Millennials

[mondeoman]

I've got two at home at the moment, both on medication because they can't handle exams. That worries me, how are the going to cope with real life?

[okgo]

I'm one at 29 years old, i've had 7 jobs (to be fair, a few in quick succession in the early days, I didn't go to uni), and I didn't accept that it had to take years and years to get anywhere. It doesn't in many cases, the last few years I've had to be far smarter with my moves of course, but I think many younger folk get a bad rep. There are useless people at all ages.

That said, the entitlement thing does seem a bit too common, its all very well not accepting that you need to stay somewhere for years on end, but you must be a hard worker, or at the very least very smart with what you do and how you portray yourself if you want to move up a ladder, and 'because I should' is not going to work.

Edited by okgo on Sunday 11th June 20:45

[okgo]

ash73 said:

I would never support anyone in a promotion review if I see them leaving regularly at 4pm, they should be looking for more work and responsibility, not leaving early. It's easy to establish who works remotely just by chatting to people about ongoing issues in the morning.

You're also maybe part of the reason business are not progressing in this country to embrace modern working. Being tied to your desk 10 hours a day is just idiotic and pointless and is the measure of nothing.

[Rich_W]

neilr said:

A friends wife works in corporate HR, They have just been sent on a course to teach them to deal with millennials.

They are all so used to being the last winner and not having to accept the concept of losing etc that they simply can't cope in the real world. The concept of "your fired because you're useless" is one they cannot grasp. It's a genuine problem I'm afraid.

Obviously not all millennials will be like this, but clearly far too many of them are.

One place I worked at we had an apprentice. He was st in every way you can imagine.

But he told us time and again that "I cant be sacked I'm an apprentice"


Turns out he was wrong!

[xjay1337]

Always nice to see who are the baby boomers. Easy to tell a mile away.


Us millenials are all so bad yadder yadder.

[smifffymoto]

These useless millenials are your children.You raised them,so it is your failure.
My son just quite school before his exams.I take some responsibility for that.

[Hoink]

ash73 said:

okgo said:

You're also part of the reason business are not progressing in this country to embrace modern working. Being tied to your desk 10 hours a day is just idiotic and pointless and is the measure of nothing.

I'm all in favour of remote working, and do so myself, but people take the piss and that's why some companies are reluctant; they are who you should be blaming. If you can demonstrate you're exceeding your goals sitting in the garden with your feet up drinking a beer while the VPN is connected good luck to you.

Or, if you finish a job at 4pm go and chat to the boss, see what else needs doing; take on more work and responsibility. You don't have to be tied to your desk, use the time to network with people and get involved in other stuff.

I finish at 4pm but start at 7am. I'm first in the office every day. The only ones who grumble about my finishes are the late starters who roll in at 9:30am.

[Yipper]

smifffymoto said:

These useless millenials are your children.You raised them,so it is your failure.
My son just quite school before his exams.I take some responsibility for that.

Yup, Millennials today are just the offspring of Thatcher's children and the Rave generation, who in turn were the offspring of the Hippy generation. From hippy to hipster.

Much of today's "entitlement culture" really began in the 1980s and 1990s, when everyone started going to university and the average or middleclass 30% started expecting the same privileged pay and perks as the clever or upperclass 10% who had gone to uni before them in the 1950s to 1970s. Now, the mass 50% in the 2010s expect the same pay and perks as the previous 10-30% had before them -- but this is impossible because there is an oversupply of graduates. There is an expectation gap.

[mondeoman]

Yipper said:

smifffymoto said:

These useless millenials are your children.You raised them,so it is your failure.
My son just quite school before his exams.I take some responsibility for that.

Yup, Millennials today are just the offspring of Thatcher's children and the Rave generation, who in turn were the offspring of the Hippy generation. From hippy to hipster.

Much of today's "entitlement culture" really began in the 1980s and 1990s, when everyone started going to university and the average or middleclass 30% started expecting the same privileged pay and perks as the clever or upperclass 10% who had gone to uni before them in the 1950s to 1970s. Now, the mass 50% in the 2010s expect the same pay and perks as the previous 10-30% had before them -- but this is impossible because there is an oversupply of graduates. There is an expectation gap.

Expectation gets translated into entitled / deserve

[b0rk]

okgo said:

You're also maybe part of the reason business are not progressing in this country to embrace modern working. Being tied to your desk 10 hours a day is just idiotic and pointless and is the measure of nothing.

Whilst your right that productivity is not a measure of the number of hours worked, it is question of how much you get done in the hours that you've worked. Sometimes to gain promotion or progression it's necessary to show willing by doing more, someone that puts the hours in a gets more done than planned for the week I'll look on far more favourably come pay review time than a clock watcher.

What I've found is that sadly there appears to be high percentage of snowflakes amongst the millennials than X'ers. Over time as they age and thus are no longer going for entry level or junior positions I expect this will resolve itself with snowflakes not progressing or ending up as NEET's.

As someone technically on cross over between millennial and X this kind of disappoints me.

Work wise I've been constantly hiring for the past three years at a junior level and needless to say seeing a lot of millennials at the younger end of the scale and a few Z'ers for interview. I must have interviewed 250+ on the whole most overestimate their skills considerably and expect chunky salaries, of those hired so far hired numbering some fourteen only one is still with me the rest having either quit, left "for progression" or mostly having been sacked. The core reason's for sacking are thus: 1. poor timekeeping and attendance, 2. submitting work as complete to line managers that is fundamentally incorrect 3. constantly being on their phones texting 4. lacking the ability to interact with customers/clients other staff in different teams and rather passing it on to their line manager 5. damaging/breaking company equipment due to carelessness.

