Posted on 03/07/2007 2:34:46 PM PST by qam1
What happens when a twenty-something manager tells an older worker to turn up her hearing aid or take an herbal memory medicine? In this Oregon case, it got the employer in trouble with the feds.
Scott and Patty Corp., formerly Woodburn Fertilizer, Inc., agreed recently to pay Carolyn Arzino, a former longtime 55-year-old accounting secretary, $85,000 to settle age discrimination claims brought by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
The case arose, agency trial attorney Teri Healy told The Oregonian, from the actions of a female manager in her 20s, who criticized Arzino's work, telling her, among other things, that she should take ginkgo biloba, an herbal memory tonic, and turn up the volume on her Miracle Ear.
The manager gave Arzino a poor performance evaluation, withheld her raise and placed her on a 30-day probation before firing her on July 20, 2004, according to the EEOC's complaint. But EEOCs investigation revealed that Arzinos coworkers said she was an exceptional performer.
Scott and Patty Corp. denied liability.
This case, noted EEOC district director Joan Ehrlich, illustrates a phenomenon of today's workplace: It spans four generations -- Millennials, Gen Xers, Baby Boomers and the last of the Silent Generation born before the end of World War II -- and their members don't always speak the same language or work quite the same way. Employers need to be aware and sensitive to those dynamics.
I'm sure Cogadh is an excellent employee and compared to many of the boomers an outstanding employee. The top 20% has always been, well, the top 20%. In my businesses we don't fish in those waters. We pull from the general population and it is there that there has been a seachange. I refuse to do the equivalent of pictures on register keys.
The new class of employees are undereducated and under-motivated. I am continually searching for the dynamic that they posess that can be exploited. It must be there, intelligence hasn't died, and they seem to have an easy facility with communication but how do you bring it out and use it. So far I can't see it.
One thing that does give me encouragement is the image that I get from the guys in Iraq and Afghanistan. When there is a newscast from there I watch the background, the guys doing the job. They are confident, competant and decisive. These guys aren't coming back to be assistant manager at Burger King. I see a whole new leadership class developing and it looks good.
I think we all behave poorly when we go out in public dressed the way we lie in bed.
Or how about "we've eliminated your whole department, sorry and bye bye!?" That was what they did to all of us in our large department and a number of other too. Years later, the brilliant managers responsible for the mass downsizing, admitted it had been a great mistake because they lost our many years of experience and expertise and could not replace either. Managers tend to be especially stupid when they act together as a "consensus" group, same as in the gummint and global warming advocacy.
I have a good baby-boomer friend--a former Navy pilot and he made the point to me:
"You Gen-Xers don't care about tradition or hierarchy or experience: you are all about The Idea. You guys will follow a good idea no matter who came up with it."
I think he really nailed it there. It explains a lot of the friction between the various generations in the workplace. We, Gen-X, are most like, and get along with, The Silent Generation.
For rejecting tradition and propriety, I have found the boomers I have worked with to be the most staid, hidebound, uninspiring of the lot, hence the EEOC--and the tons of regulations that abort The Idea like they did their children....
but experience teaches either patience or inspires madness.
Very true--I'm certainly old enough to understand that....
5
About twenty years ago, I worked at a V.A. hospital far enough away that we had a carpool.
One day a manager of the canteen got into a conversation with the personnel manager in our carpool and asked him how he could get 100% out of the poor employees that his office kept sending him.
Without skipping a beat, the personnel manager reminded the canteen manager that the job he offered was of low skill requirements and the only thing of importance was he getting 100% of the 10% of skills the job demanded.
When the canteen manager admitted that there were those who gave about half, the personnel manager then told him that it was only 5% that he was missing.
VERY OT. You play the pipes? Do you know "Wha' Saw the 42nd"? Been trying to find it on a CD.
Wanna see my FICA tax? Wanna see my Social Security taxes? As a Gen-Xer, how much of that do you think I will see while I pay for your prescription drugs?
The reason there was more in earlier generations is we didn't have an EPA telling us all the thousands of things we can't do anymore and regulating the hell out of everything worth having.
Thanks boomers!
On the flip side, people were more productive, more patriotic, and on the whole, there was a lot more honesty and character to go around.
Then how come all the anti-war protests are 7/8ths old baby-boomer hippies, hmmmmmm?
Kids could actually wait for the school bus without a "guard" and the government mostly stayed where it belongs...in Washington.
'Cuz who let the whackos onto the streets and was soft on crime? Thanks boomer hippies.
So, clammer about the boomers all you want; maybe one day you'll get to hear what the next generation thinks about the way the yuppies, the me-generation, and generation-x have allowed this country to decay and rot.
The yuppies were the boomers in the '80s and the Me Generation was the boomers in the 70's.
Who were the latchkey kids and children of divorce? Gen-X. Who are the combat leaders in the GWOT getting crapped on by the same old hippies? Gen-X. Who will pay for the retirements and pills of those who crapped on them? Gen-X.
Two generations in the history of mankind have had such a thing as 'retirement', The WWII Generation and The Boomers, but the boomers didn't have enough kids and imposed burdensome taxes and regulation on the few they did have so that the idea of 'retiring' will die with them. And they call us 'slackers'....
I hate working for females. Of all the lousy bosses I've had, the worst were the women. Most didn't have a clue about managing people and their moods, attitude and insecurities made it hell going to work everyday. (And, I'm a female!)
Waaaaaait a minute.... You watched George Harrison on a Beatles anthology?
I wouldn't watch Kurt Cobain in a Nirvana anthology....
I wouldn't walk across the street to see the Beatles.... I was born in '68. The Beatles have been the neverending-soundtrack of my life. I'm sick of 'em and I never even got to see them, but the boomers tell me that they were the best there will ever be so there is no point even trying. I've never had any choice but to listen to the Beatles....
I'm not big on how statist most baby boomers are, but being rude to someone like that isn't right.
Actually it's an "In" thing to claim. As in "I was there when...". The press drove the "Hippie" movement.
Actually the DVDs are my 22 yr old Freeper daughters. And I was surprised at Harrisons comment.
But who lowered those standards in the public schools? Who pioneered self-esteem over education? Who never spanked their kids and gave us so many spoiled children who turned into spoiled adults*
Who was that?
*yet still not enough to keep social security solvent....
Yeah... He's been 'off the reservation' for a while.
While I despise old hippies, there is no one I love more than an 'Uncle Tom Hippy'. Or maybe more like 'Uncle Moonglow'....
I went to a school with a kid named "Morning Spring Rain" and another named "Solstice" and "Echo".
If that doesn't make you damn an entire generation, I don't know what will. Those kids got their asses kicked on a daily basis--I'll bet they all joined the NRA to rebel against their hippy parents....
You've been trained to lead people. The ordinary, as you will, person at the age of 22 doesn't have that training.
Those names are pathetic. A person has to be stupid to make their kid a target. Guess Mom & Dad were "burnt".
You have that right. Most of us old dogs have forgotten more tricks than pups will ever learn.
I use to be a union steward. Was always fair and above board with foremen and managers who were honest with me. But, the things I put those that weren't through was not a pretty thing to see.
Wish I hadn't recalled any of that past. Now I need to go say some prayers.
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.