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The dental assistant at a friend's dentist will actually be ON HER PHONE during exams and cleanings. She'll stop working, check her FB or cat dancing or new cute shoes, and then go back to work. While my friend is in the chair.
Zero attention span. No awareness of other people. Self absorbed. Inability to function without an idevice in hand. PANIC if disconnected for more than 4 minutes.
That kind of gives me hope, then. It's hard to mess up an entire generation, but apparently someone found a way, or it seems to be the rule rather than the exception? I had un-diagnosed Autism Spectrum Disorder as a child, and you are describing me perfectly with some of these assumptions about millennials... I mean, I doubt the whole group has some kind of collective mental disorder, but if they do, you will finally have to deal with us (the people with social communication disorders) and learn about us instead of just dismissing us, won't you? Assuming all of these things are true (I doubt they are) do you think the tactics you would use when communicating with an autistic person might help a millennial? Read up on it and tell me.
It's a myth that all millennials are entitled self-absorbed brats, but here are some truths that may contribute to those myths. I don't have real statistics; I'm just telling this story from experience.
*The myth of higher education leading to a better job.
A lot of people told us to go to college to get a good job. As a teacher, I still try to steer the kids I work with in that direction, because I prefer an informed intelligent society to a group of money-hungry brutes, but my generation was given an incredible opportunity to pursue their dreams via nearly unlimited access to student loans. I can't say we didn't abuse them in some case, because some of us certainly did. It was irresponsible of the government to allow us to borrow so much money unchecked, but the college also made some "improvements" to make sure they kept receiving the money. I suspect grade inflation might be one such "improvement." If kids can't make the grade, you lower the standards to keep receiving money. The problem, though, is if you don't learn the skills and still pass the classes, it's going to eventually catch up with you in the workplace if you can't do the job.
*A misunderstanding of the purpose of university...
A lot of millennials (I'm assuming) got a four-year degree without gaining valued work experience. A few people, like me, thought a four year university would teach them more of what they needed to know to get a good job, like a trade school would. Personally, it was a surprise to me that I couldn't start working right away with a college degree, because the college I attended didn't teach me a lot of prerequisite skills. The colleges' excuse, though, is that they are not there to teach us trades but to teach us how to "expand our minds." Degree requirements for jobs are misleading. I think they are meant to indicate that you have a certain amount of experience in a field, but how were we supposed to know that? We were thinking, "get the degree, get the job," or at least I was.
*Outdated understanding of technology by professors that resulted in inauthentic learning, cheating, and other creative work-arounds...(or maybe they knew about all of the cheating and just wanted to protect their numbers)
What happens if you allow your students to take their finals at home online? Why, they can cheat in a thousand different ways, of course. Need to write a paper? Hire that girl off of Craigslist. Need to convince your professor that you learned the material when you really didn't? Look up a YouTube video and prepare a Power Point presentation; they'll think you're an expert! Learning and memorizing to study for an exam, nah, just use Google on your phone during the test when no one is looking, or, better yet download old copies of the test the professor posted and forgot about! Want to know what your teachers are up to so that you can get your parents or admins to blackmail them at a later date? Friend them on Facebook! Legal cheating. Hey, it's your future, but they made it so easy, isn't it tempting to just take the easy way out?
Don't get me wrong, technology can be really helpful, but you need to know its limits and capabilities. I think one casualty of this fast incorporation of technology was it's abuse by students who had a much more sophisticated grasp of it than their teachers.
*Lack of paid internships and other valuable opportunities for work experience.
*Lack of training by skilled employees during internships; possibly they were trying to protect their own jobs? All I know is that during my internships, some of our seniors preferred to hang out in the break room and talk poorly about us to actually helping us learn to do the job.
*Assuming we had certain prerequisite skills
We grew up in a quickly evolving digital age. We replaced most of our face-to-face communications with instant messaging and video chats. We grew up having to navigate public schools that had somehow become war zones because bullies had new tools, like MySpace and phones that recorded videos. We grew up hearing everywhere that we had to be the best, win the game, and earn the trophy. We felt like we needed to hide our weaknesses, even if that meant withdrawing from people in general. The bullying that was going on was at first described as "normal teenage behavior" and a "rite of passage." It was only later, after I graduated from high school I think, that people started to change policies. Those of us who experienced being openly berated and abused emotionally by peers and teachers had lasting scars. Some of us didn't trust the real world, so we turned to the virtual world instead.
