I work in IT at a large office. Many know very little other then how to use amazon,
I work on a team in an agile environment where it became obvious to me the project was going to fail. I told my Boss and she was shocked.
“Why haven’t the project managers told me it was failing?”
“They don’t see it coming. They have never seen a project fail before.”
Thank God, I thought they were just lazy with no drive, goals or ambition.
We’ve had a hard time getting new employees of that age to follow our rules or processes. They always want to do it their way, even if specifically directed by management to do it a certain way. It’s like they’d rather just be fired, and find a different job somewhere else, than follow what a supervisor requests. Any supervisor, with some of them.
I started the process on letting another one go last week, so the process would at least take until after Christmas. But when you tell someone how to do something simple, that will solve the problem they’re complaining about but can’t figure out on their own, and you do it every single day for a week, and they instead try everything else but what you told them to do, they deserve to be let go.
This is the second one to flame out like this in the last 12 months, out of about 5 of that age group hired. One of the others quit, so out of 5 only 2 have been keepers. So far.
A high percentage of the Snowflakes and Zeros are total morons. Just Hikers, Bikers and Cellphone Pokers. That’s about the extent of their skills. Dumber than a box of rocks. No wonder they don’t want to pay for their student loans. The jugheads never learned anything so they don’t think they should have to pay for it. The best job they can get is a Starbucks “barista” position.
They grew up playing video games. When I was a kid funds were so scarce I barely got a C64 and a tape deck. Had to program my own games.
In the blue collar industries like trucking, when a Gen Z underperforms (which is the rule rather than the exception), it is common to hear “I just got millennialed,” and everyone knows what that means.
The noun has become a verb to describe their poor work ethic and lack of common sense.
Meanwhile most people under 30 have no idea how to use a hammer or a screwdriver.
They might be geniuses with their phones and apps but they’re useless with a Frisbee or a baseball.
What’s ironic is that their phones were created by people in their forties to eighties.
In other words, they’re stupid.
But I bet they’re enough “tech savie” to get top scores in “HALO”
I'm also surprised at how many new employees don't have a computer at home and thus never learn anything beyond what they're told at work.
They have gaming consoles, smart TVs, and smart phones but no computers and don't care to get one.
The three G.Z.’s that I know, leave me in the digital dust;
not that that’s very hard to do. They are co-workers and I’m thankful all 3 are respectful and patient (some more than others) as I work on improvement.
These 1 in 5 should have been around at the beginning when we were told by some smarmy IT guy to reboot twice and then call back if that didn’t work.
You have to know and learn the basic underlying skills that the tech was designed to enhance first for it to be effective...and that is what many people are lacking these days.
There seems to be a common denominator to the technologies that are mysterious to the Gen Z crowd. The QWERTY keyboard. Being able to touch type efficiently is a gateway to being able to interact with typical office applications and IT functions. Using only thumbs as with cell phones does not develop the dexterity that touch typing does. This almost a prerequisite for laptop level applications.
Did it really only take 2 generations for people to lose their understanding of tech and treat it as magic?
I guess that makes a certain amount of sense - Most of the people my grandparents age seemed to understand auto mechanics and care really well - less so my parents and by the time my generation came around, nobody really understands personal car repair (like brake replacement, simple component replacement or even something ‘standard’ like changing a tire!)
Well, as somebody who enjoys remote work, I must say it: these people definitely need to be in the office.
They grew up being spoon fed everything, not surprised
Button pushers, all the heavy lifting was done earlier. A Shame really.
I feel in the early 2000’s you had to be a lot more tech-savy to know how your computer worked and how to get it to do what you wanted it to do. With the way current OS’s are set up, they try to do everything for the end user and not tell him what’s going on. There may be nerds back in Redmond or Cuptertino (or to be more honest, in Bangalore) who know what’s up; but that does little to help the guy pressing keys in the office.