Something that seems to be lost to more recent generations is the fact that the person signing the front of the paycheck makes the rules and the person signing the back of the paycheck has to follow the rules. I guess direct deposit may have blurred that line some.... or at least the analogy.

Many years ago, I had the same situation with a full time employee who seemed to think that the bank had to accommodate her college class schedule. She was a full time teller who wasn't "available" to work several days a week due to classes. That conversation was much more difficult to make her understand than it should have been.

I always find it amusing when we paint a swath of a generation as entitled or seeking unusual accommodation. They did not just wake up like this one day, they were groomed to have those expectations, from the generation or two prior who raised them.

I didn't expect or ask for a participation trophy when I played flag football... a baby boomer decided it was a good idea I got one. The same baby boomers who covered up perfectly good wood floors with laminate. So lets not make the Boomer generation the next great last generation as there is some significant questionable decision making on all y'all parts we can look at critically just as well.

Seriously, covering up perfectly good wood floors...

My son teaches high school. He has made comments about kids texting during class. He said the majority are getting texts from their parents - during school hours.

Also - have any of you noticed (or is it just me) that most of the younger generation don't say 'you're welcome'. They say 'no problem'. Of course it's not a problem!

Off my soapbox now.

They also say "verse" when what they really mean is "versus" .....and that drives me insane.

And by "they" i don't really mean any particular generation.....i hear Kirk Herbstreit say it on College Game Day and i'm pretty sure he's older than me.

This officially just a pet peeves thread now. I blame the Boomers .

Ha.....i do agree with the sentiment that questions whether there is really a generational thing going on......i find annoying, amazing, hateful, inspiring, people in every generation.

i agree with you 100%. i have found that anyone older than me is a geezer who just wants to sit around telling stories about the good old days. anyone younger than me is a ne'er do well who is impatient and wants it all without earning it. slackers, one and all.

thank heavens i'm here, personally, and solely, ensuring the sanctity and livelihood of the bank!

We are all grateful for your accumulated wisdom, Happy!

Millennial here. I do agree on most of the sentiments above, but most of all, I think there is just a refusal by both generations to work together and see the other's point of view. The old way and the new way. Kind of like being on opposite sides of politics.

For example, "Technology has made millennials lazy and anti-social". This is further from the truth from my experience. The truth is, technology has made my generation more efficient. What does that mean? More free time. What does a boomer think when they see a Millennial sitting on their phone? Lazy. Beyond that is a discussion about whether someone should be asking for more work if they are bored, chatting around the office, or taking breaks, but their work and expectations are met. Whether a millennial has the drive to go further really is up to them. I worked as an investigator for five years before I realized my successes were getting me nowhere and I jumped right to an executive officer of a community bank and doubled my pay. Yes, my generation does bring a lot of the feelings from boomers on themselves, but seem to be being unnecessarily judged for working smarter, not harder, and boomers HATE that mentality.

The term “work smarter… not harder” originated in the 1930's. Allen F. Morgenstern, an industrial engineer, the creator of the work simplification program, coined the term. The program's intent was to increase the ability of people to produce more with less effort.

This boomer grew up with this attitude along with multi-tasking and being a team player including going beyond my own job expectations.

For myself, I hate when anyone of any age is face planted in their phone in a meeting or at dinner or any time and place where personal interaction should prevail.

See, this is exactly the gripe is. Instead of saying, yea, you have a point, every effort is made to make analogies to imply millennials are being lazy. Millennials work with an efficiency by multi-tasking and being a team player to the extent it gives them free time at work. Whether you go beyond expectations is not a boomer vs millennial mentality, its individualized. But that goes back to my original point, most people will not go beyond expectations and will meet their job's basic requirements if they are consistently put down, denied promotions, denied equal pay, etc.

Just because one personally hates seeing someone's face planted in their phone, doesn't mean anyone has a right to tell another person what they should or shouldn't be doing, they are multi-tasking.

I say that all the time. I don't think that is a younger generation thing.

This is getting good!
Baby Boomer here who is the parent of a Millennial and a Gen Z. Both of my girls are in healthcare and very hard workers, but I have to admit, their phone usage at times grinds my gears. When I ask "what are you looking at?" I get very different responses, the Millennial is reading about GMO's and Monsanto. The Gen Z is all about social media. Did our parents think that us Boomers were always watching the "bo*b tube were lazy and never going to amount to anything? Probably. I think every generation thinks the one after them is going to ruin the world. Well here we sit (at least for 10 more years)

I will say...i'm all in favor of measuring people based on what they get done, not how hard it appears that they work. The bottom line of any job should be getting the thing (or multiple things...whatever the job is) done. If worker A gets the job done in 3 hours at the same quality that worker B gets it done in 6 hours, i think it's fairly clear (at least to me) that worker A is showing more value......despite the fact that worker B may be "working hard" for 6 hours.

To me, this goes without saying....but i've worked many places where inefficiency is hailed as "hard work", since the person "stays busy".

coming up through the ranks, i've always heard "you need to be doing the job you want, not the job you have. if you wait until the position is open to shoot for it, you are too late." if you feel you are not being adequately compensated and/or recognized for your work, the prudent thing is to sit down with management and have a conversation, not drop back and just do the expectations.

Me too

I agree with you regarding just anyone having a right to tell another person what they should be doing at work. That's management's job.

My original statement about phones pointed to the specific instance when parties should be communicating in person, ie: meetings, dinners, etc. Further I cannot agree with the notion that texting, watching youtube or a game or any of the other non- work related things I say people doing when they should be working is multi-tasking. If you work in a team environment then the work isn't done when just your work is done. It's done when all the work is done.

jmho and please note, I'm not generation bashing here either.

I'm going to throw my 2 cents in. I can see, and in many ways, agree with both sides of the coin here. If your face is planted in the phone in the meeting, during dinner, etc. and you're browsing Facebook or watching YouTube or reading through and replying to mountains of personal messages - your aren't multi-tasking, you're being rude. If you are answering work emails, responding to work messages, looking up information for work related information - that's when you're multi-tasking.

And for a reference point - depending on which source you read, I'm either on the extreme end of Generation X or right in the middle of the micro-generation Xennial.

1981

Now I feel old. That was the year my wife and I got married.

HAHAHA. Sorry!

I'm reminded of a story my Dad (rest in peace, Dad) told me about when he was a senior in high school. He had a woodshop class and their last semester project was to make something. Dad went all out and made his mother a cedar chest. He worked on it diligently whilst many of his fellow classmates piddled around for much of the last semester. Dad had his cedar chest done with weeks to spare. In the last few days of school, his classmates were scrambling to get their projects done. On the very last day of school, Dad was reading a comic book whilst those classmates continued to scramble to get their projects done that should have been done weeks ago. His teacher saw him reading a comic book and got on to him, telling him to put the comic book down and go help someone else with their project (none of these projects were nearly as involved or difficult as Dad's cedar chest....more like cigar boxes and the like). Dad went and helped someone for awhile....helped them finish...and then went back to the comic book. The teacher got on to him again and said he needed to help someone else. Dad then said "why do i have to help those guys? Nobody helped me finish my cedar chest." The story goes on from there, but you get the point.

This thread just put that in my mind.......

I get you....................worker A verse worker B

LOL