[Mastodon2]

mondeoman said:

I've got two at home at the moment, both on medication because they can't handle exams. That worries me, how are the going to cope with real life?

What kind of medication do they prescribe for that?

[vonuber]

Funny all this talk about working longer hours to show you want to get ahead.
In the engineering multinational i work for there is very much a drive for 'you are employed for 7.5 hrs a day, make the most of that but go home'.
It's recognised that long hours is counter productive, and if you are doing them it's either underresourcing or more training required.
It's not uncommon to have a Director come around telling people to go home; or it noted those who are working long hours and an investigation to see why.

But then we are not British owned, so maybe that's it.

[smifffymoto]

I'm sure millenials would find things easier if they could leave their phones alone for longer than 2 minutes.That said,my wife is as bad.

[bitchstewie]

Hoink said:

I finish at 4pm but start at 7am. I'm first in the office every day. The only ones who grumble about my finishes are the late starters who roll in at 9:30am.

Ditto.

Interestingly there's a big push in business at the moment around work life balance. Many business are now actively trying to push back against staff working 10/12 hour days and not switching off (literally) when they leave.

I think they've realised dead staff and/or lawsuits aren't a good thing.

[spikeyhead]

b0rk said:

Work wise I've been constantly hiring for the past three years at a junior level and needless to say seeing a lot of millennials at the younger end of the scale and a few Z'ers for interview. I must have interviewed 250+ on the whole most overestimate their skills considerably and expect chunky salaries, of those hired so far hired numbering some fourteen only one is still with me the rest having either quit, left "for progression" or mostly having been sacked. The core reason's for sacking are thus: 1. poor timekeeping and attendance, 2. submitting work as complete to line managers that is fundamentally incorrect 3. constantly being on their phones texting 4. lacking the ability to interact with customers/clients other staff in different teams and rather passing it on to their line manager 5. damaging/breaking company equipment due to carelessness.

Have you considered improving your interviewing skills?

[xjay1337]

ash73 said:

I'm all in favour of remote working, and do so myself, but people take the piss and that's why some companies are reluctant; they are who you should be blaming. If you can demonstrate you're exceeding your goals sitting in the garden with your feet up drinking a beer while the VPN is connected good luck to you.

Or, if you finish a job at 4pm go and chat to the boss, see what else needs doing; take on more work and responsibility. You don't have to be tied to your desk, use the time to network with people and get involved in other stuff.

Depends what kind of company you work at.


But this millenial talk does annoy me. Every one of my friends has worked hard to be where they are and are all perfectly reasonable people bumbling through life in the best way possible.

The previous generations ALWAYS behest the current.

[DuncB7]

Man in his 60s doesn't understand those in their 20s.

What other earth shattering findings have we concluded in here.

[WestyCarl]

xjay1337 said:

But this millenial talk does annoy me. Every one of my friends has worked hard to be where they are and are all perfectly reasonable people bumbling through life in the best way possible.

The previous generations ALWAYS behest the current.

I agree, I'm a 70's kid and frankly I think kids have it harder today making their way in life than I did. Off course it's easy to pick examples of twenty something's wanting £100k and an expense account in their first job, but these are present in every generation.

Measuring someone's contribution by "hours at desk" is so out of date it's laughable. Where I work it's pretty much the exact opposite, the guys (and girls!) who spend the most time at their desk, and a good few hours pointing it out are usually the least productive.......

[Disastrous]

All the more progressive US corporations are moving towards remote working and flexible hours.

My wife works for a nice American Biotech and literally doesn't even have an office to go to any more as they gave her desk away. She's ended up in quite a senior role reporting directly to the US and her boss doesn't give a st whether she's at home, in the Czech Republic or Shanghai so long as stuff gets done when it should.

Funnily enough, she overtook an older guy based in her (old) office who was senior to her and was massively chippy about her 'not spending enough time at her desk', complaining to people higher up the chain about her and so on. Well, guess who's been managed out the business and who has taken his role on?

I'm fortunate in that I run a small creative firm and can work from a laptop basically, so when they sent her out to Shanghai for a month earlier this year, I hitched a ride and turned our hotel room into an edit suite. Great and flexible way to be IMO.

Dinosaurs become extinct sadly, so I think Britain needs to get over this 'be at your desk' culture and accept the way people want to work these days.

[Brigand]

I've worked with IT apprenticeships for nearly two years now, mainly dealing with 17-22 year olds and have seen a fair mix of people throughout that time. In the main the guys and girls I see have been happy to start at the bottom and work their way up, and some have really relished the opportunities and go above and beyond what they need to do - those ones will go far. But there have been some who've met the "Millennial" criteria so often mentioned here. The ones who often turn up late to work or classes, baulk at having to do work that is a bit boring or complex, don't see why they have to do work that is outside of their job description, mope around the office not getting involved socially with anything going on because they only want to get home and go out with their mates - the list goes on.

I've got the feeling that some of the worst of above have felt they should be getting their first job with a high wage and straight in as some kind of middle management position, there is a feeling that they don't need to start at the bottom. Thankfully though this type of person, in my experience anyway, makes up a small portion of those I have to deal with, so there is hope out there!