7/16/2015

Millennial Mindset Myopia


Fortunately, I was born in 1947 so most of my working days are behind as are my “piss poor” jobs, my “piss poor” paychecks, and my “piss poor” bosses. 

However, the latter is nothing new as my father before me and his father before him had “piss poor” bosses with which to contend... and contend we all did... at least for a while; still, many of us were good at “playing the game” the boss' way and ended up staying at one job for 40+ years and receiving some sort of meager retirement income because of our length of service.

And, it is an absolute exercise in futility to perform any sort of mental analysis as to why these “piss poor” bosses were able to get promoted to where they were when any of us actually worked there... although, I must admit that I tried to think it through a time or two but was unfortunately unable to decipher any kind of discernible explanation for this happening as often as it did.

After “spitting in the wind” for several years, I finally realized that I could not change them or the “game,” and that the only issue that I could have an impact on was changing myself; so, whenever a “piss poor” developed at work, I would simply start looking for another place of employment.

It would appear that there were many others like me... and collectively, we would change places of employment every 3-5 years. Of course, all of us also had a hidden agenda in this new “game” that we were playing and that was, every time we changed places of employment we were also able to increase our wages.

At first, many of the companies thought that we were doing them a favor as not only were they able to remove a “bad apple” from their ranks, but they were able to hire a replacement for less of a wage; but, over time, these same companies soon realized that we were taking our “experience” with us which included how our former companies “got things done,” and while this knowledge could not be seen as ”intellectual property” owned by the company and not the individual, it did offer their competitor a slight advantage in the marketplace.

While employees like me were labeled “rebels,” “nonconformist,” “loose cannons,” we were all DAMN GOOD workers so these companies actually lost more than they had gained and those that were left behind just became “worker bees” with no constructive feedback at all that would propel the company ahead.

Towards the latter part of my 45 year career, an attitude developed quite unexpectedly within me to start looking for my next new job the day after I was hired by my present employer which in essence does not do anybody any good at all.

My work ethic was extraordinarily exceptional (not blowing smoke at all here) because I was willing to work 60+ hours without asking for anything in return
took my work home on the weekends
put my family second in almost every circumstance
was willing to do those assignments that nobody else wanted to do
I wwould give 110% all the time
my work was typically better than the work of everyone else.

I wanted middle management and upper management to really miss me when I was gone, and in many cases they did which I was informed about later.
UNFORTUNATELY, Millennials are not like this at all; in fact, they are quite different in all aspects of being a worker.

First of all, Millennials care only about themselves, hence the myopia in the title. And, while that may seems a little selfish to you and me, it is perfectly normal for them as they have been handed everything that they ever wanted by their parents.

What these Millennials have not realized yet is that in order for their parents to make their sacrifices for them, both parents had to work the long hours of two jobs typically, leaving these Millennials home alone to take care of themselves.

This resulted in a loss of emotional security for them and consequently see their employers as a source of providing this emotional security and when it is not there, cannot understand why not.

Managers that get their knowledge at Colleges and/or Universities are not taught anything at all about
providing emotional security for their employees and most of them feel very uncomfortable when they make an attempt to do that, albeit feeble.

This results in a HUGE DISCONNECT between management and labor and since confrontation is strongly discourage in the marketplace nowadays, these tensions lie like boils just below the surface breeding distrust and mistrust everywhere.

Second of all, Millennials want work incorporated into THEIR lives and not have THEIR lives incorporated into work. So, what does that mean?

Traditional work has been broken down into shifts which came about during the Great Depression so that America could put more people to work and reduce the high levels of unemployment. Before, our work week had been 60 hours and after wards it was reduced to 40 hours and the companies had to hire more employees.

The workday was subdivided into 3-8 hour shifts, working those 40 hours each week with occasional overtime by working on Saturdays. For single shift operations, it could be 8-5 or 9-5 and sometimes 7-3. Over the years, shifts started to mutate where employees worked 4-10 hour days and were off for 3 days before repeating the process.

Fire Departments work a 24 hour shift and are off the next 24 hours before repeating the process. In some cases, employees recently have been allowed to work one or more days at home each week to accommodate other work schedules in the family and help with the task of raising children.

For Millennials, work is merely something that they need to get done and they should be allowed to determine for themselves when they want to work during the day or during the week as long as they get the work done and that their lives should not be encumbered by having to work 40 hours each week.

AUDACITY and having a big set of “balls” comes to my mind...

I remember when I was teaching my College classes that most of my students hardly ever came to class on time and NONE of them actually did any homework or read the Chapter unless it was required for an grade. And, while they were in class they could not understand why they were not allowed to text on their cell phones or surf the internet during class as long as they passed the tests and exams and saw absolutely no value in having classroom discussions about any topic at all... as they were all black and white to them. And, they could not understand why putting down 25 words was unacceptable when answering an essay question. My students did not value working in teams and indicated several times that it was a waste of class time. My students were not good problem solvers, communicators, and “drilling down” on a topic was as important to living as living on Mars. And, what really got them angry at me was when I stopped them from doing the homework for another class in my class.

You cannot imagine how thankful and happy I am that I do not have to manage any of these Millennials!!!

Third (and final) of all, these Millennials expect to win something every time they compete just like they did in Elementary School and in High School and cannot understand why “real life” does not work like that.

As a result, many of my colleagues who taught at the College level would have as a grading category, ATTENDANCE and the student would receive 100% of 20% of their grade just for showing up and saying or doing nothing in class.

Everyone gets a trophy...

Millennials prefer that no grades be given at all but reluctantly understand that high grades are needed for Graduate School and that high grades are a prerequisite for getting a “good” job after graduation. Armed with that information, Millennials memorize and regurgitate for the grade and then do a “brain dump” and forget everything. Outside of math and science, cumulative knowledge is not sought after.

Of course, I have good news and bad news here...

The good news is that my foreign students were never like this and like sponges, they wanted to soak up as much knowledge as they tuition monies could bad.

The bad news is... at least the bad new for our American graduates... that employers are going to soon learn not to hire recent American graduates as they have retained very little.

This marketplace transformation is being brought about by MILLENNIALS...


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