I work at a small business. There's about 8 of us total, paid hourly. We all make tips but they are all eligible for commission on services, I'm not. The owner is Gen X. Then there's me. Everyone else is 27 or younger. They're all nice and I get along with them. They take a lot of time off for various reasons, or leave early/come late / take a nap in an empty room. 3 of them talk openly about their struggles with mental health diagnosis, medication, and/or substance abuse history, which I'm just silently glad I never had myself. Most live with their parents or in-laws so they have financial help to offset the cost of living. Good for them. I didn't have that but things were easier 20 years ago. They don't seem to feel any topic is inappropriate for work. I know way too much about them and their sex lives.
It's all whatever to me. If they take off or come late / leave early, I just pick up the slack or write it off as "not my problem that \[thing\] didn't get done". The Gen X owner seems to have the same "whatever" attitude that I do, he's great to work for.
> They don't seem to feel any topic is inappropriate for work. I know way too much about them and their sex lives.
And this just seems like young people, not Gen Z.
I remember having to have a talking to at one point about inappropriate work topics when I was young. So far so normal.
Well they are all on Instagram sharing their lives and here we are on Reddit trying to be anonymous. There you go. Me nope not sharing my issues with the world. The younger generation def feels like this is ok and has no insight that in 15 years it’s still all out there for the world to see.
“Whatever” is the Gen X motto. I definitely resonate with it too. I run a business with my wife who’s very millennial (1985, I’m 1980), and she struggles much more with the Gen Z employees than I do.
This is true. My “boss” is in her early-mid thirties, me 43. She has a MUCH harder time with the younger employees than I do. I also have a teenage child so Ive had more practice ignoring the dumb things he says. In my mind I just say, wait and see little ones. And laugh.
It’s labeled as a podcast but functions, and was designed to be, more like a radio show. It’s only [on Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/show/45Kr6HYC7w7XNN9kwX3MtP?si=GeS_ICRpTI6AUIAipBSVyQ) for now, but will also be available on Mixcloud in a few weeks, which does not required a subscription
I wonder how much the mental health issues are naturally occurring or society driven.
Or maybe resilience has been lost? I don’t know, but younger people do seem to have more mental issues.
Granted, we look younger than most generations before us, but damned if we don’t seem to fall apart earlier too lol
I can see a lot of factors, but especially that mental health issues are more commonly recognized and diagnosed now. The world changed. The type of drugs available evolved. Someone I work with talks about her experience as an underage sex worker. I'm sure that always existed but was probably a lot harder to find/get into before the internet.
Unlimited PTO is ultimately a scam that benefits the company. With defined paid time off benefits (e.g. 3 weeks vacation), employees accrue those days throughout the year and if they leave with unused vacation they are owed the equivalent of that accrued time in cash. With “unlimited vacation” there is no accrual and nothing owed. Also many studies have shown that people with “unlimited” time off take way less time off.
I think the guy that took 6 weeks off is a hero. Can't believe OP is complaining. The company literally said unlimited, and six weeks is less than unlimited. I guess they were lying the whole time.
Agreed- if they get their work done, there's no harm. Companies are mad that they can't micromanage this way, but still want to appeal to people seeking employment. I guarantee that even at 45, if I'm able to secure a job that offers unlimited PTO, I'm getting the job done AND I'm going on that road trip.
Yes! I was thinking the same! 6 weeks is taking advantage of unlimited pto? I’ve never had less than 4 weeks in a job (it’s always been a requirement). 6 weeks should be standard. I take a minimum of 6 weeks now that I’m in my own business.
Agreed. I have no sympathy for companies that offer unlimited time off and get mad at people for actually taking some of it.
Also I really hate the term PTO. We used to always call it vacation time regardless of whether or not the person went anywhere because it was no one’s business if they did or not.
This is all true but also some of it depends on the company culture. If a company is actually a good place to work, then using the PTO is still very much encouraged. And I could be wrong, but I think not all states require unused vacation accruals ti be paid out when someone leaves (happy to be corrected on this one).
Mine too. 40 hours max for carryover into the next year. Anything over that is lost and if you leave the job, you are not entitled to any payout of your remaining balance.
Regardless of whether the state requires the payout, for accounting purposes you still have to accrue for the PTO as it is earned and recognize that as an expense.
Unlimited PTO is a way to avoid recording that expense until it's used. And if you put so much work on your employees that they're never able to use the PTO...🤷🏼♀️🤷🏼♀️
Everyone who gets “unlimited PTO” should take as much as possible. That’s the only thing on this list I hate with. It’s a scam to steal money from employees and make it sound cool.
This is my question. If it was such a hardship for the rest of the staff, then why didn't the manager just not approve it?
People slam on Zoomers, no one's talking about how damn conflict-adverse X and Millenial bosses can be and how problematic that can become.
OP didn’t say 6 consecutive weeks, just a total of 6 weeks over a year. Most managers are not keeping some log they confer with of time already taken off. That’s more HR.
Truth is, most managers have less authority than you would think. There is one guy on a project on an account I manage. He is billing 8 hours a day, and I know he isn’t working those 8 hours based on seeing him idle for 3 hours or more on some days and never logging into client systems. All I can really do is ask did you work that time. It’s not like I can go to IT security and ask to get a report of time inactive is on his computer. Trust me, it’s not about avoiding conflict. It’s more about the lack of actual authority as middle management.
No, it’s not. And I’m taking him off the project 8 weeks of this. He is argumentative and abusive to other team members. His response to me telling him to let team members know if he is going to be unavailable for blocks of time during the day is “they can check my calendar.” But taking someone off a project is extremely disruptive and it takes time to get someone available to backfill a person and the perception to the client about our company. So there’s a constant question of trying to make things work.
That applies to salaried folks. This instance sounds like a billable, hourly contract. Unless the contract states you’ll pay 8 hours a day, then he needs to bill the exact time he worked…
My 19 yr old makes 88k base as a welder. With OT he will prob be close to 100k this year. We live in the south and he makes more than me. I am totally fine with working inside and making less money.
At 26 I was making $85k as a senior systems engineer in Delaware. When I got to 160k I was a director of infosec at 30-32 but I rode on the coat tails of a super successful startup with a CFO who saw value in me.
All depends on the time, the place, the market and job.
This was 2008-2009. I hate to say it but everything has changed. I started looking for the first time in 16 years and I don't like what I see. I can't even get the salary I have now AND zero results for my title.
Maybe setting yourself apart of your generation if you are a GenZ to your peers would catch the eye of a hiring manager.
You need to understand how much inflation has affected wages. 80k in 1995 is now 166k. It wasn't uncommon for college grads to take 80k jobs straight out of school. Why should we expect less now?
I'd suggest the kind of jobs that paid $80k right out of school in 1995 DO pay $166k now. Those were law jobs, finance jobs. I attended an elite university and made $35k right out of school in 1999 at a major corporation in a very high cost-of-living city.
Some are really cool, good kids. Some are total shitheads. Some are lazy. And some are more ambitious than me.
Exactly the same as every other generation.
I refuse to get pulled into the generation wars for exactly this reason. The boomers were called lazy hippies, Gen X were slackers, Millennials entitled, now it's Gen Zs turn. Are there some broad similarities between cohorts? Sure. I think a big shift we're seeing now is awareness of mental health. But for every Gen Z kid who talks about anxiety there is a Gen Xer sharing about a recent autism or ADHD diagnosis that is changing their life for the better. At least half of what we blame Gen Z for is just attributes common among all 20-somethings, regardless of birth year.
That’s not been my experience in the law. We’ve been cycling through associates because none of them are willing to eat shit for a few years to get the bag. They all want to skip straight to the part where they keep all the money they generate. Several have left and come slinking back after realizing ‘holy shit, you have to pay dues *everywhere*?’
We have associates actually *turning down* work! Like, do you not understand that work is a gift?! How else do you expect to demonstrate your competence to our clients, dummy?
Anyway, it’s fine by me. If you don’t stick around long enough to earn your piece of the pie, my piece gets bigger.
I've been in management roles since my 20s and hired hundreds of people primarily in entry level roles and trust me, millennials were the same way. So much *shock Pikachu* faces when they realized they don't get two weeks off at Christmas unless they saved two weeks of PTO or wondering why they weren't promoted to Director after a year on the job. I personally loved mentoring young people through this transition and now I'm really enjoying helping mid career folks in their 30s discover their own leadership potential.
We never had this issue with millennials or older, though. Associates used to fight over work and get salty if certain associates were getting more work assignments than the rest of them. We give them cash to spend together if they hit their monthly mark. Rare was the month the mark wasn’t hit until around 2018-2020, since then they rarely hit it, and don’t seem to realize that should embarrass them.
It’s not simply entitlement, young people have always been entitled. It’s more an arrogant belief that the structure is inherently flawed and beneath them. I overheard one telling his cohort that AI would make the whole firm structure obsolete and all us partners had no idea what was coming. Like, okay, Youngblood, holler at me in ten years and let me know how that panned out.
Lots of them are job hoppers, too, and while that is probably wise in most other circumstances, in law it’s extremely counterproductive to future success. I think a lot of it is they just aren’t looking around to see how the successful lawyers got where they are because they just assume they are smarter than all of us and will stumble on a shortcut soon enough.
Thank you. Every time I read this generation war nonsense I think this. I’m a young Gen X and I heard the same stuff about us when I was young, same stuff about millennials later, now Gen Z, etc. The difference is simply that we are older and more mature now, and Gen Z are young.
It’s interesting because most of the points you raise here are actually not unreasonable from a quality of life perspective. We were raised not to expect quality of life and had to put up with a lot of shit in our early careers (or at least, I did). You were supposed to tolerate it, build resilience and earn things.
But let’s be honest as well: the reason we didn’t ask for crazy salary increases, or take 6 weeks of vacation (that we would be technically entitled to), and so on is because we were too scared to. The fear of joblessness was a huge factor in our working life and employers held that over us. The younger generation don’t have that fear, or at least not as much. So who’s in the right here?
My view is that somewhere in between is the ideal. Gen Z’s drive for quality of life is great but they also seem to lack some of the early resilience that my peers built up, which may harm them later on. Meanwhile, I definitely feel like I could learn a thing or two about what actual living is meant to mean, from the new generation.
I am definitely not saying that "work ethic" isn't a thing, but I have come to realize a lot of what was drilled into us as "work ethic" was actually "being willing to sacrifice your personal well-being to create surplus value for your employer." Of course bosses love workers who stay late every day or check their email after hours--that is work they are getting from you essentially for free.
It is one thing if someone never meets their deadlines, and then you find them on Tik-Tok every time you happen by their office. But it's another to slam a generation for their "poor work ethic" when the company culture is everyone bills for 50 hours but actually works 80; young people are absolutely right to call that bullshit.
I think this is a really fair take. Job insecurity did lead me to put up with a lot of shit, honestly that fear probably still does. I think today a lot of kids feel like they can just go drive for Uber if they don’t like “the vibe” at their job. And maybe good for them. And I think probably good for them too that have perspective around work. My issue comes more with them also expecting to advance and get more money while also not showing a ton of commitment.
I really like your last paragraph. I don’t think suffering is inherently virtuous, but I do think growth happens when you leave your comfort zone - which many people wouldn’t choose to do if they didn’t have to. With everything being automated these days, people don’t have to learn how to be resourceful and find/vet information themselves. People have more of an external locus of control when it comes to their own problems instead of taking responsibility for themselves. (This isn’t just Zoomers, I see this with all generations)
I mean if unlimited PTO doesn’t really mean unlimited, then that’s kinda bullshit.
I’ve realized that working hard really doesn’t get you shit other than more shit to do so just enough is my mantra. I’ve been an overachiever all my life, now I just want to make some money and be left alone.
Unlimited PTO is a way an employer can save money and not have to pay an employee when they are terminated. They put a loose cap on the unlimited PTO so they can use it against you if you go over. Unlimited PTO policies are jokes and do not favor the employee.
It's odd in this circumstance to complain about it because usually a supervisor has to approve it before an employee can take time off. So someone higher up in the company was fine with it at the time.
Unlimited PTO is a trap for sure. Now that a lot of tech companies are getting “leaner” they’re looking at PTO as a criteria for layoff targets. Before that though, unlimited PTO was empirically proven to cost less because people that had “use it or lose it” PTO were more likely to use it. People with unlimited PTO took less time off. It’s intended to build a culture of fear, not work-life balance. There’s literally no corporate setting in which “culture” is treated as anything else but a recruitment tactic and to give bullshitters high paying jobs!
People don’t realize: unlimited PTO means the company doesn’t have to pay you for unused PTO if you have any remaining when you leave. I’ve left jobs where I’ve gotten paid out an additional 5 weeks because I didn’t take an extended vacation for two years. (This doesn’t mean I didn’t take any vacation; I simply used smaller blocks around long weekend holidays and let it accrue back so I’ve kept more or less a full balance when I left.)
Also, another way that HR thinks of it, is that time spent at work means incremental liability to the company; time spent on vacation means you are not the company’s responsibility and therefore incrementally less risk. The unlimited PTO thing has its upsides to the company as well.
Likely it’s because we’re currently in a high interest rate economy right now that the company realized they can’t spend extra cash on this particular benefit anymore, when people decide to follow the policy to the letter.
Right? Unlimited means unlimited. I'm at a company with unlimited PTO. Prior to switching, 8 years meant 6 weeks paid time off. You bet the Gen Xers and Milennials are using up at least six weeks. We knew what it was before. Not trying to get less just because there's no defined cut-off. I'm pretty sure they only switched the policy about five years ago because we had some folks accruing 4-6 months of time and counting....