I was once working with a kid in his 20s in an IT programming job. He was lazy and would not do anything. He would leave his desk all the time and wander. They asked me what to do about him. I said, I'll talk to him. I told him that I was going to recommend he be fired if he didn't start working. He laughed. So I told the boss to fire him and that he was not going to work.
The boss said oh we don't want to do that and they transferred him to another division. I was floored.
The millennial in the cube next to me comes in every day (did it 5 minutes ago) and says she is tired. She didn't get to sleep till 1am and wonders if drinking 3 glasses of caffeinated tea at 9pm has anything to do with it. She has many different excuses for being tired. Her diet is mainly sugar.
Overall though, she's very reliable, extremely smart and does great work. She prepares my requirements for coding and does a fantastic job at that.
That kind of gives me hope, then. It's hard to mess up an entire generation, but apparently someone found a way, or it seems to be the rule rather than the exception? I had un-diagnosed Autism Spectrum Disorder as a child, and you are describing me perfectly with some of these assumptions about millennials... I mean, I doubt the whole group has some kind of collective mental disorder, but if they do, you will finally have to deal with us (the people with social communication disorders) and learn about us instead of just dismissing us, won't you? Assuming all of these things are true (I doubt they are) do you think the tactics you would use when communicating with an autistic person might help a millennial? Read up on it and tell me.
So you are claiming that all millenials are autistic as a way to explain away the inability to PAY ATTENTION to a client at a job?
Just wow.
How about instead of pretending this is normal behavior, you put down your phone and do your job? Is that too much to expect? Apparently, yes, yes it is. Employers should start docking pay for every minute they are on the phone. Wonder if that would get the point across.
Your posts haven't been objective in the slightest. I've posted my thoughts on this tired worn out discussion about millennials and different generations.
It's juvenile and silly. And also when a person have a problem with an entire group of people then it really says more about the person with the issue. That's why am addressing your attitude.
I'm posting my observations.
You are insulting me for posting my observations.
If you don't like my observations, you can try to refute them. Or ignore them. Insulting me is not a way to get your point across, whatever that is. You have brought nothing to the table. Carry on, I'll wait for you to post another insult.
It's a myth that all millennials are entitled self-absorbed brats, but here are some truths that may contribute to those myths. I don't have real statistics; I'm just telling this story from experience.
*The myth of higher education leading to a better job.
A lot of people told us to go to college to get a good job. As a teacher, I still try to steer the kids I work with in that direction, because I prefer an informed intelligent society to a group of money-hungry brutes, but my generation was given an incredible opportunity to pursue their dreams via nearly unlimited access to student loans. I can't say we didn't abuse them in some case, because some of us certainly did. It was irresponsible of the government to allow us to borrow so much money unchecked, but the college also made some "improvements" to make sure they kept receiving the money. I suspect grade inflation might be one such "improvement." If kids can't make the grade, you lower the standards to keep receiving money. The problem, though, is if you don't learn the skills and still pass the classes, it's going to eventually catch up with you in the workplace if you can't do the job.
*A misunderstanding of the purpose of university...
A lot of millennials (I'm assuming) got a four-year degree without gaining valued work experience. A few people, like me, thought a four year university would teach them more of what they needed to know to get a good job, like a trade school would. Personally, it was a surprise to me that I couldn't start working right away with a college degree, because the college I attended didn't teach me a lot of prerequisite skills. The colleges' excuse, though, is that they are not there to teach us trades but to teach us how to "expand our minds." Degree requirements for jobs are misleading. I think they are meant to indicate that you have a certain amount of experience in a field, but how were we supposed to know that? We were thinking, "get the degree, get the job," or at least I was.
*Outdated understanding of technology by professors that resulted in inauthentic learning, cheating, and other creative work-arounds...(or maybe they knew about all of the cheating and just wanted to protect their numbers)
What happens if you allow your students to take their finals at home online? Why, they can cheat in a thousand different ways, of course. Need to write a paper? Hire that girl off of Craigslist. Need to convince your professor that you learned the material when you really didn't? Look up a YouTube video and prepare a Power Point presentation; they'll think you're an expert! Learning and memorizing to study for an exam, nah, just use Google on your phone during the test when no one is looking, or, better yet download old copies of the test the professor posted and forgot about! Want to know what your teachers are up to so that you can get your parents or admins to blackmail them at a later date? Friend them on Facebook! Legal cheating. Hey, it's your future, but they made it so easy, isn't it tempting to just take the easy way out?
