Recent polls about "Millenials"

[cabanafrau]

True. My wife is 60 and has been in her job 38 years. We had 7 people at my place retire in 2016, 2 with 45 years service, so it is not unheard of. But 2 year employment contracts are the norm now, and since those retirements, none of their replacements has stayed past 2 years.

Contracted positions within my husband's workplace implies they are not employees.

 

[Colleen27]

I'd have to see the questions and responses to form an opinion. A lot of times these things are done in very manipulative ways in order to get the desired outcome, rather than conducted according to responsible surveying methods.

I read a poll about Millennials and taxes. A ridiculous percentage didn't know that taxes were due next week.

And see, this is one that would have gotten me... because I know tax day is the 15th and would have assumed with that falling on a Sunday, the logical thing would be to send it out *early*, not to extend the deadline. I've never waited until the last minute to file, so it isn't something I spent much mental energy on, and I certainly wouldn't have thought as a lifelong resident of the midwest that the national filing deadline would be pushed back an additional day for a holiday that only appears to be celebrated in Mass.

2 words: Common Core

Common core is primarily a post-millennial thing. The standards were released 8 years ago and adopted over a period of 4 years. The end-date of the millennial generation is usually somewhere in the mid-1990s. So if we go with Pew Research's cutoff (1996), the very youngest millennials had somewhere between 0 and 4 years of common core out of the 13 years they spent in the K-12 system.

I think that's the other problem with these polls. "Millennial" has become shorthand for "darned kids these days!" rather than an actual reference to a specific generation. Just look at all the jokes about millennials and tide pods, as though the label accurately applies to the middle and high school kids inclined to try stupid YouTube stunts.

 

[tvguy]

Contracted positions within my husband's workplace implies they are not employees.

A big chunk of TV station workers across the nation are contract and are employees.

 

[cabanafrau]

A big chunk of TV station workers across the nation are contract and are employees.

That may well be. It doesn't speak for the workforce as a whole anymore than your contention that 50 year olds with 15 or 20 years on the job being rookies or on a second career or both. Plenty of 50 year old women in all sorts of fields have 15 or 20 years in with a company and are not rookies or in second careers, merely stepped away from the job for a few years to care for their young children.

 

[tvguy]

That may well be. It doesn't speak for the workforce as a whole anymore than your contention that 50 year olds with 15 or 20 years on the job being rookies or on a second career or both. Plenty of 50 year old women in all sorts of fields have 15 or 20 years in with a company and are not rookies or in second careers, merely stepped away from the job for a few years to care for their young children.

Taking time off certainly would impact service time. Not sure a lot of workers after my parents generation take time off from work for kids, etc.

 

[Colleen27]

I am completely convinced the flat earth people are just a large group of trolls doing it for the reaction.

I think so too. Especially after the comment on their social media about the Flat Earth Society having members all around the world.

I’m sure that the holocaust has probably been deemed far to horrific for certain students to hear about, and in an effort to offend no one and make sure everyone feels safe and happy that it’s just best to omit the subject. After all, there are whole countries in the Middle East that don’t even think it happened.

I suspect that's probably part of it. I don't remember what grade I was in when my class read Diary of Anne Frank but I'm pretty sure it was middle school. My kids' middle school wouldn't allow the Eng. teacher to use The Hunger Games for a unit because it wasn't considered age-appropriate for 8th graders and she ended up having to go to the board to get permission to do The Giver. So with that context it really doesn't surprise me that they don't read Anne Frank at that age, or that they don't cover the Holocaust until high school (which has its own set of problems, both because HS history is more names-and-dates oriented than narrative, and because the book is too "young" and doesn't engage older teens the way it did those of us who read it when we were Anne's age).

And that's obviously not the fault of the Millennials. They aren't the ones that invented the helicopter parenting that dictates schools steer clear of the unpleasant and graphically violent parts of history! That's on the boomers and their desire to "let kids be kids" by ensuring they're never too uncomfortable or pushed too far outside of their comfort zone.

 

[Lilsia]

So, in the past week, I have heard of two recent polls about Millenials, and here is what they concluded:

Poll #1: 1/3 of Millenials believe the earth is flat

Poll #2: 41% of Millenials have NO idea that 6 Million Jews were killed during the Holocaust

Discuss...

