Recruiting Animal

Gen Y Is Ignorant

From: Age of Ignorance by Charles Simic, New York Review of Books (edited)

It took years of indifference and stupidity to make us as ignorant as we are today.

Anyone who has taught college over the last forty years, as I have, can tell you how much less students coming out of high school know every year.

At first it was shocking, but it no longer surprises any college instructor that the nice and eager young people enrolled in your classes have no ability to grasp most of the material being taught.

The Most Generous Generation

I used to ridicule all kinds of GenY hogwash from the 2 Ryans and I used make fun of the Gen Y Princess too  and I was noted for doing so.

Eventually I got tired of it and I stopped following their stuff and I assumed that the GenY Baloney Sandwich had already been totally consumed.

I was wrong though, I suppose, because last week I discovered @ValueIntoWords and @ResumeStrategy discussing this article on Twitter.

Where GenY Shines: What Goes Around, Comes Around Networking - Jan 5, 2012 - By Alexis Grant

The typical complaint about GenY is that we act entitled, lazy and even rude.

But here’s a soft skill GenY has mastered far better than other generations: Millennials are generous. Particularly in professional situations, 20-somethings understand the value of helping others, that what goes around comes around, perhaps especially in an increasingly digital world.

Whenever I chat with new acquaintances who are interested in learning about me or my business, some look at the conversation as something that’s benefiting them. Regardless of whether I contacted them or they contacted me, they ask how-can-this-help-me questions.

But GenYers tend to approach these conversations differently. Yes, they’re eager to learn about how I’m selling digital guides online or helping small businesses with social media or whatever project they’re interested in. But they also ask how they can help me.

Old-Fashioned Respect

From: Comments, Margaret Wente, We’ve institutionalized teacher abuse, Globe and Mail, May. 26, 2011

Where I am from, if you disrespect the teacher, you get whipped; and parents are not even allowed to enter the school.

I'm from South of Russia, from a Cossack community. In our lands, you walk through a school, all you hear are sounds of pens and pencils writing, teachers talking, and children only speaking up if asked something by the teacher.

All adults in our society, teachers included, carry a nagaika and do not hesitate to use it on a insolent youth. It happened to me a few times, and it hurts like hell itself. Very, very effective.

No, where I am from, you do not see drunk, disrespectful, rude, arrogant youth. When a elder walks into a room, if any young ones are there, they stand up, remove their hats, and bow.

In the street, you do not pass an elder who is walking before you without asking permission, it is rude.

On public transport, you would see, an elder comes in, on a bus, or a commuter train, even if it is not full, young ones right away jump up to yield their seats.

Discipline, respect, culture, it is beaten into you from a young age where I come from. And we are proud of that. The rest of Russia envies us for our ways.

Internet or Not Students Are The Same

From: Facing down a Wiki World by William Christian April 6, 2009

I once sat towards the back of a large class during a guest lecture and I estimate that one-third of the class had Facebook on their screen. Others were accessing their Gmail accounts. A couple were playing solitaire.

In olden days I would have been forced to pay attention, faute de mieux, or perhaps clandestinely read a newspaper, but now I play Scrabble or do little quizzes to see which car I’m most like.

Gen Y and The Recession

Animal Show Sept 2, 2009

GUEST
Gen Y Softie
JT O'Donnell

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Generation Y Articles

What Drives Gen Y
Gen Y on 60 Minutes
Gen Y Leadership Theory
Boomers Are Evil
Gen Y Hate Lit
Gen Y's Multi-Tasking
The Gen Y Revolution
Gen Y's Networking Skills
Napster Made Me
Anarchism is Groovy
Generational Smackdown
Gen Y is Conservative


No Vacations
Inexperience Rules
Inexperience Rides Again
Gen Y Attacked
All Gens Want Same Things
Gen Y Managers
Seery on Gen Y
Boomer Parents Not Career-Savvy
Helicopter Parents
New Breed of Worker
We're Not Unique
Money Not Priority
Pain For Gain, Si
1969 = 2007
Gen Y Values
The Gen Y Princess
Gen Y Humility
Web 2.0 Breeds Social Skills
Intrinsic Motivation Junkies
Gen Y Exhausted
Rosie Not Exhausted
60s Generation Praised
Brian Tingley
Immigrants vs Gen Y
Gen Y Hates Hippies
How We're Different
Selfish Generation
Growin' Up

Generational Con Man

I read an article this week by Mark Liston. He's a recruiter and he is also a generational traitor and a pathetic social masochist.

Here's the essence of what he says:  I'm a baby-boomer and we're awful. Why? Because we're workaholics. We love blackberries. We can’t text message. And we have old Beatles records in the garage.

We have old Beatle records? Is that a sin now? No, but he treats it like one just so he can suck up to Gen Y.

