Millennials

After reading Bruno's post I would like to add that I have had the same experience, I've had good and bad employees from every working generation, never enough one way or the other to be able to pigeon hole any generation.

The younger employees have a handle on the new tech and how to use it in business, without that input we'd be left in the dust. Us older employers can either take advantage and adjust or....be sent to live on a farm upstate.

Side note: For myself, I still draw the line at sending anything called a Tweet!!, gotta take a stand somewhere.
 
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Jcleppe said:
After reading Bruno's post I would like to add that I have had the same experience, I've had good and bad employees from every working generation, never enough one way or the other to be able to pigeon hole any generation.

The younger employees have a handle on the new tech and how to use it in business, without that input we'd be left in the dust. Us older employers can either take advantage and adjust or....be sent to live on a farm upstate.

Side note: For myself, I still draw the line at sending anything called a Tweet!!, gotta take a stand somewhere.
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Jcleppe said:
After reading Bruno's post I would like to add that I have had the same experience, I've had good and bad employees from every working generation, never enough one way or the other to be able to pigeon hole any generation.

The younger employees have a handle on the new tech and how to use it in business, without that input we'd be left in the dust. Us older employers can either take advantage and adjust or....be sent to live on a farm upstate.

Side note: For myself, I still draw the line at sending anything called a Tweet!!, gotta take a stand somewhere.
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+1, Jcleppe.....
I'm 57 and I do tweet occasionally....but I will NOT "snapchat." :biggrin:
 
:redface: I'm ashamed to have tweeted a few times. My apologies to my generation. :frown:
 
I agree with most of the views everyone has had. What the hell is a TWEET?
Never mind I don't wanna know-I rather stay an old grumpy dude!

I also agree with Darcie Cunninghams experience for I have in my extensive time with the CG seen what she describes.

I also will take a little different angle in that this generational thing has been going on forever. The sad part is that it seems to be heading south fast. I see the disrespect given to teachers at all grade levels and the teachers have very few tools to combat this insolence nowadays. I see the break up of families and required need for 2 people to work. Most kids are raised by their mothers and many are relying on a Govt check. It has become a cultural thing.

The society has completely changed from the leave it to beaver days to kids being on the gameboy, people don't know their neighbors and you can't let your kid out of your sight for the fear of something bad happening.

A large portion of our society is on Entitlements and it doesn't look like it will reverse itself. In fact, there is no stopping with a $17.5 trillion debt increasing.

I even see the CG retirees looking at disability checks as an Entitlement. I never heard of such things back in my day but now it's just common acknowledgement and talk among those getting near retirement.
 
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bruno said:
I have 3 factories that I am responsible for and about 500 hourly and salaried employees- ranging from around 20 to 62. I can assure you that no generation has a lock on stupid, lazy, entitled , or on the characteristics of hard work, generosity, pride in achievement; and in fact many younger/ newer employees have a way of forcing us to look at the way that we do things because frequently - we do the things we do because we have become too content with how we do things or are just too lazy to think of changing. I just had a meeting on a machine with a 22 year old "kid" who had all kinds of interesting observations about improving our thru-put at his machine. He is as good as many of the far older operators who are working with him - and sadly for him he's working for a paycheck that is relatively much smaller than the guys who entered this plant at his age 30 years ago.

Like JCleppe- my only complaint/ concern about the current generation is that their personal communication skills (both spoken and written) are less developed by a lot than was the case when I was their age hunting dinosaurs. That however is just a fact of life- the proliferation of devices has made them far more comfortable communicating that way than face to face or in writing (non- twitter style writing that is). So that's a skill that you need to work on with them. But otherwise- they work hard, they come to work, they do their jobs . Many of them go to War because they are convinced that it is the right thing to do- just like the "greatest" Generation and the multiple generations since including my own. Read the comments about Young Spec4 Arsenault: "Chose to live a life of service" "Unwilling to let his brothers down"; "family oriented and cared about his sister"; "would not think twice to give the shirt off his back to someone in need"; "a man that couldn't be beat", "when told to do something he thought was dumb, he always accomplished the task- laughing about it the whole way thru"... What else else can you ask for from someone? I would take those attributes all day long in any job- Military or civilian- and he's as representative of his generation as anyone else- just as the self-centered twits from my generation who gleefully off shore jobs and factories while pocketing big bonuses for doing so are chalked up to my age. (Neither is the whole story of the generation by a long shot). So I stick with my contention- making generalizations about this or any other generation is a wrongheaded exercise. This generation has the distinction of being the foot soldiers- the bearers of the load- of the longest war in US history, and has done so uncomplainingly. They may have some different approaches to things, but if businesses can't manage them then it's the failure of managers and leaders.
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Love your post as well...