Don't get me wrong, technology can be really helpful, but you need to know its limits and capabilities. I think one casualty of this fast incorporation of technology was it's abuse by students who had a much more sophisticated grasp of it than their teachers.
*Lack of paid internships and other valuable opportunities for work experience.
*Lack of training by skilled employees during internships; possibly they were trying to protect their own jobs? All I know is that during my internships, some of our seniors preferred to hang out in the break room and talk poorly about us to actually helping us learn to do the job.
*Assuming we had certain prerequisite skills
We grew up in a quickly evolving digital age. We replacedmost of our face-to-face communications with instant messaging and video chats. We grew up having to navigate public schools that had somehow become war zones because bullies had new tools, like MySpace and phones that recorded videos. We grew up hearing everywhere that we had to be the best, win the game, and earn the trophy. We felt like we needed to hide our weaknesses, even if that meant withdrawing from people in general. The bullying that was going on was at first described as "normal teenage behavior" and a "rite of passage." It was only later, after I graduated from high school I think, that people started to change policies. Those of us who experienced being openly berated and abused emotionally by peers and teachers had lasting scars. Some of us didn't trust the real world, so we turned to the virtual world instead.
Thanks for this post - I think you are trying hard to understand and explain the world of millennials to those of who are not in that elite group. And that does help me at least try to relate better to your generation in a perverse way. As you read through what I have to say, please don't take it the wrong way - it is not a criticism of you or what you wrote, or even of your generation .. I also just wrote down why what you try to explain away as myths are so easy to believe for someone from the outside. (And, p.s. my own daughter is a millennial and a teacher .. and I have tried to talk to her many times about these things but she puts her hands over her ears figuratively and will not listen or give her own perspective either - but because I know her, I suspect she would write/say a lot of the same stuff you just have if she would talk to me at all. Anyway I DO thank you because you are at least willing to open Pandora's box here online! )
That said though, certain things you mentioned in your post struck me as issues - some of which can be put on to your parents' generation perhaps but many of which seem to be 'excuses' that either almost every generation falls back on as they flounder around in the world as budding adults, like fish just hauled out of the water onto the dock, or are more specific to your generation and how you seem to think you should be treated/how you as a group relate to the world/your expectations that are somehow generationally unique - and unfortunately I expect you are passing the latter on to the next one already - and unless something happens to wake a lot of people up, things will be worse soon, not better.
an informed intelligent society to a group of money-hungry brutes - In my experience, most of the 'money hungry brutes' I have met or known about in life have been white collar, highly intelligent, well educated people. In contrast, some of the nicest people (also intelligent and usually quite 'informed' - whatever that means) I have met are tradespeople but they are not usually money hungry brutes. Are you referring maybe to drug dealers and people of that ilk?
You are now a teacher .. is this how you explain to your students why they need to go to college ? And do you encourage even those who obviously are not college material and/or who have a talent that probably would be better off honed through vocational training or an trade apprenticeship to believe that everyone should go to college? And do you also think that everyone should go to college right out of high school too?
if you don't learn the skills and still pass the classes, it's going to eventually catch up with you in the workplace if you can't do the job. - You are very correct but I would really like to know how the message that this is the case somehow managed to get by so many before they went to college. It was happening in high school too which is why so many high school graduates apparently can't even read or write properly when they get to college. I would be looking at teachers, administrators, parents and government to answer for why they let you all think that life was going to be any different than this? What DID they tell you about achievement and life and standards and how to assess what you really needed to get into a particular career, etc.? And again, as a teacher, what are YOU doing now in your own classroom to better educate your students about this facet of real life - to hone their expectations into something more resembling reality so they won't have the same misunderstanding of how one gets through life? Even without being told how things are, what personal responsibility is/was there for people to recognize truth on their own?
A lot of millennials (I'm assuming) got a four-year degree without gaining valued work experience - Here is where society in general went really astray. In my generation, by the age of 12 just about everyone started working at least a part time job (cutting lawns, delivering papers, babysitting, shovelling snow) - that they got themselves and did themselves. They were smart enough by then to find niches in the work arena not being filled by older workers and grab them. They had initiative even then. Even at that young age we yearned for 'independence' and at least intuitively understood we needed to begin preparing ourselves for the real world. By 14 most of my generation were actually working in businesses part time. Many of us worked for less than $1 an hour too - when minimum wage was either non-existent or much higher. I worked after school 4 days a week at a local department store in the office. I learned to manage money (because when I started working, I had to start paying for everything I wanted myself - though my parents still paid for food at home, shelter, basics, of course). I learned self-discipline (I had to be reliable because I had to show up at work or I would lose my job and have to answer to my parents. I also had to bow to authority figures and follow rules.). I learned a more workplace/potentially career-related skill or two as well. I learned what it meant to work hard and gain real self-confidence and satisfaction from a job well done.