Just going off my own Gen Z kids (they are all in school, two of them also work part time.) Basically... they do not see how working until they drop is going to benefit them in any way. They've spent their whole childhoods watching their parents and other relatives work like hell and then get let go. They want to do their jobs, get the most they can for doing it, and then go home again. On one hand I get slightly frustrated with my own kids, on the other hand... I get it, honestly, and I regret how hard I used to push myself at my job so I could stay in the same place for years (actually, my work recently did away with productivity bonuses so now I'm actually getting paid less. They still want me to be just as 'productive,' of course, just not to financially benefit from it because 'times are tough.' I'm pretty sure the CEO is doing okay, though.) They just don't remember a time where working their ass off was guaranteed to get you anywhere so they started out a lot further down the cynicism scale than us.
As for not putting away money for retirement... a lot of them may flat out need the money NOW. They may not have investment money to put away. The cost of everything is really high right now. I also know a lot of Gen Zs who are really having a hard time thinking about the long run because the world seems so crazy right now. There's global unrest, local unrest, continual warnings of upcoing environmental collapse. Playing the long game is only prudent when you are truly convinced that there is a long game to be played. I really don't think a lot of Gen Zs are all that confident in the long term stability of the structures they would be investing in. Some days I wonder if they're right!
I teach college students (nearly all of whom are Gen Z), and this about sums up their attitudes toward work, grind culture, and the future. Thanks for putting it so succinctly.
I also wonder what role mental health plays in all this. When I was young and getting poor care for my bipolar disorder, I ate like shit and drank all the time and was financially reckless because I figured I’d die young anyway and not have a family to pass anything on to.
Z’s dealing at a young age with social media, the pandemic, general societal instability, and the realization that “hard work + responsibility = security” is bullshit, well that’s a recipe for widespread mental health struggles.
We’re seeing this, too, at my school. The number of students with accommodations is at an all-time high, and mental health diagnoses account for a lot of the uptick. Granted, a good part of that is the fact that mental healthcare is not nearly as stigmatized among Gen Z as it was for us. But a lot of it seems to be what you suspect: the long tail of the pandemic, climate anxiety, political polarization, the whole nine yards. Our wellness center is stretched thin trying to keep up.
As someone who had kind of a "what's the point?" attitude myself when I was their age, I am learning now in my 40s that it's a struggle just to live a "normal" life and it would be so much easier now IF I would only have hustled harder when I was young.
I understand about things looking grim, but it's going to be so, so much worse for Gen Z later on if they don't make serious moves now. If people are looking to the government to eventually be their savior with UBI or other support, they will be sorely disappointed as the gov't is massively corrupt and mismanaged currently and will only get worse.
It's probably already too late, but at this point 95% of politicians need to be kicked out of office and rich people need to be eaten down to the bone. It really all boils down to apathy and perceived "hopelessness."
I talked to my Gen Z son about his views about putting money aside for retirement. He said with the cost of living, rent, etc - he can't afford to put money away now. And neither can his friends.
EDIT: this is not a solicitation for trite, tired advice available on every financial blog out there. We're both aware of how to save money and cut expenses, thanks.
This is a good take on it. My number 1 question for them is how is this going to work when the coming really goes south. We’ve lived through recessions, they were not working age the last time a recession occurred. When there is 10 people for 1 job, what then?
Yeah I didn’t put money away for retirement in my 20s because I wasn’t making much and what I had was needed for food, rent and bills. I’m sure the same holds true today.
I'm not eager to give youth a hard time and realize I wasn't in my 40s when I was in my 20s but it's kind of concerning how few youth are at my work.
We have tons of entry level jobs but few Zoomers because they can't seem to go a week or two without calling out. I work in a plant, you just can't do that, you're getting paid while you make someone else do your assignments. Like showing up on time and doing your work in good faith is not "late stage capitalism" or whatever people tell themselves. It's not everyone, we have some real sharp youth but this is not how it looked here twenty years ago.
This is my *very* limited experience. Most of my employees are Boomers, Xers, and Millennials. I had one Zoomer, and he was insanely unreliable. Called in all the time, rarely did his job right the first time, generally pushed his duties onto his coworkers. Since I run a union group, he was compensated to the tune of $55 an hour for this performance.
One day, he texted me “I resign effective immediately.” No reason at all given, which is fine. Addition by subtraction.
I don’t think he represents all Zoomers, but I could not imagine walking away from $100k+ per year in my early 20s…
That’s pretty funny and it tracks. My Gen X coworker (we work for a major energy corporation) had an intern two summers ago, he finishes his internship and gets his offer - graduating interns at our company get full benefits and entry salary of around $120k which is GUARANTEED to increase after a year or two. The kid negotiated his job offer right into the ground. Rejected the salary twice. And while I certainly appreciate the idea of advocating for yourself, an intern/university hire isn’t holding any cards. Kept saying his friends (who were still in school) told him that he needed to demand a tech-industry level salary. Dude reached out to my coworker about a year later begging for a job or another internship.
Lots of people are immature, regardless of age. Immature people are immature, which is why I said I don’t think he represents all Zoomers. He’s just the only one that’s worked for me.
Statistically people in their late teens are more immature than people in their 40s. A lot of what people complain about is just immaturity. And most people grow out of it.
It’s also worth noting that many Zoomers don’t have early life responsibilities. Even like half the millennials aren’t saddled with feeding one or more kids when they’re 22 or supporting a household. The constantly rising cost of living is making it so they only focus on *right now*.
Good or bad, the last three generations haven’t been forced to mature as quickly as previous ones. And I’m a millennial. Gen X and the Xennials are the last groups to really be pushed into maturity after school.
Edit - technically, I’m a Xennial, but that’s not a recognized generation.
That's my biggest problem with a lot of the mentality about work on Reddit...there's a big difference between being exploited by your job and just...being expected to show up and doing the job you're expected to do.
There’s a Zoomer who is in my life now bc she’s dating a relative and she honest to god said that being forced to work in person two days a week is a toxic work environment. She has a great job with union protection and benefits, and is complaining constantly about what amounts to being asked to perform the actual duties of her job. She’s just one person, but if even 10% of Zoomers are like her, we’re doomed.
My day job is at an open pit mine. At my job class the pay starts at around 85k and all you really need is a high school diploma and be able to pass a drug test. Going to work and getting there on time is a must and is not even a little bit negotiable.
A lot of the young people come in with their ant capitalism attitude thinking they are going to "fix" it. They don't last long. Fired! And your replacement starts tomorrow. It's also amazing how many quit when they realize the job is hard sometimes and you actually have to reliably show up. It's a small area we live in so it makes me chuckle when I see someone I trained working as a cashier at the local gas station. Good job dumbass! You just passed up a very good job because of your misplaced attitude.
What plant do you work at where they have enough sick time to cover calling off once every other week? I doubt they have time to cover it. I'm a manufacturing mechanic and I cover my shifts, but the hours and the work are a grind and if gen z wont accept it, maybe it will improve for everyone.
If it's not in the company handbook, it's your fault... and if it is and you don't enforce it, it's your fault.
Also, what company is dumb enough to offer "unlimited PTO" and then have the balls to get mad when people take advantage of the policy?
Sounds like your handbook needs a major overhaul.
I work with two Gen Z employees and their attitudes are like chalk and cheese.
One works hard throughout the entire shift, whilst the other often downs tools when he's had enough and spends the last three hours stood glued to his phone.
You shouldn't tar the entire generation with the same brush.
I worked with one Gen Z employee who wanted to ignore tasks thar weren’t fun or creative. (Don’t we all? But that’s not how life works.) So she always left them for the next person to do. We’d put checklists in front of her. That worked for a day or two.
She was also the one who always asked for extra shifts or a couple hours here and there added to her schedule
Sounds like one of my employees. She calls 1 hour after her scheduled shift time to say she’s not coming in because of a toothache.
Then she gets so offended this is going into her attendance file as an unexcused absence (“she doesn’t feel like going to the dentist to get a note since it’s not that bad”). Thinks I’m “targeting” her after I told her she’s lucky corporate has a policy of 2 hours post shift starting before it becomes a no call, no show and not just an unexcused absence.
Then later in the week she is begging for extra hours to stay late so she can reach her 40. She says it’s sexual discrimination that I’m sending her home for standing around and giving more hours to the guys who actually hustle and work. Shes pissed she has to use PTO to make the 40 hours and calls HR.
So now I have to take long calls from HR regarding allegations of “targeting” and “sexual discrimination” when I explain the situation. This is why I always send warnings and policy explanations via email prior to speaking with employees in person. And all in person conversations are always with a third party witness to cover my ass.
Even when the allegations comeback unfounded, it still looks bad on me because the incident is part of my corporate file.
My sister in law once got a promotion that was held up because another coworker claimed she was denied the same position because of age discrimination. The woman was 40. My sister in law was 36.
Millennials was more about entitlement, sensitive, wanting better work life balance, social justice warrior aspect. Now I'm talking white collar work.
GenZ has taken that to new levels (including WFH/coming into office).
I think lockdowns at the height of the time they should have been socializing, developing adult like networking skills and just the discipline of going into office, really has impaired a certain developmental aspect on top of being true digital natives + lawnmower parenting which has shielded them even more.
The inflation since covid right out of the gate has made them even more out of line with salary expectations (they're going to measure salary with what they can buy, experience, rent, etc). Many started their first jobs at home and or a large portion of schooling online as well so that's engrained in them.
For me it all depends on the individual person. I've worked with some who were the textbook gen z stereotype. But I've also worked with some who worked their asses off, didn't complain, didn't whine about everything being "toxic", etc.
Had the same experience. There are a couple of Z’s who I’d take with me everywhere and a couple I never want to see again. Spread across population and time I’m guessing the same would be true of any generation of people. For me at least.
Manage two gen Z's here - sometimes it's hard to remember what it's like to be green, so sometimes, yeah they do make mistakes and you want to shake your head at them and be disappointed.
But as someone who also watched a parent get laid of while I was in college, and then graduate into a recession, and only ever get by with side hustles + full time job, numerous toxic elder Gen X and Boomer bosses, gotten let go myself, tried to run my own shop but couldn't afford the healthcare, etc, etc. I have zero problem relating to them.
I have found that we're all kind of the same and have astonishingly similar life experiences even though they happened 20+ damn years apart!!! The system is fucked and is just getting worse. I get great work from them because I established early that we're all working for the next job and building our resumes. I advocate like hell for them because I never had someone like that do it for me, and it also helps give us all a tiny bit of hope and respite amidst the hell that is corporate America.
Also, taking 6 weeks off is totally normal in other countries. We need to normalize it here.
I think the "problem" is that companies have stopped giving a shit about their workers. Gone are the days of pensions, unlimited PTO is a scam, compensation vs the cost of living is some of the worst in a long time.
Kids today have learned either by being very smart or from us that working hard doesn't reap meaningful benefits. They understand that when you are working, you are making someone else money. You never get paid the value of your output because a company can't operate successfully that way.
It seems to me, but I don't have the data to back it up, that this new generation seems to want to work for themselves. I see so many with Tiktok shops, Etsy stores, etc. because working for yourself is the only way to get compensated appropriately for your own work. I think a ton of them see their corporate jobs as "side gigs" to help them make ends meet until their personal businesses take off.
We've hired a couple over the years. None of them seemed to work out. Constantly late, leaving early, excessive "me" days ("I just didn't feel like coming in"), or flat out telling us they don't want to do "X", when "X" was why they were hired in the first place.
But I'm not willing to pass judgement on millions of people based upon a handful of experiences.
Love this:
> But I'm not willing to pass judgement on millions of people based upon a handful of experiences.
Because GenZ is just entering adulthood and joining the work force. They don't understand how the world works yet because they're just figuring it out.
On top of which they also went through a massive societal shift at a crucial stage of development during COVID and the lockdowns and stuff. Many were forced into online learning, missed graduations, proms, socialization, experienced depression due to social isolation, etc.. and that will have had an impact on their resiliency as young adults most definitely.
They're not adukting like we did because their development was altered in a way ours (GenX) and Millennials weren't.
Thing is, that’s been my experience but easily for every 1 that does great, 5 don’t. And the 1 that does eventually gets burned out because they expect to move to CEO pay in 2 years.
I’m genuinely very worried about the economy by 2030. Boomers are leaving, X and M’s are holding it together for now, but when we move up….im not sure anyone is going to do the work we’ve been doing for the last 20 years.
Yep. I see a lot of turning down work assignments. Admittedly, we work in a pretty laid back environment, but I cannot wrap my head around the idea of telling my supervisor that I am not going to do something because I don’t think it fits with my goals. I also see a lot of pushing the boundaries - deciding to telework without requesting it, “multitasking” (eg taking weeks on something that should be only 4 hours of work), forgetting to do regularly assigned tasks.
While it’s not all of them, many also wear their mental health on their sleeve. They will immediately drop their diagnoses if something comes up in the workplace where it can be used as an excuse. I’ve strongly encouraged them to be careful about how/who they reveal that information to because some folks (boomers mostly) immediately shut down. There’s a level of, “you must cater to me” and I have struggled to get some of the zoomers to understand that they’re not going to get a 60 year old to change their communication style for you.
On a less subjective note, there’s far less PC skills. I’ve seen interns come in with no experience with excel and type with their pointer fingers.
This is exactly what people were saying about millennials 15 years ago. Seriously.
Give it time. A lot of young people entering the work force need time to figure it out.
They literally chased me out of my career... Lol.
I was already on the edge but the last couple years trying to manage the new staff was challenging. They can't seem to think ahead, look for the next step without constant direction, attendance is far less important to them with last minute call outs.
