
What happens when millennials run the workplace - timrpeterson
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/20/fashion/millennials-mic-workplace.html?smprod=nytcore-iphone&smid=nytcore-iphone-share
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skywhopper
I'm not seeing anything surprising here. At many small companies, the
employees will feel comfortable being frank with their CEO, especially if that
CEO is around their age. It's definitely not surprising that a startup with an
open office environment and a CEO who addresses the hundred 20-something-year-
old employees directly in Q&A meetings would generate a culture where someone
would directly tell the CEO that they believed he had been rude. (It's also
poor journalism to present that entire anecdote solely from the CEO's POV--
leaving the impression that the CEO was entirely in the right with how he
answered the original question.)

My biggest takeaway is that Mic needs to rethink their policies and culture
around paid time off, since that seems to be the main source of conflict
described in this article.

And please, can we stop with the Millennials-are-terrible meme? 40-somethings
always think 20-somethings are lazy, rude, and will never amount to anything.
Dig into the NYT archives from the 1800s and you'll find articles with similar
complaints about The Kids These Days. I'd like to see an article about that.

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EvenThisAcronym
I am a Millennial and I think Millennials are terrible (and I am not excluding
myself). With few exceptions, I have not met anyone from my demographic who is
not spoiled by their parents, entitled and has not made poor financial and/or
life decisions. Of course there are Millennials that exist outside this
stereotype, but I think our reputation has mostly been earned, not fabricated.

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whatshisface
What I'm really interested in seeing is a workplace entirely run by
Capricorns.

I've never seen evidence that Millennials exist as a group at all. Is it a
negative horoscope published once a decade?

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tosseraccount
As people get older, their brand loyalties are more set. Younger, working folk
often don't have the house/family/healthcare/retirement worries of older
workers. Marketers often target young folks because they'll spend on new
things.

The Millennials are the largest adult demographic:
[http://www.indexmundi.com/united_states/age_structure.html](http://www.indexmundi.com/united_states/age_structure.html)
. Their children will be bigger than them (hopefully!).

People of all ages don't always fit into the "generational" niche the media
and marketers try to put them in to.

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adrusi
The complaints people have about millenials are, as I see it, a reflection of
the social policies of the schools they attended. People talk about the
"everyone is a winner" attitudes, but I think the effect of that is less than
of other attitudes that public schools perpetuated. Because while giving every
kid a trophy is going to influence their development, most kids realize that's
bullshit by age 12–14.

The subtler things count more. The no tolerance policies are reflected in the
SJW silence-everything philosophies. The overly-aggressive anti-bullying
campaigns resulted in a "go to a teacher in the case of any conflict" approach
and is reflected in millenials who demand to be policed — most prevalent in
universities, but also found elsewhere. The restrictions and omnipresent
supervision inspired by overly-intrusive laws and liability precedents. The
mantras repeated to children from birth "it's OK to be different", "be
yourself", "you can be anything you want to be" can be seen in the "personal
brands" that millenials create — brands that they live in all parts of their
lives, not just as a mask when they need to charm someone.

I'm not saying that all these things are regressions: older generations have
as much bullshit to offer, but we're used to their bullshit. But millenials
think that they're creating a culture that liberates them from their parents'
bullshit, but their dogma is just as bad.

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AstroJetson
From a quote in the article "We tend to publicize these outrageous acts of
defiance, versus emphasizing the majority that I run into and work with, who
are very mission focused and value based". Which has been my experience, very
few do things that would be close to what is in the article. On the other hand
I've met my share of "WTF?" from people 18-70, not sure that millennials have
the lock on bad behavior in the workplace.

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herge
Well, what happens when it's not millennials that run the workplace? Today's
20 to 30 year olds saw their parents suffer through the transition of 'white
collar job for life' to the economy of today, where even IBM lays off people.
Why would they want to work for the equivalent of Dunder-Mifflin?

The most telling part is the quote about "strong personal brands". Every
millennial should consider their current job as a 2-3 year stepping stone to
their next one.

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pappyo
The "Say what you want" experiment is going to die a fiery death. It will,
ultimately, make an office culture toxic. Unfiltered talk only works when
everyone has thick skin, which is dubious to believe many millennials do.
Compound that with the blending of work and personal life, and it's a recipe
for disaster.

When everyone says what they want, you will eventually be proven wrong. Being
wrong isn't bad, but being proven wrong with a blunt object like social media,
hurts. It usually draws recourse.

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zengid
My thought is that this article highlights a trend in experimenting with an
'anarchistic' structure, that ultimately will not prevail for long. If you
look at the history of mission based business endeavors (like co-ops in the
non-profit sector back in the late 1960's) they exhibited a similar pattern,
and many of them ultimately failed because of a lack of professionalism in
their employees' behavior.

I'm curious to know if anyone has any comments on how the Big-4 (google,
facebook..) handles their employees 'millennial-ness'. I certainly feel like
they must be more strict, but I can only speculate.

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scyclow
Not sure if it's just the article's bias, but these people sound intolerable,
regardless of their age.

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polishninja
What CEO does this? What a strange place to work.

"Hence there are office conversations held on Twitter, and the blurring of
personal and professional boundaries, such as when Mr. Altchek broadcast his
dental examination on Periscope, a live streaming video app."

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Mahn
Tangential, but what exactly makes someone a millenial these days? I was
almost expecting a newspaper run by 16 year olds with that title, but that's
obviously not the case. Is anyone under thirty a millennial now?

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nahiluhmot
According to Wikipedia[1], Millennials are those born between 1980 and 2000.
That would make a 16 year old barely a Millennial.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennials](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennials)

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noir_lord
It would make me a millenial as well and I'm 35.

Seems like a strange unit when you have a range from 16 to 35, I don't have a
lot in common with the average 18 year old any more.

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thatcat
Yea, the 2 decade generational period seems a bit long considering the
increased speed of development of the technological infrastructure cycle which
results in vastly different experiences. A 35 year-old grew up with dial-up
internet emerging, while a 16 year-old grew up and everyone had cellphones.

~~~
noir_lord
My first modem was 1.2Kbps, now I have 200Mbps.

First PC though not first computer was 1Mhz with 640Kb RAM.

Generational shift is vast, Moores law has been kind!

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sakopov
> People are here from morning to night, and we don’t want to leave

This article should have started and ended here. Millennials are doing
whatever they can to make their jobs look like their homes with all of the
drinking, partying and drama. Then they advertise it as something cool that
every company ought to be doing. I don't know how anybody sees this as a good
thing.