Personally, I just can't come to grips with this actually being true. I might be in serious denial about how little people are learning in school nowadays, but also, how is Poll #1 even REMOTELY plausible????

Well most of the rest of the world does not realize that 16 million NON-Jews were killed during the Holocaust. Many of my family members included. Most only think it was only Jews. Whenever I share the story of my family(what my grandparents went through) everyone always assumes we are Jewish. I think there is a general lack of complete knowledge about most things out there. Especially now, they only teach kids at school what is on the standardized testing, nothing else. So most of these kids come out of high school not even knowing how to count back change.

 

[cabanafrau]

Taking time off certainly would impact service time. Not sure a lot of workers after my parents generation take time off from work for kids, etc.

I believe there are several right on this very board. I'd have to include myself in those numbers, although you'll have to accept my representation that I am most definitely after your parents' generation.

 

[cabanafrau]

I think so too. Especially after the comment on their social media about the Flat Earth Society having members all around the world.



I suspect that's probably part of it. I don't remember what grade I was in when my class read Diary of Anne Frank but I'm pretty sure it was middle school. My kids' middle school wouldn't allow the Eng. teacher to use The Hunger Games for a unit because it wasn't considered age-appropriate for 8th graders and she ended up having to go to the board to get permission to do The Giver. So with that context it really doesn't surprise me that they don't read Anne Frank at that age, or that they don't cover the Holocaust until high school (which has its own set of problems, both because HS history is more names-and-dates oriented than narrative, and because the book is too "young" and doesn't engage older teens the way it did those of us who read it when we were Anne's age).

I know my oldest daughter's class read Diary of Anne Frank as a class, not an independent reading assignment, in fifth grade because at the conclusion they did a class exercise for probably a week or more where they each were assigned a role in a Nazi occupied town and had to run through different scenarios, discussing what they thought they would do, how they felt, etc. They did the same type of exercise when they were covering a unit earlier in the year on the time period of Colonial America/early independence.

The teacher read a portion of the book to the class each day while the kids were supposed to follow along with their copy. This was a public school classroom.
I believe I read Anne Frank in sixth grade based on the teacher I am remembering when I think about it. I went to parochial school.

 

[Lilsia]

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!

 

[Lilsia]

I know my oldest daughter's class read Diary of Anne Frank as a class, not an independent reading assignment, in fifth grade because at the conclusion they did a class exercise for probably a week or more where they each were assigned a role in a Nazi occupied town and had to run through different scenarios, discussing what they thought they would do, how they felt, etc. They did the same type of exercise when they were covering a unit earlier in the year on the time period of Colonial America/early independence.

The teacher read a portion of the book to the class each day while the kids were supposed to follow along with their copy. This was a public school classroom.
I believe I read Anne Frank in sixth grade based on the teacher I am remembering when I think about it. I went to parochial school.

They don't even scratch the surface with the Anne Frank book. It focuses on only the Jewish people and all of the countries that were invaded by the Germans. And I can't imagine that they would really share the horrors with a bunch of fifth graders. They came into the towns and rounded everyone up and just gunned them down, whole villages children included. They took many many people to the concentration camps to experiment on them. My grandmother was taken as a teenager to work as slave labor for the Germans at 16. I am glad they are talking about it but at that age, there is no way they would report all that happened.

 

[cabanafrau]

They don't even scratch the surface with the Anne Frank book. It focuses on only the Jewish people and all of the countries that were invaded by the Germans. And I can't imagine that they would really share the horrors with a bunch of fifth graders. They came into the towns and rounded everyone up and just gunned them down, whole villages children included. They took many many people to the concentration camps to experiment on them. My grandmother was taken as a teenager to work as slave labor for the Germans at 16. I am glad they are talking about it but at that age, there is no way they would report all that happened.

I did not suggest that the Anne Frank book was the comprehensive explanation of Nazi activities. Perhaps if you will go back and read my comment, as well as the comment I was responding to, it will provide context and inform your understanding of what was being discussed. It is not unknown for concepts to be introduced at one age level and expanded upon in later years -- even mathematics instruction is conducted in this way.

As to the rest of your comments, as someone who counts Jews fleeing Russian pogroms and Poles(non Jews) who suffered and/or perished in Polish ghettos among my very mixed ancestral pedigree, suffice to say I have no wish to swap stories of suffering that led all branches of my family tree to flee their homelands all over Europe and make their way to America.