As to the communications thing, I've come to discover over the years that a small effort to work with them at their level of engagement goes a long way to break down the walls that are mostly about not sharing a common communications development.

I think about when I was a child and you had a pen pal. You wrote letters and mailed them off. If you were lucky in a week or two, you got a reply. Dialogue was slow and imprecision on your first attempt wasn't quickly corrected. Talk wasn't cheap or easy.

With the advent of cheap long distance (a concept now forgotten) phone calls, that ability to get your thought right the first time came less and less important as you could quickly correct yourself when the conversation turned in a direction that you didn't intend.

Ten cents a minute did require you to put some thought into what you were going to talk about.

Today, after your unlimited communications plan is paid for the month, tweets, Facebook posts, video messaging, and even posting on SAF is easy and free. And judging by what I am told about much of the communications out there (I don't have a Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter, or other "social media" account) I don't miss it. I do find quite a bit of thoughtful content here and on a couple other forums I frequent, so I am quite happy to stick around.

Lots of stuff put out there on social media that people will live to regret. I don't remember ever writing such stuff in letters to pen pals.

I don't take a pen and paper very often these days - email really is more my speed for communicating - I can give it the same review that a hand written letter gets and if I am on my game, I can get the desired conversation with those I communicate to without the punishing waiting (yeah I can be impatient) that I grew up with.

I text and Skype with my daughter though... And I don't enjoy it as much though... However, she does send me email from time to time. I think she understands my value of the written word in more than 160 characters. And she actually has developed quite a level of skill in written language that I was wondering about a few short years ago, although she did complain about writing 24 page OP orders at BOLC last night.
 
http://opensource.com/health/11/6/socrates-social-media-and-new-dialectic

People have been against new mediums of communication for all of humanity.

What were the objections Socrates had to reading and the written word?

1. Inflexibility - Socrates thought the only truth could come through expressing knowledge (synthesis) and actively questioning (analysis) of that knowledge. For him the written word was too static, too inflexible. Words in oratory come and go in an instant, yet the traces lingered. Our minds would hold the essence of the logic, and continually refine it. In this way, words received via oratory were like a clay, the written word like an uncarvable stone.
2. Loss of Memory - we would become lazy if we didn't have to memorize our ideas and understanding. When the word is written, Socrates felt that the page holds it, not the mind. You can just read it and forget it. So for Socrates, external word permanence led to mental impermanence.
3. Loss of Control of Language - knowledge would not come with the requisite understanding and might lose context. There wouldn't be enough feedback during our consumption of thought and knowledge. The context of oratory was king, and for Socrates, the context was lost on the written word. As Dr. Wolf writes in Proust and the Squid, " Ultimately, Socrates did not fear reading. He feared the superfluidity of knowledge and it's corrollary -- superficial understanding."
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Haven't been in the military since the millennials started joining so can only talk about the corporate world.

I tend to agree that millennials initially don't appear to have the same work ethic, etc. as the baby boomers. However, IMO, the issue is more subtle.

It seems to me they have somewhat different goals/objectives both for work and life. Initially -- probably b/c of their parents -- they jump into the corporate world hoping to strike it rich. Then they find out that the traditional path is working really, really hard (IOW, long hours) and putting in your time (IOW, waiting to be promoted). They quickly find out that, in most jobs, you can't work 9-5, make 6+ figure salaries, and be CEO in 5 years.:smile:

Based on my experience (which, I'll admit is limited to my little corner of the world), they don't see the point of slaving away the "best" years of their life for a "reward" of money and power. Rather, they are willing to work fewer hours and maybe not have as much power in order to have a better "quality of life" (free time, time with family, etc.). They also seem much more willing to change jobs or even careers to make this happen. I've seen lots of folks in my line of work who, on their own initiative, leave a high paying, stressful, long-hours job (with promise of more of all of the above if successful) for a less stressful, fewer hours, and MUCH lower paying job -- and don't look back.

