
The 'Trophy Kids' Go to Work  - nickb
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122455219391652725.html?mod=most_emailed_day
======
modoc
While I sure there are a lot of "entitled" feeling people entering the work
force, and frankly some of the examples they provided are simply idiots, I
think the article is really missing the point.

The employment field has changed dramatically. You are VERY unlikely to work
at the same job in the same company until you retire. Companies aren't
supplying reliable pension plans. Many hot fields aren't unionized (I'm not
saying unions in their current US form are good, but it's a big shift from the
work my grandparents were doing) so you have much less job protection (this in
many ways is actually a good thing, imho). You're also often expected to work
in excess of 40 hours per week. Many fields have common 50-60+ hour work
weeks, on the same salary. In short, companies are giving less, are less
loyal, and are asking for more.

At the same time, in many new job fields, it's been discovered that you can
work smarter, not longer. It's been proven that flex-time, working from home,
lax dress codes, etc... don't always hurt productivity and success. In many
cases it improves it.

It's not that I feel entitled to anything special. It's just that I've made a
choice to not spend 60 hours/week wearing a suit in a grey cube under
fluorescent lights, filling out TPS reports (I did that for a few months, and
quit). Thankfully the employment field has supported my choice.

A lot of the requests make sense:

Waiting 6-12 months to get feedback on how you're doing at your job (as
perceived by your boss and coworkers) is silly. Short iterations improve
quality.

Having to dress a certain way if you don't interact with clients who are
expecting a suit, is a waste of money and makes many people uncomfortable
physically or with their appearance.

If listening to music while you work makes you happier and/or more productive,
it would be foolish not to. If it (or anything else) makes you less productive
then that's something for your boss to deal with you individually on.

"They want to be treated like colleagues rather than subordinates". Really?
Who wants to be treated like a subordinate? I mean honestly, who WANTS that?
If you don't have mutual respect with people you spend 40+ hours/week with,
why would you want to be there?

~~~
dionidium
_You are VERY unlikely to work at the same job in the same company until you
retire. Companies aren't supplying reliable pension plans. Many hot fields
aren't unionized..._

I think this is a key thing to notice. Without these benefits (and especially
in an at-will employment arrangement) a job becomes more like contract work: a
simple trade of time/knowledge for money that can be abandoned by either party
at any time.

To the extent that this is true, it might make sense to compare this to other
types of work-for-hire. It would be absurd, for example, to require that your
auto-mechanic wear certain clothes or demand that they not listen to
headphones while working.

I'm not sure how far this analogy extends, but it strikes me that many of the
things large companies demand of their employees would be considered onerous
in similar contexts.

Why is that so?

~~~
time_management
_I'm not sure how far this analogy extends, but it strikes me that many of the
things large companies demand of their employees would be considered onerous
in similar contexts._

It's the officer/laborer distinction. Theory: An auto mechanic performs work
and is paid per hour of labor, at a rate proportionate to his competence and
efficiency. By contrast, white-collar a professional is an officer. He's not
paid for 40 hours per week of work. He's paid to fill a role, which requires
attention to image, loyalty, professionalism and commitment that may extend
outside of working hours and impinge on his lifestyle. A doctor makes
housecalls at 10 pm, a CIA agent refrains from illegal drug use, a CEO
refrains from posting offensive material on his non-work-related blog.

That's theory. In practice, most white-collar corporate workers are closer in
role and status to laborers than professionals, and the only reason companies
expect them to fulfill the extra requirements is because they can. They're
exploiting tradition. Of course, corporate employees rarely get the autonomy
and independence that are the upside of professional status, but American
corporations are geniuses at serving up the worst of two worlds (such as, say,
laissez-faire capitalism and bureaucratic socialism).

~~~
modoc
You're clearly hanging out with the wrong CIA agents:)

------
randrews
What an obnoxious attitude.

"They want to be treated like colleagues rather than subordinates"

"They would renege on a job-acceptance commitment if a better offer came
along."

"Millennials also expect ... time for their family and personal interests."

None of that sounds like a sense of entitlement to me. This is the third or
fourth article I've seen on this meme. Are corporate managers really that
outraged that people in their 20s want to be treated like human beings?

~~~
modoc
This sums up my thoughts far better than my rambling comment:

"Are corporate managers really that outraged that people in their 20s want to
be treated like human beings?"

Exactly!

~~~
randrews
My favorite part was about how "millennials" will move into entrepreneurship
instead of working for people who don't respect them. Hope so!

