Slashdot Mirror
Gen Y Workers Reinventing IT for the Better
buzzardsbay writes "We all know the complaints about young employees. They depend too much on their parents' money, they need constant hand-holding, they have no job loyalty, they demand more than they're worth, they disrespect older employees, and they're naive about corporate culture. But despite this conventional wisdom, there's growing evidence that the different working styles of Gen Y workers might be causing fundamental — and beneficial — changes in the way enterprises run, especially when it comes to IT. For example, they may show better judgment when making tech purchases and are often better with green IT initiatives. This is a nice counterpoint to a previous story (and resulting incendiary comments) that dubbed young tech workers a risk to corporate networks."
Is it any wonder, with tens of thousands of layoffs every couple of years, why workers don't feel a strict loyalty to the companies that employ them? If the company isn't willing to maintain their educated, trained, experienced workforce through a minor downturn, then they should expect the employees to look for better opportunities.
This is a generation that's more savvy with computing than any other; they've not known an era in their lives without decent computing machines likely in the home. USB and GUIs and broadband speeds are first nature. G/Net, ARCNet, Token Ring, Phone-Net, and other schemes have never been seen by these people. BBS is an 18" tire rim, not a dial-up service. USB drives, not floppy disks, are temporary storage devices. This generation can't read paper tape and doesn't care if we used to record data on cassette tapes, in fact, cassette tapes are curiosities when you can hold the contents of hundreds, even thousands of them in a single MP3 player device.
And therefore, it's nihilistic to impose at least a portion of seemingly ancient platitudes on generations that have no context for them. I find young IT people endlessly fascinating because their boundaries are far different from my generation-- the generation that could do binary front panel program loads in assembler.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
Company loyalty does not exist with respect to a company's 'loyalty' to an employee.
As an employee, my loyalty extends only to the next paycheck, and no further.
Want to assure my loyalty, treat me like a person, not a 'resource'.
Give me what I need to do my Job, and listen to how I could possibly do my job better.
Give me training, don't let the value of my skills decline.
Give me a mentor, don't just sit me at a cube and expect to learn EVERYTHING myself.
Many companies think they can just bully young employees into working long hours, for crappy pay, nope, not me. But then again, I'm in engineering, and NOT IT, so it's a bit different.
No job loyalty? Well, my employer will ditch me whenever it's convenient for them, so why shouldn't I treat them the same? My older co-workers do the same. This is a fact of the modern workplace and is generation neutral.
Demand more than we're worth? Ok... Well if I have a job offer for 20% more elsewhere, I'm worth 20% more... It's not my problem that you have "no budget for raises" three consecutive years. My value increased over those years even if your shitty business model didn't. Now if you want to tell me that I demand more than I'm worth to you, then we'll talk... Or if you want to revisit the loyalty issue, maybe I'll be willing to cut you some salary slack... Either way, I also don't think this is a generational issue since many of my older co-workers are significantly overpaid for their contribution level without even needing to ask. This leads into the third point.
No respect for older co-workers? Well I'll cop to this in a conditional fashion. I have tremendous respect for some of my older co-workers. The ones that pull their weight, keep up with required knowledge, and appreciate the value of a more junior contributor than themselves. The ones that a right all the time because of what their resume says, and not due to any critical thinking, and who contribute zero to an effort beyond their experience can go suck a nut. I can put an older co-worker into one of these buckets within a few technical conversations. If somebody disagrees with me on a technical issue and tells me why with a reasoned explanation, they go in the "earned my respect, and a mental note to learn as much from them as possible". If the same situation arises and the more senior co-worker explains that their right by quoting their resume to me they go in the "probably full of shit 90% of the time" bucket.
It is the same old story, retold generation after generation. I wonder how much of this cycle is a part of natural life, and how much of it comes from ignorance? After all, you'd think people would clue in that when they were young they heard the same kinds of things they are now telling a new generation of young folks. This at least seems to be a tangible way to lesser the effects of such nonsense; because the young won't so strongly revile older generations without their antecedents being so intolerable to the change their own seeds have sown.
