[Bill,
February 22, 2008]
Millennials
I've seen stories about this here Millennial Generation. I have only anecdotal experience of them. And not much of that.
The only thing I'd say is they seem ... well, a lot less rebellious than previous generations like the BB and Gen X. It unnerves me a bit. They seem eager to fit in ... eager to succeed ... but don't always seem to know how to do that. But what do you expect -- they're young.
The Dallas News story makes some sense. Particularly the part about their crumbling under pressure. But a lot of what I've heard before this story just sets off my BS detector. Just as most "generation" stories do.
Human nature has no history. People want what they want, and they want it now. Until they grow up. Our generation, the Baby Boomers (I caught the last year of the boom), were considered big problems by the previous generation.
Any thoughts?
The only thing I'd say is they seem ... well, a lot less rebellious than previous generations like the BB and Gen X. It unnerves me a bit. They seem eager to fit in ... eager to succeed ... but don't always seem to know how to do that. But what do you expect -- they're young.
The Dallas News story makes some sense. Particularly the part about their crumbling under pressure. But a lot of what I've heard before this story just sets off my BS detector. Just as most "generation" stories do.
Human nature has no history. People want what they want, and they want it now. Until they grow up. Our generation, the Baby Boomers (I caught the last year of the boom), were considered big problems by the previous generation.
Any thoughts?
We've had a few bad eggs that have since been shown the door. All of those that had to go we hired on some level to "give them a chance" even though we weren't totally sure. As a rule, we don't play hunches any more. If anyone has bad vibes we just don't hire them.
On some levels, they do seem less likely to try and invent new things on the job.
One thing I think is generally a significant weakness on their part is that they expect to be spoon fed training and information. I've always researched and read work related material at home --- and statistical work essentially demands that you do that if you want to try to stay current. In that aspect, I've not been very impressed. Part of being an expert is feeling you have ownership of the material and that takes more than just what you give in 40 or 50 hours at the office.
On the whole I prefer a young person to bitter old employee who's main motivation is how few hours can they put in during the year.
I have however recently seen another article that sort of similar to this, with some employer in the Lehigh valley basically claiming if the person wasn't over 40, he wasn't hiring, because the work habits of younger folk were unacceptable. Not so much because of being too coddled, but because because people were just not showing up for work on time and stuff.