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Is IT Work Getting More Stressful, Or Is It the Millennials?
dcblogs writes: A survey of IT professionals that has been conducted in each of the last four years is showing an increase in IT work stress levels. It's a small survey, just over 200 IT workers, and it doesn't account for the age of the respondents. But some are asking whether Millennials, those ages 18 to 34, are pushing up stress levels either as IT workers or end users. The reason Millennials may be less able to handle stress is that they interact with others in person far less than other generations do, since most of their social interactions have been through Internet-based, arms-length contact, said Billie Blair, who holds a doctorate in organizational psychology. This generation has also been protected from many real-life situations by their parents, "so the workplace tends to be more stressful for them than for others," she said. Others are wondering if Millennials are more demanding of IT workers. Millennials are also expert users, and "are no longer in awe of technology specialists and therefore demand higher service levels," said Mitch Ellis, managing director of executive search firm Sanford Rose Associates in St. Louis.
Lots of conclusions drawn from a very small sampling size, there may be some truth to these generalizations but I'd prefer to see more data.
Have a squat over at the hobo house.
It's important to say, IT people tend to be an isolated bunch to start with, but yeah, although I didn't apply the label "Millennials", it does seem that the young members of the team seem more ... brittle, I guess is the expression I'd use. And in IT, that's not a good thing.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
It's the millenials; they're much more stressed because they're so vulnerable to getting tasked for more and more work digitally. Just a few clicks, and their workload increases, where as my Gen X'ers just do what they want, and the Gen Y at least demand a visit before I pour more work on them.
Common core will solve everything!
I can see how an IT worker has had few social interactions, but that doesn't explain how IT users could be having those problems. Typical Facebook users likely have social lives outside of Facebook. I mean, I don't have a Facebook account and I don't have a social life at all.
It doesn't help that corporations are pushing for more H1-B visa workers. They'll likely pushing everyone harder: homegrown and as well as H1-B.
They drive up the stress levels for the rest of us, coming in thinking they know everything, implementing stupid fucking ideas that never pan out, then buggering off to another company before implementation is complete and without any strategy for support or long-term maintenance. Their turnover rates are routinely cited as reasons why our jobs are being shopped off shore, which just adds to the stress.
and the smaller the group the more irrelevant the resulting survey.
Millennials are also expert users...
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Uh huh.
Experts at texting, or using apps perhaps, but experts in how the underlying systems work is a pretty far stretch. For the Millennial generation, you really need a GUI Rapid Response Team vs an IT group to solve most of their issues. :|
Doesn't apply to all Millennials ( like any generation, there are always exceptions to the rule ) of course, but here's a hint:
Anyone who is calling a support line probably isn't an "expert" in the technology they're using.
It's stressful working for a doomed company. Most tech startups these days are doomed. Most millenials are the ones working at the tech startups.
Seems self-explanatory to me.
No.
Simply put, this study is really generally useless. IT has been around long enough that the stereotypical "IT Guy" is really more of a lampoon than an actual thing. For every neckbeard, there exist 10 IT professionals who are mature adults. The reason it is getting more stressful is ultimately because of intransigence in the managerial realm (i.e. "I'm not techie, but...." managerial mentality), and also because more and more with the whole BYOD bullshit, managing an IT department has become *harder* not easier. Before, I would need to support a known number of end-user platforms, with known capabilities and weaknesses. Today, I need to support not only desktops, but laptops, tablets, and phones. Of which, there are multiple OSes, multiple OS flavors, and limited options in central management.
And lazy, lack focus, and drive.
The survey, which started in 2012, just released its 2015 report, and found that of 78% of the IT workers surveyed consider their job stressful. That's up just 1% from 2014, but in 2013 the figure was 57% and in 2012, 67%.
Their numbers are jumping all over the place. I also don't see how they can jump to any conclusions regarding Millennials in the workplace after only four years with such a small sample, and they don't break it out by age group.
Someone needed to fill a column with some words - so here are some words. Come back next week for more words in this column
So are we saying that the millenials aren't a bunch of entitled rude asses?
Mean what you say...say what you mean.
I think some of it is the demand that everything work, all the time, without any room for maintenance while at the same time not being willing to pay for the resources to deliver systems that can provide that.
This post has no insight. It is just a generational hate post...
Give me a break. They have a high percentage of clueless users like any other generation.
During the recession, many firms cut jobs and made 10 people do the work of 15. That saves money and resulted in no quantifiable loss in productivity of the group, so the firms never rehired the people they got rid of. How would this not be a more stressful work environment?
Or maybe its all the crap, half baked technology being used over the last few years. I think we are sort of in a time period like the mid/late 90's where everyone was shoveling garbage windows apps out the door before they were done baking (and win9x itself was a pile of crap).
It seems to me, that over half the "web stacks" are just steaming piles of unfinished garbage. Same with a lot of the core infrastructure technologies that are all the hotness (see docker, openstack, etc).
So, its no wonder these things get stressful, someone hits a bug and suddenly they are trying to fix software that is way over their head on a deadline.
It had to be said.
This is just clickbait/inconclusive.
Let me think about what else could be different between now and 4 years ago... I know my current stress is the sole byproduct of the simple fact that business is booming and there's too much work. My workday was a little more mellow 4 years ago, coming off the tail end of an economic meltdown.
"Do more with less, and with fewer coworkers with less experience. You have four weeks of paid vacation, but no backup (fewer coworkers, less experience), so if there's a problem, you need to fix it on vacation, so your vacation needs to be a stay-cation." -New corporate management motto.
morale = morale - 4
Except for a few top guys and the occasional person who wins the lottery in life pay is what is was 20 years ago after 20 years of inflation. Companies are merging left and right and everytime they do it's another round of layoffs. Offshoring and onshoring (via H1-B) are nuts. If you work in IT you're probably seeing something like a 70% Indian workforce with only the occasional American to fill a spot when they ran out of visas. Meanwhile it's a statisical fact that productively is way way up, meaning you're doing more work. Even if the tools are better it still means you're responsible for a hell of a lot more. How the hell would that _not_ be stressful?
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
That's what being young is about. Not knowing when to not be a shithead. You were once like that too, we all were.
Many places are trying to adopt styles/methods/etc that are well suited to a startup in manic phase. They don't seem to realize that you can't keep this up indefinitely. Just dump bodies in the meat grinder, and code comes out the other end.
"To those who are overly cautious, everything is impossible. "
I've seen it time and again, with the people around me who insisted to spawn child processes. The mix of helicopter parents who would not only ensure no "bad" experience would ever happen to their little precious but also made certain that anyone not seeing their brat as the special snowflake they are will get their banshee like fury, coupled with a school system that promoted feeling good and "everyone's a winner", where you would already get rewarded for showing up, whether you can actually accomplish anything or are essentially a useless waste of oxygen, that can only lead to a VERY hard fall when they come into contact with reality.
