A few days ago I was with a businessman here in town when a young lady came in that performs some professional services for him and we began a discussion about work and the work ethic people have. The two of us mentioned that we were both past retirement age and still working. Somehow the subject of the work ethic of her generation came up and she intimated that Millennials did not have a good work ethic.
I remember as a young Baby Boomer in my teens being told that the kids my age were terrible workers and were really lazy. I disagreed with the man telling me that, who happened to be my boss. It didn’t set well with him that I challenged him, and for the rest of the time I worked there he had a chip on his shoulder about the whole conversation (and about me too).
From then on whenever something bad happened in the shop where I worked it was always one of the teenagers that worked there who was at fault and often that teenager was me.
Millennials aren’t that bad
So it really kind of shocked me that someone who is a Millennial actually offered up that their generation are unreliable and poor workers. I suggested to her not to sell herself or her generation short, because my experience with that group of people does not jibe with that idea.
Naming the generations is a funny thing. Other than the Boomers (1946-1964) there really are no completely definitive dates in which most generations are contained. Some of what we call people by generation overlaps. In most case the name of the generations have not been decided by sociologists, but instead by the media labeling groups of people with like kinds of experience. For instance the Greatest Generation was named by Tom Brokaw in his book about them and it has stuck.
In the nearly 50 years I worked for people besides myself, with 40 of it being spent managing between three and six hundred people, I had many great employees and some memorably bad ones.Basically from 1973 until I left the Sun Advocate as publisher in 2015, I was supervising somebody besides myself. I managed people of all ages ranging from 14 to 85 over that time. In the early years of my supervision experience most were from the Greatest Generation, then War Babies (1940 through 1946) and Boomers. Later came Generation X, Y and finally towards the end there were a number of Millennials.
To be honest, the Boomers were by far the worst generation that I ever managed. That probably was not because they were the worst overall, but I had more of them work for me than any other, so logically there would be more chances for there to be a larger number of poor employees among that group.
Today I hear people put down Millennials all the time. They say they are lazy, they expect everything handed to them (entitled), they don’t show up to work on time, they don’t show up to work a lot of the time at all, you have to hold their hand on everything you want them to do, etc. etc. etc.
Whine, whine, whine.
My children are from Generation X and people griped about their generation when they were in their teens and 20s. Two are now in their 30s and one in his early 40s. Today the work world is staffed with people like them all over the place. They turned out just fine, despite what I heard many say about them a decade ago. Now many of those same complainers are being negative about Gen X’s children.
A global powerhouse
Being a Boomer, I share a lot of common experience with many of you reading this. We grew up at a time when America was the only real powerhouse in the world, because basically every body else on the planet’s cities had been flattened by World War II and other countries were just recovering from that
We were the power despite our fear of war with the Soviet Union. As Boomers we were basically the first generation to have our own clothes styles, our own music, and even had a generation of cars (the Pony cars) designed just for us.
We were the apples of our parents eyes. Schools were overcrowded and universities were expanding rapidly to house us. We had a lot of privilege that our parents never had. Things were bright and exciting, but many in our generation didn’t see it that way. Some turned their backs on patriotism, capitalism and the establishment.
Our generation caused a great deal of trouble for our parents, who were from the Greatest Generation. Because of that people said that we would ruin the country and never reach our potential.
We made mistakes
Certainly we did have our problems and still do.
No we didn’t run the country exactly right and made a lot of mistakes, but the country still exists and while seemingly divided today, it is still pretty strong.
It seemed some thought we should be perfect for some reason, but we haven’t been. Yes and we have really mucked up some stuff too.
But back to the Millennials. Most of the ones I had work for me toward the end of my career were good employees, not perfect, but certainly no worse than many others.
My wife works with a lot of them all the time in her employment. Some are not very good, but most are very good and some are fantastic. To complain about a generation is to use a broad brush, one that covers everyone with the same color paint.
The world they have to grow up in is the place we and previous generations created for them. Their reaction to it may be different from what we expect it to be, but that doesn’t make them better or worse. It makes them a product of their times.
Just like we were.
My grandkids
I also have some direct experience in this when I look at my grandchildren. Many are Millennials and the older ones seem to be working out in their jobs, all of them in entry level positions at this point, just fine.
They appear to be good people along with the friends of theirs I have met. In fact I sometimes hear what they say and I think their ethics about many things are much better than mine ever were, regardless whether I agree with them or not.
Next time you are tempted to blame Millennials for problems at work or in society, think about what it was like when you were young, hungry, and broke.
And then remember back what they said about you.