I saw this piece on 60 Minutes entitled, "The Millennials Are Coming." It talks about individuals born between 1980-1995 who are now entering the workforce, and companies must deal with this new generation.
Watching this
news piece really boiled my blood. I have problems with a lot of these gross generalizations that they paint of millennials.
- They have to perform as professionals but haven't been trained. Uh... what? I don't think anyone has accused of not being professional.
- We're narcissistic praise hounds. Absolutely insane. I couldn't care less if people praised me for what I do. I believe actions speak louder than words, and I prefer to let my quality of work speak for itself. I don't need people giving me constant positive affirmations.
- We don't have the same work ethic. Parents previously expected us to work hard, parents now expect us to have fun. Ummm.... clearly you didn't grow up in an asian household. Believe me, working hard was a huge cornerstone in my upbringing.
- "We're playing computer games at work while we wait to grow up." I resent this statement very much.
- We love praise, and we'd love it if you told our parents too. You guys are joking right?
I absolutely hated the two young adults in the suits that they chose to interview to represent my generation. I am nothing like them, and I want to have no association with them whatsoever. When they talked about how they saw their parents sacrificed to their companies, only to be laid off, therefore we won't sacrifice, I think it's a ridiculous assertion. Our generation has never had to work through a recession. I'm pretty sure when times get tough, and jobs become scarce, you're going to "sacrifice" in order to keep your job.
When they pick on our generation for hopping jobs, I don't think that started with our generation, but Generation X. Basically, by the time when I entered the workplace, I didn't even think about working at a company until retirement. I don't think on that timescale, and quite honestly, it's not going to happen. Corporations that give that level of job security are very rare unless you work for the government. As a response to that, yeah, we have to be flexible about changing jobs. It's just a cold reality. When shareholders of companies would rather layoff thousands of employees to increase a stock price, this is going to be the reaction to it.
This whole notion that we're delaying our adolescence and living at home is a good financial decision isn't entirely our fault. I believe this is an economic problem. The cost of living is much higher for our generation. For example, a lot of entry level jobs require more and more education these days, that means we need to spend more time getting education. Last time I checked, education is getting more and more expensive. Then, consider things like food, oil, etc, all have experienced huge upward trends in pricing. Housing has gotten ridiculously expensive in my time as a young adult.
In either case, very angry about this news piece. It paints my generation as a bunch of whiny teenagers who are slackers, and we want people to heap praise on us all the time because we're emotionally fragile. Please.