These people are by definition not going to be able to handle stress, or even any kind of frustrating experience, well. They are by no means prepared to it. And no, that's not true for everyone born in this age of overprotectionism, but it's never been as bad as it is today.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
So, yes...milenials are more immersed in technology, and have a better handle on how to use it, but that doesn't mean they have an understanding of how it works. To call every 20 year old with a cell phone an expert in mobile communications devices is a gross exaggeration. If they're more demanding its because they're used to it just being there...like water or electricity.
izm
I'm in my thirties. I can attest that twenty somethings freak out like little bitches and make non-issues into epic sources of pointless, unnecessary stress.
Just like they did when I was a twenty something.
Just like the 40+ crowd did when they were twenty-something.
Just like they have been doing for generations.
You're seriously talking about kids who have just left University of Daycare and are stepping into the big bad real world for the first time. They're not established. They don't have stable careers. They have no real life experience. Give 'em a decade and I'm sure we'll be treated to another asinine buzzword declaring that yet another generation is completely incomprehensible to everyone in spite of simple human nature being very easily understood.
I'm `100% sure that is the Millenials that are causing the stress!!!
And for the record, we who have been in the industry long enough to remember a time without all these resources - we who are decidedly not "Digital Natives" - we're the ones who created FaceBox, YouScreen and WhoBook et. al. And we still have a much older word for "Digital Natives" - we still call 'em "n00bz".
is the epitome of annoying
Millenials are part of the pampered generations.
Millenial mindsets include:
I'm a winner
I'm special
I get everything I want with no effort on my part.
The world owes me everything.
It's because of the "gosh, someone might feel bad if only 1 person can win" or "You can't say anything to hurt poor Suzy's feelings, regardless of how bad she is, or how poorly she's doing in class" or "Nobody gets held back, that might bruise their ego" attitudes that our society as a whole is sliding into the abyss, just like the government wants.
The government wants these and later generations to just expect free money, free food, free housing and obey their overlords in every way, while they do the absolute minimum to earn their keep.
Stress in the workplace has always existed. Granted, this generation tends to communicate more but using tools such as Instagram and Twitter where the communications are short, don't convey much information and are non-personal. Granted, the older generation used email (after the memo went the way of the dinosaur)- primarily to put the discussion into a more formal written form. The phone or in-person conversation allows one to hear the emotion and concerns of the other party. It's easier to resolve issues when speaking with the other parties than to try to hash it out over email or some chat technology for all but the simplest of issues.
The other night, there was the discussion on why hiring an older person wasn't such a good idea with one person insinuated they (older workers) wouldn't work late nights on a regular basis to get the project done. Someone with experience knows that proper planning and design can alleviate most of those late night coding cycles. As such, they are inclined to find a better balance between home and work and still get their work done without burning the candle at both ends. They also know when late night exercises ARE useful or necessary.
What we old fogies have a hard time dealing with is being treated (along with our coworkers) like a disposable napkin. Workplaces that foster that attitude coupled with limited human interactivity breeds stress. And, that stress doesn't know generational boundaries.
Millennials aren't young any more. They're in their late 20s now, and some are even in their mid-30s. These people became legal adults well over a decade ago. They have kids who are in school, for crying out loud. They aren't young.
Workplace fun has all been drummed out of existence, for better or worse. Way back when companies had more picnics, beer bashes, and tolerated more hooliganism as ways to build teams and blow off steam. Those "good old days" had issues too, but the point is that fun has been squeezed out which also reduces chances for new guys to be brought into the fold and gel with the company.
All that said, this sounds a lot like another round of blaming the new generation for being inferior to the last one. Just as every previous generation has been judged as been inferior, and as will continue in perpetuity.
but hey lets blame the kids!
When I started out, before "Millennials" were someone's dream, things were much easier, a degree was optional. I am still programming and all I and my coworkers hear about is "you need to get this or that certification and watch to this or that on-line training", most of which is a big waste of time. So yes, more stress now because it seems these days 90% of your work hours you are dealing with corporate BS. Most of my co-workers these days do "real work" on their own time, leaving less time for their own life. Many years ago people would work OT because they wanted to due to the fact one would be dealing with an interesting IT issue, now not so much. (posting AC for a reason )
Some highlites:
I had one who wouldn't answer his phone. He insisted that he be texted. I put up with that for a few days, but eventually told him he had a choice of responding to my phone calls, or I would personally pay him a visit every time I needed to interact with him. If a person cannot interact except with text, he needs to get a job that requires only yes or no answers.
Another who would panic every time I spoke with him. This guy was bizarre. I can tell a person to go to hell in such a nice way that they look forward to the trip, but he just couldn't interact properly.
Another guy who went batshit nuts on me when I pointed at his laptop screen. He's busy screaming about "Dont touch my screen! I'm not going to tell you again!" I was so shocked at that inappropriate outburst that I was actually silenced for a few seconds.
Then there was the young lady who we hired, and immediately after getting hired, she goes on a month and a half vacation (unpaid of course) during the year she worked with us, she went on around 3 and a half months vacation, spent most of her time on Facebook, and wouldn't interact with anyone unless absolutely necessary. She quit after a year to go live at home because she found work too stressful.
There were other experiences, but those were the most unbalanced ones.
In general though, they have a tendency to come into the workplace with some overblown expectations, expecting very little interaction to people other than "their friends", and those via texting or facebook updates. They also have a rather exaggerated opinion of their own technical prowess, most believing that anyone of their parents age or older have very little clue about anything, and none whatsoever about computing. At best, we were there to provide support for them.
Amazingly enough, most were looking for a promotion and big raise after a year
The two who we the exception were both young ladies, who were simply incredible. One who was a talented illustrator, and also had a great work ethic. The other was simply amazing, who would finish her work, accurately, on time or sooner, and then ask if there was anything else she could do. I expect to see both as leaders some day.
We might ask why this happens?
One of the biggest culprits IMO, is the self esteem movement. Children were and are being told they are special (and they are) and taught to think very higly of themselves. from an early age these days.
What could be wrong with that?
One of the first things is that people with real self esteem issues tend to have those issues no matter how much "uplifting encouragement" they get. Its a neurosis.
Then we have the rest of the children. Its good not to hate yourself, and no doubt. But real self esteem comes from accomplishments, and not being told how special you are at every chance. High esteem with no real accomplishments is not a good combination. It tends to make you think that life is a sprint, and not a marathon.REal self esteem comes from doing good work and accomplishments, not being told you are special all the time.
Then we have the parents. Parents want the best for their children, but since the rise of the helicopters, and especially the dreaded blackhawk mother, (this is the one who does their children's homework for them so they can take their special classes out of school) We have parents who simply refuse to allow their children to grow up. Ever see those diaper commercials showing 6 year olds? Helicopter fodder.
So now we have the cellular//smartphone. The helicopters can now keep in constant contact and control of ther children. It's completely insane on college campuses now. These children are physical adults, but not at all mature. A friend who is a cou
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
I don't take much stock in this story due to such a small sample size, limited history, and that the numbers over the history of it don't even show a trend at this point.
Still, the "mystery" of IT has been diminishing for years as most people are at least familiar with computers now. The days of the BOFH are more or less over. So most people have a hard time accepting "I can't do what you want because digital Zeus says it can't be done". Everyone needs their own phone, OS, program, or whatever.
