Recent polls about "Millenials"

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

Well the place is pretty much run by them because the owners don't want to pay for someone with experience. I go in and do my job along with the couple of other older people. It's like being in high school.

Methinks you focus too much on an Us vs Them mentality. Perhaps a combative approach isn't the best one?

 

[Kitty 34]

No, it will be the Boomers doing it still.

No because of high health insurance costs we won't be around another generation to complain!!!

 

[Lilsia]

Methinks you focus too much on an Us vs Them mentality. Perhaps a combative approach isn't the best one?

It is not an us vs them mentality. Do you work? Are you over the age of 35? Do you have someone that is 18, 19 years old come in and treat you like the idiot and that they know how to do a job better then you in their first week? We see that all the time. I have been working for 30 years and do my job very well. Also we don't talk about our salaries but the younger people seemed to be obsessed with it and have the nerve to want to get paid as much as the people with decades of experience. Not every single young person is like that but a majority of them are.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

It is not an us vs them mentality. Do you work? Are you over the age of 35? Do you have someone that is 18, 19 years old come in and treat you like the idiot and that they know how to do a job better then you in their first week? We see that all the time. I have been working for 30 years and do my job very well. Also we don't talk about our salaries but the younger people seemed to be obsessed with it and have the nerve to want to get paid as much as the people with decades of experience. Not every single young person is like that but a majority of them are.

It very much sounded like an Us vs Them mentality. It was all about what those people do and what you (and your coworkers) do framed in terms of age.

I've seen people who worked for years and years and they just sucked but the company was more concerned about potential issues due to their longevity with the company in terms of getting rid of them whereas it was easier and less messy to get rid of someone who had been there only a year or two. Doesn't make the person who worked there longer inhertently better at their job.

And FWIW sometimes salary simply comes down to certain metrics like college degree vs no college degree even if that's not ideal. I was making $15K less than my mom after 4 1/2 years at the same company (though different job position) while she had over 30 years. One of the major components to her making what she did was she did not have a college degree. Just before I got hired they got rid of the college degree requirement for my job position but something like 5 or so years before that they had a system where you started off at a lower salary grade and was halted from making any more until you got a college degree. Those who already had a college degree started off at a higher salary grade and could go up multiple levels with only merit-based issues halting going up more salary grades.

All of your stuff...it's things I've experienced from all different people of all different ages. No one is immune.

 

[dosekies]

That is NOT the experience I have had with the younger generation. 99% of them are lazy, rude, and disrespectful of anyone that does not think JUST like them. They are fast to bash someone who has a difference of opinion then them all the while acting as if they know exactly how the world works. They will come right out and say that they don't want to work but they just want the money, as if we are Mom and Dad handing it out. They will do just the very bare minimum and this is with constant supervision and reminders. When we where that age and working, we were trusted to work on our own without someone standing over us the whole time. We did the job and did it well otherwise we would not have a job. They argue with the supervisors as if a job was a democracy. Plus one of the worst things is the total lack of respect to the older generation that has been doing the job longer then they have been alive. They come in and act as if we are the stupid ones and they know better. What a joke!

See, it must totally depend on circumstances and the company then. I am one of 4 millennials in my department of about 25 people. My boss has been there over 20 years and other than us 4 25-30 somethings, the department is full of middle aged and older women. I was taught to have a strong work ethic, so I go in to do my job and make sure that I do it well. I am the only person to work directly under my boss so I know EVERYTHING that goes on in the department. My 3 friends and I are literally the only people to ever volunteer for overtime or extra projects. We take on literally any extra work that we can so that we can be busy and earn the extra money if the overtime opportunity is there. Everyone else in our department just complains about how busy they are are all the time with their normal work load. A few of the older workers who have been there for a long time have even gotten in trouble for the way they speak to their clients because they think that it is such an inconvenience for them to have to answer their questions and schedule their exams or continuing education hours, but that is our job!

 

[MickeyMinnieMom]

I am genuinely befuddled when people have such a negative view of millennials in the work place. We've hired three in the last year, and all three have been absolutely fantastic. They are hard working, inquisitive, and have way more initiative than many of my older employees. They're happy to learn just about anything I throw at them. Sure, it takes them longer to learn something than someone who's been at work a decade, but that's a function of their experience and education at this point in their lives, not a function of their generation.

