It’s terrible. They have skin as thin as phyllo. We have some younger kids in our IT shop who appear to be quite astute and bright when it comes to computers and systems, but if you try to correct them for doing something outside of best practice or even outside of corporate policy, they turtle up and spend the rest of the day Tweeting about how awful is their job and how their co-workers are big meanies.
The self-esteem movement started when I was in elementary school (circa 1990) with a program called “Positive Action.” As a 10 year old, I didn’t know or care what it all meant. They taught us Maslowe’s Hierarchy of Needs in high school health class, and it wasn’t until I was studying psychology in college that I realized the sort of damage this “self esteem” movement was doing to our youth. Self esteem, true self worth and introspection and respect for oneself, is one thing. What they were teaching was socialist “me-ism.” It’s all about “give me” and “I want” and “I need.”
Corporate America is becoming less American and more globalist, and I’m noticing that the IT workplaces are filled with young Indian, Chinese, and Korean kids while the Americans among us are getting older and not being replaced with American youth. There’s definitely a reason for that, I fear, and your commentary points it out very well, miss marmelstein.
Although I hated at the time, the only self-esteem movement I remember was a nun banging my head against a wall for not understanding fractions.