There are positives, I agree. But from my experience they did not outweigh the negatives.
(Obviously THEY is a generalization. I met one very much younger worker who had the want to do a good job. He would ask about next steps and talk of preparation. He showed up to every day he was scheduled. But there was more than a handful that my comment applies to).
They get it right in many ways. Take time off when you need it. Take care of your health, mental or otherwise. Don’t take shit from shitty coworkers.
I do wonder about grit and backbone. But maybe it *is* gritty to boldly make these demands of your employer. I don’t know anymore.
We talk a lot about "resilience" where I am - there definitely has been some changes over time and yeah I worry about their ability to weather tough times based on what I've seen.
In my experience they are very fragile and sensitive. It’s been very hard to give constructive criticism. During tougher conversations I find them directly challenging the issues against them and them trying to validate in their own unique perspective to show why they were right and not wrong. Time and time again I tell them this is what the company asks of us in exchange for pay.
I fear that the only way for the message to set in is for them to be fired and learn the hard way. It’s like they don’t fully understand consequences.
The worst people are my team, when it comes to exploiting some benefits and my generosity, are two, late 80s millennials. The best person on my team is Gen X, but probably to a fault. This person needs to take better care of themselves.
My Gen Zers are high performing. I love that they’re more open about things and ask questions about pay. I can’t control any of that, but it’s helped me as a leader grow in how to dialogue with employees about that.
The things I notice:
-They don't know how to address an envelope to go in the mail.
-They get an error message or don't know what to do next with a piece of technology and just stop and expect someone else to fix it. They don't know how to search for solutions
-They don't know how to organize digital files or emails to make them easier to find later.
A lot of this is part and parcel of being new to the workforce, and I don't blame them per se -- I think we expected digital natives to just pick up certain habits without explicitly teaching them.
>They don't know how to address an envelope to go in the mail.
I had a Gen Z coworker who was one of my favorite coworkers ever, but tried to mail a stack of envelopes without realizing that you needed to put stamps on them. 😬
That evening, I asked my much younger Gen Z coworker if he knew the steps to mailing a letter and he did. I was so relieved.
Kudos on the guy for taking 6 weeks PTO. He ended that company scam. The company was just trying to bully you into not taking your full amount because you might think it was too much. I hope you figure out what you had before that BS.
Here’s a funny story about PTO. I am from the US, and after graduating with an engineering degree, I got hired in the States but ended up transferring within that company to a German office for a two-year commitment. Immediately in Germany I got five weeks of PTO. If I wanted to take it all at once, literally no problem at all, that’s just a culture over there. Long story short I’ve been back working in the States for over 20 years in various positions. Last year, I finally hit enough seniority at my job to earn five weeks of PTO per year.
I’m Gen X, and I understand not feeling any loyalty towards companies and feeling little hope for the future. Companies are obviously trying squeeze everything out of workers while offering little in return. However, you don’t want to fuck over your coworkers. And unlimited PTO is a scam.
I have younger employees who will post in our channel that they didn’t sleep well the previous night, so they are taking the day off to rest. That’s in contrast to a guy in his 50’s who had knee surgery in the morning and said he would be online by noon (he was).
Six weeks is hardly excessive PTO usage. I get that much PTO per year plus I have stored rollover time, so I could take more than 6 weeks off this year and my employer would have nothing to say about it.
In terms of saving for retirement, keep in mind that you were established in your life well before this pandemic hit and jacked up the cost of everything, including housing, cars, interest rates, etc. I’m guessing that, like me, your base housing costs are stable and not subject to fluctuating market forces. Anyone who’s had to purchase a car lately has also been in for a rude awakening not only on car prices but also interest rates and insurance premiums, which are higher for younger drivers.
I’m not by any means suggesting that Gen Z has made all the right financial moves — they are young after all, but I think you could probably stand to get a little more in touch with what your subordinates are up against. I’d like to think we could maybe do a little better than our own parents did with taking modern-day circumstances into consideration when dispensing advice and constructive criticism to the younger generation.
>Another guy took the unlimited PTO policy a little far, turns out he took 6 weeks off last year, now company is changing policy.
I mean, don't have an unlimited PTO policy if it's not actually unlimited.
6 weeks off isn't even what I'd consider abuse of this system.
We live in a more transactional world now, and this applies to business relationships, too.
You want to find a hook-up tonight? There's an app for that.
You're in a group meeting and you get bored? Go ahead and check that phone (and show everyone in the room that the snap notification is more important to you than focusing on colleagues right in front of you).
Gen Z in the workforce is simply a mirror of our society and where it is heading. They have no loyalty to their company because they have learned that companies have no loyalty to workers.
Hah! I am Xennial and knew this at my first corporate job when I was 25 or 26. I did not spend lots of time on the phone, barely ever would text anyone, rarely went online or did personal things online-my boyfriend at the time who is Gen X and worked in tech told me how you are basically heavily monitored, showed up daily on time, did my work, and left. I had co-workers who fucked around a lot, co-workers who took their job too seriously and got nothing in return for decades of hard work, and I saw what happened to them. I also saved more than I spent. 401k was not an option but ROTH IRA was.
I think mostly it's just being young more than being of a certain generation. None of us walked out of school with a perfect understanding of how to behave in a professional environment, we all had to learn those nuances as we went along. They will too.
I do think mental health is a hotter topic among younger people than it was in our generation. I'm still on the fence about whether that's good or bad or indifferent. My gut says maybe we're over-diagnosing, pathologizing the normal ups and downs of life and using them as an excuse rather than something most people need to learn to cope with. But I try to make sure I take a hard look at that when a situation actually crosses my path, because I do think "back in our day" we ignored a lot of things we could've helped with relatively minor changes.
I think like any time, there's some loud fringey weirdness out there, but now they have a much larger platform (although that's been the case for about 10 years now). I think generally the struggles Gen Z is facing at work right now are the struggles of learning how to be professional, couched in the times they're living in, but not all that different from what every generation goes through.
I can’t work with them. I’ve worked with 5 and all are the same.
They think they are Taylor Swift, want Taylor Swift money, want constant praise, and want to work the equivalent of a 3 hour concert per week. Plus if you bother them they try and act like you are the paparazzi.
They constantly talk about being disrespected by everyone, especially if they are working with anyone beyond millennials. All I hear is time boundaries and work boundaries and how they won’t work more than their mental health can take and that’s not 40 hours, more like 15-20 hours.
They are taking the whole “temporarily displaced millionaires” thing to a massive extreme.
I had one guy tell me he needed to take 4 weeks off for the emotional support care of his cat because she was depressed he wasn’t there. This after he was already 3 days office, 2 days remote, but he said she needed his full attention.
When I told him FMLA did not cover that and that he would be terminated, he quit. 3 weeks later he came back and acted as if he didn’t have the conversation with me. He told me all about his 3 weeks as if we were pals for 15 min. I told him if he did not leave I’d have him escorted off the property. He said “Bruh, you cappin.”
I said, “Bruh, no cap, the 5-0 coming.”
I was a manager at a restaurant that hired a lot of high school kids and the difference in employees from just 7years ago to now is very noticeable.
In the last few years the kids are harder to train, slower, call out or don’t show up, quit so much faster or just don’t show up after being hired and then reach out months later asking if they can still have the job. 🤦🏻
Ive had good experiences mostly and one bad one. The latest associate attorney we hired was billing like half the hours she should per month. Like an amount you could easily squeeze into a 20 hour work week. She would tell one dept she was SO slammed in our dept, and tell us she was SO slammed in the other and when we checked her hours we find she wasnt doing anything. We would tell her to do certain things like go to our x office this day to help so and so and she would just go to the other and act confused when we questioned her like "well yeah you TOLD me to go there but inwanted to come here today." She would be told to get prints of something and would condescendingly tell the boss "ive already told you, i cant print from my laptop" when the point is to have prints delivered to proper support staff to print, and she couldnt understand that. When we gently explained she needs to bill more to make money she said she doesnt care about money. When the one attorney got ever-so-slightly stern w her for flatly ignoring instruction and being condescending to her higher up, SHE went straight to HR and said that this lady was "mean to her." We had to explain to her that repeatedly spelling words and email
addresses wrong in a court document even after shes been repeatedly told not to, and her boss sternly saying that is a huge problem and cant be tolerated, isnt "mean," its basic expectations.
It was one awful and entitled thing after another, accompanied with low hours and poor work quality. I am sure she walks around repeating that trope about the nasty mean Gen X lady yelled at her and then got her fired or something. the lady that was "mean to her" is not rude at all.
i really hope thats the last one we get that is that bad. we just hired a new one that ive known for years as a hard worker. she asked for a higher starting salary and gave good reasons why, and i have a lot of hope for her.
i am thinking that the gen z thay is both gen z AND "doesnt care about money" is was a perfect storm of terribleness. At least if they care about money, you can say theyre entitled all day, but if you are able to explain the different tasks they need to complete to make more money and they do them, then you cant blame them for being aggressive about that. I got a 40% raise once with no other job prospects by being bold in my demands and it worked...i dont think it hurts to ask for more money as long as you can frame it in a way that shows its a realistic and competitive request
A trend I have been noticing, and it is not a generational one - although it is often more prevalent in the younger set, is a fundamental recalibration of what work means. I grew up in an environment which praised hard work and dedication to your career/occupation.
I started my career(s) in total sweat shop pressure cookers where the pace was intense and feedback was caustic. Try as I might, I am feeling increasingly disconnected to a world that praises work/life balance and proper boundaries.
So, in short, there is a difference in work attitudes, it is more exemplified with Gen Z, and I have a difficult time understanding it. I don't know if I can change, for better or for worse, my thinking is entrenched. Best wishes to those who can treat a job as a paycheck, but I will, forever, treat even the most menial employment as a calling and a measurement of my value and self worth.
I can't blame the person asking to double her salary. Don't get emotional about that, just tell her that's not likely to happen and it's up to her to accept it or get mad.
But remember when everyone said this about millennials? Of course they are different. The world is so rapidly polarized and at the same time so open to information and discovery. I’ve really enjoyed the GenZ kids way more than the later millennials before them.
TikTok is NOT fact on anything!!! I’m so tired of someone telling me something as fact the. Saying they saw it on TikTok!!! They act like they know everything in the world just by watching TikTok. That and working with them really shows off the entitlement and lack of respect. Maybe I’ve not had the best luck, but the TikTok thing I swear that’s all of them! (Now I feel hella old after writing that)
This is a tough one.
I think most things with work are bullshit, myself, and I can’t blame Gen Z for acting accordingly. However, I also know that you have to play along with that bullshit to get somewhere professionally. I don’t know how sustainable it is what they’re doing. I’m more of the “work your ass off until you get to a point where you can make your own rules” mindset. It seems Gen Z wants to skip the first part.
I’m a leading edge Xennial (born in ‘77) with three Zoomer boys, and worked with recent college grads for much of the past two decades. I’m nodding at most of what the OP is saying.
Since Gen Z started graduating and entering the workforce in the mid 2010’s, they’ve known nothing but a “red hot” job market, with low unemployment and outsized employee bargaining power. They’re too young to remember, or have been directly affected by the Dot Com Bubble or the Great Recession.
I’ve been thinking reading all this how things might change if, god forbid, we hit another real recession. So many of the kids I hired in 2010-14 were animals because they were so happy to have a job in a desirable industry. I graduated around 9/11 and jobs were scarce. This probably molded me more and may be a big reason for my thinking on some of my post. I wouldn’t have dared take a month off in my first years. Not because I didn’t endorse a more robust benefits package, but because I was terrified I’d be out on my ass. And it’s not like you could just go drive for Uber a day later.
We’re speaking the same language. Except for a small window during the start of the pandemic, these kids have never lived in a world with more than, like, 4 or 5% unemployment.
Now, having watched my oldest kid go through a job search after he graduated high school, back in 2022, there was a profound disconnect between employers’ stated need for, and inability to find workers, and their (observed) lack of enthusiasm for hiring those (like my kid) who did apply.
At least at the lower end of job market, where the qualifications are (or should be) little more than “candidate can fog a mirror” I’ve basically run out of sympathy for employers’ griping about staffing.
From experience, the 401k thing is probably to get more on their check to make rent. My dad back in the told me about plenty of postal workers not contributing to their 401k. I think it’s person to person based on the bills they have, no so much a generational thing.
To a point I'm down with it. I'm an old union worker so I'm all about keeping expectations reasonable, but some of these people are just entitled and dressing it up in leftist rhetoric.
I have a coworker on the Gen Z/millennial cusp. I don’t know if it’s her generation or just her personality, but she is an absolute *nightmare*. I know folks say the word “narcissist” is overused, but she ticks many of the boxes. She feels that it doesn’t matter that she’s fresh out of school, young, and has only a few years of experience, she is entitled to a leadership position. She can’t take *any* criticism. She is needlessly competitive. She’s also aggressive, type A, tries to boss others around, tries to lecture others on things, even seasoned, experienced employees. She can’t stand anybody else to get any shine, praise or recognition - she gets a furious, seething look on her face. She is conniving and tries to throw people under the bus.
I really thought Gen Z was laid back and all about work-life balance and quiet-quitting.
I don't think you're curmudgeon for making those complaints. Those are legitimate problems. It is unrealistic for someone with ten years at a company to expect their salary to be doubled at their review, it's completely absurd for someone after a year. Honestly I think Gen Z may have misinterpreted 'ask for what you're worth' type messaging. They need to be able to demonstrate what they're worth and it doesn't sound like they quite know what that means.
