Generation-ME In the Workplace
Younger Workers are More Demanding and Less Devoted
Having a hard time managing the youngsters in the office? Step one is understanding where they come from.
It all began with Mr. Rogers informing us how very special we are. Yup . All of us. Even Jeff Helms and his permanent Kool-Aid moustache. The We-are-all-individuals irony was lost on curriculum-makers, and the message continued in seventh-grade English, where the assignment was an essay all about me, recorded and bound in a plastic cover once reserved for reports on astronauts and presidents.
Then entertainment had us celebrating those who won against all odds. Erin Brockovich beat the electric company. Rudy played for Notre Dame. The moral of the story? That could be us, carried off the field on the shoulders of those football players! The stories of under-dog success were so pervasive that I once worried I might lose a limb because that would mean I'd have to run a marathon.
The result is a generation released onto the world with pulses racing, ready to conquer everything, with strict instructions to achieve our goals no matter the cost. Our desires are the most important. Feeling good is a basic necessity. We're too special for simple things. If we aren't rich and famous yet, then we just aren't trying hard enough.
Can you see where, after all of that, processing loans may seem a bit anti-climactic?
Guidance councilors told us that our dreams could also be our livelihood. If that were true, we'd have a generation of ice-cream-tasting-rockstar-video-gamer-players, and no one to sweep the floor. Somewhere along the line the adults got carried away. The result is a generation ill-prepared for the realities of making a living. Someone has to work the non-rewarding, monotonous day jobs. In fact, most of us have to. And we feel shafted. Like our parents were salesmen with a classic bait-and-switch.
So what do we do? We annoy the older generations in the workplace by our constant need for feedback (self-centered since the All About Me report that earned an A+), aspirations for the corner office (because we are special--Mr. Rogers says so) and an unrealistic idea of the work and time involved (because it happens in the space of two hours in Rudy). And we're not happy about any of it, because until this point we truly believed we were going to be the next Lance Armstrong. Why? Because you said so.
Okay, that's great and all, but what do I do about it? Fine, I'll tell you. Read on in Bridging the Gap.
