ThrowawayR2
9 months ago
Even more interesting than the article itself are the hundreds and hundreds of comments that more or less say the same thing. Are all of these people "out-of-touch boomers" or is there some truth to the story?
wrp
9 months ago
Taking this seriously, I'm not sure how to establish "truth to the story" besides surveys, which will always have biases. I'm sure TFA comments are biased by self-selection. I can only offer here some personal experience.
I have mostly worked outside the USA over many years, but the COVID disruptions and consequences have kept me here more. As a result, I've been interacting with local offices of various sorts that I had largely avoided for nearly a generation. I have been constantly exasperated at the performance of the youngest cohort of office workers. They usually will not bother to answer business communications. They seem unable to follow any but the simplest directions. Work frequently doesn't get done because they just didn't feel like it. I wonder how businesses will survive as they become more reliant them.
toomuchtodo
9 months ago
My hot take is Gen Z workers are simply not compliant like older cohorts and managers don’t know how to handle that. This will continue as millions of Boomers continue to leave the workforce each year, and Gen Z workers are the only option: you can only offshore and outsource so much.
Edit: From a comment in another thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41675831
> The problem is, in the last ~20 years we went from ~7% of the population being retired to ~20%. Over the next 10 years, it's going to get close to ~30%. —- u/onlyrealcuzzo
LarsAlereon
9 months ago
This is a good point. I've tried phrasing this a few ways, but ultimately it seems like Gen Z workers think they know the value of their work, and will balk when asked to do more than they're being paid for. I don't think entry-level works are more immature or less-prepared, but they're a lot less tolerant of corporate excuses.
Boomer Manager: "Great news, we think you might be ready to move from a Junior to Senior role! We're going to start assigning you Senior-level work, and if you succeed at it you'll get your promotion in 3 months or so!"
Zoomer: "If you want to assign me Senior work then promote me to Senior. If you don't think I'm meeting standards in that role you can put me on a PIP."
ahazred8ta
9 months ago
Surely some GenZs are this way, but there are millions of HS graduates who cannot remember instructions, cannot follow simple rules even when reminded many times, cannot follow multistep procedures even when holding a checklist, and can't be bothered to read anything longer than a page. These are the 'employees' that HR is failing to onboard.
bbarnett
9 months ago
One problem is, at least in tech, that the people hired are different now.
It used to be that only people deeply interested in tech, with a curious mind, and entirely self starters, were working in the field.
There was no Stack Overflow, most questions were answered with a manpage or figuring it out yourself, or maybe a newsgroup with a long response turn around.
Often you'd have to just look at the source to fix something, and most people compiled their own software. It was all you. You had to fix everything, all yourself.
And you loved it.
This required a certain type of intellect. I'm not saying better, simply different, suited to the task. There are lots of highly intelligent people whould could not do the job back then.
And to top it all off, the job paid typically very little. So if you were in tech, it wasn't for the money.
Today, some people enter tech jobs after 3 month bootcamps. Others are only in it for the coin... which is fine, but a different motivation.
Not the same sort who were building hardware from scratch before 10, and programming in basic, and just playing for fun. Such a person already has 15+ years experience before entering the job market.
Anyhow. There are still such young people around in tech, but they're just a rarity compared the the sheer numbers just looking for a paycheque, and really are barely interested otherwise.
(using a phone or computer as an appliance isn't "interested").
user
9 months ago
ahazred8ta
9 months ago
Graduates since about 2018 are different, less capable
https://old.reddit.com/r/Teachers/comments/1flbqfb/i_work_in...
user
9 months ago