~~~
modoc
I'm hoping that we see a big shift in the high-tech field away from big
companies toward a network of small entrepreneur-driven companies that do one
thing, and do it really well. Working with a network of people I trust, who
are proactive and motivated to do a great job because they have skin in the
game, is a real pleasure.

~~~
marvin
This won't happen, it's like the sweet dream of small, self-sufficient
communities. Not all kinds of work can be done in such an environment.

But startup culture _will_ inevitably do away with a lot of inane bureaucratic
megacorp policies. Especially if all the trophy kids stop swallowing the
bullshit. Most large organizations would be much more efficient with a
different structure for incentives, and they'll start realizing it when they
get hammered by others. Outraged news stories like this one is the first
indication that something is happening. You aren't outraged unless you fear
something.

~~~
dla2000
I would say that fear is the correct word, but suggest that you have the
context wrong. It's not the top eschelon of the generation running away and
creating their own businesses that we fear, it's the bottom tier thinking they
merit top tier salaries with no proportional abilities to go along with them.
I welcome the former, and the latter gives me nightmares.

------
iigs
I'm not sure about this article, I think we're getting trolled here.

Some of the quotes are questionable, but some of them seemed to sound like
they came from larger "employees are people too" interviews. I don't think all
of the people interviewed share the opinion of the author.

The "We keep treating them like crap but they keep LEAVING! What is going ON
HERE?!?" temper tantrum is pretty bizarre. If you can legitimately hold that
opinion and be an HR executive, it certainly implies to me that the problem
has existed at least as long as that person has been in the business. Your
feeling of entitlement isn't all that different from mine if you stand back a
step.

If we're so dispensable give us another week off, what's it going to hurt?
This is a pretty green field for any big company that would like to improve
retention.

A fun business hack would be structuring a company so you could dial-a-salary:
your salary assumes you work 95% of the year (2w PTO + 5 holidays), and you
tell HR how much you actually want to work (down to say 80% of the year -- 9wk
+ 5 holidays, as a lower bound for benefits). I bet your retention would be
invincible. Screw the money, I'd probably be at 85%.

~~~
lliiffee
Your last paragraph seems like such a good idea, its tough to understand why
it hasn't happened. (I would definitely be at 85%, and I would accept a lower
"base" to have to option!) I think the biggest reason is that time off is
fairly disruptive. You need to coordinate that not everyone is off at the same
time. If someone is waiting for you, your time off will prevent them from
working. It takes time to "recover" from time off, etc. I'm not sure how
significant these issues are, but I bet they get you to the point that you
might have second thoughts. (Would you work 85% the hours for 60% the pay?)

That said, you'd think there are _some_ fields where the above isn't an issue,
and they would implement it. I don't know any examples.

~~~
time_management
Here's the real reason Americans don't get more vacation: although large
companies allowed to be notoriously uneven in terms of compensation, they
still attempt to maintain a veneer of bureaucratic fairness. For example, each
employee gets the same health package (although the CEO is paid well enough to
self-insure, but never mind that) and all are treated as "equal" (sort of) in
internal mediation/discipline matters. This also applies to vacation
allotments, which are generally a single-variable function of seniority, with
a few special cases that can be negotiated.

The problem is that every corporation has some component that is perennially
understaffed, wearing its people down to the felt, and the VP representing it
realizes that his division cannot tolerate the prospect of employees having a
week or two more off. So any time an officer suggests increasing vacation
instead of salaries, the VP vetoes it. At and above this VP's level, vacation
allotments are irrelevant (they're either high enough that they can take time
off whenever they want... or in pressure-cooker companies, high enough that
they _never_ get time off), so there's no personal push from above on this
issue. Occasionally the VP of R&D will point out that the company's meager
vacation allowance is preventing him from getting top talent, especially from
overseas; the CEO will quietly pull him aside and tell him that he can make
some exceptions to "the policy" and no one will know.

------
sdurkin
Another old people complain about young people story. Its bull. Never in my
life have I had the luxury of feeling entitled, and my parents are well off.

Its older than Christ, "Times change and men decay." Or at least thats what
the old people think. Maybe I should go dig up the last twelve stories
submitted here with the same ridiculous premise, and we can be done with this
once and for all.

~~~
cdr
The fact that it was submitted yet again and hit the front page should be
evidence enough that we'll never be rid of it.

------
streblo
"[Employers] are concerned about this generation's desire to shape their jobs
to fit their lives rather than adapt their lives to the workplace."

God forbid.

~~~
dla2000
Except that you have to compete with a generation in other countries that
don't do that. Who's a better return on investment?

------
bigthboy
This is the most outragous story I've ever read. It's insulting and definitely
says something about corporate structure today. I wonder if any of these
companies are on the "Best Places to Work" list...

I'm technically a millennial and I don't feel entitled to anything. The points
this story brings up are actually things that have been shown to improve
productivity if done correctly. Look at Google and numerous other successful
high tech companies. People work better when they aren't forced into a suit,
get to do non-distracting personal enjoyments at work, have time to sit back
and just flat out think and relax during their work day.