Each subsequent generation after mine, including my own, seems to have 'required' less and less from their children. And they also put up barriers as well. I know I tried to encourage my kids to work when they were young but the stuff they were fed outside the home was stronger than that they got inside it - not to mention that the need for, in western society, emerging 'child labour' laws was grossly overblown and misinterpreted as an excuse for laziness - both on the part of kids and their parents. If you had to drive a kid to a job of some kind, it was more work for the parent who also had begun to work outside the home. If the neighbourhood was less safe than it had been in previous years, how could you let your child walk to work? Oh here, child ... take this money and buy that pair of ripped jeans .. I am too lazy to make you work for your own money to buy something we could do in 10 minutes at home with a pair from your existing wardrobe. So I have to go to work so you don't have to. Hmmm. So kids got used to not being expected to do much of anything to support themselves - and in the process lost the chance to learn valuable work and life skills. Millennials are having to give way to the 'snowflake' generation now - and believe me if you are not already part of the snowflake transition period, you will be agasp in a few years at what comes in and after that if you are an early millennial. Slippery slopes are everywhere.
How many in your generation did work when you were young teens or even in college - were expected to, wanted to, tried to, did? I know some do/did but it seems a much less prevalent way to get through one's teen years now than it used to be. It shouldn't take till or beyond college for kids to learn some skills that can be used in the workplace. We already had a resume (and knew how to analyze job requirements and make a tailored resume) that listed useful and transferable skills long before we even left high school, and we continued to improve it as we went through college because most of us had to work our own way through. We learned how to accept rejection, we learned to fail and get back up on our feet with renewed resolve and without complaint, and that we could survive almost anything - we became resilient and flexible as a result. Useful things to note on a resume even if not directly work related. We learned to problem solve and innovate to find those niches that were not filled - not just to pound the pavement or the computer looking for already established 'jobs'. Funny how we could do that but social life and protests and other things seem to take precedence in student/campus life now so who has time to work anyway - other than perhaps working to find someone else to do even your academic work for you? I really feel compassion for your generation, millennials. Some of this is (as individuals) your fault, but a lot of it is not. Society began telling more affluent parents (who had begun to be dual income) that they had to finance their kids educations - and not make the kids work for it or much of anything - and they fell for it ... hook, line and sinker.
the college I attended didn't teach me a lot of prerequisite skills - Now we are really getting into excuse territory. How could you have failed to realize that it was not the college's responsibility to tell you what you needed to do to prepare for a chosen career or to lead you to water and then also make you drink? You chose your college. You chose your course of studies .. didn't you? You did NO research at all before you signed up for higher education in a particular discipline? Why not, if not? Did no one ever teach you to research/how to research/why you should research? If not, I am blown away because you are in the generation that has the most access to the most information quickly of any generation before you.
We were thinking, "get the degree, get the job," or at least I was. Really? Where the heck was your head? .. in the clouds? Was everything just handed to you as a child? Did you get a driver's license when you were a teenager? Did you not realize when you did that the bigger part of learning to drive well actually came after you passed the tests and began actually driving alone .. and that one never stops learning or growing (unless one decides to). Did you not realize that you would not be eligible on day one for the principal's job - or why that would be? Did you not see that getting jobs depended on whether there were any to be had at all and beyond that on your own ability to convince the person giving out the job that you had more on the ball than just 'school learning'?