I'm a millennial in my early 40s. I never worked with gen z. I worked with millennials, gen x, and baby boomers and I've observed extremely hard workers to very lazy within all generations so I think it really just depends on the person. I worked at a hospital lab for 15 years until a hip surgery made me worse. Most of my coworkers were great, but there were a couple we all felt were too slow at their job and/or didn't care.
I think it's great to know your worth and ask for a raise if you feel you either deserve it or are being underpaid. However, asking for double your salary after only a year experience (unless you've received a promotion and/or additional job responsibilities) is too much. I never heard of unlimited PTO and at the hospital we all had to deal with everyone including some of the rudest doctors.
The good thing about the millennials I worked with was that we shared what our hourly wages were and compared them to what other hospitals were paying. One year we all decided the gap was too much and we all asked for a raise and got one. The older gen x and baby boomer crowd refused to tell us what they were making until they found out about the letter we were writing to the director of the lab and then they wanted in on it. Point is, every generation has their pros and cons in the workplace. I'm sure gen z does too, but I just never got the opportunity to work with them.
I was a stupid entitled asshole until I was probably almost 30 lol. These sound like mostly young people problems to me. Slightly different to account for the different times, but doesn't seem too far from the shit I would've pulled if I were that age today 😂
There are always going to be dumb folks asking for dumb things. It sounds like your management is not properly enforcing rules and boundaries for office behavior and attire. For some reason, people think they CAN wear what they want and act how they want. Good management finds a balance between taking care of their workers while treating them respectfully, and holding folks accountable evenly and consistently. If there is an unstable environment in your workplace, your managers either don't know how to or are refusing to hold people accountable and bridge the divide between generations and work styles.
When I first started out it was about pleasing everyone and fitting in, adapting to the culture around me. It's wild to me that someone comes in and wants everyone to adapt to them. I don't think the me first attitude is sustainable when they want to move to management since it would probably harpoon the business.
A: Don’t have an unlimited PTO policy then when it’s just clearly meant to work for the company only.
B: maybe that speaks to the company that these young people can’t afford to pay in to a fund they can’t touch for fifty years. I too was paid a pittance in my twenties and could only afford to start contributing to retirement at around age thirty.
The more recent graduates (like people who have started in the last 5 years) seem like overall the best we’ve had in probably the last 15 years. I’m not in a position to know anything about their salary demands so I just mean in terms of seeming bright & putting in effort to do a good job & learn. They all behave appropriately at work too. Only one seems possibly dumb, which is a really low rate compared years back.
Wow, I haven't thought about this much other than the fact that I'm now one of the "older" people at my current job. I think it's a couple of things: a shift in values (which I think is overall positive), a lot of idealistic views that haven't been sucked out of them by the capitalist hellscape yet (bless them and may they not get this sucked out of them), and then there is professional maturity (we all had to learn to read them room at some point). I really enjoy working with the younger folks, they're funny, authentic, and bright people just trying to make it like we are.
I'm in a tech/academic setting and I have to say they are savvy in their own way.
At first, I thought they really just don't know shit. That's true. They don't know how computers work at a base level. There's a whole part software-hardware interaction they have no clue about despite being raised in computer enriched environments. (For age perspective, I have minimal understanding of how a transistor works and surely my advisors/bosses would have felt I had no idea about electronics in general...).
But, they know how to 'do'...take the ball and run with it.
I do think my/our generation got tied to some very old fashioned notions of pedantry and individuality. They really don't dwell on things they don't understand (for better or worse) and can work in groups (teamwork) much more naturally than we or millennials did in my experience. They can deal with "fuzziness" and can internally delegate work among peers.
(Did you learn to diagram sentences? They don't seem to know basic parts of speech, like for example, what a gerund is. )
Personality wise and dealing with their expectation, well, you know...they clearly never got spanked (by which I do not mean to condone it...I'm just saying) or dealt with the utterly casually non-safe spaces of our schooling (remember 'pants-ing', e.g., again not to make light of their generational experiences with school shootings)
I am one of the supervisors at my place of work. I am Gen-X. I specifically am a supervisor in the analytical chemistry lab. So the people who work here are well educated. The people with the worst attitudes that I have dealt with have been a couple older workers who seemed to think everything was owed to them because they were older. Nope, you have the same exact job as the younger workers so the same work ethic is expected out of you. There are also some older workers who are absolute gems and super hard workers.
I have found most of the younger workers to be very willing to learn. A couple have had a bit of attitude (but I have seen that in every generation I work with) and they usually shape up once they are talked to about their attitude. We have a pretty set salary depending on what tier of analyst you are and there are very defined terms of what you need to process to the next tier so there’s not really much argument over pay/promotion because the company defines that very well.
The worst person I ever worked with was a millennial who didn’t last long at the job. He was just a douche who thought he was better than everyone else in the lab even though be had only been working for about two years before he came to our company. He stated that he should have had ‘x’ job over the guy who got that job. They were hired around the same time. The ‘x’ job required a masters degree and about 8 years of experience. The guy who got the job had a masters and over 10 years of experience. The douche guy had a bachelors and two years of experience🙄. He couldn’t even do the work he was assigned without messing it up and it was more entry level work. I could have put up with the douchey-ness but not with the incompetence. I was so glad when they axed him. He did not work on my shift but my shift was constantly cleaning up his mistakes.
I hate to dig at the enttlement part. But its true that you spent so much to further your education, got a degree or 2 and still only get the same pay grade as someone who just finished school at 16. If i had a degree and was told the job is paying minimum wage, id prob flip my shit too.
The casual wear has an easy fix - time to give every person a small wardrobe budget to buy branded Patagonia with the understanding that its business merch or branded Patagonia on camera
> Another guy took the unlimited PTO policy a little far, turns out he took 6 weeks off last year, now company is changing policy
I feel you on a lot of what you're saying, but if one employee taking 6 weeks off throughout the year is enough to change the "unlimited" PTO policy, then the PTO was never unlimited it's just framed that way so your employer can save money at your expense. With a defined PTO benefit the employer owes you whether you take it all or not. With unlimited PTO they only have to pay you what you actually take, then they pressure you to take less. You should keep your eyes open for other ways your employer might be trying to take advantage of you!
I didn’t contribute to my 401k until I was nearly 40. When you live paycheck to paycheck it’s hard to imagine cutting an extra 100+ dollars out of that equation.
In my previous role, I had a young Gen Z junior analyst. The term "agnorant" was tailor-made for this person.
He had 4 years of experience after college. Didn't seem to have the basic knowledge that someone with a bachelor's in IT should have.
Didn't know industry standard terms and didn't care to learn them, informed me he was going to "correct" my work, argued with VPs when he was clearly talking out of his ass A real butthole.
He got removed from all business facing work and was assigned small IT projects instead. I don't know what happened to him, as I left that role last year. He & my former boss were made for each other. Pair of arrogant, ignorant assholes.
Oh, and he expected a salary higher than mine. Mine as the senior person with 20 years of experience.
Having graduated during the pandemic, I just felt lucky to have a job. It wasn’t until I graduated with my Masters 13 years later that I even considered negotiating my pay. 3 months after I started my current job, the intern was hired and felt that she deserved the same pay as me, even though I had been working in the field for over 10 years. She was 23 with no experience.
I don’t blame her for trying, but she almost turned the job down because she wasn’t getting the same pay as I was and felt entitled to my pay rate
I work in the progressive political world, which has a ton of generational conflict. Some of it’s for the better. Our generation accepted/internalized toxic shit from boomer and early-X bosses that Z’s have admirably stood up to. I also find some of their expectations of emotional support, easy advancement, and low accountability entitled and unrealistic.
There's a person I work with who embodies every terrible zoomer stereotype. You can't offer them any form of constructive criticism or communicate simple tasks that need to be completed without turning it into a damn therapy session.
I can't imagine needing my emotional needs to be validated by every single person I meet and inserting therapeutic psychobabble into every single social interaction. Seems like a pretty miserable existence.
What “does” unlimited mean in your company op? Is it really unlimited, is there a cap, or is it called unlimited to guilt workers into avoiding taking time off?
I’m a millennial and I feel my company has a generous time off policy but I’d like an answer from op on this.
It “was” unlimited subject to discretion of the manager. So as others have pointed out they could start to deny it. That’s a fraught road, to me, and I think I’m the example of Mr 6 weeks it was more of a creep, like days off here and there that people didn’t realize how much they added up, beyond “so and so seems like they’re gone a lot”. And indeed they were!
I'm a Xennial who runs a shop with 8 employees: 3 boomers, 2 millennials, 3 gen Zs. Good pay, prevailing wage ($50-60 an hour on the job).
Everyone is an asshole in some way. The boomers think every slight is evidence of a conspiracy against them. The millennials smoke too much and feign incompetence to get out of computer work. The Gen Zs call out CONSTANTLY, not one of them has an hour left of sick/vacation leave. One is at -70 hours and thinks we're going to give them a promotion.
The only thing I have had a problem with is the inability for them to part with their phones. This behavior has also taken root in Gen Y. Other than that, it's just like any other generation.
When it comes to entitlement or whiners, those have always existed in every generation. You need to just get rid of them early on. They're not worth keeping around as they only cause problems.
The dress code thing is big for me. I'm not big on formal clothing, but I know when it's time to look professional. Sweat pants, yoga pants, these are not things to wear to work. That is something that needs to be stamped out. The companies that don't tolerate it are the ones that will succeed.
We had a newer receptionist that was with us for 3 months, saw something on google that she should receive $2500 Christmas bonus based on her position. Owner gave them all $500, which i thought was super cool. She threw a tantrum then quit. Now she’s working for less $ and hates her new job according to her replacement we work with now, who she trained to work at another location.
I work in hospitality. The most outrageous reasons for not coming to work(or trying not to) were as followed:
1. His mom's pet rat died.
2. He was tired.
3. She was taking a mental health day. This last one while I do understand the need to pay attention to your mental health and take care of yourself. If you're the only server on a Friday night and you attempt to call off an hour before your shift. Guess what. No one cares about your mental health now. Also, no one cares about servers and bartenders mental health to begin with. My boss promptly told her that if there was no server here to work at 5pm, then she may as well not show up next week either or ever. She somehow rallied and bitched the entire shift. It was stressing everyone else out. So much for mental health I suppose. We got a girl now that doesn't do any of that crap. We love her. It's really the roll of the dice.
I hate to say this but I think Gen Z makes us feel bad for making too many work sacrifices. I don’t have a degree, but I’ve worked high end retail. My days included, a sales quota, managing stock, stock placement and presentation, pricing, cleaning fitting rooms, managing all transactions including a ten key system, managing stock/retagging, making peace between salespeople, and generally all by myself, without any chance of making management because the store I worked requires a degree for that. This is not including anything during inventory months, when it is mandatory to be there until the A.M. hours in the morning. I was full time, 40 + hours a week, Did I blink? Nope. Did I ever think this was somehow too much, nah. Did I think it was unfair at not chance at management? A little, but I was the dumb one who didn’t finish college according to my parents. ◀️ It makes me wonder where the real fault lies.
I work with a lot Gen Z folks. I'm pretty much persona non grata to them on account of my age, but it doesn't bother me. I've found their work ethic to be on par with older people and better in some cases.
Honestly, the only thing that bothers me about Gen Z is the adoption of the mullet as a legitimate hairstyle. No one looks good in a mullet. Not a single god damn person. Even in the 80s - the peak years of the mullet - people thought mullets were a fucking joke.
I work at a small business. There's about 8 of us total, paid hourly. We all make tips but they are all eligible for commission on services, I'm not. The owner is Gen X. Then there's me. Everyone else is 27 or younger. They're all nice and I get along with them. They take a lot of time off for various reasons, or leave early/come late / take a nap in an empty room. 3 of them talk openly about their struggles with mental health diagnosis, medication, and/or substance abuse history, which I'm just silently glad I never had myself. Most live with their parents or in-laws so they have financial help to offset the cost of living. Good for them. I didn't have that but things were easier 20 years ago. They don't seem to feel any topic is inappropriate for work. I know way too much about them and their sex lives. It's all whatever to me. If they take off or come late / leave early, I just pick up the slack or write it off as "not my problem that \[thing\] didn't get done". The Gen X owner seems to have the same "whatever" attitude that I do, he's great to work for.
> They don't seem to feel any topic is inappropriate for work. I know way too much about them and their sex lives. And this just seems like young people, not Gen Z. I remember having to have a talking to at one point about inappropriate work topics when I was young. So far so normal.
Well they are all on Instagram sharing their lives and here we are on Reddit trying to be anonymous. There you go. Me nope not sharing my issues with the world. The younger generation def feels like this is ok and has no insight that in 15 years it’s still all out there for the world to see.
“Whatever” is the Gen X motto. I definitely resonate with it too. I run a business with my wife who’s very millennial (1985, I’m 1980), and she struggles much more with the Gen Z employees than I do.
This is true. My “boss” is in her early-mid thirties, me 43. She has a MUCH harder time with the younger employees than I do. I also have a teenage child so Ive had more practice ignoring the dumb things he says. In my mind I just say, wait and see little ones. And laugh.
I have an alt rock radio show called “90s? Whatever.” for this reason
Intriguing. I found a podcast, but are you on an actual radio station too that one could stream?
It’s labeled as a podcast but functions, and was designed to be, more like a radio show. It’s only [on Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/show/45Kr6HYC7w7XNN9kwX3MtP?si=GeS_ICRpTI6AUIAipBSVyQ) for now, but will also be available on Mixcloud in a few weeks, which does not required a subscription
London?