While change may be harder to accept the older you get, is it possible that this concept too is being challenged? It is one thing to be a farmer or an industrial worker all your life -- surely being intolerant of change is almost inevitable here. Yet, in such a dynamic economy, with jobs changing constantly, and information accessibility just beginning to reach extraordinary heights -- is it possible that tolerance of change will be ingrained in the coming generation? Imagine the kind of changes that would likely mean for society as a whole!
I spent 10 years working for large financial companies. Everyone I knew outside work thought I had the most stable job, while a few times I was very close to being part of large layoffs. It was very hard to advance because of competition and politics with coworkers.
Now I work for a small company where I'm valued on a more personal level. As the company grows so does my position within the company. There's no room for politics. I'm not saying I'm completely loyal and will never leave, but my job is stable and generally more enjoyable. My family is no longer impressed, but they don't understand that I'm actually better off.
Developers: We can use your help.
I've been to parties in years past with young derivatives traders oh-so-impressed that they were of the generation that had removed all risk from our financial markets. Surely kids who have gotten tech degrees and jobs, but basically find tech boring and so mostly want the thrill (and money!) of a fast track to upper management can make the rest of our industries just as brilliant as it's turned out the financial sector is. Oh yeah. Let's bet the economy of the 2010's on this batch of clowns.
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
What's with the fuss? Every generation is like this.
The previous one thinks they're feckless and idle, the new one thinks they're god's gift. The previous one had radical and new ideas in their day, the new one has radical and new ideas of their own. So all this stuff about "different cos they grew up with technology" is nothing new. Every generation "grew up with technology" of their time, they're nothing special.
My bet is that in 30 years time we'll still be reading stuff about the latest generation "growing up with technology" and how this is overhauling the preconceptions of previous generations, whose own "growing up with technology" is apparently no longer good enough.
No respect for older co-workers? Well I'll cop to this in a conditional fashion. I have tremendous respect for some of my older co-workers. The ones that pull their weight, keep up with required knowledge, and appreciate the value of a more junior contributor than themselves.
One common arrogance of youth is to presume one knows enough to adequately judge the qualities of the old. I'm not really old yet, but I've learned as I've left youth behind is that I didn't know nearly as much as I thought I did, and that I didn't even recognize that I needed to learn much of what I've learned. In fact you should respect older co-workers, not give them a blank check of course, but respect them. You don't know what wisdom they may have.
I often don't like the choices people make, but I like the fact that people make choices. That's why I'm a conservative.
Examples:
A year's tuition, room & board at my alma mater (a private school) is about 40% higher than it was when I was a student there - 9 years ago. That outpaces inflation by a good margin. Have starting salaries for the position I got out of college gone up 40% over that same time period? Somehow I doubt it.
My wife has a Master's degree (for about 4 years now), and her annual salary is half of the outstanding balance on the loan she had to take out to get that degree to get the job (state school for her undergrad work, private for her Master's). And she gets paid better than 75% of people in our area in similar positions. So no, the "well, go somewhere that will pay you more" mantra doesn't hold here - there is nowhere else for her to go to get more money in her field.
Here's a nice example of why the current generation has no loyalty to its employers.
I work in the same place my father did. He's been working at the same company for 25 years. When he got there there was a clear expectation that it was a place where you could develop a carreer, and the company made efforts to retain employees. Good maternal/paternal leave, extended health benefits, country club, child care, discounts for many vacation places, gifts for employees' children for Christmas (I recall they were amazing gifts; I got a chemistry set and a bicycle on two of those years), a baby shower gift package for newborns with towels, diapers and food.
20 years later, and all of that has completely vanished. One generation later and none of that is to be seen, and I doubt if there's some corporation today that has such an extensive benefits package on what once were excellent benefits but were considered within the norm.And the thing is, some of those benefits didn't add up to that much monetarily, but they did at least give the impression that the company took extra steps to take care of you.
So, tell me again, why do these people deserve my loyalty now when it is clear that I could be laid off any minute without them looking back?
First of all, you certainly seem to be in the minority, judging from the figures I've seen over the past few years.