What this article shows is that some companies really are full of stiffs who
have a superiority complex and are forcibly conformists to their employees. It
should be investigated why these companies are tetering on personal rights
violations rather than why their employee's don't bow down to their boss's
power.

~~~
paddy_m
I know that Goldman Sachs was regularly on best places to work lists'. They
are mentioned in the article.

------
MaysonL
A blog post from Mother Jones about the same article which gives a quote from
_The Organization Man_ back in 1956 which says the same thing (but without
quite as much snark): <http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-
drum/2008/10/damn_kids.html>

~~~
tjmc
By 1956 an economic boom had been going on for the best part of a decade.
Sound familiar? It's only natural that graduates of an era where jobs are easy
to come by will be more frivolous about where they work and the conditions
they expect.

When I left school in 1988 it was very hard to get work - there were waiting
lists for jobs at McDonalds for example. The "Gen Xers" I know have similar
memories and are generally more cautious about quitting a job without
something else to go to. Now that the economy's tanking I think attitudes will
change. The article's assertion that "their sense of entitlement is an
ingrained trait that will likely resurface in a stronger job market" looks
pretty bogus to me.

------
tyohn
They said the same thing when the "X generation" was entering the workforce.
They even had HR videos about how bad we where going to be...

------
yesimahuman
I'd rather dream of being "CEO tomorrow" than be content working as a
subordinate the rest of my life.

------
PJGoldwing
I don't know if it's warranted, but I'd venture to say that there's an immense
disdain amongst millennials for older generations for the state of the world
as it is now.

The problems left to younger generations are of such magnitude, that, for
better or worse, their attitudes towards "superiors" seems natural.

------
blang
I find it interesting that traditional media likes to complain about a
shrinking consumer base while at the same time they write this story insulting
the younger generation every couple of months. Have they ever thought that
they would lose fewer costumers if they stopped insulting them?

------
pmorici
I think the underlying problem is we've been taught that if you work hard you
should be rewarded but what older people mean by "hardwork" is in the sense of
hard time as in prison.

In their view showing up at 7:00 and leaving at 3:30 each day with a 30 minute
lunch is the epitome of a model employee. They expect that by putting in time
irespective of their actual work product they should be rewarded.

Young people on the other hand expect to be judged and rewarded based on the
quality of their work product itself and how much value it contributes to the
company. Older workers are many times indignant to this idea because they
spent the last 30 years racking up their seniority points.

~~~
dla2000
I have to echo my comment earlier. When you say that young people want to be
judged on the quality of the work (only), you're turning your work into a
commodity and making it easier and easier for your work to be outsourced.

~~~
pmorici
I don't mean quality strictly in the sense of workmanship I mean the the sense
of the value it provides to the company, including things like efficiency,
productivity, etc.... I also disagree that judging on quality would make the
jobs more susceptible to outsourcing. Presumable oppisite is judging on chair
sitting ability and since I'm 100% sure the one thing that cheap over seas
labor has me beat on is their chair sitting skillz I choose to compete in all
the other categories.

~~~
dla2000
A fair point. If you have the talent, definitely avoid any job that can be
commoditized. I think there may be as much as a 50/50 split between people who
will be able to do so and those who cannot, so those in the bottom face some
harsh realities. What I'm also finding, though is that a very large portion of
the people I work with aren't able to accurately assess their capabilities.
They're ready to be entrepeneurs with no math skills, for example. This is an
obvious concern. I think that's why the article resonated with so many who
read it on both sides of the fence.

------
anthonyrubin
This article seems relevant to some of the comments here:

<http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16040492/>

------
lutorm
I'm not saying that I agree with the article, but it's pretty funny how all
those commenting that it's wrong sound exactly like the people they are
talking about.

------
bjelkeman-again
Maybe they read the Maverick by Ricardo Semler and realised that working in a
company doesn't have to be shit.

------
Goladus
It's not that people are unwilling to make tradeoffs, they just aren't going
to let some guy in a suit with a huge sense of entitlement dictate which
tradeoffs they have to make.

------
Maascamp
You know what, sometimes you ARE a subordinate. So suck it up.

~~~
randrews
Being a subordinate doesn't mean you shouldn't be treated with respect.

~~~
silentbicycle
People who treat their subordinates like crap are sabotaging themselves,
because their subordinates are drastically less likely to give them reliable
information or enthusiastic effort.

Good managing isn't about indulging in power trips, it's about being able to
ensure that a group of people are working in a way that makes sense in the big
picture.

------
antiform
It's articles like this that make me fall in love with the tech industry all
over again.

------
Alex3917
Kids in the US and GBR are generally treated like shit, so they damn well
should feel entitled. Children here have lots of material goods, but on every
other quality-of-life measure they are basically neglected if not actively
abused-- by parents, the school system, corporations, religion, the
government, etc.

~~~
randrews
In what ways? Could you elaborate some?