The younger generations are also always lazier than the older ones. It was true when the baby-boomers were young, then gen-x, and now millenilals. In some ways it's true. It takes a few years to develop a good work ethic. But it's often that the newest generation just has a different way of doing things because they view the world differently.
What's up with generalizing whole age groups nowadays? It seems like demonizing younger workers is a rising trend and younger workers will ultimately suffer more because people start interactions with these ludicrous presumptions about young workers' personalities and abilities. Judge people based on what they do, not on stereotypes based on their age, gender or race.
I'm well under 30 and when I enter a new workplace, every now and then I come across these silly presumptions about my abilities because of my young age. People think I sit all day browsing Facebook and Tweeting when in fact I absolutely hate that. I've had some excellent old pros teach me a trick or two along the way so I'm not clueless about how things have been in the past, both good and bad. The funny thing is when I finally get to show my abilites through hard work, some people start to become hostile and fear for their own positions or that I make them look bad.
I see a lot of similarities in this with the way people assume beautiful women can't be both beautiful and have excellent skills in whatever their area of expertise is.
But a lot of the IT people I talk to haven't had a vacation in years. Suggest that they take one and you get a stunned pause and then you can actually sense the wave of relief coming off them as they start to think about it. I took a three day weekend skydiving down in Phoenix after going about three years without a vacation and the change to my outlook was amazing. Taking time off and staying in town doesn't seem to have the same effect.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Someone give this coward some insightful points. Well said.
I've been in IT support since 1997, the users today are just as dependent as they always have been. The comment, "Millennials are also expert users...", is BS. P&G hires a lot of college interns and they hardly know how to use a computer beyond surfing the web and yet the company is pushing for more and more self support options. They tell the users to use a website to unlock/change their password and not to call the helpdesk as they will be charged for the helpdesk to unlock/reset passwords...we see a few people every day needing password help, from young to old. Millennials are becoming more demanding but only because they don't want to have to support themselves or figure something out, they just want it resolved and don't want to hear that it will take time. As far as the "awe" goes, users are still in awe of repairs even when you just reseated the battery on a laptop to get it to power on, IT support has mostly always been treated as "the help".
I saw the string "n00bz" and its variations online in the days of dial up at 1200 baud and bang path emailing. I even used it myself once or twice. I didn't see or use it IRL though. We were treated like rock stars by the users. This was probably partly due to the low hanging fruit of a 25 person administrative office and no computers or "ceremonial" computers running a single industry-specific application.
I'd go in after office hours and locate the trash baskets with the most adding machine tape. The next day I'd sit the user for an hour and bring in a computer running Lotus 123 or that Borland app whose name I forget. and show them how to use it. It was not uncommon to cut the labour time in half. A month or so later when we were implementing a custom-written app with changes in the code written the night before and the um .... occasional... user-annoying bug. The users were our friends and partners.
The kids today on our first level support are occasional treated like crap by users/customers. Important executive is outraged because his new mobile has email on it he specifically remembers deleting on his old one. I know the sample size is less than TFA but my feeling is they are not stressed and don't hate their jobs. I do sense more stress in middle managers and the folks that the customers bitch to when they are unhappy with the service.
I was an early adopter of all the Usenet.die.die, mud, etc. I even used ICqueue. Today - I have a gmail account, /. and perhaps one or two other blogs.
I'm still employed by the same company for almost 30 years and I have NO stress in my job.
Speaking from the perspective of someone from generation X. Millianials can be frustrating especially when trying to build IT projects to deliver applications.
At their heart they believe there are a multitude of paths and there are no right ways. There push to not define standards and they fight attempts to bring standards.
I have a few thoughts of my own on the subject, based on my own work situation, and they don't quite line up with theirs.
First off, yes... I would say that at least for our workplace, stress levels in I.T. have generally increased over the last few years. (I work as part of a 4 person I.T. team for a marketing firm that has several locations strategically placed around the country, close to the majority of clients they have or want.)
Marketing is definitely a business where lots of millennials are hired. Our I.T. group and upper management are really the only people in the company of an older generation than that, other than a few random exceptions.
But to claim the I.T. stress levels are correlated with the millennial generation's lack of in-person communication skills? No... at least for our industry, that's not the case at all. You can't be successful working in marketing for us if you're not an exceptionally good in-person communicator. I know I'm far less comfortable chatting up random people in social situations than any of the millennials we've got working as creative directors, producers, designers, etc. Maybe we're constantly hiring the exceptions to the rule because of the nature of the business ... but regardless, that's the situation for the people our I.T. group supports.
Where I see stress levels climbing has more to do with people expecting more and more from the computerized tools they're given. For example, when I started working for these guys, several of our offices literally spent 90% of their day buried in Outlook. Everything revolved around email correspondence and scheduling meetings or appointments. Sure, they had the occasional need for the rest of the Office suite (especially PowerPoint or Keynote for our Mac users, if they were preparing a presentation for a client), but the vast majority of support calls or issues were "Why did my email bounce?", "It says my mailbox is full!", "I can't find this message I know I saved someplace in here earlier today.", or "So and so received my calendar invite 3 times in a row for some reason." Stuff like that, along with trouble opening various email attachments they received.....
Looking at how things have evolved now? We ran into issues where some of the huge Word templates they use regularly to produce client proposals got too big to keep editing reliably inside Word. (Lots of copy/pasted graphics in them and all that.) So we now paid for a cloud based service designed just for such proposals. Instead of constantly filling mailboxes with email attachments getting shared around, we set up DropBox for Teams so I.T. creates any of the "top level" folders anyone requests and makes sure the proper folks are given read or read/write access to those shared resources. As we've grown, the Finance department required better automation so they could process all the invoices in a timely manner as offices generate them. So they put in dedicated scanning stations at each office with document capture software that goes to "watched folders", with special software that can toss them into their accounting system as it sees new ones appear. The original few, designated office people with copies of Adobe Acrobat (full version, not reader) kept growing as more users saw the benefits of being able to actually edit a PDF document on their Windows PC (or saw Mac users doing it natively with Preview and asked why they can't have the same capabilities). So that led to buying Creative Cloud with user accounts I.T. again has to manage.
On top of that, one of the offices is trying to get more serious about offering in-house video rendering capabilities instead of outsourcing it all the time, so now we're starting to build and support a rendering farm and high end video packages on the clients.
What we haven't done is hire a single new I.T. staffer to help with any of this.... We push for it all the time (especially when one of us is out sick or on vacation and the pressure is really on). But at the end of the day, manag
I've been :
Lured to a permanent position and fired during the trial period for something that should have been factured on a project basis
Forced to accept to live in a motel for months and working crazy hours because the company was paying a premium and expecting it but i was subcontracted i was not.
Harassed to leave without compensations. Explaining me that else they would fire me for an imaginary fault and that i would have to reverse the charges.
Actually twice, the first time i took it to court, but the second time knowing the stress and lawyer costs, i just asked for a low compensation amount.