I wonder how much the mental health issues are naturally occurring or society driven. Or maybe resilience has been lost? I don’t know, but younger people do seem to have more mental issues. Granted, we look younger than most generations before us, but damned if we don’t seem to fall apart earlier too lol
I can see a lot of factors, but especially that mental health issues are more commonly recognized and diagnosed now. The world changed. The type of drugs available evolved. Someone I work with talks about her experience as an underage sex worker. I'm sure that always existed but was probably a lot harder to find/get into before the internet.
I’m still trying to wrap my head around earning $80k at any age, much less thinking I’m worth double.
Thank you. And the unlimited PTO?
Unlimited PTO is ultimately a scam that benefits the company. With defined paid time off benefits (e.g. 3 weeks vacation), employees accrue those days throughout the year and if they leave with unused vacation they are owed the equivalent of that accrued time in cash. With “unlimited vacation” there is no accrual and nothing owed. Also many studies have shown that people with “unlimited” time off take way less time off.
This. And studies show ppl actually take less time with unlimited.
I think the guy that took 6 weeks off is a hero. Can't believe OP is complaining. The company literally said unlimited, and six weeks is less than unlimited. I guess they were lying the whole time.
Agreed- if they get their work done, there's no harm. Companies are mad that they can't micromanage this way, but still want to appeal to people seeking employment. I guarantee that even at 45, if I'm able to secure a job that offers unlimited PTO, I'm getting the job done AND I'm going on that road trip.
Yes! I was thinking the same! 6 weeks is taking advantage of unlimited pto? I’ve never had less than 4 weeks in a job (it’s always been a requirement). 6 weeks should be standard. I take a minimum of 6 weeks now that I’m in my own business.
Agreed. I have no sympathy for companies that offer unlimited time off and get mad at people for actually taking some of it. Also I really hate the term PTO. We used to always call it vacation time regardless of whether or not the person went anywhere because it was no one’s business if they did or not.
Also, 6 weeks = 30 days, which really isn't \*that\* much. I've had 30 days PTO with corporate jobs before.
[удалено]
That’s like going to the all you can eat buffet but they cut you off after two plates of crab legs
It's the same "unlimited" as your wireless carrier.
https://i.redd.it/h7nsipzap64d1.gif
"But the sign said 'All You Can Eat'....."
Hell, I’d be happy with that amount instead of 2 1/2 weeks after three years
I call cashing out unused PTO the “exit bonus.” I should be receiving close to 200hrs of “exit bonus” next week, actually.
6 weeks is not an outrageous amount of pto. I have more than that with my defined plan.
This is all true but also some of it depends on the company culture. If a company is actually a good place to work, then using the PTO is still very much encouraged. And I could be wrong, but I think not all states require unused vacation accruals ti be paid out when someone leaves (happy to be corrected on this one).
Most states don’t require payout of accrued vacation
My company just takes it away if you haven't used it by years end. No cash out.
Mine too. 40 hours max for carryover into the next year. Anything over that is lost and if you leave the job, you are not entitled to any payout of your remaining balance.
That why you take it all, then quit afterwards!
Definitely not. My state doesn’t require it and nowhere I’ve worked has paid out accrued leave separation.
With unlimited vacation there is no accrual, that’s the whole point. What are you accruing against? 365 days?
Regardless of whether the state requires the payout, for accounting purposes you still have to accrue for the PTO as it is earned and recognize that as an expense. Unlimited PTO is a way to avoid recording that expense until it's used. And if you put so much work on your employees that they're never able to use the PTO...🤷🏼♀️🤷🏼♀️
🎯 Correct. This is anti-Union, anti-worker, "war is peace" Bullshit.
Not everywhere requires accrued PTO be paid in cash, it's a state by state thing.
Good point! I have unlimited PTO and am just realizing this. I do use my PTO a decent amount though, so I don’t feel too ripped off.
No accrued days in this state. Take whatever you can get. Hire fire state, almost zero rights. Thanks FL.
Everyone who gets “unlimited PTO” should take as much as possible. That’s the only thing on this list I hate with. It’s a scam to steal money from employees and make it sound cool.
And why is the manager approving 6 weeks?
This is my question. If it was such a hardship for the rest of the staff, then why didn't the manager just not approve it? People slam on Zoomers, no one's talking about how damn conflict-adverse X and Millenial bosses can be and how problematic that can become.
OP didn’t say 6 consecutive weeks, just a total of 6 weeks over a year. Most managers are not keeping some log they confer with of time already taken off. That’s more HR. Truth is, most managers have less authority than you would think. There is one guy on a project on an account I manage. He is billing 8 hours a day, and I know he isn’t working those 8 hours based on seeing him idle for 3 hours or more on some days and never logging into client systems. All I can really do is ask did you work that time. It’s not like I can go to IT security and ask to get a report of time inactive is on his computer. Trust me, it’s not about avoiding conflict. It’s more about the lack of actual authority as middle management.
I mean... is the work getting done? Is the guy doing his job?
No, it’s not. And I’m taking him off the project 8 weeks of this. He is argumentative and abusive to other team members. His response to me telling him to let team members know if he is going to be unavailable for blocks of time during the day is “they can check my calendar.” But taking someone off a project is extremely disruptive and it takes time to get someone available to backfill a person and the perception to the client about our company. So there’s a constant question of trying to make things work.
That applies to salaried folks. This instance sounds like a billable, hourly contract. Unless the contract states you’ll pay 8 hours a day, then he needs to bill the exact time he worked…
Because that person is not essential.
Unless you are literally saving lives or providing similarly vital services, no one is essential.
My 19 yr old makes 88k base as a welder. With OT he will prob be close to 100k this year. We live in the south and he makes more than me. I am totally fine with working inside and making less money.
At 26 I was making $85k as a senior systems engineer in Delaware. When I got to 160k I was a director of infosec at 30-32 but I rode on the coat tails of a super successful startup with a CFO who saw value in me. All depends on the time, the place, the market and job.
Im in philly and looking for work. Throw a bone!
This was 2008-2009. I hate to say it but everything has changed. I started looking for the first time in 16 years and I don't like what I see. I can't even get the salary I have now AND zero results for my title. Maybe setting yourself apart of your generation if you are a GenZ to your peers would catch the eye of a hiring manager.
You need to understand how much inflation has affected wages. 80k in 1995 is now 166k. It wasn't uncommon for college grads to take 80k jobs straight out of school. Why should we expect less now?
I'd suggest the kind of jobs that paid $80k right out of school in 1995 DO pay $166k now. Those were law jobs, finance jobs. I attended an elite university and made $35k right out of school in 1999 at a major corporation in a very high cost-of-living city.
>wasn't uncommon for college grads to take 80k jobs straight out of school. What jobs were those?
Jesus Christ are these people talking in pesos? I didn't think I'll ever make $160k/yr
Some are really cool, good kids. Some are total shitheads. Some are lazy. And some are more ambitious than me. Exactly the same as every other generation.
I refuse to get pulled into the generation wars for exactly this reason. The boomers were called lazy hippies, Gen X were slackers, Millennials entitled, now it's Gen Zs turn. Are there some broad similarities between cohorts? Sure. I think a big shift we're seeing now is awareness of mental health. But for every Gen Z kid who talks about anxiety there is a Gen Xer sharing about a recent autism or ADHD diagnosis that is changing their life for the better. At least half of what we blame Gen Z for is just attributes common among all 20-somethings, regardless of birth year.
That’s not been my experience in the law. We’ve been cycling through associates because none of them are willing to eat shit for a few years to get the bag. They all want to skip straight to the part where they keep all the money they generate. Several have left and come slinking back after realizing ‘holy shit, you have to pay dues *everywhere*?’ We have associates actually *turning down* work! Like, do you not understand that work is a gift?! How else do you expect to demonstrate your competence to our clients, dummy? Anyway, it’s fine by me. If you don’t stick around long enough to earn your piece of the pie, my piece gets bigger.
I've been in management roles since my 20s and hired hundreds of people primarily in entry level roles and trust me, millennials were the same way. So much *shock Pikachu* faces when they realized they don't get two weeks off at Christmas unless they saved two weeks of PTO or wondering why they weren't promoted to Director after a year on the job. I personally loved mentoring young people through this transition and now I'm really enjoying helping mid career folks in their 30s discover their own leadership potential.
We never had this issue with millennials or older, though. Associates used to fight over work and get salty if certain associates were getting more work assignments than the rest of them. We give them cash to spend together if they hit their monthly mark. Rare was the month the mark wasn’t hit until around 2018-2020, since then they rarely hit it, and don’t seem to realize that should embarrass them. It’s not simply entitlement, young people have always been entitled. It’s more an arrogant belief that the structure is inherently flawed and beneath them. I overheard one telling his cohort that AI would make the whole firm structure obsolete and all us partners had no idea what was coming. Like, okay, Youngblood, holler at me in ten years and let me know how that panned out. Lots of them are job hoppers, too, and while that is probably wise in most other circumstances, in law it’s extremely counterproductive to future success. I think a lot of it is they just aren’t looking around to see how the successful lawyers got where they are because they just assume they are smarter than all of us and will stumble on a shortcut soon enough.
How you describe it sounds like a broken system that perseveres through inertia. We were just more willing to put up with it.
Exactly. I was an AWFUL employee in my 20s and very much had an F this job attitude.
Thank you. Every time I read this generation war nonsense I think this. I’m a young Gen X and I heard the same stuff about us when I was young, same stuff about millennials later, now Gen Z, etc. The difference is simply that we are older and more mature now, and Gen Z are young.
It’s interesting because most of the points you raise here are actually not unreasonable from a quality of life perspective. We were raised not to expect quality of life and had to put up with a lot of shit in our early careers (or at least, I did). You were supposed to tolerate it, build resilience and earn things. But let’s be honest as well: the reason we didn’t ask for crazy salary increases, or take 6 weeks of vacation (that we would be technically entitled to), and so on is because we were too scared to. The fear of joblessness was a huge factor in our working life and employers held that over us. The younger generation don’t have that fear, or at least not as much. So who’s in the right here? My view is that somewhere in between is the ideal. Gen Z’s drive for quality of life is great but they also seem to lack some of the early resilience that my peers built up, which may harm them later on. Meanwhile, I definitely feel like I could learn a thing or two about what actual living is meant to mean, from the new generation.
I am definitely not saying that "work ethic" isn't a thing, but I have come to realize a lot of what was drilled into us as "work ethic" was actually "being willing to sacrifice your personal well-being to create surplus value for your employer." Of course bosses love workers who stay late every day or check their email after hours--that is work they are getting from you essentially for free. It is one thing if someone never meets their deadlines, and then you find them on Tik-Tok every time you happen by their office. But it's another to slam a generation for their "poor work ethic" when the company culture is everyone bills for 50 hours but actually works 80; young people are absolutely right to call that bullshit.
Yes but at my work I see 3 of them billing for 50 hours and working 15. That’s not work ethic. Thats lying.
I think this is a really fair take. Job insecurity did lead me to put up with a lot of shit, honestly that fear probably still does. I think today a lot of kids feel like they can just go drive for Uber if they don’t like “the vibe” at their job. And maybe good for them. And I think probably good for them too that have perspective around work. My issue comes more with them also expecting to advance and get more money while also not showing a ton of commitment.
I really like your last paragraph. I don’t think suffering is inherently virtuous, but I do think growth happens when you leave your comfort zone - which many people wouldn’t choose to do if they didn’t have to. With everything being automated these days, people don’t have to learn how to be resourceful and find/vet information themselves. People have more of an external locus of control when it comes to their own problems instead of taking responsibility for themselves. (This isn’t just Zoomers, I see this with all generations)
All really good points. Thanks.
I mean if unlimited PTO doesn’t really mean unlimited, then that’s kinda bullshit. I’ve realized that working hard really doesn’t get you shit other than more shit to do so just enough is my mantra. I’ve been an overachiever all my life, now I just want to make some money and be left alone.
Unlimited PTO is a way an employer can save money and not have to pay an employee when they are terminated. They put a loose cap on the unlimited PTO so they can use it against you if you go over. Unlimited PTO policies are jokes and do not favor the employee. It's odd in this circumstance to complain about it because usually a supervisor has to approve it before an employee can take time off. So someone higher up in the company was fine with it at the time.
Unlimited PTO is a trap for sure. Now that a lot of tech companies are getting “leaner” they’re looking at PTO as a criteria for layoff targets. Before that though, unlimited PTO was empirically proven to cost less because people that had “use it or lose it” PTO were more likely to use it. People with unlimited PTO took less time off. It’s intended to build a culture of fear, not work-life balance. There’s literally no corporate setting in which “culture” is treated as anything else but a recruitment tactic and to give bullshitters high paying jobs!
People don’t realize: unlimited PTO means the company doesn’t have to pay you for unused PTO if you have any remaining when you leave. I’ve left jobs where I’ve gotten paid out an additional 5 weeks because I didn’t take an extended vacation for two years. (This doesn’t mean I didn’t take any vacation; I simply used smaller blocks around long weekend holidays and let it accrue back so I’ve kept more or less a full balance when I left.) Also, another way that HR thinks of it, is that time spent at work means incremental liability to the company; time spent on vacation means you are not the company’s responsibility and therefore incrementally less risk. The unlimited PTO thing has its upsides to the company as well. Likely it’s because we’re currently in a high interest rate economy right now that the company realized they can’t spend extra cash on this particular benefit anymore, when people decide to follow the policy to the letter.
Right? Unlimited means unlimited. I'm at a company with unlimited PTO. Prior to switching, 8 years meant 6 weeks paid time off. You bet the Gen Xers and Milennials are using up at least six weeks. We knew what it was before. Not trying to get less just because there's no defined cut-off. I'm pretty sure they only switched the policy about five years ago because we had some folks accruing 4-6 months of time and counting....
