have passed, with their inflation, yet he (and they) can't understand why I can't seem to get ahead.
However, as Nigel says, "I am perplexed that Millenials somehow expect me to applaud them for showing up, even if work is sloppy, incomplete or just inadequate." This, I think, comes from a culture of rewarding mediocrity and discouraging competition, and placing self esteem above accomplishment. It removes the desire of the talented to succeed, since everybody gets the same reward, while rewarding the mediocre as though they had actually won a race just by showing up.
Oh, yeah, blame those damned boomers. The generation after millenials will be so grateful to them for how they unselfishly paved the way to success for future generations. No future generation will have to adjust to a different reality.
Gag me.
Woo-hoo, let's have an age war. Again. I swear I hear this every year or two. So let me state this, I've been out of college for about 8 years, so I have no clue where I fall in the generation label.
I'm salaried, I work a good job, I've a gov't contractor in the DC region. And yes, this occasionally means that I need to put in extra hours. And I don't begrudge work that. However, what I do expect is at least "thanks" for doing more than my contractually obligated duties.
My time is a commodity. You reward me for spending it on your tasks and not my own. And at least in the area that I'm in, there's a lack of qualified people, so with my skill set I CAN go elsewhere. I have in the past, and I will in the future.
I will go through several careers and many jobs. That is how it goes. There isn't generally a good upwards track, so you know what, I'll go elsewhere to move upwards.
My time is valuable. I know I stated it was a commodity earlier, but it bears repeating. It is the one thing in this whole wide world that I can't make more of. Therefore, you'd best compensate me for spending it for you.
No, you owe me nothing but what I get you to agree to on paper. But here's the reverse, I owe you nothing more, either.
I swear I hear this every year or two
You're not paying attention. How about every couple of months? It gets tiresome, doesn't it? Kevin's post makes the point that it never stops, but we don't have to join in so gleefully, do we?
Now get off my f*cking lawn.
As a fellow Gen Xer, I should point out that in our moment of "ascendance" we were called out for being lazy slackers with no sense of work ethic, pride in ownership, etc and so forth. If those who know history are doomed to repeat it, then the future has already been written for the Millenials.
Another thing to consider is that here in the real world, not everyone can live in the media-constructed identity bubble but actually has to make daily decisions about their lives. As such, these Millennials, like the rest of us before and after them, will be challenged mercilessly to try and maintain their allegedly rigid posture of high expectation. In this scenario it is almost assured that some percentage will cave outright, others will adapt and the narrowest band will be those who dead refuse to compromise. This happened in my generation too and there are certainly horror stories in each of these grossly generalized camps. Life has this funny way of mocking your best laid plans.
More to the point is what exactly is wrong with expectation? Why shouldn't someone be CEO and want to spend time with their family (provided they can even establish one)? Why shouldn't one get proper compensation and job security, if they are earnest and willing to do the work? I don't see how any of this is really a problem with Millennials, per se, but one that each generation must wrestle with as they age. An injection of unnecessary sociological static from the ruling class into the hearts and minds of those they need to exploit.
What Jeff at 10:49 said. I'm a preboomer (not by much), but over the years, I've observed that all generations have achievers and slackers. It's what makes the world go around. So get over yourselves, all of you. There's work to be done in this country, and we don't have the time to be wasting on this stuff.
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