Being described a job as integrating new customers into the company IT, in fact i had to put everything in place for one then train foreign
peoples so they could take my job.
Basically none of this would have been a problem if i knew beforehand so i could reject the offer and not leave some good job, been working in corrects conditions or paid accordingly to a short contract or difficult position.
Obviously in the middle you get crazy, angry, buzzwords managers. Reverse pyramid organizations with more CxO than "subcontracted" workers. But i think this part always existed.
I fell that the IT world is sooo fucked up.
Back in the 90s, IT people were magicians. Now they are plumbers. So much of today's infrastructure relies 100% on IT support -- people can't just write it down, or file it manually. IT folk are in charge of a giant, critical piece of the everyday workload. But expectations are that it will just work, and that things will keep moving forward as new technologies arise. Back in the day, IT could handle an entire 500 person company with 2 or 3 people -- it was all printers and email. Now it's files and databases and remote access and web apps and mobile apps and security and policies.
The IT folk who are more stressed are the ones who haven't staffed up. I've no comment on the younger set...I'll defer to Socrates as people have suggested.
From my experience nothing has changed in 20 odd years. The same insane schedules, clueless managers, evil marketing people, etc. still rule the day. Nothing ever changes. The same mistakes made 20 years ago are made over and over again. People come along offering to make things easier with a magic bullet, and it works as they get rich and it makes their lives easier.
As far as 'Millennials' go from my experience it is a mixed bag, some are good and some aren't. There is the natural over exuberance and naiveté but after a few years of Software Development Hell (or perhaps 'Ground Hog Day') we manage to beat that out of them.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
I think that IT work is getting more stressful, but that is only one factor among many for the increase in stress. Some of it is that there is no longer easy money for easy IT work, like there was during the dot com boom, some of it is that millennials really do have an inflated sense of entitlement, and some of it is that the economy is pushing management to demand more in terms of results while those results are getting more difficult to measure. Contemporary IT work involves a lot of very complex web-based work where the tools really are inadequate. There's a fabulous opportunity for someone who can fix the Internet.
Bring Your Own Device definitely makes things more complicated, but that has nothing to do with the age of workers.
When I was a kid, we didn't have any of those sissy antibiotics. When we got sick, our grandmothers would perform extreme unction on us and then leave us on the roof overnight. If we were strong enough to climb down in the morning we got breakfast. If not, we got buried. It made us learn the meaning of a dollar, because for a dollar my sister would bring me a snack up there and leave the ladder against the side of the house. And there was none of this mp3 youtube nonsense. If we wanted music, we had burn the barn down and dance to the crackling fire. I can still beatbox a three-alarm blaze. And sex? We didn't have sex. We just set the women folk up on the roof and if they had the strength to climb down in the morning, grandpa would take them out to the barn and make them pregnant. And that also taught us the meaning of a dollar, because for a dollar, he'd let us hide under the hayloft to watch for Zeus to appear in the shape of a bull to impregnate the females. And if any of us showed any visible signs of arousal, we got beaten with a sickle and our parts were left on the roof to die.
The kids these days don't know how good they got it with their quarter million dollar school loans to prepare them for jobs that don't exist or go to internet scammers in Bangalore. They don't realize how lucky they are not to have to worry about privacy any more, because by god there is none. They make me sick, with their rising sea levels and paint thinner in the water supply and multinational tech companies tracking their every movement. Because when I was a kid, my total lack of self-awareness convinced me that I got where I am today only because of my hard work and talent.
You are welcome on my lawn.
It's not the Millenials. They're a bit more demanding, yes, but not significantly so compared to all the other groups of clueless users I've dealt with over the last 3 decades. Mostly they can be dealt with by telling them that I'd love to be able to do what they want but management's refused to allow it so they need to go talk to $AppropriateExecutive and convince him to change the policies on it. That gets them out of my hair.
Mostly the stress comes from management wanting more and more from fewer people with fewer resources, less funding and lower salaries. Instead of being skeptical, they buy into the salespeople's lies completely and then yell at IT when what was delivered doesn't do what was promised and never will. And gods help you if you do manage to prove the salesperson lied, because then it's your fault management bought into it. This from management's not a new thing, I've watched it growing since the early 90s.
There's a book about generational cycles called Generations that talks about how there is a 4 generation cycle that repeats itself every 80 years or so cause by shared life experiences that are shaped primarily by the emotional and attitudes of society in general and their parents in particular. So, the Millenials have been shaped in attitude by 9/11, the current international conflicts, and their parents' reactions to these events.
It's called Strauss-Howe generaitonal theory. Each generation is one of 4 types (the wikipedia page has the basics, the book is interesting). So what we have is the departure of the Baby boomers from the work force and the arrival of the Millenials and the maturing of Gen X from young adult to mature adult. With this change comes a change of attitude. So, most likely what we are experiencing (saying this as an X'er) is Gen X taking the reigns from the Boomers, and establishing efficiency and control mechanisms on the work place, within a Crisis Turning. Sometime early in the next decade, the next turning will start, as the last boomers turn 65 and we will begin a new High cycle, much like the period between the end of World War II and The assassination of JFK, the bookends of the last High.
They predicted our current Crisis environment (I read their later book, the Fourth Turning, from 1997) with a start date between 2000 & 2005, 18-23 years from 1982, the beginning of the last Turning.
"nearly a decade with Windows Server 2012" old man getting senile
Old resume joke...
I find it's the millennials that are getting more stressful.
-Dave
Bad example, this was written just before the collapse of the Athenian empire, so the guy had a point. Socrates himself was tried and executed by the invading forces.
Totally historically inaccurate, but let's address whether it's a bad example; it's not.
Actually, it's a great example.
The current article was written just before the collapse of the American empire.
Way to miss the joke, shit stain.
It's like in 1995 when they were looking for people with eight years of experience in Java....
We had very similar childhoods it seams. I'd like to add one thing.
When I was in my college years and facing a banking crisis and economic downturn upon graduation I thought: "It could be worse. I have it so much better than my grandfathers and great-uncles who spent their childhood years in the great depression and their college-age years fighting from Normandy to Germany and Guadalcanal to Japan." Literally, front lines, not in the rear with the gear. Growing up around people who actually did have a tough life gave me some perspective on mine.
Bad example, this was written just before the collapse of the Athenian empire, so the guy had a point. Socrates himself was tried and executed by the invading forces.
Good grief, all you have to do is read Plato's "The Apology" to see that your claim is pure bullshit. Nothing is even close to correct in your statement.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
The latest generation works harder, for longer hours, ...
Not according to what my grandparents have told me.
The last 5,000 years of history shows that improved technology increases worker productivity given the same worker effort.
Grossly exaggerated and mis-stated but true for the post WWII era, which is a very very small portion of even US History. However in its proper perspective a valid point.
They're stressed because they're being fucked AND blamed for it at the same time.
Its dishonest to say they have no contribution to the problem. There are genuine problems related to social skills, focus, entitlement, etc. Every generation leaves college thinking they know everything and have to get slapped upside the head and told know you don't. To be told that at best all you've done is show a potential to learn, now do this job for 10 years and we'll re-evaluate how much you know. Part, and I admit this is only part of the problem, is that past generations had an easier time adjusting to this reality.
