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.
The Beatles are farther away in time now for Gen-X than the Big Bands were for the boomers (eat that boomers!).
The boomers didn't listen to Big Band music, so what makes them think I would enjoy the sh*tty Beatles!? This is your father's Oldsmobile!
Except my father was a Korea Vet and not a hippie. We listened to "Great Western Movie Themes" (double album set), Dave Brubeck and Wagner
Living in New Mexico I was at the epicenter of that growing up. The commune of 'Tuapa'was just over the hill and 'New Buffalo' featured in Easy Rider was up north.
Maybe that explains my attitude. I live near Santa Fe.
I did. I love Glenn Miller.
I grewup in Toledo Ohio and there wasn't much of that kinda stuff going on. The kids I knew laughed at the dirty hippies. If you were near a commune, you saw more stupidity than I did.lol
Hahaha! OK, Ok, you are not a hippie, and by reading your profile, you never were.
Please consider yourself excluded from any foaming-at-the-mouth anti-boomer diatribes I engage in.
Where I grew up, I saw and still see the worst of it. I even have to travel to the Bay Area (as I call it The Geriatric Gynocracy) for work!
They could at least thank me, I've been drug tested and regulated my entire life because of what they did.....
There are idiots over at DU that brag about being "old hippies". They also discuss their dugs, legal and otherwise. I really DO feel sorry for them. Freeper daughter's laughing about them. She's telling me that she wonders how often they can't finish a post because they're tripping and think their hands are on backwards. LOL
Night guy! And find "Wha' Saw the 42nd?" on pipes. :)
Above all else I have emphasized character and effort. With those everything else will, sooner or later, fall into place. A lot of people have given me something to be proud of in my dotage.
I take it as a personal failing, possibly an antiquated worldview, that I cannot seem to find a lot to work with in the current generation.
Age and treachory will overcome youth and inexperience everytime. I'll turn 60 in the morning. Semper Fi
I agree that was extremely rude. But, don't you see? Its never acceptable to be rude. Whether you are a 20's manager or a 60 year old hippie.
If I failed to give up my seat to woman, pregnant or not, or an elderly person I believe my mother would haunt me from her grave. She taught me better than that.
I grew up in New Mexico. They ruined it here too, like locusts. Look what they did to California!
Once the best place in the world, now California is one of the worst. People escape it like the Boat People did after the Boomers cut-and-ran in Vietnam.
My dad bought land here for $350 an acre in '72. Now, because of the fleeing boomer Californians who sold the family bungalow in Burbank for $2.5 mil after turning their own state into an over-regulated hell-hole, land here is $65K an acre.
Good luck affording that you Gen-Xers with a family!
I graduated from UCSD in 1976 at age 19. I've been married since 1978 and have 3 adult sons. I've been employed full time since age 16. Hardly a dropout hippie. My #2 son has served in Iraq/Kuwait with the USMC and is a licensed CA real estate broker with 50 employees and 3 offices. He's 23.
I moved to my current employer at age 35 in 1991. Just before Clinton. I was literally in Landstuhl, Germany doing work at Ramstein when Clinton was elected. My work is half DoD, half commercial. EE/CS work pays the bills. I have much to learn in the area of DSP and acoustics from the legion of aging PhDs in my organization. The defense procurement holiday didn't hit the classified work nearly as hard as the unclassified stuff. A clearance and a good skill set is job security. Being willing to work 70 hour weeks and travel all over the world doesn't hurt either.
Oh good grief. Grow up. Knock the chip off of your shoulder, prove yourself and stop blaming others for your failures.
Excellent comment. I fear I spent my posting time responding to other comments, rather than the article.
My boomer parents taught me that!
Why is a government agency empowered to assess fines? An agency has been given some of the powers of the court system. This is wrong.
To give a small benefit of doubt, he did qualify the group by saying he busted on the young, dumb hippies who grew up to be old, dumb hippies.
,i>20 year old manager: "Do you have a new hearing aid?"
Baby boomer:"Yes I do."
20 year old manager: "What kind is it?"
Baby boomer" "10 O'Clock"</i>
Perhaps lurking was a better fit.
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