These kids are well spoken, willing to work with anyone, know how to research things they don't already know, not afraid to speak up in a meeting or ask insightful (and sometimes not so insightful questions). They are a huge asset to our team.
And from what I can tell, we didn't manage to find some rare-out-of-the-norm millennials.

I have no doubt there are some millennials who are complete idiots, who feel entitled to everything, and who make their coworkers miserable - just as there are idiotic, entitled, miserable employees in every generation.

That is NOT the experience I have had with the younger generation. 99% of them are lazy, rude, and disrespectful of anyone that does not think JUST like them. They are fast to bash someone who has a difference of opinion then them all the while acting as if they know exactly how the world works. They will come right out and say that they don't want to work but they just want the money, as if we are Mom and Dad handing it out. They will do just the very bare minimum and this is with constant supervision and reminders. When we where that age and working, we were trusted to work on our own without someone standing over us the whole time. We did the job and did it well otherwise we would not have a job. They argue with the supervisors as if a job was a democracy. Plus one of the worst things is the total lack of respect to the older generation that has been doing the job longer then they have been alive. They come in and act as if we are the stupid ones and they know better. What a joke!

I think this is really interesting, and obviously speaks to the range that exists out there in ANY generation.

These are the things that I keep hearing from people currently hiring millennials (mostly mid- to late-twenties in these cases), who have been in hiring roles for the last 20-ish years or so -- in industries from schools, to law firms, consulting firms, and non-profits:

• They more often expect ideal work/life balance from day one
• They almost universally seem to expect to be promoted quickly
• They are more interested in businesses being socially responsible
• They often ask in interviews how the company will invest in them to move them to the next level (even teacher hires in a public middle school)
• They are more likely to quit early if their expectations aren't met in short order
• They are more likely to think that everything is or should be negotiable if they don't like a policy

To the above PPs' points, I haven't heard anyone say that they are harder-working or less so on average than any other group. I think that some of these things are admirable, some are unrealistic, and most are challenging for the employer. Some of these firms hired "experts" to come in and help them figure out how to attract and retain millennials -- they are genuinely perplexed! I wonder how much of that took place when companies were dealing with an influx of Xers or other group... how it will be when my kids enter the workforce?? I don't know. But it is interesting to hear these varied groups of employers routinely bring up the same challenges that they are facing and how they are trying to "figure this group out"! Wonder what it'll be with my kids' generation...

ETA: and to state the obvious, while I’ve discussed this with a lot of people, this is obviously just a small sampling — not suggesting that larger conclusions can be drawn.

 

[LSUmiss]

It is not an us vs them mentality. Do you work? Are you over the age of 35? Do you have someone that is 18, 19 years old come in and treat you like the idiot and that they know how to do a job better then you in their first week? We see that all the time. I have been working for 30 years and do my job very well. Also we don't talk about our salaries but the younger people seemed to be obsessed with it and have the nerve to want to get paid as much as the people with decades of experience. Not every single young person is like that but a majority of them are.

My DH has had this exact same experience in his company.

 

[Colleen27]

It is not an us vs them mentality. Do you work? Are you over the age of 35? Do you have someone that is 18, 19 years old come in and treat you like the idiot and that they know how to do a job better then you in their first week? We see that all the time. I have been working for 30 years and do my job very well. Also we don't talk about our salaries but the younger people seemed to be obsessed with it and have the nerve to want to get paid as much as the people with decades of experience. Not every single young person is like that but a majority of them are.

Honestly, if I was seeing that "all the time" I'd genuinely want to know if they saw something I didn't. After enough years, it is possible to get into habits/ruts that blind you to better ways of doing things. I used to get a LOT of backlash when I was a 19-20yo in an office full of middle aged and older people because they expected a ridiculous level of automatic respect and deference just because of their age/seniority, no matter how wrong they were. Boomers in particular don't seem to deal very well with younger people correcting them, pointing out problems, or otherwise challenging their ways of doing things.