And to be honest this generation is not lost. With a sufficiently hard slap upside the head they can get past all that coddling and hippie BS. Those who got such a wakeup in the military have shown that they can perform as well as those of previous generations. For the rest, coming to grips with reality will just take longer than past generations.
Humans weren't built to sit in a cube routing reports and pounding on a keyboard for 8-10 hours a day, which is what the daily dredge of IT often entails when things aren't on fire. Couple that with unrealistic corporate expectations, the jaded way management approaches their "resources" (since it sounds more humane to slash resources off of your payroll than it does to slash an employee) about everything, many individuals break down under the pressure. Some people don't have the mental fortitude to withstand it and maintain a healthy lifestyle after being mentally and emotionally drained by their peers and clients at work.
These same people become depressed and ineffective as resources. Sometimes this even leads to a mental and career death spiral. I've seen it happen firsthand, and I myself often question if that's not the out for me, too. It's even worse if you're part of an IT firm: not only are you on the hook for maintaining infrastructure of several businesses, but then you often need to worry about sales to keep yourself competitive with your peers.
I can only hope something will cave and bring reform to the corporate work environment for an IT worker, but
They seem to feel "owed" by society a job, and to be treated nicely and fairly.
These are reasonable expectations of a functioning society. That these expectations are considered to be ridiculously entitled is a reflection on society rather than the people who hold them.
Only because you do not understand the true context of the original statement. Perhaps it was stated poorly, but the job they feel they are owed is the type of job they aspire too. So not "job" in general but "aspirational job". Previous generations had an easier time accepting that they will start with a non-aspirational job, have to spend time proving themselves and outperform others to get such aspirational jobs.
To look at it another way, if we don't aspire to a fair and just society where people who want to work can find work, then we've really lost the plot. Not to mention that work was easier to find back in the day, and perhaps we are the entitled ones, begrudging the younger ones wanting what we had on a plate.
Right because this is the first post-WWII generation to graduate amid a banking crisis and/or economic downturn. Not.
I didn't always get congratulated JUST for trying
Noticing children's effort rather than results is better for producing successful adults, as it instils perseverance rather than a sense that your skills are innate and immutable.
Perseverance gets you a handshake and a "good game" not a trophy. Making the olympic team gets you a congratulations and a "very well done" not a medal.
Most Millennials never got a real ass kicking growing up. Their sheltered lives have protected them from traumatic experiences as children, making them ill equipped as adults to handle the typical pressures of everyday life.
Come on GenXers, let's drive this world into the toilet before the millennials have a chance to make it a happy safe place where we can share our feeling through social media.
My actual statement to TFA is that it's impossible to measure so impossible to make any such claims. I don't know anyone that has worked in the IT industry and become successful without putting in loads of work early in their career. I spent about a decade working damn near every waking hour. Everyone I know in IT was doing the same thing at about the same time/age.
Claiming this generation works harder is a bullshit generalization, just like claiming my generation worked harder would be a bullshit generalization. I know some millennials that put in a lot of work, but I see quite a few that don't as well. I don't expect them to last long working in IT, because it takes a shit ton of work to gain enough skills to become a commodity.
The second part that becomes impossible to measure is how I rate people I no longer work with? After 30 years of work in IT I don't interface with entry level people very often. Do I have more knowledge than them? Absolutely, I have been at this for 30 years and am very good. Do I have to, or want to, work 90 hour weeks still? Hell no! I did my time in the trenches. Does that mean an entry level person does more than I do? No! Part of the reason I don't have to work 90 hour weeks is that I am more efficient than I was as an entry level person. My tasks are different today, but if I have to help someone with a bit of code I don't have to spend much time looking things up and experimenting.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
The point being made here is that there is nothing new under the sun. People pissing and moaning about *how times have changed* are full of it. Nothing has 'changed' except the pace of events.
You are having a forest and trees moment. Yes nothing changes, but the point is that when a society gets to the point that self-indulgence *greatly* exceeds a sense of duty and obligation to society then that society falls. Things sometimes change for the worse. And certain behaviors are a recurring theme prior to such changes.
I'm not saying we are there. For example many of those of the current generation who went into the military got past the coddling and fake trophies and perform as well as any other generation. And some have faced the hard realities of the present and learned to deal with it, getting past their upbringing. Maybe its more a matter of the current generation needing more time to adjust to reality since they were kept farther away from it.
IT is work getting more stressful. Three words: World Wide Web. Or if you prefer more detail: PHP, JavaScript, Content Management Systems, and malware ravaging the entire network looking for one more server with a hole in it.
The millenials are so used to instant gratification that they are completely unreasonable users.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
A DVD? I can remember applying patches with a soldering iron that ran on coal.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
...because the Tea Party took scalps . They defeated Republican incumbents in primaries. They ended political careers. That's what forced Republican office-holders to take them seriously.
As far as I can tell, an Occupy-backed candidate (if there even is such a thing) hasn't defeated a single Democratic incumbent. As such, the Democratic Party can continue to ignore them the way they ignore black voters.
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
I'm a good test case as I'm 36 now, and have worked in IT in the same institution since I was 20.
Early on in my career work stressed me out a lot more than it does today, even though today I am responsible for many more things.
I just think as you get older, the intensity of your emotions mellows out.
These stressed out Millennials are just...young.
I don't always use unix-like operating systems; but when I do, I prefer FreeBSD.
Parent poster is incredibly insightful (and articulate AND concise)! I wish I had mod points!!
Whether it's due to accelerating change, proximity, or whatever, there's arguably a pretty large difference even across those 10 years or so. Born in '79, I graduated HS in 1996, which puts me right at the borderline of Gen X and the early Gen Y's. I spent several years working at McDonald's before leaving college to work in the tech industry (just in time for the dot com implosion, natch).
I could more or less imagine friends of mine over the next few years also working at McDonald's... I can't imagine college friends now (born in the early/mid 90's) doing it -- it's seen as beneath them.
Hire a Linux system administrator, systems engineer,
I believe a lot of work is getting wasted too.
We see a large number of projects/technology companies that run out of business quickly.
A lot of their code is again rewritten. This leads to a lot of garbage in IT industry. They were all hard work of overworked IT industry people.
We are simply not able to understand that we are doing this, because they all pile up in a relatively small area (storage per physical area).
I'd say no, but we might be getting better at noticing?
However, first IT or the sought after upper the ladder tech jobs (not bullshit management), are for people with experience, and older. IT is no longer for people who dabble in it like when our generation started, but for more qualified people. Also due to the "economy", often one tech is doing the work of between 3 and 5 people and that accounts for more stress. People nowadays also worry too much about things that we consider minimal, and have to do a ruckus and a meeting for nothing, and for things that are routine. (...)
Mellenials may be whiners, yes. But I think there are two problems. There are also many companies that are trying to do more with less.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
Millennials are also expert users,
Brutha, please ...