Second of all, I have to ask what you consider your "fair share", because if it's more than 300x what I made that year, I can tell you for certain it's not "fair".
Third, unless you're running a very small company (which is, of course, entirely possible), you are not personally responsible for procuring 100% of the business.
Now, don't get me wrong: unlike many slashdotters, I believe that someone with really good management skills can make a *huge* difference to a company or whatever fraction thereof he is given charge of. But you can't pretend that executive compensation in America, in general, is anything short of insane right now. Executives get brought in, proceed to take the company boldly into completely the wrong direction, lose it billions of dollars, and are sent packing with a "golden parachute" worth more money than my gross income combined over my entire lifespan.
You may very well be different. And, in all honesty, that might be the exception, and not the rule: I haven't done exhaustive research to come up with statistics on it. But I do know that the average executive salary is more than the average worker's salary by a greater percentage than (I believe) it ever has been in the past—including during the Gilded Age before there were any labour laws.
Don't even try to claim that this is the way it should be.
Dan Aris
Fun. Free. Online. RPG. BattleMaster.
Who gives a fuck? Show up to work on time. Stop texting during 15 minutes meetings. Basically STFU and do your job well enough so that I trust you to make your own decisions. Stop questioning everything because at the end of the day your MySpace page experience is bullshit.
This
so let me get this straight.
You were in chicago AS A STUDENT. And you are saying that you got 12k a year in SURPLUS. Which means that you were living off of debt, but also aren't including the cost of board, and possibly student meals in this. SURPLUS. This is a huge difference from taxed salary- You were bringing in $1000 tax free dollars a month, AFTER ROOM AND BOARD, UTILITY FREE. OF COURSE you could afford suits, cds, and international trips, just as could anyone else who makes 12k a year beyond what they need for housing, utilities, food, etc.
Your words would hold much more weight if you were actually paying your own way, as opposed to running up massive amounts of debt. If I ran up 12K in credit card debt a year, I'm sure I'd have some nice stuff as well and some great experiences. And then I'd basically be in indentured servitude for many many years paying that off.
You're right, I'm sure the reason your manager is clueless is because he's old. No doubt he was a whiz bang product manager when he was your age, and it's just been downhill ever since.
Or maybe he's just a dumbass. Yeah, I know it doesn't make the story quite as juicy...
I'm an old fart who's been in this industry for a quarter century. About a year ago I started working at a company with a lot of young'uns just a few years out of school. I have never worked with a smarter, more creative group of people in my career. Sure, they don't feel much job loyalty, but who can blame them, given corporate behavior in recent years. These people are hard-working and dedicated, and they give me hope for the future.
No sig? Sigh...
And I'll be the guy who spends the fun years of his life sipping drinks on a beach, getting laid a lot. I'll worry about being old when I'm old.
Think of it this way - you're going to have 20 years of fun - would you like them when you're young and virile, or old and dying?
BTW, I agree with you 100%. But it's not going to change as most people are too afraid of jeopardizing their job to do what is necessary to bring income disparity back to a sane level. Part of this can be blamed on union-busting (as well as the questionable efficacy of some unions), part of it can be blamed on the cabal of execs/large stockholders who appoint eachother to high-paying positions.
We'll see what happens as the US economy sits in the shitter for a few years -- it's possible that workers may be able to reclaim some of the losses of the past two decades... but I doubt it. The people calling the shots are nearly untouchable, as they control the corporations, the media, the government, and the banking system. (Note that I'm not a conspiracy theorist... "the people" I refer to are a diverse group and not some backroom org). The class divide in the US is real, and it's not going anywhere.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
One of you guys/gals at Slashdot might consider writing some Perl
or Python to check posted links for GNAA troll links tacked onto redirects,
or some variation on that theme.
Good Luck...
google "32 trillion offshore needs IRS attention"
I really question the usefulness of this type of article. One can no more make accurate blanket statements about an age demographic than one could about an ethnic demographic. We don't see articles about what types of risks Latino workers pose to an IT infrastructure. No one would touch that with a ten foot pole. If anyone asked me to make such an assessment, I'd point out that people are all individuals, and I could easily point to good and bad examples from any given group. People should be assessed on their own merits, and not prejudged before they even act based on membership in some arbitrary category.