 

[BrinkofSunshine]

It is not an us vs them mentality. Do you work? Are you over the age of 35? Do you have someone that is 18, 19 years old come in and treat you like the idiot and that they know how to do a job better then you in their first week? We see that all the time. I have been working for 30 years and do my job very well. Also we don't talk about our salaries but the younger people seemed to be obsessed with it and have the nerve to want to get paid as much as the people with decades of experience. Not every single young person is like that but a majority of them are.

Are they really that young? Does your company hire college students or just kids straight out of HS? Perhaps they are acting the way they do not because of some sort of generational issue, but simply that they are literally teenagers trying to figure out their way in the world. I don't work with anyone that young because they simply wouldn't have the education/experience my job requires. I think our youngest person at the moment is 23.

 

[Southernmiss]

It is not an us vs them mentality. Do you work? Are you over the age of 35? Do you have someone that is 18, 19 years old come in and treat you like the idiot and that they know how to do a job better then you in their first week? We see that all the time. I have been working for 30 years and do my job very well. Also we don't talk about our salaries but the younger people seemed to be obsessed with it and have the nerve to want to get paid as much as the people with decades of experience. Not every single young person is like that but a majority of them are.

18, 19 year olds are too young to be millenials

 

[rkstocke5609]

It very much sounded like an Us vs Them mentality. It was all about what those people do and what you (and your coworkers) do framed in terms of age.

I've seen people who worked for years and years and they just sucked but the company was more concerned about potential issues due to their longevity with the company in terms of getting rid of them whereas it was easier and less messy to get rid of someone who had been there only a year or two. Doesn't make the person who worked there longer inhertently better at their job.

And FWIW sometimes salary simply comes down to certain metrics like college degree vs no college degree even if that's not ideal. I was making $15K less than my mom after 4 1/2 years at the same company (though different job position) while she had over 30 years. One of the major components to her making what she did was she did not have a college degree. Just before I got hired they got rid of the college degree requirement for my job position but something like 5 or so years before that they had a system where you started off at a lower salary grade and was halted from making any more until you got a college degree. Those who already had a college degree started off at a higher salary grade and could go up multiple levels with only merit-based issues halting going up more salary grades.

All of your stuff...it's things I've experienced from all different people of all different ages. No one is immune.

While the college degree does add a perceived value and thus typically a higher starting salary the disparity of $15K also can be caused by mom actually earning a bit less than she was probably worth. Sadly, folks that ha e been around awhile often are comfortable with their wage and don’t even realize that if they shopped their skills they could be earning more somewhere else. Employers know how to identify those that are “comfortable” and aren’t likely to make a change (and thus they are more likely to pay them less than the prevailing rate because they know the employee isn’t out there shopping the job market).

Also, employees with college degrees don’t always make more — where I work those with technical training actually fair better in many circumstances. But, there is no question that those with the college degrees believe they are worth way more.

 

[Hikergirl]

That is NOT the experience I have had with the younger generation. 99% of them are lazy, rude, and disrespectful of anyone that does not think JUST like them. They are fast to bash someone who has a difference of opinion then them all the while acting as if they know exactly how the world works. They will come right out and say that they don't want to work but they just want the money, as if we are Mom and Dad handing it out. They will do just the very bare minimum and this is with constant supervision and reminders. When we where that age and working, we were trusted to work on our own without someone standing over us the whole time. We did the job and did it well otherwise we would not have a job. They argue with the supervisors as if a job was a democracy. Plus one of the worst things is the total lack of respect to the older generation that has been doing the job longer then they have been alive. They come in and act as if we are the stupid ones and they know better. What a joke!

I'm pretty sure every "younger" generation has had that said about them.

 

[DopeyDame]

That is NOT the experience I have had with the younger generation. 99% of them are lazy, rude, and disrespectful of anyone that does not think JUST like them. They are fast to bash someone who has a difference of opinion then them all the while acting as if they know exactly how the world works. They will come right out and say that they don't want to work but they just want the money, as if we are Mom and Dad handing it out. They will do just the very bare minimum and this is with constant supervision and reminders. When we where that age and working, we were trusted to work on our own without someone standing over us the whole time. We did the job and did it well otherwise we would not have a job. They argue with the supervisors as if a job was a democracy. Plus one of the worst things is the total lack of respect to the older generation that has been doing the job longer then they have been alive. They come in and act as if we are the stupid ones and they know better. What a joke!