They are users, sure. They have gadgets.
The same kind of people who were not nerdy enough to have gadgets when I was a kid all have gadgets now. That makes them users, not expert users, I assure you from painful experience.
The idea that "IT" itself has changed seems to underlie your post. I would agree with that entirely. Today, measuring by volume of jobs, IT typically means something like Geek Squad or a call center where you walk 60 ungrateful people each day through how to use Outlook. That type of work is not interesting or stimulating, or even a neutral get-'er-done laboring experience. It's straight up maddening. The atmosphere at the office is impersonal or non-existent. Your time is micromanaged to the extent that 100% of your shift is spent dealing with BS, apart from your legally-mandated breaks. Your supervisor isn't much better off, he hardly has time to exchange a couple of words as you walk by, much less an actual meeting. And forget about being promoted anywhere better yourself, because all those opportunities dried up after the corporate buyout.
Then there's the other stuff that people bring up all the time in these articles: stagnant wages, offshoring, and generally treating employees like shit. Being at the same company for 30 years is unheard of now. If you managed to get a foot in the door somewhere back in the 80s, and that company is still around and still valuing their employees, that's like having won the Powerball. The majority of IT jobs these days aren't designed to be liveable; it's only a matter of months before burnout sets in. Virtually no one makes it past single-digit years at the same job - low single digits. At my last employer of several hundred people, I could count the guys who had been there more than 3 years on one hand. "IT" has gone mainstream now that computers have crept into every aspect of every life. IT is the new fast food.
Small sample size without accounting for age ... and we make a sweeping age-related conclusion.
Seriously ?
"Consensus" in science is _always_ a political construct.
We are selfish and spoiled.
Of course it's fact that millenials are working mostly for boomers, which are a pain in the ass to work to with their lead poisoned, mentally challenged brains.
Kidding aside, it's actually harder for everyone, because there is simply more information. Actually not only in IT, but in other professions as well, just ask any representable self-employed.
Many choose to simply ignore a lot of information. Boomers may have it easier to ignore it, because it wasn't a core part of their life to begin with.
That tends to fuck up sooner or later though, I call this "borderline focussed worker syndrome".
Older people had it worse, back in my day we only had one setting for a bit. We only had zeros, ones were not invented until much later. Even after we actually had two setting for the bits, the bits had to flow uphill in the freezing cold on the way to and from the printing terminal, punch cards were a luxury.
My opinion, the real "work" isn't worse, it is the people that make the work harder. Mostly politics, impatient people, and lack of clear leadership.
I hear it all the time from vendors and at conferences. "IT is being expected to do more with less."
Our IT budget has been flat for five years, and we're supporting double the number of employees.
Do we have difficult users? Yes. I haven't noticed any correlation between difficulty and age, though.
of Basefuck & Cunty Crush
Probably due to the Dunning Krueger effect.
In other words, they whine until someone wipes their ass.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
The know nothing n00b mmell speaks but nobody listens or takes him seriously.
Millennials have never known anything but a 15 year recession, their entire working career. I wonder also if they breakdown stress levels by age. What kind of job in IT is an 18 year old working anyway? Where I work, after you have been there 20 years it seems like it is almost impossible to be fired. Everybody else gets paid 1/3 as much and does 3X the work.
Its good to hear that the Elders of the Internet are making new research to prove they are still elligible to "corporate funding" in the form of emploiment. Its even better that they finally realised that even communism wasn't so good (especially for the eastern countries not their own countries) it was trying to push an indoctrination for "make good for the other people", "be selfless" and don't expect profit out of it. Plus it did not offer eternal higher possitions in Christian hierarchy for people to zealosly battle for it or hate eachother for someone stollen their dreamed of place in heaven (ie being a little bit mean Christians), also somehow people under communism where told that theft is not a good thing so they have morals and not "fenses", "security concerns" or "security breaches", but ever since communism fell they together with their "westen friends" are like hungry dogs biting each other for the few meat thrown to them either by capitalism or church. And stealing like a lot. But while in the east theft is called theft in the west it has many names, some of them leagal or at least not illeagal. And while in the west there is no "moral" communism to bother about this "bitting ech other" type of economy made people somehow nervous. We are not even talking about immoral since there isnt much meanig of this wors outside "christian hierarchy" won by boosting ones own believe in Jesus that forgives us all, including theft, of course. And gives higher hierarchy places for everyone that after all succeed better in robbing other and thus having more time to contemplate on religion. So sad that after this such a great firmament people went nervous or demotivated. Millenials - nervious, elders - a bit sad and demotivated. But we are living in a great place and capitalism is just awasome. Especially when everyone around the earth creates and US just harvest the profit out of it. Making "inventions", and national "research", and so on.
And lets not forget how the Elders decided to secure their own jobs. By hacking and making the Millenials miserable and too occupied with bullshit, right? So you have a bunch of Millenial ITs, lets fuck their devives and kick them out of the working market by telling "they are somehow nerveous", for an unknown reason.
bingo. leadership these days are 100% clueless idiots who direct their horses by pulling at the tail hairs.
Check your irony detector. I believe it's malfunctioning.
Not the ones I've met. They're experts in posting FB updates, but most of them are dumb as rocks and can't write a sentence.
Also they think a 3hr working day is about all they can take.
Useless.
From my perception as someone who answers a phone for account lockouts a lot, and resolves most of them by asking if they had capslock on while they were entering their password, I'd say the article is spot on in suggesting that when a millennial calls, they're more likely to have a complex problem, but as an IT worker I fail to see how near zero call volume for millenials having simple PIC(person in chair) problems should be stresfull to me. Isn't the least stresfull call the one that doesn't exist because the problem never existed? Sounds like someone noticed that young people always have more complicated problems when they call and is now making bizarre conclusions about it.
Back in the 90s, 5-10% of people had a computer, and that 5-10% of people knew how to use it. Now, everyone has some type of computing device, but the percentage of tech literacy hasn't gone up (especially with the boomer generation.) Dealing with a much larger, scarier, black boxy world is a hell of a lot more frustrating than it used to be.
No, it's brilliant! Somewhere out there, there's an ad seeking qualified applicants with a decade of experience using Windows Server 2012.
Woosh.
People born in the late nineties seem to have little interest in driving or working to make a car payment until college, or later. This is completely foreign concept to a Generation Xer like me. We wanted freedom and independence away from parents as early as possible, not smothering and support well into out twenties or thirties. It is naturally difficult for these two groups of employees to understand each other.
Millennials are also expert users, and "are no longer in awe of technology specialists and therefore demand higher service levels,
This is not so!!! Millennials know how to use IT tools but do not know how the tools work. I have worked in IT for over 30 years now and have found the next generation to be so totally out of touch with how it works, They are nothing but a bunch of users and consumers.
Make it so number 1.
From what I've experienced in the last few years, IT _is_ getting more stressful.
