Spectator UK: Last week I was asked to give a talk about generation snowflake. This was at a breakfast organised by a recruitment company called GTI Solutions and the idea was that I would provide an urban anthropologist’s take on this new tribe for the benefit of their corporate clients, most of whom are thinking about how to recruit them and, once they’ve got them, how to keep them happy. This has given me an idea about a new consultancy service I could provide.
The main challenge thrown up by employing these new graduates, it seems to me, is that they won’t be particularly good at communicating with members of other generations in the workplace. One of the hallmarks of the ‘me, me, me generation’ is that they’re marooned in a kind of no man’s land between adolescence and adulthood. I say ‘no man’s land’, but perhaps ‘safe space’ is a better description because they clearly like being there. Why do they refuse to take the final step into adulthood? Partly because their immersion in social media since the year dot has accustomed them to just communicating with their peers. It’s difficult to grow up if you have no idea how to talk to grown-ups. more here
Sone will be matured by the brute force of life, but society won’t survive most of them inheriting as childults. The damage wrought by Boomers will be nothing in comparison.
Screaming, crying, belly-aching and finger-pointing for the past half century got ’em this far.
Damn the facts, full speed ahead!
I understand old habits are hard to break, but let’s face it, we are at the breaking point!
Stop the Hype! Suck it up Buttercup!
The “kidults” will never mature into respectful, productive beings so long as parents, employers, media, et al persist in trying to figure out “what makes them tick” and coddling them.
“What makes them tick” – But they don’t tick, they toke.
Defund them. They either learn to work or starve.
Unemployment, hunger and homelessness are *great* teachers.
Wait’ll they get a load a me.
You mean people with a degree in Gender Studies get JOBS?!
You’re delusional if you think they can even fill out a job application, let alone handing that application to a secretary without becoming emotionally crushed.
Proud Dad of a millennial who got a CompSci degree at A & M, immediate job, 2 promotions & 20K in raises in just 2 years.
I sure hope there’s more like him out there; we’re going to need them.
When did we revert to tribes?
Speaking as one who is forced to work around Generation Snowflake on a daily basis, they’re here, they’re queer, and I’ve yet to get over it.
There are literal “Safe Space” signs posted at their workstations that have been graciously donated by what our company calls “ERG” (employee resource groups).
ERGs are created for every victim group you can think of. Failure to join an ERG can result in failure to be promoted. Joining many an get you promoted quickly.
None of this has to do with actual work that makes us money.
Our HR group then sends said Snowflakes back into the colleges to recruit for our business professional “foundation” program.
As one might surmise, the foundation gets weaker every year.
This is at my Fortune 100 company. Your mileage may vary.
I have two “millennials.” The youngest flies Army helicopters and kills Hodgies, the oldest runs a software business with 20 employees. As millennials, they’re both disgusted by their generation.
@Jimmy in your case “helicopters” are a positive experience. In the case of our dear little snowflakes the “helicopters” were their parents – compounding the “me me me social MEdia world they grew up in.
I forwarded this article on to my daughter who is an HR rep for her company. She’s always hiring and firing people and has had to fire a few of these snowflakes. She fired one and her company could have been taken to court by this person and won in a big ass lawsuit. They paid her off…her boss got her pregnant.
Somebody has to fetch the coffee and donuts.
I have run in to snowflake salespeople while shopping this season.
The old axiom “the customer is always right” no longer applies to that generation.
What happened to job requirements and performance reviews? Things like, actually being able to do what you were hired to do?
If they can’t do the job, why were they hired in the first place?
I also have 2 millennials. One is a dentist, one is a butcher. As a business owner, I’d never hire or work with these mentally & socially retarded children posing as an adult.
@Loco – If I run into one those types I like to point to the counter tell them my side is known as “profit”. Yours is called “overhead”
These days tho, it usually just results in Buffy pulling out the Smart Phone and looking up the word Overhead…
My guess, based on some experience, is that there a lot of hard charging millenials, and these people outnumber the snowflakes. However, the snowflakes get the sympathy of the press.
Eventually, things will shake out and return to normal. The hard chargers will run the organizations, and the snowflakes will still be making lattes well into middle age.
They’ll all end up working for Indians and Chinese.
Can you imagine one of those snowflakes hovering over you as a medical assistant? He was hired because of some special special program for special special people.
Of course, not all millennials are like this, but holy shit, imagine running into a snowflake due to an emergency?
A great deal of our economy is composed of “pretend” jobs. Since the 50s colleges and Universities have churned out hundreds of thousands (or millions) of, otherwise, useless individuals, who, in our command-economy, must be employed *somewhere* – hence the rise in paper-pushers, regulatory interpreters, Human Resourcers, middle managers, training officers, counselors, substance-abuse professionals, gender-awareness clerks, sensitivity trainers, assistant ______ assistants, bean-counters, and pecker-checkers who contribute absolutely nothing.
It’s a hidden form of welfare and essential to the health of our economy.
izlamo delenda est …