Posted on 02/01/2024 12:29:09 PM PST by Red Badger
A Gen Z employee has sparked furious debate after telling their boss that they couldn't attend an 8 a.m. meeting because they had a 'workout class.'
TikTok users have fired off at the hosts of the podcast Demoted, Natalie Marie and Ross Pomerantz, after they shared their reaction to an email they received from a listener claiming their Gen Z employer refused to attend an 8 a.m. meeting because it conflicted with their 'workout class.'
The hosts' response to the email ignited a fiery conversation as people on the web argued about work-life balance.
And, one Gen Z TikTok creator added fuel to the fire when he put himself in the shoes of the employee and questioned if his denial to attend meetings outside of his work hours should be something he was reprimanded for.
The debate began when a now-deleted clip of the podcast hosts discussing the topic went viral.
In the video, Natalie reads off an email she received from a listener.
In the email, the listener asked whether it should be 'allowed' for their 'Gen Z new hire' to refuse to show up to an early morning meeting because they had a workout class.
Natalie then chimed in with her own reaction. She said: 'You just started this job. I don't give a flying s*** about your workout class. Also an 8 a.m. workout class is too late. Work out at six, maybe seven.'
Meanwhile, Ross noted that the employee's response made him 'angry.'
He said: 'My visceral reaction was are you f***ing kidding me? My hand's shaking, and it's not from the caffeine.'
Both of the podcast hosts noted that while mental health was important, 'personal time' shouldn't interfere with work.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
Say whut?
It depends, there are a lot of details missing here.
Assuming this meeting is outside of the hours specified as part of their responsibilities, was the employee told the day before, or were they given a reasonable warning about this ?
Many employers act like they own you 24/7 and will not honor your personal time you unless you set some clear boundaries and push back.
Yes, that’s right. But it also depends on the kind of business.
My boss keeps asking me to go to an 8am management meeting in a London office that’s more than four hours’ drive away.
Except there’s no parking, so the better sounding option is a 3.5 hour train ride. First train of the day? 5:30am. Do, as they say, the math.
But the firm won’t pay for a hotel so I can drive up the night before OR get the train, and turn up suited and booted.
I could set off at 3am to guarantee getting there on time but screw that. I’ve had ten years of that nonsense leaving me out of pocket and dead on my feet by midday before I realised that you get no recognition for being a doormat.
. If they want me to show up, they can jolly well pay for the train and hotel. Otherwise they can pound sand.
I make more money for them by telling them I’m not bothering to attend the meeting because I end up roing something more productive instead. So currently they’ve got nothing to complain about.
So in this story it’s not about the employer or the gen-Zer having an overblown sense of entitlement, the real question is how non-vitally unimportant was that meeting. What’s more important - keeping your customers happy and getting some sales and making a profit, or dragging your staff out of bed for a pointless exercise in presenteeism that actually costs them AND YOU money?
If it’s an important meeting, hold it after work not before. Throw in some pizza. I mean, this ain’t rocket science. Getting everyone home after finishing at 8pm is a heck of a lot easier than getting them all in for an 8am meeting.
Amen to that ... running geo calls makes my eyes cross, not just from the timezones I am working in, but having to deal with heavy accents and pidgeon english while trying to take notes.
After the third grievance filed on me they stopped ignoring work orders with crap excuses.
Nothing more embarrassing to a trades guy whose work was done by someone else, and every conduit bend is perfect. Over time my method was refined to kit up the jobs for them and leave them on their benches. They came around.
I had a millennial who missed three days with no real excuse for the absence and I informed her if she missed anymore in the next thirty days she would be terminated, this was a Friday afternoon meeting. This had happened a couple of times before and I documented each time.
Monday she was a no show and I tried calling her, no answer, so I sent her an email terminating her for job abandonment. Tuesday she come bopping in to clock in and I said what are you doing here? I’m coming to work she replied. I said I tried calling you and I emailed you, you have been terminated for job abandonment, we discussed your ongoing issue of not showing up for work Friday and I told you the consequences of missing another day in the next thirty days. She bellowed I went to the lake and got sunburned and didn’t feel like coming in, did you want me to come in naked! I said I expected you here and you didn’t bother to even call. She wailed this is BS! I said it maybe in your eyes but we are done here, you need to leave now. I’ll go to your supervisor she railed! I said fly to it, he knows all about it. He told her you were told about your absences and backed me to the hilt.
Another entry on the long list of reasons I’m glad I didn’t get into medical, and try to be extra polite when I’m there. Those are just hard jobs.
I’m assuming the regular work day doesn’t start that “early”.
This is the generation some here expect to fight their CW2, lol!
Need more info. Need more context. Need more knowledge about the type of position and generally how they handle work hours.
Not your fault, it’s typical crap journalism.
“A Gen Z employee has sparked furious debate after telling their boss that they couldn’t attend an 8 a.m. meeting because they had a ‘workout class.’”
“... a listener claiming their Gen Z employer refused to attend an 8 a.m. meeting because it conflicted with their ‘workout class.’”
I guess whoever proofread this article is a Gen Z employee.
A lot of the people here who have called for CW2 are probably senior ‘armchair warriors’ who won’t have to fight in the war they keep predicting.
Wait until these people are drafted to fight in Biden’s WWIII.
Same vein, but different approach. I told my boss when she hired me that she got 2080 hours a year from me, less the 160 I got back for holidays and vacations. I did not care if she worked me 80 hours in a week, but if she did, that meant I was getting some time back later. Things happened and a project fell thru, so about 9 months into the year she informed me that I had to average 97% chargeable and since I had 3 months on the bench, I would have to average about 65 hours/week for the next 3 months. I told her no. She required me to be in the office every day that I was on the bench, and I was working on bench projects for her, so she would essentially end up getting about 24-2500 hours out of me for the year had I agreed. She pressed, and I threatened to quit. Long story short, the way she approached bench time changed for everyone in the company because of me. I actually earned a full bonus that year.
YOU ARE FIRED!
I still can’t figure out who is supposed to fight who in CWII.
Geography is not going to work.
That leaves some sort of Spanish Civil War wackiness which is an outcome nobody would like.
we had a 7 AM mandatory meeting- showed up and the manager said “Oh i thought I told you, we cancelled”
Dick move. He could have called or told me in person. I wasn’t the only one to show up.
Sad but true. They think nothing of coming in late every day, calling in sick three or four times a month, (I don't call in that many times in a year,) and sitting on their phones all day texting and face-timing. I had one coworker who was highly offended when told she couldn't be on her phone at work. She claimed that at her other jobs, she was on the phone all day long and nobody complained.
I've also noticed that over half of them don't have the sense God gave a goose. They make lots of mistakes and have to be told the same things over and over again. When I first started out in the working world, back in the dinosaur era, I never would have gotten away with any of this. The future of our country does not look bright, with young people like this.
even having to talk about this gives me little hope for gen Z as a whole. They are lazy, self absorbed, entitled, overspending, toxic personalities
-——. Yep. This reminds me of the Poshmark commercial where the young woman is deciding which of her designer outfits she’s going to sell online for “A new bag”, “ rent”, and, “oh, yeah. This one’s going for girl’s night”. Vacuous, entitled, “nothing but the best for me” attitudes. That whole generation (and the one before it) totally skipped the work ethic, scrimp and save, start near the bottom, then work your way up. Raised indulgently, they expect to have everything their parents built up from nothing, right now.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.