I left a job that I had liked alot until I started being worked to death. They wouldn't replace people and they kept piling H1B garbage on top of us, all during a pay freeze. Since then, I've seen an incredible amount of incompetence that is bad enough on its own but even worse because it's institutionalized. At interview time you're expected to have a ton of skills and experience but after hiring it all goes out the window in favor of blind obedience. So the boss, who is stupid, forces everybody to be stupid, and then when the project fails because of that stupidity, guess who the blame falls on. It's almost a relief to be fired.
Speaking about the majority of the most recent generations here in the USA, yeah, you're screwed. Deluded, mostly.
Social delusions:
o You think "politically correct" is a good thing - (it isn't)
o You think getting into debt is inevitable (it isn't) - then you complain "in debt, oh the abuse"
o You think you need to "get out of the parents house" (you don't) - then you complain "not able to save"
o You think an interest-bearing credit card balance is perfectly okay (it isn't)
o You think a kid wandering around by themselves most of the day is a catastrophe (it isn't)
o You think texting is "social interaction" (it isn't)
o You guys think you don't need to open doors for ladies, wait for them to start eating... (you do)
o You think "responsibility" means "call a lawyer" (it usually just means you should have thought before you acted)
o You think sitting at dinner with your head pointed at your phone's screen is reasonable (it isn't)
o You think being late or not even showing up is okay (it isn't)
o You think breaking your word is okay (it isn't)
o You think retribution trumps rehabilitation (very, very rarely)
Sexual delusions:
o You think sex with a co-worker is a "bad thing" (it isn't)
o You think teenage sex with anyone is some kind of magic awfulness (it isn't)
o You think being raped "ruins your life" (go look up self-fulfilling prophecy)
o You think it's okay to complain, even bring the law to bear, because you were drunk or stoned and had sex (it isn't)
o You think sex work is "bad" and "degrading" (ooo, might involve genitals!) but have no problem with plumbers whose services involve digging your fecal matter out of your toilet. THAT's not degrading and bad, no, but SEX, OMFG SEX, oh, THAT is degrading. Tip for ya: Sex is good. Really good. Most def including sex for fair exchange. YOU, on the other hand, are a pearl-clutching idiot.
Employment delusions:
o You'll sport hideous tattoos, horrifying piercings - then you complain "can't get or keep a job"
o You think college is required (it isn't) - then you complain "have to pay for this"
o You think bad grammar, bad spelling and related poor language skills are okay (they aren't)
o You guys think "dressing nice" means jeans and a shirt (it doesn't)
o You girls (not ladies... ladies know better) think "dressing nice" means dressing like a guy (it doesn't)
o You girls think "natural" is better than good makeup (it isn't)
o You girls think bare legs are better than hosiery at work. (they aren't. nor on dates, other formal occasions)
o You think email, phone calls, texting, Facebook, blogging, are all okay at work (they aren't)
o You encourage what you call "youth culture" and so are responsible for tossing away decades of experience
o You buy cheap, offshore-manufactured crap and then complain there are no jobs here
And on TOP of all this, you've inherited just about every fuck-up the previous generations have managed to cleverly throw in the pot, and you basically ignore all of it, which brings me to...
Political delusions and lack of perception of oppression:
Just like every generation before you in the last century or so, you have, and are, letting the politicians (and the judiciary) run roughshod over your rights, your freedoms, your travels, and your privacy while they funnel money - your money - to the rich and powerful, then raise your taxes; while they built the worlds largest and least justified collection of prisoners; while they "save you from the terrorists" (not) and "protect the children" (not) and "fight sex trafficking" (not) - and THEN you STILL don't vote your representatives out - then you complain about it. Most people in every generation do this.
I steadily vote against the incumbent representative, and will continue to do so until one shows up who has actually read the constitution and knows what it means, along with a healthy respect for personal respon
Has anyone forgotten that in today's IT you are competing globally vs local or that security is a huge deal in today's IT. This is on top of the fact that everything is critical even non production systems have to be up 24/7. You don't need to be 20 something to be under that kind of stress. Lastly anyone who has worked with IT knows IT is not known for having great communicators.
Let's face it...the term "helicopter parent" is a very new term.
Not a new concept or phenomenon. You should've seen how the Victorians did things.
I played with the other kids in the neighborhood. I often left the house (unescorted) during the summer in the morning and showed back up at home in time for dinner. I rode my bike and skateboard for miles away from home.
Yeah, kids still do that all the damn time. Just because in some isolated cases & areas the cops have gotten uppity and called CPS doesn't mean it's the norm. If you live within a couple miles of the schools near where I live, you are REQUIRED to walk/bike/skateboard to school--no buses are provided.
this latest generation has been more coddled and has more of an entitlement attitude than previous generations. They seem to feel "owed" by society a job, and to be treated nicely and fairly. They are the generation of everyone getting a trophy just for showing up.
The headline-grabbing liberals in a handful of upper-middle / upper class towns are not even remotely representative of the country as a whole. For every hyper-egalitarian anti-competitive nutjob teacher (or parent) out there, there are fifty burned out and working to get by just as their parents did. Harder, even--average weekly hours worked by Americans have been steadily increasing, not decreasing. This is not a country of millionaires. Most parents do not have the luxury of behaving like whatever punching bag O'Reilly is roasting this week.
Ironically enough, the overprotective parents and cops are falling prey to the same trap you've apparently fallen into--believing the bullshit the infotainment media sells you. The scaremongers still seem to believe that crime is rising, well over 20 years into a major decline. And you seem to believe that most people are overreacting, despite the fact that most parents don't have the time, money or energy to bother overreacting, because they are in fact working harder (or at least longer) than their parents ever did and (adjusting for inflation) earning less for it.
One more major detail you failed to mention: my parents didn't need a degree to get a reasonable job. My grandparents' generation didn't need a degree to get a GREAT job. The jobs themselves haven't changed very much; only the requirements have. This is a result of increased prosperity combined with an enabling government and horribly (if understandably) cynical universities that realize that fleecing millions of undergrads is the only way they are going to be able to fund their grad students' and postdocs' research. So if there is a tiny bit of increase in the so-called "entitlement attitude", well, maybe it has something to do with the fact that our society has just recently begun demanding indentured servitude for anything more complicated than flipping burgers.
Maybe I'm old, and maybe you kids really should get the fuck off my lawn, but young adults DO whine incessantly.
Old people do it too (arguably moreso), but it's not called "whining"--it's called "grouching" or "grumbling" or "ranting" or "bitching" something. I mean hell, just look at the "get off my lawn!" meme we have here. This phrase is always, ALWAYS attached to a rant that would, if uttered by a kid, be considered "whining".
(Disclaimer: I am on balance anti-systemd although I freely admit I'm not familiar enough with the specifics to be confident in my appraisal.)
Just take a look at the systemd fiasco for a great example of this. There are plenty of legitimate reasons to be against it (even vehemently against it, from what I've seen so far), but the average post I see arguing against it is a pile of self-centered, self-entitled whining I've ever seen. It introduces a new standard for "no reason", boo fucking hoo. It's not at all uncommon to hear you greybeards explicitly say that you don't want to learn a new standard, period. Just complain and complain and complain that you can't do X any more... oh wait... there's a new tool that does everything the old tool did and more? Who the hell cares--why should *you* ever have to learn anything new!? Goddamn kids fixing things that aren't broken! I'm not whining; I'm righteously indignant!
