OK, I could kind of go along with the statement that millennials are not coddled [by others], as much as we think. They do not need to be anymore because they have perfected the art of self-coddling.
We were called âThe Me Generation.â Itâs funny how people conveniently forget that when talking about our kidâs generation.
Rinse and repeat for every generation coming of age.
In my experience there are really three types of millennials:
- the infamous college millennials
- the blue collar millennials
- the millennials who are not really millennials
College millennials, I believe, are the âcoddled millennialsâ most people refer to. Many have grown up in privileged households, go off to college where they are shielded from reality, then get dumped off in to the real world after graduation. It is at this point they realize how âscrewed upâ the system is, and wonder why everyone is so mean to them. They are usually mentally unprepared for the real-world, as it exists now.
Blue collar millennials are those who grow up in hard working middle class families, graduate high school, and pick up a trade of some sort. They are hard working, and usually garner a lot of respect from people for not acting like entitled college millennials. They are also more inclined to get into trouble at some point in their lives.
âMillennials who are not really millennialsâ (I consider myself probably in this group) are those who feel they were raised in the wrong generation. They may hold beliefs that were more common among those who grew up in past generations. They donât follow many of the latest trends. They are genuine independent/free thinkers. They are comprised of both college educated and blue collar types.
Just my own personal observationâŠ
H is a senior partner at a law firm in a city that has recently become quite trendy. A couple months ago they had an all attorney meeting and were discussing ways to grow the client base. It was suggested by the younger attorneys that perhaps the older attorneys could stay in the background and do the âbusy workâ so the younger group could be the new âfaceâ of the firm and deal personally with clients who might not be enthusiastic to work with the more senior staff (as in 50-65 years of age). Okay thenâŠ
There is nothing at all wrong with work-life balance, but in most work places you have to make yourself profitable enough or productive enough to justify your continued employment. I work with and know a fair number of millenials. Many of them understand the need to be profitable / productive enough to justify their continued employment. They do what they need to do to earn their keep, and they do fine.
Others donât seem to understand that work-life balance is a give-and-take process, where sometimes you actually do have to prioritize whateverâs going on at work over whateverâs going on in your personal life. Theyâre the same ones who think they should get whatever they want, who expect life to always be fair, and who arenât independent enough to resolve their own conflicts (thus requiring parental conversations with bosses). There have probably always been people like this, but there seem to be more in the millenial generation than I remember there being in my generation. Maybe thatâs reality; maybe thatâs just my perception.
I agree with what others have said about the correlation between being raised in privilege and having a sense of entitlement. And itâs a double whammy when a child of privilege also has a helicopter parent. Those kids arenât expected to earn things when theyâre young, so they donât understand how to earn things when theyâre in the workforce. They donât learn how to fairly but assertively resolve conflicts with peers and adults while they are young (because mom or dad does that for them), so they arenât able to negotiate with their co-workers and bosses when theyâre older. And they arenât allowed to experience consequences and failure when they are young and the stakes are relatively small, so they canât take ownership of their actions or respond to failure when they are older and the stakes are much bigger. Iâve seen this play out over the years in the affluent families of my bosses and my sister.
@Kajon that is hysterical and pathetic at the same time
@Kajon I cracked a smile as I contemplated what what would happen at my place of employment if the younger attorneys suggested the âgray hairsâ (what they call themselves) stayed âin the backgroundâ to do âbusy work.â That is too funny! And like @toomanyteens said, also pathetic.
Anecdotal stories like this donât prove what a whole generation is about, and @emilybee is right, a lot of this I think is people forgetting what prior generations were called. In the 1960âs the âgreatest generationâ and âforgotten generationâ claimed that the baby boomers were all raised permissively thanks to Dr.Spock, they were drugged out losers who would never amount to muchâŠthe baby boomers who by the 80âs were in charge, said that gen-x were tv addicted idiots who would never amount to anything, they lacked the values and the work ethic (and I was there, folks). Then it became gen Y and now the millenials, addicted to video games and helicopter parents, nose in a smart phone, socially inept because they live on facebook, etc.