(small personal peeve rhetorical question here - How is it that children are not given or encouraged to take on any responsibilities and are held accountable for nothing and are coddled to believe they are perfect little angels and are not allowed to wander out of their parents sight (unless it is convenient for the parent) when they are young, because supposedly their parents want them to have idyllic childhoods and remain kids as long as possible, and yet at the same time, parents insist on sexualizing their kids lives from an early age, making them responsible for social justice and other societal issues, including them in all manner of what used to be solely adult dilemmas, etc.? Does this make any sense at all?)
they made it so easy, isn't it tempting to just take the easy way out? - Apparently your parents and teachers never taught you anything about integrity being important in life, or that you have to earn what you get in life, or that 'stealing'/cheating were bad. So sad for you .. though honestly it is really difficult to imagine how anyone could get to college age and not realize these things for themselves. How is it that so many in your generation don't seem to have any issue if people borrow their stuff and break it or never return it or let you do all the work and use you to do theirs too - so much so that you are surprised when in the real world where you have to work with people not quite accustomed to that kind of liberal 'sharing' stuff think you should actually do the job you get paid for, move up the ladder on merit and not cheat your way to the top? Did 'participation trophies' have anything to do with this attitude? I truly understand 'peer pressure' but this 'groupthink' way of going through life .. allowing yourself to take advantage of every loophole to avoid having to do much of anything yourself ... is definitely going to be (and already is) the downfall of the millennial generation - and those behind you as you rise in the business world - in my humble opinion. People blame boomers for a lot these days but I doubt if this is one of those things most of us are directly responsible for.
We replacedmost of our face-to-face communications with instant messaging and video chats. - Yes, you lost the ability to truly communicate with anyone, even your own generation. Apparently you didn't even understand what real face to face communication is about or how real ideas/issues/problems are fleshed out and resolved. When you couldn't spell or communicate, you began to transform the language into 140 character 'sound bites', slogans, misspelled words with different (often opposite) meanings, acronyms and abbreviations - and warped important concepts in the process. You not only locked yourselves in to your own group in so doing, you locked yourselves out of easy access to the business world - you enslaved yourselves in fact - and yes, you also gave yourselves another excuse to say 'no one understands me'. Even those with an IT or mathematical bent NEED well honed communication skills that go far beyond short text message capabilities to work with others to resolve problems and create new things. It seems ironic to me that so many who are all for the 'team concept' that was pushed on them (it seems to me by lazy teachers who didn't want to mark so many project papers or business leaders who didn't want to let anyone know anything outside of a small cubicle-ized process or who wanted to be able to control large groups of people more easily) often cannot 'communicate' well enough to make any team effective and efficient - to the long term detriment of business and the economy in general. Even the ability to 'think' was eroded - and young people got lazy so they just spouted what they were taught TO think - and groupthink became the new way of doing things ... it was easier than actually thinking for themselves.
Those of us who experienced being openly berated and abused emotionally by peers and teachers had lasting scars. - I am sorry but this one just leaves me 'smh' as your generation might say. Believe me, many, including me, were not coddled, were often openly berated, and .. oh heck .. who knows what 'emotional abuse' really is anyway - it depends on perceptions, expectations and on both on the giver and the receiver - I could I am sure say the same for my youth but somehow it made me stronger not weaker. Not always the case I realize but in general .. this excuse is not new or specific to your generation. I think your generation is more inclined to exploit it rather than just suck it up, learn from it and move on though.
None of this is personal. I don't know 'you' per se - and you probably already realize a lot of what I noted or will soon - but it seems many don't, probably even in my generation. I again thank you for the framework I used above but please know that the use of the word 'you' was mostly not directed at 'you' personally.
Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
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I'm happy to say that not all of them fit the perception or myths. My most recent hire is a millennial, age 24, and just passed probation with a nice raise due to her great performance. After her degree she worked two years in the field, barely meeting our requirements, but caught on to everything very quickly. She is the first one here every day after me, starts at 7am and is always at her desk about 10 minutes before. In another department just down the hall there is a jr. design engineer about the same age that has been here over a year. I sometimes work with her boss, and he says she is a great worker and is expected to move up soon.
Well alrighty then. Yeah, I'm behind the times on gay culture, and thats not a bad thing since I'm straight. While I don't embrace it, I do believe its not a choice. Just didn't know the acronym. I just heard the term over the last year or two. So its the "Q" thats new and has 2 meanings. I thought it used to be *****, but to be more PC became questioning. OK, got it.
Q u e e r has largely been reclaimed/embraced, and isn't generally seen as pejorative any longer.
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I mean, I doubt the whole group has some kind of collective mental disorder, but if they do, you will finally have to deal with us (the people with social communication disorders) and learn about us instead of just dismissing us, won't you? Assuming all of these things are true (I doubt they are) do you think the tactics you would use when communicating with an autistic person might help a millennial? Read up on it and tell me.
Legal cheating. Hey, it's your future, but they made it so easy, isn't it tempting to just take the easy way out? 