You're too wrapped up in your "real work" to even notice that half of the claims you make against systemd are FUD-fabricated bullshit (again, my disclaimer: the other half of the criticisms seem valid. And on a big picture level, of course it's terribly anti-UNIX and Pottering's rambling justifications for this shit is terrifying.) But just stop and think--how arrogant would this attitude seem if it was coming from a recent grad? And as the experienced ones, you guys are supposed to know better.
I'm in between the middle of boomers and the millennials at my age of 36. I have two younger brothers 28 and 33 that both earn more than most in the millennial generation, and that was through nothing more than hard work and having clear cut goals and passions that were developed early in life. The middle brother is a Master Electrician and earns well more than a well off lawyer (2 years of education+apprenticeship). The youngest brother is a certified HVAC technician and leads a very comfortable lifestyle (2 years of education+apprenticeship). I am a senior software developer in the middle of the two (4 years of education). For anyone wanting to earn more, all I can say is research your job prospects today, make a clear cut plan, and have achievable goals then execute the plan and get where you need to be as quickly as you can especially in regards to the required training you need. Debt is going to be your biggest enemy in this endeavor, so research where you can get the necessary accredited education as cheaply as possible.
As far as whining about your situation goes stop it immediately. No one is going to give you the time of day about you at the end of the day, and the older folks (who are going to probably control your future earnings) are not going to pay you any respect because you're in essence acting like a 5 year old who didn't get the candy bar in the check-out line. Instead, you need to have the resolve of iron, determination to succeed, and do your job with integrity even when others do not. If you want to earn a lot of respect, ask your older co-workers for advice on how they got there and integrate it with your plan.
This article is a whole lot of bullshit.
First of all, I am 29. Do not ever refer to me as a millennial. The FACT is the "millennial" generation does not have official start dates or an official age range. I grew up playing Googol and using a keyboard and a one button mouse. I grew up with Prodigy, and AOL, and giant rotary phones were still in use. Telephones and pagers were in use. I had and played NES and Atari. I did PLENTY of in person socializing and do to this day - it's physically impossible to live in the USA without interacting with people if you are an adult unless you are rich and have become a hermit.
I've worked in IT for 7 years and throw in a few more for school.
Are Millennials making IT more stressful? Maybe. Probably. I've noticed a profound lack of personal responsibility on the behalf of end-users and they are more often than not "millennials." Users will always be retarded. Nothing can possibly fix it. I have people routinely asking me "How do I take out the battery?" "How do I do this?" regarding company laptops. Really it doesn't matter their age - they are idiots and irresponsible and the term RTFM originated for a reason.
Stress in IT - read "Enterprise IT" comes 100% from the system in which you are expected to work. Incompetent product owners, incompetent managers, lazy, irresponsible, misguided, selfish. Pick any term you want, pick them all. As someone who works for a MAJOR bank, one of the three biggest in the world, it would shock a normal human being with common sense how inefficient and fucked up the slightest tasks have become thanks to the Six Sigma focus of all companies. What developed as a good idea and a great process has hyperspecialized every IT department I've ever worked in to the level of Congressional ineptitude.
Sure, user, I'd love to solve your problem. You just need me to install a simple package? Well see I'm sorry but I'm not supposed to do that because all software installation is supposed to be done through SCCM and there are literally 950 installers for the application you want and at least 100 of them are live, and then we have to break them down by your line of business, your system build, the version you need, it's dependencies etc. etc. etc. It seemed organized and efficient, to offboard as much work as possible towards self-service or automation, but really it causes as many problems as it fixes.
This is just one of the things that leads to a surplus population of overqualified IT workers who literally get stuck in the mud in entry level jobs and have to claw and scratch their way into something real. Meanwhile, you have underqualified people in the same room getting unequal treatment and being treated with different rulesets. Then you have all the outsourcing. I literally don't remember the last time I talked to a white person. Sorry. I'm not being racist. I do not remember the last time I saw or talked to someone named Judy Smith or some shit like that.
And I can tell you above all, the most absolutely stressful thing in my company is that the "knowledge" - the Sharepoints, the Confluence, the whatever repository, are so fragmented, so unorganized, so BLATANTLY written by 6 year olds and otherwise people who clearly have no interest or fucks to give towards improving the situation, that it's nearly impossible to learn anything even for your own benefit, much less anyone else's.
IT has always been stressful, and it's not just because of youngins. Yea sure, some people get paid a lot of money. Most don't.
This tends to happen when luxury is commonplace. People always want what they don't have. More Americans have AC, cable/internet, 40"+ tv, refrigeration, and a car than ever before. Parents spoil the kids in an attempt to shut them up(Not parent). Millennial kids are even worse than my generation. I train new guys often in the oil service sector, and some of the 20 year olds are so lazy I will assign a task and come back in 20 min to see them sitting on their ass of facebook. I have to be an asshole at that point. Whiney brats.
Geeks be them in IT or otherwise aren't noted for people skills.
Those geeks become managers, you now have a manager without any people skill and wonder why people on projects are complaining they stress ayra is going up?
Anecdotally speaking having temped at a few places recently as a web wonk what's realistically doable vs what some suit wants aren't always in alinement.
Some real examples:
-Re-do this rails app and have it in to me today by 5! (and it's 4 when you have to re-write an entire app).
-Our networks down get it back up yesterday! (even though it's down because lightning hit the trunk that services the area)
-What do you meen the person with acess-privlidge to the git/cvs/version_management_system_here called in sick?!
Or then there's the games you have to play just to hired in the first damn place:
Interpert what looks like someones resume when a outfit posts what looks like someones resume for a starting position.
I agree that dressing nicely, and being well groomed etc is premo, however some of the expctations aren't realistic a 3pc suit- just to get to know the team you might work with?
Getting paid minimum wage wich here is about 8dollars an hour, and bairly covers gas(2.25-2.50 a gallon), All for what?
I personally find web related work rewarding however the companies aren't helping themselves!
Whens the last time a outfit was able or willing to do some acclimation and on the job training?
Someone can show they know a bit about JSON, DotNet, JS and Ruby/Rails and what not. That doesn't meen that'll be how that firm does it. In my limited experience how a firm writes, and documents coding and UX testing varies from firm to firm.
Then they wonder why the work force is on pins and needles?
That's shouldn't be any mystery!
All Millennials are going to be "IT experts" in the eyes of crotchety old men who do nothing of value with their organization psychology degrees.
Ah, you are profoundly mistaken, my friend.. The US became a super power because of the contributions of individuals who just wanted to make their own (and sometimes their neighbor's) life better.
Society is a nebuluous concept. It certainly doesn't care about you, much less send anyone to die for you. It can't make decisions. It isn't committed to anything, especially not decisively to specific opinions. Caring about "society" is like caring for lukewarm oatmeal.
Bleh.
Let society go. It will make us all the better for it, including the poor and neglected.
He loves me. He really, really loves me. *sniff*