I have been working a long time, and I have seen a lot of people come and go, and let me tell you, there are idiots in every generation, those who think the world owes them something, was true in my generation, is true in this one with the âIvy leagueâ syndrome coming out believing since they went to an elite school, the golden carpet is out. For every idiot, though, there is a hard working kid, or one who soon will find the inner hard working kid. I work with a development group where the people are not millenials, most are in their upper 30âs and 40âs, and many of them have a work ethic that sucks, make a big deal if they work late or on a weekendâŠentitlement cuts across all generations, during the 90âs ".comâ boom in tech, we would interview kids and they
Are the generations different? Sure, the path I took today likely would be impossible, but in the end a lot of what I accomplished would hold across any generation. Millenials in some way are better equipped then us old farts, in that because they are tuned into the insidious "social networkâ world, they are a lot more accustomed to working distributed and informally, a group of millenials can chat on some app and come to agreement on something that way, whereas some of my generation would need their meetings and agendas and powerpoints to do the same thing shrug.
I also will add some of the grumbling is intergenerational jealousy, too, wishing in some ways that we had the âfreedomâ these kids have (leaving out that these kids face a much harsher world then we did coming out of school, and their experience in school was much harder than ours by a long shot), I remember older guys grumbling when I was young that myself and others didnât abide by the old corporate suit and tie, group think that predominated in a lot of companies, and also didnât necessarily respect someone with the title of âmanagerâ because they had the title but rather by what they did, it happens all the time. My company is really, really restrictive with working from home, technically it doesnât exist, because many of them feel uncomfortable unless they can see workers and know what they are doing, have face to face meetings and the like, and more importantly, think working from home means goofing off (which IMO says more about them, that when working from home they are non productive, but that is another thread).
The other thing is give the Millenials a chance, young people of all generations take time to establish themselves. You think people of my fatherâs generation (the WWII generation) were all these paradigms of values, hard work, if so I suggest you read up on what was said about that generation by their elders, and for example, in the blue collar world stories about unionized environments with workers who came in drunk, featherbedding with jobs, not working hard, or how about the âgreatest generationâ members who never really amounted to much in their lives, didnât want to work hard? Yes, a lot of that generation who grew up during the depression ended up as solid, responsible people with families who did their best, worked hard, etc, but not all of them, and it took them a while to find their footing (it didnât hurt that that generation had advantages future generations didnât have, a booming economy with no competition from the rest of the world meant jobs on demand, even if you were one of the slackers, the GI bill paid for college and job training on a scale that would make certain people get appolexy [some of the usual suspects did]), many of them didnât find their groove until they hit their late 20âs and 30âs shrug, knew plenty of people of that generation that seemed aimless when young that settled in, will be the same with most millenials I would almost guarantee.
I do know millennials who are talented hard workers too but, there seems to be a greater acceptance today of work/life balance morphing into a life/life balance.
By that I mean more adults in greater numbers arenât taking steps to work to be self supporting. Their energy is focused on hanging out while the parents pick up all bills.
There are families we know whose kids took a gap year⊠after college graduation. They decided they needed a break, moved home and hung out. I had a conversation with one young graduate who told me sheâd start looking for a job the following year. She had zero experience and assumed employers would be ready to hire her when she was ready. I was barely able to smile and wish her well.
My business owner friend, mentioned above, has been working since she was 15. The âstifled creativityâ excuse was a joke to her.
Seems similar to some of the stories on these forums, where a kid raised in an upper middle to upper class (but not plutocrat class) family with no apparent cost limits has difficulty understanding cost limits when the first time s/he has to face them is paying for college, since the parental spending on various luxuries precluded them from saving up for college costs.
@PokeyJoe I agree. One of the young men (I say young, he is 30) that works for my husband (he has a contracting business) is very entitled. Of course his parents are to blame I think based on what I see at least to some degree.
This particular guy had a brush with the law, he took the rap for another guy (not sure I would have done that) when he could have gotten a deal and ended up in prison for a short period. He was not of course 100% innocent.