I actually think at least some of our experiences with younger employees aren't all that different - it's just that we chose to look at and deal with the behaviors differently. If you think asking questions or providing input in conversations when they're talking to more experienced people is inherently disrespectful, yeah - I'd bet they do seem rude and disrespectful.
"They argue with their supervisors as if a job was a democracy" to you looks like "they're making sure they really understand the task so they can better contribute to the mission" to me. "total lack of respect to the older generation that has been doing the job longer" is a bad thing to you, while it's "willing to learn anything and take on any task" to me.

I don't see much value in someone coming in and shutting up and waiting their turn. I need employees and team members who are going to jump right in, challenge each other (and be willing to be respectfully challenged in turn). I have no time or use for someone who just takes a task and does it quietly without understanding why its important and how it contributes to our overall mission. That's a recipe for something important being missed. I also don't have much value for someone who blindly accepts the word of someone else on the team. If anyone (young or old, experienced or new) doesn't make sense, I need everyone else on the team to ask questions and provide serious and real peer review. I have trouble with that from some of my older employees (not most of them, but some of them). I get furious when an older employee tells me later - after we've found a problem - that they thought it might be a problem, but they didn't say anything because they deferred to the more experienced person.

They do clearly value work/life balance, but I don't consider that a bad thing - I value it too.

 

[Lilsia]

Honestly, if I was seeing that "all the time" I'd genuinely want to know if they saw something I didn't. After enough years, it is possible to get into habits/ruts that blind you to better ways of doing things. I used to get a LOT of backlash when I was a 19-20yo in an office full of middle aged and older people because they expected a ridiculous level of automatic respect and deference just because of their age/seniority, no matter how wrong they were. Boomers in particular don't seem to deal very well with younger people correcting them, pointing out problems, or otherwise challenging their ways of doing things.

Well when an 18 yo thinks they can tell you to S T F U when you are being nice and explaining the job to them just because they think they can do whatever they want, there is an issue with the way they were raised. How many people here over the age of 30 would have ever thought that was OK? I work in food so we probably get the bottom of the barrel but still. The attitude and the way they talk, even to each other is incomprehensible and has nothing to do with what I or others act. And a person who has only been doing a job for a few months should never "challenge" a person with seniority. Maybe get a little of experience first. That is the mentality of someone who is young and thinks that "old people" are stupid, as if we have not been doing things for decades and have already tried all of your "new" ideas. LOL Like a teenager thinking their parents were born the day they were. The mentality that you just come into a job and start bossing others around is ridiculous, do you have that at your job? An 18,19,20 year old coming in with no experience and telling everyone what to do?

 

[Lilsia]

I actually think at least some of our experiences with younger employees aren't all that different - it's just that we chose to look at and deal with the behaviors differently. If you think asking questions or providing input in conversations when they're talking to more experienced people is inherently disrespectful, yeah - I'd bet they do seem rude and disrespectful.
"They argue with their supervisors as if a job was a democracy" to you looks like "they're making sure they really understand the task so they can better contribute to the mission" to me. "total lack of respect to the older generation that has been doing the job longer" is a bad thing to you, while it's "willing to learn anything and take on any task" to me.

I don't see much value in someone coming in and shutting up and waiting their turn. I need employees and team members who are going to jump right in, challenge each other (and be willing to be respectfully challenged in turn). I have no time or use for someone who just takes a task and does it quietly without understanding why its important and how it contributes to our overall mission. That's a recipe for something important being missed. I also don't have much value for someone who blindly accepts the word of someone else on the team. If anyone (young or old, experienced or new) doesn't make sense, I need everyone else on the team to ask questions and provide serious and real peer review. I have trouble with that from some of my older employees (not most of them, but some of them). I get furious when an older employee tells me later - after we've found a problem - that they thought it might be a problem, but they didn't say anything because they deferred to the more experienced person.

They do clearly value work/life balance, but I don't consider that a bad thing - I value it too.

