Gen Y Work Ethic

This week I got to participate in interviews of some of our personnel who were applying for a coveted educational grant to do graduate work at local universities. It was my first exposure to the stereotyped Gen-Y narcissist.

I've worked peripherally with several Gen-Y employees and have yet to be disappointed by their performance. They need to learn how to dress and how to behave in public, but then, so did I at their age. Looking back, I'm not so sure I see much of a difference. However, this one particular young woman at the interviews really stood out.

First, she had worked with our organization for only about one year. While working for us, she had been applying for graduate school at UCSD, was accepted and was offered a grant to start her PhD degree program. She accepted it and went on leave without pay, technically still an employee, but not really. She was coming back to ask us to pay her half salary and pay for her education while she got her PhD. She would then be obligated to come back and work for us for as long as she took to get her degree, but that obligation probably wasn't worth much. When I did it, all you had to do was pay back the tuition portion in order to buy your way out.

In any case, there she sat, having bailed out after working for us for about 12 months, asking us to pay her to take full time leave and study.

Screw that.

She had no concept at all of the amount of effort that was made to bring her on board in the first place. And the thought that she had actually earned her salary the first year was laughable. For the first two to three years, you don't know enough to be worth what you're paid. It takes that long to really start contributing without extra oversight. If you don't believe that, consider this. The five year employee, who is probably managing his own small project and is completely self-sufficient is paid only a bit more than the one year employee who is not. Is the ratio of performance equal to the ratio of pay? Not really.

In any case, there she sat, having used us to fill her belly and keep a roof over her head while she sniffed about for a better opportunity. She was asking us to bid on her services to keep her around. I could just imagine what life would be like, say, 5 years down the road when she would be asked to take a year long position doing some unglamorous work for our parent organization like most of us have. With her complete lack of loyalty I'm sure she'd take the job with a smile and hand in her resignation letter a month or so afterwards, having found a better position elsewhere.

Get lost, Princess.

At the same interview session, I met about four others of her generation who were completely different. Some were working their way through grad school without our assistance and were just asking for some help at the end. They showed loyalty and dedication and you really wanted to go out of your way to see them through. They were the antithesis of the Gen-Y stereotype and they were the majority.

I think that all these generalizations about this generation or that are nothing more than an expression of jealousy by people who are unhappy that time is passing. We find one trait or another in a particular generation and blow it all out of proportion and draw ridiculous conclusions from it. Yep, the Gen-Y folks are great with technology, but couldn't fix a car or sew if you held a gun to their heads. Yep, their pants are loose and their music is mostly chanting. So what? Like we were different.

Most of them are all right in my book.

Update: I did a little rooting around on the Internet and found some related posts.

My favorite business blog, The Entrepreneurial Mind, has a short post about the Gen-Y work ethic and some links.

Riveting Rosie briefly goes off the deep end and posts about some Gen-Y nut who is at least five standard deviations above the norm, working like a loon. She then recovers and writes a very well-balanced post about the subject. Correction: Rosie quotes a post about the loon and does not, in fact, go off the deep end.

Animal sneers at Gen-Y without much to really sneer at. He could use a little statistical analysis.

Rebecca Thorman is making the classic mistake that leads to narcissism. She's believing her own press clippings. Get over yourself, dear. Take a look around. All of the things you use were made by the people who came before you. Yes, you're very nice. I like you. You're just not the greatest thing since sliced bread.

Bookspaz seems like a decent sort, but really needs to move up to some more sophisticated literature. Bookspaz read an article about Gen-Y in Time and thought it was worthy of a blog post. Bookspaz, allow me to suggest cancelling your subscription to Time and reading Instapundit instead.

The Generation Y Blog assumes we actually care what they want. This blog is the prototypical, self-absorbed garbage that critics point at when mocking Gen-Y. This post is all about how we can keep our Gen-Y employees. Thank you. Thank you very much. Here's one reason my employer kept me. I like to eat. And I like to live in a place with a roof. Think about it, kiddies.