 

[CarolAnn856]

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 have a hard time believing that they are the sole problem there.

 

[Iya]

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!

My husband's experience with millennials is similar to what you posted, especially about the job being a democracy. Two of them have been fired in the last six months.

 

[Lilsia]

I have a hard time believing that they are the sole problem there.

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.

 

[Southernmiss]

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.

Sounds like a management issue, not a millennial issue.

 

[Lilsia]

I did not suggest that the Anne Frank book was the comprehensive explanation of Nazi activities. Perhaps if you will go back and read my comment, as well as the comment I was responding to, it will provide context and inform your understanding of what was being discussed. It is not unknown for concepts to be introduced at one age level and expanded upon in later years -- even mathematics instruction is conducted in this way.

As to the rest of your comments, as someone who counts Jews fleeing Russian pogroms and Poles(non Jews) who suffered and/or perished in Polish ghettos among my very mixed ancestral pedigree, suffice to say I have no wish to swap stories of suffering that led all branches of my family tree to flee their homelands all over Europe and make their way to America.

I think you misunderstood me. My point was that at that age there is no way they should be telling the kids about the true horrors of the war. Something this serious needs to be taught at a higher level. Also what schools do teach is NOWHERE near what all happened. My second half was to bring attention to all of the other people, Polish, French, Norwegian, etc that were just as affected as the Jewish people. But no one seems to want to admit that. In fact most don't even realize it was so wide spread. As I said, whenever I discuss the holocaust with anyone and share our family experience, 100% of people assume we are Jewish. That is not right. My grandmother is 91 years old and lived through it and has told us many stories of what it was like. None of which was ever taught in school. What we were taught in school was that it was ONLY Jews that were sent to the concentration camps and killed. I told the teacher that was not so and she yelled at me. My Mom had to come and set them straight. That completely diminishes everyone else who died to being inconsequential.

 

[BrinkofSunshine]

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!

The majority of people who work at my place of work are millennials- they manage to still have a successful business. Almost all of my peers are extremely driven and strive to do the best possible work. We all put in major overtime when needed with no complaints, and take pride in what we produce. We are often left alone during the day as we're self-directed and need little guidance... of course our millennial boss will sometimes check up on us. Sorry you've had such a miserable experience, but it's not at all reflective of what I've seen in my life.

 

[cabanafrau]

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.

Funnily enough that is eerily similar to a comment my millennial age daughter made as a high schooler -- about some of the things that went on between dance moms at her dance studio -- "What are they, in middle school?" She's never been one to tolerate much in the way of drama or nonsense.

 

[cabanafrau]

I think you misunderstood me. My point was that at that age there is no way they should be telling the kids about the true horrors of the war. Something this serious needs to be taught at a higher level. Also what schools do teach is NOWHERE near what all happened. My second half was to bring attention to all of the other people, Polish, French, Norwegian, etc that were just as affected as the Jewish people. But no one seems to want to admit that. In fact most don't even realize it was so wide spread. As I said, whenever I discuss the holocaust with anyone and share our family experience, 100% of people assume we are Jewish. That is not right. My grandmother is 91 years old and lived through it and has told us many stories of what it was like. None of which was ever taught in school. What we were taught in school was that it was ONLY Jews that were sent to the concentration camps and killed. I told the teacher that was not so and she yelled at me. My Mom had to come and set them straight. That completely diminishes everyone else who died to being inconsequential.

As I understand it what they discussed and situations within the roles they played involved events such as in the book along with things happening in similar towns across Europe -- things such as kristallnacht, homes and goods being commandeered, new rules for businesses, etc. There was also a video conference on the classroom television with a survivor who was able to tell her story to the kids and answer some of their questions. My daughter's reading unit at the time had them reading Number the Stars and she did a book report on it. This was a regular unit this teacher had been teaching for a number of years by the time my daughter was in his class and widely considered a highlight of the year -- and one of the most memorable learning experiences the kids had. Digging into events in greater detail came later when they were ready for more information.

As far as your complaint about schools not teaching anywhere near all that happened, frankly I think you're far overreaching on that idea because of emotions. As far as my own K-12 experience I think WWII and related events were covered to such an extent it crowded out learning more about other historical events with wide-reaching implications which are equally as important to have a solid understanding about.