That is not the case at all what I am talking about. I am not talking about them asking questions and giving input, it is far far beyond that. It is someone coming into the job and not doing ANYTHING they are supposed to because they are lazy and don't actually want to do any physical work. I work in food, it is not a "we need new ideas" type of job. It is you do the job the way it supposed to be done because of health codes, etc. But they don't want to do things the way they are supposed to be done because "that is too much work". So do you want to eat somewhere that things are not done to code because a young person "wants to challenge the way things are done".

 

[firefly_ris]

I count as a millennial, born in 1983. As far as education on the Holocaust, I would say I got a lot of it. Most of it did only stem from 1 class, that being 10th grade English. However my teacher was passionate about this subject, and the subject matter has left more of an impression on me than anything from any of my History classes (besides Hiroshima, coincidentally also taught in my 10th grade English class by the same teacher). We read "Night" by Elie Wiesel, and the Diary of Anne Frank, and a lot of discussion and textbook reading on the subject.

However, what made the biggest impression were these 2 things: My teacher invited a concentration camp survivor to come speak at our school. A very nice, very frail old lady, and I was in charge of guiding her down the halls to the auditorium, etc. I still remember the tattoo on her forearm. The other was The Holocaust Museum in Washington DC. I grew up in Baltimore so this was a no-brainer field trip during this part of the curriculum. I went once for that class and then once again in 11th grade I went as an assistant for that teacher. You don't forget the imagery inside there. I still remember classmates sitting down and vomiting into paper bags just at the sight of the shoe room -- it does have an effect on you.

Anyway... sooooo over this whole "generation categories" thing. Why do we need to fit everyone into categorized boxes.

 

[Hikergirl]

Well when an 18 yo thinks they can tell you to S T F U when you are being nice and explaining the job to them just because they think they can do whatever they want, there is an issue with the way they were raised. How many people here over the age of 30 would have ever thought that was OK? I work in food so we probably get the bottom of the barrel but still. The attitude and the way they talk, even to each other is incomprehensible and has nothing to do with what I or others act. And a person who has only been doing a job for a few months should never "challenge" a person with seniority. Maybe get a little of experience first. That is the mentality of someone who is young and thinks that "old people" are stupid, as if we have not been doing things for decades and have already tried all of your "new" ideas. LOL Like a teenager thinking their parents were born the day they were. The mentality that you just come into a job and start bossing others around is ridiculous, do you have that at your job? An 18,19,20 year old coming in with no experience and telling everyone what to do?

It seems you have an issue with teens in general, so while you say "this generation" if you were an adult during the time you were a teen, you'd be saying the same thing about them.
What you describe isn't exclusive to millennials at all, it is more the attitude of smart *** teens, and I can tell you as a Gen Xer we had our share of those.

 

[Lilsia]

It seems you have an issue with teens in general, so while you say "this generation" if you were an adult during the time you were a teen, you'd be saying the same thing about them.
What you describe isn't exclusive to millennials at all, it is more the attitude of smart *** teens, and I can tell you as a Gen Xer we had our share of those.

It is different, we were taught differently. I am sure there were smart alecks when I was younger. But no boss would have ever allowed someone to speak to an elder in a disrespectful way. They were called out on it. Now it seems that anything goes. I never once would even consider telling someone that was old enough to be my parent to shut up. Still wouldn't. Do you talk to people like that? What if some teenager said that to your Mom, you would be just fine with it, right?

 

[dosekies]

It is different, we were taught differently. I am sure there were smart alecks when I was younger. But no boss would have ever allowed someone to speak to an elder in a disrespectful way. They were called out on it. Now it seems that anything goes. I never once would even consider telling someone that was old enough to be my parent to shut up. Still wouldn't. Do you talk to people like that? What if some teenager said that to your Mom, you would be just fine with it, right?

Sounds like you should be complaining about the people that raised them to act that way...

 

[Southernmiss]

Some of the teens who are working in your place of employment probably do have attitudes. Get out among other teens, especially the 18/19 year olds going to school and working to further themselves. You will find kind, compassionate, hard working, enterprising teens.

A lot of those even adults, in jobs such as you describe acquire negative attitudes for many reasons.

You can also find another place of work or work perhaps in a school cafeteria if those who seem to be drawn to your employer are negative.