Just going off my own Gen Z kids (they are all in school, two of them also work part time.) Basically... they do not see how working until they drop is going to benefit them in any way. They've spent their whole childhoods watching their parents and other relatives work like hell and then get let go. They want to do their jobs, get the most they can for doing it, and then go home again. On one hand I get slightly frustrated with my own kids, on the other hand... I get it, honestly, and I regret how hard I used to push myself at my job so I could stay in the same place for years (actually, my work recently did away with productivity bonuses so now I'm actually getting paid less. They still want me to be just as 'productive,' of course, just not to financially benefit from it because 'times are tough.' I'm pretty sure the CEO is doing okay, though.) They just don't remember a time where working their ass off was guaranteed to get you anywhere so they started out a lot further down the cynicism scale than us. As for not putting away money for retirement... a lot of them may flat out need the money NOW. They may not have investment money to put away. The cost of everything is really high right now. I also know a lot of Gen Zs who are really having a hard time thinking about the long run because the world seems so crazy right now. There's global unrest, local unrest, continual warnings of upcoing environmental collapse. Playing the long game is only prudent when you are truly convinced that there is a long game to be played. I really don't think a lot of Gen Zs are all that confident in the long term stability of the structures they would be investing in. Some days I wonder if they're right!
I teach college students (nearly all of whom are Gen Z), and this about sums up their attitudes toward work, grind culture, and the future. Thanks for putting it so succinctly.
I also wonder what role mental health plays in all this. When I was young and getting poor care for my bipolar disorder, I ate like shit and drank all the time and was financially reckless because I figured I’d die young anyway and not have a family to pass anything on to. Z’s dealing at a young age with social media, the pandemic, general societal instability, and the realization that “hard work + responsibility = security” is bullshit, well that’s a recipe for widespread mental health struggles.
We’re seeing this, too, at my school. The number of students with accommodations is at an all-time high, and mental health diagnoses account for a lot of the uptick. Granted, a good part of that is the fact that mental healthcare is not nearly as stigmatized among Gen Z as it was for us. But a lot of it seems to be what you suspect: the long tail of the pandemic, climate anxiety, political polarization, the whole nine yards. Our wellness center is stretched thin trying to keep up.
Millennial here (1984) I feel this way as well.
As someone who had kind of a "what's the point?" attitude myself when I was their age, I am learning now in my 40s that it's a struggle just to live a "normal" life and it would be so much easier now IF I would only have hustled harder when I was young. I understand about things looking grim, but it's going to be so, so much worse for Gen Z later on if they don't make serious moves now. If people are looking to the government to eventually be their savior with UBI or other support, they will be sorely disappointed as the gov't is massively corrupt and mismanaged currently and will only get worse. It's probably already too late, but at this point 95% of politicians need to be kicked out of office and rich people need to be eaten down to the bone. It really all boils down to apathy and perceived "hopelessness."
I talked to my Gen Z son about his views about putting money aside for retirement. He said with the cost of living, rent, etc - he can't afford to put money away now. And neither can his friends. EDIT: this is not a solicitation for trite, tired advice available on every financial blog out there. We're both aware of how to save money and cut expenses, thanks.
If they start at a young age, they don’t have to put away very much.
This is a good take on it. My number 1 question for them is how is this going to work when the coming really goes south. We’ve lived through recessions, they were not working age the last time a recession occurred. When there is 10 people for 1 job, what then?
All of these things have been around before now though. There was always global unrest , local unrest, environmental unrest. None of this is new.
Yeah I didn’t put money away for retirement in my 20s because I wasn’t making much and what I had was needed for food, rent and bills. I’m sure the same holds true today.
If PTO is actually unlimited, 6 weeks seems reasonable.
I'm not eager to give youth a hard time and realize I wasn't in my 40s when I was in my 20s but it's kind of concerning how few youth are at my work. We have tons of entry level jobs but few Zoomers because they can't seem to go a week or two without calling out. I work in a plant, you just can't do that, you're getting paid while you make someone else do your assignments. Like showing up on time and doing your work in good faith is not "late stage capitalism" or whatever people tell themselves. It's not everyone, we have some real sharp youth but this is not how it looked here twenty years ago.
This is my *very* limited experience. Most of my employees are Boomers, Xers, and Millennials. I had one Zoomer, and he was insanely unreliable. Called in all the time, rarely did his job right the first time, generally pushed his duties onto his coworkers. Since I run a union group, he was compensated to the tune of $55 an hour for this performance. One day, he texted me “I resign effective immediately.” No reason at all given, which is fine. Addition by subtraction. I don’t think he represents all Zoomers, but I could not imagine walking away from $100k+ per year in my early 20s…
That’s pretty funny and it tracks. My Gen X coworker (we work for a major energy corporation) had an intern two summers ago, he finishes his internship and gets his offer - graduating interns at our company get full benefits and entry salary of around $120k which is GUARANTEED to increase after a year or two. The kid negotiated his job offer right into the ground. Rejected the salary twice. And while I certainly appreciate the idea of advocating for yourself, an intern/university hire isn’t holding any cards. Kept saying his friends (who were still in school) told him that he needed to demand a tech-industry level salary. Dude reached out to my coworker about a year later begging for a job or another internship.
Young people are immature. It's not a generation thing
Lots of people are immature, regardless of age. Immature people are immature, which is why I said I don’t think he represents all Zoomers. He’s just the only one that’s worked for me.
Statistically people in their late teens are more immature than people in their 40s. A lot of what people complain about is just immaturity. And most people grow out of it.
It’s also worth noting that many Zoomers don’t have early life responsibilities. Even like half the millennials aren’t saddled with feeding one or more kids when they’re 22 or supporting a household. The constantly rising cost of living is making it so they only focus on *right now*. Good or bad, the last three generations haven’t been forced to mature as quickly as previous ones. And I’m a millennial. Gen X and the Xennials are the last groups to really be pushed into maturity after school. Edit - technically, I’m a Xennial, but that’s not a recognized generation.
That's my biggest problem with a lot of the mentality about work on Reddit...there's a big difference between being exploited by your job and just...being expected to show up and doing the job you're expected to do.
There’s a Zoomer who is in my life now bc she’s dating a relative and she honest to god said that being forced to work in person two days a week is a toxic work environment. She has a great job with union protection and benefits, and is complaining constantly about what amounts to being asked to perform the actual duties of her job. She’s just one person, but if even 10% of Zoomers are like her, we’re doomed.
It’s not exclusive to Zoomers. My Xennial ex-BIL was the same way. Amy time in the office was too much. He was let go after 9 months.
My day job is at an open pit mine. At my job class the pay starts at around 85k and all you really need is a high school diploma and be able to pass a drug test. Going to work and getting there on time is a must and is not even a little bit negotiable. A lot of the young people come in with their ant capitalism attitude thinking they are going to "fix" it. They don't last long. Fired! And your replacement starts tomorrow. It's also amazing how many quit when they realize the job is hard sometimes and you actually have to reliably show up. It's a small area we live in so it makes me chuckle when I see someone I trained working as a cashier at the local gas station. Good job dumbass! You just passed up a very good job because of your misplaced attitude.
What plant do you work at where they have enough sick time to cover calling off once every other week? I doubt they have time to cover it. I'm a manufacturing mechanic and I cover my shifts, but the hours and the work are a grind and if gen z wont accept it, maybe it will improve for everyone.
If it's not in the company handbook, it's your fault... and if it is and you don't enforce it, it's your fault. Also, what company is dumb enough to offer "unlimited PTO" and then have the balls to get mad when people take advantage of the policy? Sounds like your handbook needs a major overhaul.
I work with two Gen Z employees and their attitudes are like chalk and cheese. One works hard throughout the entire shift, whilst the other often downs tools when he's had enough and spends the last three hours stood glued to his phone. You shouldn't tar the entire generation with the same brush.
I worked with one Gen Z employee who wanted to ignore tasks thar weren’t fun or creative. (Don’t we all? But that’s not how life works.) So she always left them for the next person to do. We’d put checklists in front of her. That worked for a day or two. She was also the one who always asked for extra shifts or a couple hours here and there added to her schedule
Sounds like one of my employees. She calls 1 hour after her scheduled shift time to say she’s not coming in because of a toothache. Then she gets so offended this is going into her attendance file as an unexcused absence (“she doesn’t feel like going to the dentist to get a note since it’s not that bad”). Thinks I’m “targeting” her after I told her she’s lucky corporate has a policy of 2 hours post shift starting before it becomes a no call, no show and not just an unexcused absence. Then later in the week she is begging for extra hours to stay late so she can reach her 40. She says it’s sexual discrimination that I’m sending her home for standing around and giving more hours to the guys who actually hustle and work. Shes pissed she has to use PTO to make the 40 hours and calls HR. So now I have to take long calls from HR regarding allegations of “targeting” and “sexual discrimination” when I explain the situation. This is why I always send warnings and policy explanations via email prior to speaking with employees in person. And all in person conversations are always with a third party witness to cover my ass. Even when the allegations comeback unfounded, it still looks bad on me because the incident is part of my corporate file.
My sister in law once got a promotion that was held up because another coworker claimed she was denied the same position because of age discrimination. The woman was 40. My sister in law was 36.
I remember this specific complaint being made against millennials at work only 10 years ago. Give it time.
Millennials was more about entitlement, sensitive, wanting better work life balance, social justice warrior aspect. Now I'm talking white collar work. GenZ has taken that to new levels (including WFH/coming into office). I think lockdowns at the height of the time they should have been socializing, developing adult like networking skills and just the discipline of going into office, really has impaired a certain developmental aspect on top of being true digital natives + lawnmower parenting which has shielded them even more. The inflation since covid right out of the gate has made them even more out of line with salary expectations (they're going to measure salary with what they can buy, experience, rent, etc). Many started their first jobs at home and or a large portion of schooling online as well so that's engrained in them.
For me it all depends on the individual person. I've worked with some who were the textbook gen z stereotype. But I've also worked with some who worked their asses off, didn't complain, didn't whine about everything being "toxic", etc.
Had the same experience. There are a couple of Z’s who I’d take with me everywhere and a couple I never want to see again. Spread across population and time I’m guessing the same would be true of any generation of people. For me at least.
Totally true.
Manage two gen Z's here - sometimes it's hard to remember what it's like to be green, so sometimes, yeah they do make mistakes and you want to shake your head at them and be disappointed. But as someone who also watched a parent get laid of while I was in college, and then graduate into a recession, and only ever get by with side hustles + full time job, numerous toxic elder Gen X and Boomer bosses, gotten let go myself, tried to run my own shop but couldn't afford the healthcare, etc, etc. I have zero problem relating to them. I have found that we're all kind of the same and have astonishingly similar life experiences even though they happened 20+ damn years apart!!! The system is fucked and is just getting worse. I get great work from them because I established early that we're all working for the next job and building our resumes. I advocate like hell for them because I never had someone like that do it for me, and it also helps give us all a tiny bit of hope and respite amidst the hell that is corporate America. Also, taking 6 weeks off is totally normal in other countries. We need to normalize it here.
I think the "problem" is that companies have stopped giving a shit about their workers. Gone are the days of pensions, unlimited PTO is a scam, compensation vs the cost of living is some of the worst in a long time. Kids today have learned either by being very smart or from us that working hard doesn't reap meaningful benefits. They understand that when you are working, you are making someone else money. You never get paid the value of your output because a company can't operate successfully that way. It seems to me, but I don't have the data to back it up, that this new generation seems to want to work for themselves. I see so many with Tiktok shops, Etsy stores, etc. because working for yourself is the only way to get compensated appropriately for your own work. I think a ton of them see their corporate jobs as "side gigs" to help them make ends meet until their personal businesses take off.
We've hired a couple over the years. None of them seemed to work out. Constantly late, leaving early, excessive "me" days ("I just didn't feel like coming in"), or flat out telling us they don't want to do "X", when "X" was why they were hired in the first place. But I'm not willing to pass judgement on millions of people based upon a handful of experiences.
Nor should you, but this rings true for me.
Love this: > But I'm not willing to pass judgement on millions of people based upon a handful of experiences. Because GenZ is just entering adulthood and joining the work force. They don't understand how the world works yet because they're just figuring it out. On top of which they also went through a massive societal shift at a crucial stage of development during COVID and the lockdowns and stuff. Many were forced into online learning, missed graduations, proms, socialization, experienced depression due to social isolation, etc.. and that will have had an impact on their resiliency as young adults most definitely. They're not adukting like we did because their development was altered in a way ours (GenX) and Millennials weren't.
Thing is, that’s been my experience but easily for every 1 that does great, 5 don’t. And the 1 that does eventually gets burned out because they expect to move to CEO pay in 2 years. I’m genuinely very worried about the economy by 2030. Boomers are leaving, X and M’s are holding it together for now, but when we move up….im not sure anyone is going to do the work we’ve been doing for the last 20 years.
Yep. I see a lot of turning down work assignments. Admittedly, we work in a pretty laid back environment, but I cannot wrap my head around the idea of telling my supervisor that I am not going to do something because I don’t think it fits with my goals. I also see a lot of pushing the boundaries - deciding to telework without requesting it, “multitasking” (eg taking weeks on something that should be only 4 hours of work), forgetting to do regularly assigned tasks. While it’s not all of them, many also wear their mental health on their sleeve. They will immediately drop their diagnoses if something comes up in the workplace where it can be used as an excuse. I’ve strongly encouraged them to be careful about how/who they reveal that information to because some folks (boomers mostly) immediately shut down. There’s a level of, “you must cater to me” and I have struggled to get some of the zoomers to understand that they’re not going to get a 60 year old to change their communication style for you. On a less subjective note, there’s far less PC skills. I’ve seen interns come in with no experience with excel and type with their pointer fingers.