But while anything that could be perceived as bashing a gender or ethnic group is off limits, the age demographics are still fair game apparently. Why? What useful information is to be gained by collecting anecdotal evidence, and then posting this type of "kids these days..." article? Should IT people treat workers differently based on age? Certainly not! Should hiring practices be informed by this type of article? I think that would be a mistake.
I can't wait for the article that tells me not to hire Caucasian lesbians between the ages of 30 and 45, because they spend all day downloading episodes of The L Word on Bit Torrent.
I'd prefer that I be judged on what I do or don't do, rather than someone's perception of my "group"... whatever that is.
I don't know how old you are. My daughter is 26 and I noticed that she and her friends value friendships more than careers. Much more than my generation did. They also value the quality of life more. Meaning, life doesn't revolve around career or the job. Yes, they'll spend time and $$$ training and learning, but it's not the end all like my generation. I busted my ass in my career and so did my friends. My career is meaningless now and all of my "friends" have moved on.
My sixty-something year old business school professor who teaches strategy and entrepreneurship, who started five companies over his career and took three of them to publicly traded, told us this as we neared the completion of our MBA program: Business is a game like football and baseball, it is not a life. Life revolves around your family and friends. If you are constantly working late and weekends, then you are probably doing something wrong and need to figure out what that is. A better plan can save your business, more hours probably will not.
if god forbid you have a chronic or congenital condition - heart murmur, asthma, family history of anything at all, severe allergy to something or other.
Really. From experience: private health insurance isn't worth the paper it's written on, and your rates will screw you if there is anything that they can call a risk... or worse yet, you get "coverage" and then they claim that everything under the sun is "related to a pre-existing condition" and force you to go into court to try to get them to pay, knowing they can run the clock for fucking years before having to present you with your check and hoping that you'll give up after the umpteenth appeal their army of shysters^H^H^H^H^H demonic assholes^H^H^H^H^H^H lawyers file.
Shop around for doctors like you do anything else
It's the emergency stuff I most worry about. There's nothing worse than sitting in the emergency room and being told by the nurse that you have to talk to the insurance company's lawyer to get approval while you're coughing blood. And when it's an emergency, "shop around" doesn't apply.
That and the fact that you can't "shop around" for insurance. Every time you apply for insurance and get rejected, they stick it in the file and it's a black mark against you for future applications because the other companies go "hey, company X rejected, let's find out why using triplicate forms and make sure it takes longer than they're willing to spend time on to even apply for ours."
That is, assuming you can use a beach then without the use of SPF50, an umbrella, a tent, heavy blanket, and possibly concrete shielding.
Semi-moral of story; while saving for your future is important, you'd better enjoy the benefits of life today, because those same benefits may not be there tomorrow!
Where are we going, and why am I in this handbasket?
As a Gen-Yer I'd like to serve as a counter-data-point to your assertion.
I get around the dichotomy of work and friends simply by choosing not to have too much stuff. Everyone else in my dorm (I'm a 19-ish freshman in university, comp sci major) have big gaming machines, XBox 360s, Playstation 3s, and HD-TVs. They have toys, and that was the chief reason I've never fit in with them. I only got a new laptop this year because my 2001 Dell desktop experienced its 5th critical hardware failure last June and had a 20GB hard drive. I still use my old Nintendo 64 and bought a Wii out of my own resources, but I don't actually own my own television. I don't own a car either, and plan to save money on insurance and gas by not buying one until I absolutely can't avoid it. Most money I get by gifts or jobs, I save or invest. By the end of my college degree I'll probably have had the grades to transfer to a much better school, but will have passed up the opportunity to avoid student loans. My big luxury this summer, as I'll probably live away from home with a job, will be to buy fresh food instead of the cheaper prepared crap.
So while, like many kids my age, I get a lot of help from my parents, I might just have the resources to go totally independent when out of college. It's called saving and not indulging in unnecessary luxuries, and it doesn't exactly require working 50 hours a week.