He goes on to say: You guys are better than us. We had race riots. We went on peace marches. We went to Woodstock. We ducked bullets at Kent State.

Does anyone really think that Mark Liston ducked bullets at Kent State? Or that he was involved in a race riot? Of course not.

Mark is just an ordinary guy -- and so is his audience. In fact, there's probably less difference between Baby Boomers like Mark and Gen Y than between any generations in the last 100 years.

The proof is in the pudding because for the rest of his article Mark gives advice to Gen Y and none of it has anything to do with generational differences at all. Here's a sample of what he says:

• The most useful class I took in school was typing.

• No one asked to see my report cards at any job I ever had.

• Don’t worry about knowing what you want to do 20 years from now.

           All of us who thought we knew changed our minds

• Don't worry about working with people older than you. It's no big deal

It's not bad advice but I was in a rage for three days after I read this article because of the oily, contemptible, cowardly way in which Mark rushes to appease the barbarians.

Then I started to think: Hey, this is actually a fantastic article because it's so stupid that it undercuts its own lies. First the guy says, "I'm dumber than you" and then he says "So, why don't you take my advice?".

Then I realized something else. My friend, The Funny Banker, tells me that when you come right down to it, selling is lying.

Mark is a salesman and, apparently, he knows that if you flatter people you can feed them any kind of baloney you want.

In the comment section underneath this article, the Gen Whiners lap this stuff up. "There's a sucker born every minute," said P.T. Barnum and Generation Y is proving him right.

Audio version

Reference: Back to the Future — A Recruiter’s Thoughts

Mark Liston has many more articles of the same calibre. His blog is here

Michelle Obama Was So Gen Y

Chicago Sun-Times. (edited)

"Michelle could also frustrate her supervisors. White says he gave her the most interesting work he could find because she seemed perennially dissatisfied.

She was, White recalls, "quite possibly the most ambitious associate that I've ever seen." She wanted significant responsibility right away and was not afraid to object if she wasn't getting what she felt she deserved, he says.

At big firms, much of the work that falls to young associates involves detail and tedium. Too monotonous for Michelle, who complained that the work he gave her was unsatisfactory.

"she at one point went over my head and complained [to human resources] that I wasn't giving her enough interesting stuff, and the person came down to my office and said, 'Basically she's complaining that she's being treated like she's a second-year associate,' and we agreed that she was a second-year associate.

I had eight or nine other associates, and I couldn't start treating one of them a lot better."

The Funny Banker on Gen Y Barbie

The Funny Banker read my posting on Gen Y Barbie. This is his reply.

Hasn't this little credit crunch bitch-slapped most of these Gen Y-ner's back to reality a little bit.

I notice that Teresa hasn't exactly held down a job in the real world yet. What were the jobless numbers in the US for November, 500,000?

While technically not the worst on record if you put things in proportion (actually about the 41st worse), but the absolute magnitude is large....and will be getting larger.

This little downturn may be the cold bucket of water that wakes these wet behind the ears neophytes up and helps them put the concepts of:

- We crave personal development (until layoffs start)

- We pursue unconventional paths (while I have zero life responsibility)

- We’re not afraid to ask (who are you asking and when are you asking them - try asking for a raise about now)

- We embrace transparency (until you have competing interests that may force you to do something you might not be so proud of) and

- We just want to do what we love (Blinding flash of the obvious: are you the only person who wants to do what she loves? Me and everyone else prefers drudgery?)

What, does this chick think that her father always had a comb over and her mother always wore "mom jeans"?

At one point, everyone has dreams and aspiration, but guess what Teresa, you (and your siblings) came along and your parents had to get all responsible and stuff.

I know, its totally uncool, but true, kids are the reason parents get all uptight, boring and conventional - I can say that as a risk-taking 30-something with a young child.

The self-righteousness of a new cohort entering the workforce is nothing new, its just that at some point your schtick starts wearing thin - and that point was about a year ago. The holier than thou attitude is boring already.

Visit The Funny Banker's online store.

Gen Y Barbie

BioJobblog pointed me to yet another article about Gen Y. I left this reply.

Like this is so right on. People in my generation were very much a part of traditional authoritarian culture.

We were so brainwashed to hold our elders in a kind of awe that we had no sense of deserving any kind of decent treatment and were ready to take whatever the bosses chose to dish out.

Then I come to America and see that everything is different. People were free here. They didn’t take that kind of crap. Wait a second, I’m confused. That was 1968! Help me. Was that Gen Y in 1968?

Barbie is modest enough to back off of some of her claims, here, in response to the comments made on her initial posting. But she still claims to be able to compare Gen Y to the generations immediately preceding her own.

So lemme axe you dis: where do these guys get their ideas of the past? They weren't there so do they get it from their parents, teachers, books, magazines? Because it's pretty obvious that there's a lot they don't know.