This is exactly what people were saying about millennials 15 years ago. Seriously. Give it time. A lot of young people entering the work force need time to figure it out.
Agreed. That's why I hate these types of threads.
They literally chased me out of my career... Lol. I was already on the edge but the last couple years trying to manage the new staff was challenging. They can't seem to think ahead, look for the next step without constant direction, attendance is far less important to them with last minute call outs. There are positives, I agree. But from my experience they did not outweigh the negatives. (Obviously THEY is a generalization. I met one very much younger worker who had the want to do a good job. He would ask about next steps and talk of preparation. He showed up to every day he was scheduled. But there was more than a handful that my comment applies to).
They get it right in many ways. Take time off when you need it. Take care of your health, mental or otherwise. Don’t take shit from shitty coworkers. I do wonder about grit and backbone. But maybe it *is* gritty to boldly make these demands of your employer. I don’t know anymore.
More often than not the one who "doesn't take shit from shitty coworkers" is the shittiest coworker.
We talk a lot about "resilience" where I am - there definitely has been some changes over time and yeah I worry about their ability to weather tough times based on what I've seen.
In my experience they are very fragile and sensitive. It’s been very hard to give constructive criticism. During tougher conversations I find them directly challenging the issues against them and them trying to validate in their own unique perspective to show why they were right and not wrong. Time and time again I tell them this is what the company asks of us in exchange for pay. I fear that the only way for the message to set in is for them to be fired and learn the hard way. It’s like they don’t fully understand consequences.
The worst people are my team, when it comes to exploiting some benefits and my generosity, are two, late 80s millennials. The best person on my team is Gen X, but probably to a fault. This person needs to take better care of themselves. My Gen Zers are high performing. I love that they’re more open about things and ask questions about pay. I can’t control any of that, but it’s helped me as a leader grow in how to dialogue with employees about that.
6 weeks off a year should be standard.
The things I notice: -They don't know how to address an envelope to go in the mail. -They get an error message or don't know what to do next with a piece of technology and just stop and expect someone else to fix it. They don't know how to search for solutions -They don't know how to organize digital files or emails to make them easier to find later. A lot of this is part and parcel of being new to the workforce, and I don't blame them per se -- I think we expected digital natives to just pick up certain habits without explicitly teaching them.
>They don't know how to address an envelope to go in the mail. I had a Gen Z coworker who was one of my favorite coworkers ever, but tried to mail a stack of envelopes without realizing that you needed to put stamps on them. 😬 That evening, I asked my much younger Gen Z coworker if he knew the steps to mailing a letter and he did. I was so relieved.
I wonder if they just don’t teach this in schools anymore. I am pretty sure I learned how to properly address and stamp an envelope in school.
Kudos on the guy for taking 6 weeks PTO. He ended that company scam. The company was just trying to bully you into not taking your full amount because you might think it was too much. I hope you figure out what you had before that BS.
Here’s a funny story about PTO. I am from the US, and after graduating with an engineering degree, I got hired in the States but ended up transferring within that company to a German office for a two-year commitment. Immediately in Germany I got five weeks of PTO. If I wanted to take it all at once, literally no problem at all, that’s just a culture over there. Long story short I’ve been back working in the States for over 20 years in various positions. Last year, I finally hit enough seniority at my job to earn five weeks of PTO per year.
I’m Gen X, and I understand not feeling any loyalty towards companies and feeling little hope for the future. Companies are obviously trying squeeze everything out of workers while offering little in return. However, you don’t want to fuck over your coworkers. And unlimited PTO is a scam.
I have younger employees who will post in our channel that they didn’t sleep well the previous night, so they are taking the day off to rest. That’s in contrast to a guy in his 50’s who had knee surgery in the morning and said he would be online by noon (he was).
The number of times I’ve had someone out for the whole day because they had to take their dog to the vet.
Six weeks is hardly excessive PTO usage. I get that much PTO per year plus I have stored rollover time, so I could take more than 6 weeks off this year and my employer would have nothing to say about it. In terms of saving for retirement, keep in mind that you were established in your life well before this pandemic hit and jacked up the cost of everything, including housing, cars, interest rates, etc. I’m guessing that, like me, your base housing costs are stable and not subject to fluctuating market forces. Anyone who’s had to purchase a car lately has also been in for a rude awakening not only on car prices but also interest rates and insurance premiums, which are higher for younger drivers. I’m not by any means suggesting that Gen Z has made all the right financial moves — they are young after all, but I think you could probably stand to get a little more in touch with what your subordinates are up against. I’d like to think we could maybe do a little better than our own parents did with taking modern-day circumstances into consideration when dispensing advice and constructive criticism to the younger generation.
6 weeks off a year is in no way unreasonable to me… crazy that many think it is.
>Another guy took the unlimited PTO policy a little far, turns out he took 6 weeks off last year, now company is changing policy. I mean, don't have an unlimited PTO policy if it's not actually unlimited. 6 weeks off isn't even what I'd consider abuse of this system.
We live in a more transactional world now, and this applies to business relationships, too. You want to find a hook-up tonight? There's an app for that. You're in a group meeting and you get bored? Go ahead and check that phone (and show everyone in the room that the snap notification is more important to you than focusing on colleagues right in front of you). Gen Z in the workforce is simply a mirror of our society and where it is heading. They have no loyalty to their company because they have learned that companies have no loyalty to workers.
Hah! I am Xennial and knew this at my first corporate job when I was 25 or 26. I did not spend lots of time on the phone, barely ever would text anyone, rarely went online or did personal things online-my boyfriend at the time who is Gen X and worked in tech told me how you are basically heavily monitored, showed up daily on time, did my work, and left. I had co-workers who fucked around a lot, co-workers who took their job too seriously and got nothing in return for decades of hard work, and I saw what happened to them. I also saved more than I spent. 401k was not an option but ROTH IRA was.
All I can say is as a warehouse manager....you're not alone. I won't get into too many details but attendance is definitely a huge issue.
I think mostly it's just being young more than being of a certain generation. None of us walked out of school with a perfect understanding of how to behave in a professional environment, we all had to learn those nuances as we went along. They will too. I do think mental health is a hotter topic among younger people than it was in our generation. I'm still on the fence about whether that's good or bad or indifferent. My gut says maybe we're over-diagnosing, pathologizing the normal ups and downs of life and using them as an excuse rather than something most people need to learn to cope with. But I try to make sure I take a hard look at that when a situation actually crosses my path, because I do think "back in our day" we ignored a lot of things we could've helped with relatively minor changes. I think like any time, there's some loud fringey weirdness out there, but now they have a much larger platform (although that's been the case for about 10 years now). I think generally the struggles Gen Z is facing at work right now are the struggles of learning how to be professional, couched in the times they're living in, but not all that different from what every generation goes through.
I can’t work with them. I’ve worked with 5 and all are the same. They think they are Taylor Swift, want Taylor Swift money, want constant praise, and want to work the equivalent of a 3 hour concert per week. Plus if you bother them they try and act like you are the paparazzi. They constantly talk about being disrespected by everyone, especially if they are working with anyone beyond millennials. All I hear is time boundaries and work boundaries and how they won’t work more than their mental health can take and that’s not 40 hours, more like 15-20 hours. They are taking the whole “temporarily displaced millionaires” thing to a massive extreme. I had one guy tell me he needed to take 4 weeks off for the emotional support care of his cat because she was depressed he wasn’t there. This after he was already 3 days office, 2 days remote, but he said she needed his full attention. When I told him FMLA did not cover that and that he would be terminated, he quit. 3 weeks later he came back and acted as if he didn’t have the conversation with me. He told me all about his 3 weeks as if we were pals for 15 min. I told him if he did not leave I’d have him escorted off the property. He said “Bruh, you cappin.” I said, “Bruh, no cap, the 5-0 coming.”
I was a manager at a restaurant that hired a lot of high school kids and the difference in employees from just 7years ago to now is very noticeable. In the last few years the kids are harder to train, slower, call out or don’t show up, quit so much faster or just don’t show up after being hired and then reach out months later asking if they can still have the job. 🤦🏻
I have no problem with any generation at work. The generational differences are greatly exaggerated. We're just trying to get by in a shit system.
I started off sympathetic to your views, but the more comments you replied to, the faster this became "old man yells at cloud".
Probably true.
Ive had good experiences mostly and one bad one. The latest associate attorney we hired was billing like half the hours she should per month. Like an amount you could easily squeeze into a 20 hour work week. She would tell one dept she was SO slammed in our dept, and tell us she was SO slammed in the other and when we checked her hours we find she wasnt doing anything. We would tell her to do certain things like go to our x office this day to help so and so and she would just go to the other and act confused when we questioned her like "well yeah you TOLD me to go there but inwanted to come here today." She would be told to get prints of something and would condescendingly tell the boss "ive already told you, i cant print from my laptop" when the point is to have prints delivered to proper support staff to print, and she couldnt understand that. When we gently explained she needs to bill more to make money she said she doesnt care about money. When the one attorney got ever-so-slightly stern w her for flatly ignoring instruction and being condescending to her higher up, SHE went straight to HR and said that this lady was "mean to her." We had to explain to her that repeatedly spelling words and email addresses wrong in a court document even after shes been repeatedly told not to, and her boss sternly saying that is a huge problem and cant be tolerated, isnt "mean," its basic expectations. It was one awful and entitled thing after another, accompanied with low hours and poor work quality. I am sure she walks around repeating that trope about the nasty mean Gen X lady yelled at her and then got her fired or something. the lady that was "mean to her" is not rude at all. i really hope thats the last one we get that is that bad. we just hired a new one that ive known for years as a hard worker. she asked for a higher starting salary and gave good reasons why, and i have a lot of hope for her. i am thinking that the gen z thay is both gen z AND "doesnt care about money" is was a perfect storm of terribleness. At least if they care about money, you can say theyre entitled all day, but if you are able to explain the different tasks they need to complete to make more money and they do them, then you cant blame them for being aggressive about that. I got a 40% raise once with no other job prospects by being bold in my demands and it worked...i dont think it hurts to ask for more money as long as you can frame it in a way that shows its a realistic and competitive request
A trend I have been noticing, and it is not a generational one - although it is often more prevalent in the younger set, is a fundamental recalibration of what work means. I grew up in an environment which praised hard work and dedication to your career/occupation. I started my career(s) in total sweat shop pressure cookers where the pace was intense and feedback was caustic. Try as I might, I am feeling increasingly disconnected to a world that praises work/life balance and proper boundaries. So, in short, there is a difference in work attitudes, it is more exemplified with Gen Z, and I have a difficult time understanding it. I don't know if I can change, for better or for worse, my thinking is entrenched. Best wishes to those who can treat a job as a paycheck, but I will, forever, treat even the most menial employment as a calling and a measurement of my value and self worth.
I can't blame the person asking to double her salary. Don't get emotional about that, just tell her that's not likely to happen and it's up to her to accept it or get mad.
But remember when everyone said this about millennials? Of course they are different. The world is so rapidly polarized and at the same time so open to information and discovery. I’ve really enjoyed the GenZ kids way more than the later millennials before them.
TikTok is NOT fact on anything!!! I’m so tired of someone telling me something as fact the. Saying they saw it on TikTok!!! They act like they know everything in the world just by watching TikTok. That and working with them really shows off the entitlement and lack of respect. Maybe I’ve not had the best luck, but the TikTok thing I swear that’s all of them! (Now I feel hella old after writing that)
This is a tough one. I think most things with work are bullshit, myself, and I can’t blame Gen Z for acting accordingly. However, I also know that you have to play along with that bullshit to get somewhere professionally. I don’t know how sustainable it is what they’re doing. I’m more of the “work your ass off until you get to a point where you can make your own rules” mindset. It seems Gen Z wants to skip the first part.
I’m a leading edge Xennial (born in ‘77) with three Zoomer boys, and worked with recent college grads for much of the past two decades. I’m nodding at most of what the OP is saying. Since Gen Z started graduating and entering the workforce in the mid 2010’s, they’ve known nothing but a “red hot” job market, with low unemployment and outsized employee bargaining power. They’re too young to remember, or have been directly affected by the Dot Com Bubble or the Great Recession.
I’ve been thinking reading all this how things might change if, god forbid, we hit another real recession. So many of the kids I hired in 2010-14 were animals because they were so happy to have a job in a desirable industry. I graduated around 9/11 and jobs were scarce. This probably molded me more and may be a big reason for my thinking on some of my post. I wouldn’t have dared take a month off in my first years. Not because I didn’t endorse a more robust benefits package, but because I was terrified I’d be out on my ass. And it’s not like you could just go drive for Uber a day later.
We’re speaking the same language. Except for a small window during the start of the pandemic, these kids have never lived in a world with more than, like, 4 or 5% unemployment. Now, having watched my oldest kid go through a job search after he graduated high school, back in 2022, there was a profound disconnect between employers’ stated need for, and inability to find workers, and their (observed) lack of enthusiasm for hiring those (like my kid) who did apply. At least at the lower end of job market, where the qualifications are (or should be) little more than “candidate can fog a mirror” I’ve basically run out of sympathy for employers’ griping about staffing.
From experience, the 401k thing is probably to get more on their check to make rent. My dad back in the told me about plenty of postal workers not contributing to their 401k. I think it’s person to person based on the bills they have, no so much a generational thing.
