Employers need to get REAL

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(This is a rant and not a complaint against anyone here. I'm just tired of the job search and work nonsense already.)

I have noticed more and more articles and ads online talking about millennials (my age group) and to be honest its tiring to read the same thing over and over...millennials are entitled/spoiled/lazy/don't kiss butt enough/kiss butt too much/etc...and I think that the media and employers have some gall complaining about the manners and habits of millennials when I look at all the horse poop that floats in their pool, so to speak. I say employers since most of the articles obviously deal with how someone in my age group fits it or doesn't fit into the workplaces. Where are the articles complaining about millennials about non-career/non-workplace issues? Not many from what I see so it's obviously some power trip that both the media and employers are on and have been on for the last decade or so. Since they are so intent on rehashing and nitpicking over millennials problems, let's do the same to employers and their habits while we're here.

First off, you employers as a whole need to get a CLUE before you talk about work ethics. I see all kinds of people that you hire that don't show up for work, don't do their job as they are supposed to or half-ass it, or scare away customers or all the other reality TV drama that they bring into the workplace. And you turn around and give me crap for some trivial mistake I made on the job? Pull your pants up and get off the can before you start riding me or anyone else for Mickey Mouse type crap.

Hiring minorities does NOT make you a more progressive or open minded workplace. You don't care about minorities anymore than you can throw them. You can't even get your own culture right so quit thinking the rest of the world is falling for the act! Don't even get me started on what you do to Aspies and the like.

You need to pay better too...everyone knows you can and doesn't buy the economic crisis hot air story. $12.00 per hour for someone with a Bachelors degree is a JOKE. That was a joke 20 years ago (yes, there were quite a few jobs back then that demanded a 4 year degree for garbage wages) and you wonder why you turn over people so quickly. The only people who take you seriously on this kind of job are either the desperate or the stupid. Yes, you do have to invest in your business; meaning that if, for example, if you are running a restaurant, you have to buy NAPKINS for people to clean up after eating. Quit being a cheap nickel dimer and quit ripping your customers off, nobody wants to go to a restaurant where the customer has to be the janitor while they eat.

Either you are hiring or you're not hiring, make up your mind already. People aren't going to play your online application games and quizzes and questionaires and all that other BS just to get some part time job with you. If you really want people to have a college degree to stack boxes in that nasty stanky warehouse of yours then just say it in the job description. How a pop quiz fits into stacking boxes or scrubbing some grease covered floor is beyond me. Are you employers as a whole just plain stupid?

You complain about millennial work ethics, how about your management ethics? Most of the management I dealt with either sat in the office twiddling their thumbs and playing footsies or tried to lord it over the rest of the employees and customers to boot. Get over yourselves already, you aren't the self - made hero you make yourselves out to be. A lot of you should go back to kindergarten and figure out, I don't know, basic social skills along with spelling/math/basic world history/reading since half of you can't even get that right. Some of you literally belong in daycare or a zoo...or both.

Another thing too...quit it with the motivational crap already. There may not be an 'I' in team but there is a 'me'. It's obvious that you just want to crack a whip at people since you get your jollies off that.

(RANT OFF)

I sympathize and agree that this is old BS but keeps coming around in the media news cycle.

I feel like I'm in the middle in the Generation X age group and this has all been said before when we were the young generation by the deluded Baby Boomers. Not to generalize all BBs of course, but many seem to have a selective memory of their younger days or a weird fondness for the 1950s. Nevermind that the country has been run by corrupt members of their generation.

Well, I'm 62, which makes me a boomer I guess, but I am in full agreement with both of you. Always have been.

There's a small percentage of us who've always been pro-worker as much as we are anti-stereotyping, anti-scapegoating, anti-profiteering.

Unfortunately, when people "settle down", which my late and much-missed father called "giving hostages to fortune" - when they have the house, the marriage/partnership, the dependents (with and without fur), the economic trap is sprung. It's really hard to own your soul in this social structure. Doable, but hard.

Most of the stuff you mention is propaganda. My parents were telling me about the political situation the other day. They are retired, but seem to believe they are middle aged and in touch with workplace trends.

Believing the sort of articles people publish on LinkedIn will lead to an early breakdown.

Everybody needs to eat.

well in my area, there seem to be the new refugees who have earned their citizenship and right to work so they can take our jobs, and is so evident when I come into a McDonalds, KFC, supermarket, leaflet distributors, warehouse people (mostly of polish descent), I get hit back so hard from many people including the jobcentre saying that immigrants/foreigners are taking the menial jobs so the locals like me dont have a chance.

Around here, if you can't show up on time, you aren't going to be around long. Some employers may tolerate it to a degree, but don't push them.

At the largest employer in my county, not showing up on time or leaving early will put you right at the top of the list for when it comes time to lay people off. They are even known to send an employee to drive by people's houses in the late afternoon to see if people are already home when they are supposed to be at work.

Some people expect the employer to adapt to their culture. It doesn't work that way. if you can't fit in with the employer's culture, you aren't going anywhere. In addition to things like showing up on time, it also applies to things like the dress code. And at some companies, you severely limit any possibility of being promoted if you get into loud, heated arguments with others at the workplace. Going to work drunk is also a quick way to being fired.

And that is as it should be.

Those who don't like it can go look for work somewhere else.

I think the biggest problem is that work is becoming less and less about actually doing the work, and more about random irrelevant stuff.

I get where the OP is coming from.

The above comment is funny; it has absolutely nothing to do with what the OP is talking about, but the commenter seems to think it does. This is a very common thing to happen, though. I can't count the number of times I and some other person have had a conversation about for example job descriptions in ads, or how recruitment agencies function, and then some random older person shows up and starts spouting some nonsense about showing up at time or not being too picky. We all show up on time, and we've never had any opportunities to be picky, not like their generation.

I guess it's a ploy to position themselves as 'better than you'. I don't understand why they have so much invested in being 'better than us', though. I can never figure out whether they genuinely don't understand how much easier they had it, or if they just like to hurt people because it gives them social status.

If I made the mistake of hiring OP, with her attitude it probably wouldn't take me long to fire her.

Nothing is worse than when you put everything into a job, never call in sick, never show up even 10 minutes late, always working from start to finish, and still get less than 24 hours, no benefits, and demeaned about your work.

Barbara Ehrenreich has an interview in today's Slate magazine about this very issue. She is the quite credible author of (among other works) Nickle and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America, a book about her experiences trying to make a living at minimum wage jobs in the US. I have read it and recommend it highly. (She has also written an excellent book, Bright-Sided, about positive psychology.)

As an author, she does extremely intensive research. I consider her authoritative.