I found out recently that his parents paid the state for him to have better food in prison-- like who knew you could even DO that?? Personally I would make him live with prison as it is.
And the same young man has his rent paid by his parents.
I wonât even pay rent for my 22 year old who has decided school is not for her.
I own a business. Employees are my biggest headache, but I canât say itâs one particular generation. I believe I provide a nice work environment, benefits, salary, etc. Some people in life are lazy and want things handed to them, some are superstars who learn quickly and are very productive and then a whole lot in the middle.
I always look to myself, not just the employees when figuring things out. Itâs the entitlement that kills me, I highly value people taking responsibility for what goes well and what doesnât. Mistakes are one of the best learning tools and I try and model a good work ethic, honesty and working smart. My hope is always for people to leave better employees than when they came. Some people care, some donât and I realized external motivators rarely work long term. But Iâm not going to say one generation works better than another - but I can also promise this, I would not hire someone I deem a âsnowflakeâ.
Iâm finding this conversation utterly fascinating, since most of us posting on this board are from the âprivilegedâ class as are our children. So, do you believe your millennial in college now or new to the workforce are âsnowflakesâ? Or is it just everyone elseâs children who fit that description?
Oh mineâs a snowflake alright! (He was from privilege, but I was not). The doses of reality he is getting now are good for him, even if tiny.
@emilybee I do think generationally there are some âexpectationâ differences. Even my own children whom compared to many of their peers have not been coddled seem to think they should come straight out of college with our standard of living. I did not believe this, my husband did not believe this and my ex also did not believe this at their ages. But both my kids and my step kids routinely say things like â I have never been to Aruba, not fair. Well news flash I was 50 before I ever went too.
And my college and high school students will tell you that we make them tough it out on much more things than many of their peers. I am amazed at what parents will pay for and the like. I just made my 17 year old pay for a ticket she got from a minor fender bender in a parking lot. For her, it was a good deal of money ($85) and her boyfriend said his parents paid for every ticket he got. That is how one becomes a snowflake.
" Her millennial employee quit because her âcreativity was being stifled and (her) friendships were suffering.â
This young woman was still living at home."
I suspect the second sentence helps to explain the first. If she had to make the rent herself she might find it possible to make a little more room for work there among her friendships and creative endeavors.
@toomanyteens, so your children arenât snowflakes (their complaints of never going/doing XYZ is something kids have been saying to parents forever) but someone elseâs kid is because his parents pay for his parking tickets?
I pay for my sonâs car insurance and he works full time in very well paid job and can afford his own insurance. He worked since high school in min wage jobs over summers and during breaks - which he continued doing while in college, while also having a job on campus for 3 1/2 years.
I guess in your world because I pay for certain things (I also pay his cell phone) that makes him a snowflake.
@HRSMom, so you wouidnt hire someone like your son?
My kid is definitely privileged and definitely not a snowflake. He has always chosen the hardest path and never quits. He is not afraid to fail, and he is resilient. He does not melt under pressure, and he looks for and expects to be under pressure. He was brought up to understand the meaning of âto him whom much has been given, much is expected,â and he personifies that.
I bristle at blanket generalizations as I believe most who have chimed in here do, too. All of us can give examples of workers and slackers. I donât believe these traits are generational as much as they are a product of parenting and kidsâ individual personalities and choices. Weâve always told our son, âYou are the sum of your choices; make good ones.â
@emilybee - maybe they are snowflakes, I am not sure. I admit they seem to have the typical millennial attitude at times. However, I am trying hard to make them NOT be snowflakes by like NOT paying for their parking tickets. And they can whine all they want, nobody is actually taking them to Aruba.
I pay car insurance too since it is unreasonable for a student. Well and it benefits ME for the kids to drive - often. My motto is I donât pay for âstupidâ - getting a ticket is stupid so she gets to pay for that. Mistakes happen but we pay for them - its called consequences.
If he can afford his own insurance why would you pay for it? If he has a full time job and is no longer a student, in my opinion it is time to pay for himself.
Because we would rather he put the extra money into his 401k and take advantage of employer matching and compound interest since he is only 23.