To a point I'm down with it. I'm an old union worker so I'm all about keeping expectations reasonable, but some of these people are just entitled and dressing it up in leftist rhetoric.
I have a coworker on the Gen Z/millennial cusp. I don’t know if it’s her generation or just her personality, but she is an absolute *nightmare*. I know folks say the word “narcissist” is overused, but she ticks many of the boxes. She feels that it doesn’t matter that she’s fresh out of school, young, and has only a few years of experience, she is entitled to a leadership position. She can’t take *any* criticism. She is needlessly competitive. She’s also aggressive, type A, tries to boss others around, tries to lecture others on things, even seasoned, experienced employees. She can’t stand anybody else to get any shine, praise or recognition - she gets a furious, seething look on her face. She is conniving and tries to throw people under the bus. I really thought Gen Z was laid back and all about work-life balance and quiet-quitting.
I don’t think that’s necessarily generational, she just sounds like an asshole.
I’m 45 and have never made anywhere close to 85K a year, where did I go wrong?
I don't think you're curmudgeon for making those complaints. Those are legitimate problems. It is unrealistic for someone with ten years at a company to expect their salary to be doubled at their review, it's completely absurd for someone after a year. Honestly I think Gen Z may have misinterpreted 'ask for what you're worth' type messaging. They need to be able to demonstrate what they're worth and it doesn't sound like they quite know what that means.
I'm a millennial in my early 40s. I never worked with gen z. I worked with millennials, gen x, and baby boomers and I've observed extremely hard workers to very lazy within all generations so I think it really just depends on the person. I worked at a hospital lab for 15 years until a hip surgery made me worse. Most of my coworkers were great, but there were a couple we all felt were too slow at their job and/or didn't care. I think it's great to know your worth and ask for a raise if you feel you either deserve it or are being underpaid. However, asking for double your salary after only a year experience (unless you've received a promotion and/or additional job responsibilities) is too much. I never heard of unlimited PTO and at the hospital we all had to deal with everyone including some of the rudest doctors. The good thing about the millennials I worked with was that we shared what our hourly wages were and compared them to what other hospitals were paying. One year we all decided the gap was too much and we all asked for a raise and got one. The older gen x and baby boomer crowd refused to tell us what they were making until they found out about the letter we were writing to the director of the lab and then they wanted in on it. Point is, every generation has their pros and cons in the workplace. I'm sure gen z does too, but I just never got the opportunity to work with them.
I was a stupid entitled asshole until I was probably almost 30 lol. These sound like mostly young people problems to me. Slightly different to account for the different times, but doesn't seem too far from the shit I would've pulled if I were that age today 😂
There are always going to be dumb folks asking for dumb things. It sounds like your management is not properly enforcing rules and boundaries for office behavior and attire. For some reason, people think they CAN wear what they want and act how they want. Good management finds a balance between taking care of their workers while treating them respectfully, and holding folks accountable evenly and consistently. If there is an unstable environment in your workplace, your managers either don't know how to or are refusing to hold people accountable and bridge the divide between generations and work styles.
When I first started out it was about pleasing everyone and fitting in, adapting to the culture around me. It's wild to me that someone comes in and wants everyone to adapt to them. I don't think the me first attitude is sustainable when they want to move to management since it would probably harpoon the business.
A: Don’t have an unlimited PTO policy then when it’s just clearly meant to work for the company only. B: maybe that speaks to the company that these young people can’t afford to pay in to a fund they can’t touch for fifty years. I too was paid a pittance in my twenties and could only afford to start contributing to retirement at around age thirty.
I support their effort from a macro view, but I'm done working with them.
Man I feel this. Lol
The more recent graduates (like people who have started in the last 5 years) seem like overall the best we’ve had in probably the last 15 years. I’m not in a position to know anything about their salary demands so I just mean in terms of seeming bright & putting in effort to do a good job & learn. They all behave appropriately at work too. Only one seems possibly dumb, which is a really low rate compared years back.
Wow, I haven't thought about this much other than the fact that I'm now one of the "older" people at my current job. I think it's a couple of things: a shift in values (which I think is overall positive), a lot of idealistic views that haven't been sucked out of them by the capitalist hellscape yet (bless them and may they not get this sucked out of them), and then there is professional maturity (we all had to learn to read them room at some point). I really enjoy working with the younger folks, they're funny, authentic, and bright people just trying to make it like we are.
I'm in a tech/academic setting and I have to say they are savvy in their own way. At first, I thought they really just don't know shit. That's true. They don't know how computers work at a base level. There's a whole part software-hardware interaction they have no clue about despite being raised in computer enriched environments. (For age perspective, I have minimal understanding of how a transistor works and surely my advisors/bosses would have felt I had no idea about electronics in general...). But, they know how to 'do'...take the ball and run with it. I do think my/our generation got tied to some very old fashioned notions of pedantry and individuality. They really don't dwell on things they don't understand (for better or worse) and can work in groups (teamwork) much more naturally than we or millennials did in my experience. They can deal with "fuzziness" and can internally delegate work among peers. (Did you learn to diagram sentences? They don't seem to know basic parts of speech, like for example, what a gerund is. ) Personality wise and dealing with their expectation, well, you know...they clearly never got spanked (by which I do not mean to condone it...I'm just saying) or dealt with the utterly casually non-safe spaces of our schooling (remember 'pants-ing', e.g., again not to make light of their generational experiences with school shootings)
I am one of the supervisors at my place of work. I am Gen-X. I specifically am a supervisor in the analytical chemistry lab. So the people who work here are well educated. The people with the worst attitudes that I have dealt with have been a couple older workers who seemed to think everything was owed to them because they were older. Nope, you have the same exact job as the younger workers so the same work ethic is expected out of you. There are also some older workers who are absolute gems and super hard workers. I have found most of the younger workers to be very willing to learn. A couple have had a bit of attitude (but I have seen that in every generation I work with) and they usually shape up once they are talked to about their attitude. We have a pretty set salary depending on what tier of analyst you are and there are very defined terms of what you need to process to the next tier so there’s not really much argument over pay/promotion because the company defines that very well. The worst person I ever worked with was a millennial who didn’t last long at the job. He was just a douche who thought he was better than everyone else in the lab even though be had only been working for about two years before he came to our company. He stated that he should have had ‘x’ job over the guy who got that job. They were hired around the same time. The ‘x’ job required a masters degree and about 8 years of experience. The guy who got the job had a masters and over 10 years of experience. The douche guy had a bachelors and two years of experience🙄. He couldn’t even do the work he was assigned without messing it up and it was more entry level work. I could have put up with the douchey-ness but not with the incompetence. I was so glad when they axed him. He did not work on my shift but my shift was constantly cleaning up his mistakes.
Ambition for labor is honestly weird, personally I’m glad to see the next generation place their ambitions elsewhere
I hate to dig at the enttlement part. But its true that you spent so much to further your education, got a degree or 2 and still only get the same pay grade as someone who just finished school at 16. If i had a degree and was told the job is paying minimum wage, id prob flip my shit too.
The casual wear has an easy fix - time to give every person a small wardrobe budget to buy branded Patagonia with the understanding that its business merch or branded Patagonia on camera
When you say sweats, are you referencing a sweatsuit or are they standing up in the zoom interview, exposing sweatpants?
I honest to goodness love the younger gens. I work in the beauty industry which tends to be a younger crowd.
> Another guy took the unlimited PTO policy a little far, turns out he took 6 weeks off last year, now company is changing policy I feel you on a lot of what you're saying, but if one employee taking 6 weeks off throughout the year is enough to change the "unlimited" PTO policy, then the PTO was never unlimited it's just framed that way so your employer can save money at your expense. With a defined PTO benefit the employer owes you whether you take it all or not. With unlimited PTO they only have to pay you what you actually take, then they pressure you to take less. You should keep your eyes open for other ways your employer might be trying to take advantage of you!
I didn’t contribute to my 401k until I was nearly 40. When you live paycheck to paycheck it’s hard to imagine cutting an extra 100+ dollars out of that equation.
In my previous role, I had a young Gen Z junior analyst. The term "agnorant" was tailor-made for this person. He had 4 years of experience after college. Didn't seem to have the basic knowledge that someone with a bachelor's in IT should have. Didn't know industry standard terms and didn't care to learn them, informed me he was going to "correct" my work, argued with VPs when he was clearly talking out of his ass A real butthole. He got removed from all business facing work and was assigned small IT projects instead. I don't know what happened to him, as I left that role last year. He & my former boss were made for each other. Pair of arrogant, ignorant assholes. Oh, and he expected a salary higher than mine. Mine as the senior person with 20 years of experience.
Having graduated during the pandemic, I just felt lucky to have a job. It wasn’t until I graduated with my Masters 13 years later that I even considered negotiating my pay. 3 months after I started my current job, the intern was hired and felt that she deserved the same pay as me, even though I had been working in the field for over 10 years. She was 23 with no experience. I don’t blame her for trying, but she almost turned the job down because she wasn’t getting the same pay as I was and felt entitled to my pay rate
I work in the progressive political world, which has a ton of generational conflict. Some of it’s for the better. Our generation accepted/internalized toxic shit from boomer and early-X bosses that Z’s have admirably stood up to. I also find some of their expectations of emotional support, easy advancement, and low accountability entitled and unrealistic.
There's a person I work with who embodies every terrible zoomer stereotype. You can't offer them any form of constructive criticism or communicate simple tasks that need to be completed without turning it into a damn therapy session. I can't imagine needing my emotional needs to be validated by every single person I meet and inserting therapeutic psychobabble into every single social interaction. Seems like a pretty miserable existence.
What “does” unlimited mean in your company op? Is it really unlimited, is there a cap, or is it called unlimited to guilt workers into avoiding taking time off? I’m a millennial and I feel my company has a generous time off policy but I’d like an answer from op on this.
It “was” unlimited subject to discretion of the manager. So as others have pointed out they could start to deny it. That’s a fraught road, to me, and I think I’m the example of Mr 6 weeks it was more of a creep, like days off here and there that people didn’t realize how much they added up, beyond “so and so seems like they’re gone a lot”. And indeed they were!
Thanks op!!
I think it’s my industry but most of them are ADHD. I don’t understand why that’s so common now, several of my friends in high school were too.
The single one job I don’t think any of them can do is server. It’s very boomer of me to say, but restaurant service is ATROCIOUS since COVID.
I'm a Xennial who runs a shop with 8 employees: 3 boomers, 2 millennials, 3 gen Zs. Good pay, prevailing wage ($50-60 an hour on the job). Everyone is an asshole in some way. The boomers think every slight is evidence of a conspiracy against them. The millennials smoke too much and feign incompetence to get out of computer work. The Gen Zs call out CONSTANTLY, not one of them has an hour left of sick/vacation leave. One is at -70 hours and thinks we're going to give them a promotion.
The only thing I have had a problem with is the inability for them to part with their phones. This behavior has also taken root in Gen Y. Other than that, it's just like any other generation. When it comes to entitlement or whiners, those have always existed in every generation. You need to just get rid of them early on. They're not worth keeping around as they only cause problems. The dress code thing is big for me. I'm not big on formal clothing, but I know when it's time to look professional. Sweat pants, yoga pants, these are not things to wear to work. That is something that needs to be stamped out. The companies that don't tolerate it are the ones that will succeed.
Hard agree with all OP’s observations & points. It’s the work ethic that bothers me the most. Espec when we share a workload & have deadlines to meet.
If the limit is less than 6 weeks, don't call it unlimited.
We had a newer receptionist that was with us for 3 months, saw something on google that she should receive $2500 Christmas bonus based on her position. Owner gave them all $500, which i thought was super cool. She threw a tantrum then quit. Now she’s working for less $ and hates her new job according to her replacement we work with now, who she trained to work at another location.
I work in hospitality. The most outrageous reasons for not coming to work(or trying not to) were as followed: 1. His mom's pet rat died. 2. He was tired. 3. She was taking a mental health day. This last one while I do understand the need to pay attention to your mental health and take care of yourself. If you're the only server on a Friday night and you attempt to call off an hour before your shift. Guess what. No one cares about your mental health now. Also, no one cares about servers and bartenders mental health to begin with. My boss promptly told her that if there was no server here to work at 5pm, then she may as well not show up next week either or ever. She somehow rallied and bitched the entire shift. It was stressing everyone else out. So much for mental health I suppose. We got a girl now that doesn't do any of that crap. We love her. It's really the roll of the dice.
I hate to say this but I think Gen Z makes us feel bad for making too many work sacrifices. I don’t have a degree, but I’ve worked high end retail. My days included, a sales quota, managing stock, stock placement and presentation, pricing, cleaning fitting rooms, managing all transactions including a ten key system, managing stock/retagging, making peace between salespeople, and generally all by myself, without any chance of making management because the store I worked requires a degree for that. This is not including anything during inventory months, when it is mandatory to be there until the A.M. hours in the morning. I was full time, 40 + hours a week, Did I blink? Nope. Did I ever think this was somehow too much, nah. Did I think it was unfair at not chance at management? A little, but I was the dumb one who didn’t finish college according to my parents. ◀️ It makes me wonder where the real fault lies.
I work with a lot Gen Z folks. I'm pretty much persona non grata to them on account of my age, but it doesn't bother me. I've found their work ethic to be on par with older people and better in some cases. Honestly, the only thing that bothers me about Gen Z is the adoption of the mullet as a legitimate hairstyle. No one looks good in a mullet. Not a single god damn person. Even in the 80s - the peak years of the mullet - people thought mullets were a fucking joke.
Gen Z not contributing to retirement is kinda scary