Thread by @Delafina777

A friend of mine posted some excerpts from the textbook for a class she's in that talk about managing millennials in the workplace, and hoo boy. (Thread)

Like, it's astonishing to me how much of "advice" on how to handle millennial employees starts out with "they're entitled/blunt/impatient/self-centered" etc.

(Fascinating how few *facts* as opposed to *opinions* this stuff contains.)

But basically, what it all boils down to is:

Millennials might treat your job as a job, not a career or a Calling.

They might refuse to give their loyalty unconditionally.

They might view work hierarchies as purely situational rather than inherently justified.

Or, in other words:

millennial workers view themselves as your equals

THE HORROR
HOW DARE THEY

And like, we're not illogical and we actually LIKE getting shit done, news flash, so we actually DO defer to people situationally, when they know more about how to do a particular task than we do, when they have a good idea, when they have more context than we do.

But we don't accept that just because someone's above us in a work hierarchy, they're smarter/wiser/better/etc. than us.

The number of social situations I've been in/witnessed where people above me in a company org chart got offended when I or someone else didn't defer to them in an outside-work setting are too numerous to count.

Sometimes they tried to get the person fired.

And I'm sitting here like, um, at work I do what you tell me to do because that is a hierarchy set up to do a specific thing.

Outside work we're just two human beings so why would I defer to you?

And THAT's what's really spawning a thousand thinkpieces and textbook chapters on Entitled Millennial Workers:

the fact that we tend to respect hierarchies only when they're used for specific, situational purposes that are self-evident

For people deeply invested in a status quo that treats permanent inequality and hierarchy not only as a fact, but as a right and proper function of society, of COURSE it's outraging when people refuse to be submissive.

Because y'all were promised that if you gave your loyalty to a company that's trying to figure out how to work you to death without getting sued or prosecuted, you would rise through the ranks to a senior position where other people would have to be submissive to you.

And not just in your workplace, but in the world in general.

Hence Doris getting mad when the new kid doesn't agree with her at the watercooler that Love, Actually was a good movie and complaining that she's worked her way up and deserves some RESPECT from the entry-levels.

And hence Susan being OUTRAGED when a customer service person decides that 15 minutes of haranguing is more than anyone should have to put up with and the customer isn't always right.

All of it can be reduced to:

There is supposed to be a HIERARCHY, dammit, and you're supposed to be BELOW ME, so ACT LIKE IT.

Millennials are, frequently, like, "why, tho"

And y'all know you don't have a good answer.

So you write Entitled Kids! thinkpieces and vote GOP.