Of course, as noted above, there are exceptions to every "rule" and just as every member of the "Greatest Generation" wasn't great, so too every member of the millennials doesn't fit the "stereotype" of that generation -- or at least where that generation is today. It still has a long way to go!
 
First, the "Greatest Generation" doesn't exist. It's a line to sell a book. They found themselves in a broken world, with the U.S. still standing, and they made gains while Europe and Asia rebuilt.

The Baby Boomers inherited this new, post broken, world. And then.... they burned their bras, took LSD, danced to Pete Seeger and stopped caring about personal hygiene.

Second point, people seem to be lumping "Millenials" and "Generation X" into the same group. They aren't. The individualized "gimmie gimmie gimmie" because you owe me generation was Generation X. This was the target of the "Army of One" commercials.

Millenials generally started entering the workforce in 2000ish.
 
LineInTheSand said:
First, the "Greatest Generation" doesn't exist. It's a line to sell a book. They found themselves in a broken world, with the U.S. still standing, and they made gains while Europe and Asia rebuilt.

The Baby Boomers inherited this new, post broken, world. And then.... they burned their bras, took LSD, danced to Pete Seeger and stopped caring about personal hygiene.

Second point, people seem to be lumping "Millenials" and "Generation X" into the same group. They aren't. The individualized "gimmie gimmie gimmie" because you owe me generation was Generation X. This was the target of the "Army of One" commercials.

Millenials generally started entering the workforce in 2000ish.[/

When I first read this, I wondered what happened to gen y. It took me a moment to remember that gen y is now called the millennials.
I never bought into the greatest generation nonsense. Why not those who fought the revolutionary war, war of 1812, civil war, ww I ? It did make Tom Brokaw a lot of money though. :shake:
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LineInTheSand said:
Second point, people seem to be lumping "Millenials" and "Generation X" into the same group. They aren't. The individualized "gimmie gimmie gimmie" because you owe me generation was Generation X. This was the target of the "Army of One" commercials..
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This is what I found and doing a few searches on the the ever great Google. I guess it'll help us frame certain time frames in the discussion.

Mature/Silents: Born 1927- 1945

Baby Boomers: Born between 1946 and 1964. Two sub-sets: 1. the save-the-world revolutionaries of the ’60s and ’70s; and 2. the party-hardy career climbers (Yuppies) of the ’70s/’80s.

Generation X: Born between 1965 and 1980*

Generation Y/Millennium: Born between 1981* and 2000*.

Generation Z/Boomlets: Born after 2001*

Also the * means that the dates for the end of Gen X, Gen Y and Gen Z fluctuate depending on what source you are using.
 
Boozebin said:
This is what I found and doing a few searches on the the ever great Google. I guess it'll help us frame certain time frames in the discussion.

Mature/Silents: Born 1927- 1945

Baby Boomers: Born between 1946 and 1964. Two sub-sets: 1. the save-the-world revolutionaries of the ’60s and ’70s; and 2. the party-hardy career climbers (Yuppies) of the ’70s/’80s.

Generation X: Born between 1965 and 1980*

Generation Y/Millennium: Born between 1981* and 2000*.

Generation Z/Boomlets: Born after 2001*

Also the * means that the dates for the end of Gen X, Gen Y and Gen Z fluctuate depending on what source you are using.
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The time frames are vague in the U.S. I think the Wikipedia page I looked at said Australia actually has a cut-off.

What we need is an international system to categorize people by their birth years and then hate them for it! :biggrin:
 
LineInTheSand said:
What we need is an international system to categorize people by their birth years and then hate them for it! :biggrin:
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I find my method the easiest; hate everyone including your own generation and the only perfect person is me. Just keeping it simple:shake:

What I don't get is who names these groups? What in the world are boomlets? I just picture tiny pains in the rear running around saying they're great.
 
Call them what you want but they are the me, myself and I ENTITLEMENT generation!:eek:
 
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