Confessor
CCF Mod Squad
Not Bucky O'Hare!
Posts: 10,201 
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Post by Confessor on Jul 10, 2017 6:12:36 GMT -5
I deal or interact with so-called Millennials on a fairly regular basis as part of my job hosting open mic nights and I agree that, based on my experience with that age group in that setting, there's little or no evidence that they're really any different to my generation (X'ers) when we were their age. However, my wife works in the London office of a really big civil engineering company -- an American company actually -- and they have speacially trained personnel, whose job it is to ease Millenials into the workplace because their expectations of working life are so completely out of whack with reality. My wife works in HR and she says that the unrealistic expectations of this age group is a very real challenge for her department. Talking to her, it doesn't appear that this is unique to her company either, but something that is becoming increasingly common in large multinational companies. So, I think there must be something in the notion that Millenials have been spoilt, overly pampered and molly coddled throughout their schooling, to the point where they're quite unprepared for adult life. Especially if large multinationals are spending money on staff whose job it is to deal with them when they first enter the workplace. "How do I see myself as fitting with your company? Well, I'd like to make 200,000 a year, have a nice house in the country, have a flexible schedule to accomodate my other activities and a lot of vacation time because I want to live while I'm young and not waste it all behind a desk like you. I also want to marry the boss's daughter and become a senior V.P. within five years and retire by the age of forty-five." We used to call this ambition, dammit!  In all seriousness though, from what my wife tells me, the above is a lot closer to the truth than you might think. |
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Post by wildfire2099 on Jul 10, 2017 6:55:12 GMT -5
I really see no signs that the current generation are any more prone to believing they're special than any other generation. In many ways it's the opposite because they, by and large, recognize that previous generations have screwed up the economy and the environment to a point where they're going to suffer. I deal or interact with so-called Millennials on a fairly regular basis as part of my job hosting open mic nights and I agree that, based on my experience with that age group in that setting, there's little or no evidence that they're really any different to my generation (X'ers) when we were their age. However, my wife works in the London office of a really big civil engineering company -- an American company actually -- and they have speacially trained personnel, whose job it is to ease Millenials into the workplace because their expectations of working life are so completely out of whack with reality. My wife works in HR and she says that the unrealistic expectations of this age group is a very real challenge for her department. Talking to her, it doesn't appear that this is unique to her company either, but something that is becoming increasingly common in large multinational companies. So, I think there must be something in the notion that Millenials have been spoilt, overly pampered and molly coddled throughout their schooling, to the point where they're quite unprepared for adult life. Especially if large multinationals are spending money on staff whose job it is to deal with them when they first enter the workplace. I do most definitely blame the parents, not the children... they can't pick how they are raised... I apologize if that was not clear. I'm basing my opinions mostly on my 16 yo and her friends, as compared to what I recall from my own childhood. I'll give you a couple examples just from school.... for one thing, they're re-labels all the classes at the highschool.. when I was there there were honors, College Prep, and 'regular'... if you were in honors, you prepared for and took the AP test. Now there's AP, Honors, and 'regular'. My daughter received her grade in 2 of 5 classes by having a meeting with the teaching and discussing what she felt she deserved, instead of the teacher grading her work. Not to mention on every test she is able to correct her work at home to improve her grade. I'm all for new ways to learn stuff, but much of it seems to just be so they can give out higher grades and not have parents whine at them. As far as being allowed to express themselves, yes, that's true, but it's also true that it's a cool thing right now... I don't think anyone can deny that. I actually think it's a bit of a problem, as that clouds thinks for people who really are LGBT... it's those that just want to be special that I get annoyed with. |
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Jul 10, 2017 8:50:07 GMT -5
I'm all for new ways to learn stuff, but much of it seems to just be so they can give out higher grades and not have parents whine at them. There is some of that, probably, but I believe that there is also a genuine (though misguided) attempt at protecting kids from that very simple reality: not everyone is equally gifted. In schools over here, without the honors system, we still used to have different classes for certain basic subjects like maths. There was for example maths 53 for the very strong students, 52 for the average ones, and 51 for those hwo had a harder time of it. Each class pushed the kids to become as good as they could. Naturally, these classes were routinely referred to as "strong", "normal" and "weak". STIGMA! Can't tolerate that! So classes were eventually unified, under the wishy-washy hope that stronger students would now kindly help the others, and that the ones who weren't good at maths, encouraged by the example of Hypatia Jones and Bobby Newton in the front row, would suddenly find maths interesting. The result, as anyone could have expected, was mostly very good students bored to tears and weaker students who were discouraged by always being the worst of the group. A recent reform decided to reintroduce separate classes but do away with the oh so un-egalitarian separation of children according to their abilities. It was based on this concept: classes that are distinguished by their focus instead of the kids' performance. Not a bad concept as concepts go, but its implementation would have made Kafka scream. The three new classes were maths for students who wanted to go to medical school ("natural sciences maths"), maths for students who wanted a technical career ("technical maths") and maths for kids who were into social sciences ("social maths"). The whole idea of focusing on interest was however a dishonest conceit. As you'd expect, "social maths" was absolutely not geared toward the statistics that are actually used by social scientists; it was just the old "weak maths" class under another name. Even worse: that class required fewer hours than the other two, even if the system insisted that it was in no way lighter. So much energy to establish a system that is a thinly disguised version of the original one, all to supposedly protect a kid's ego from the infamy of not being good at maths. Wouldn't it be more productive to just accept that not everyone can be good at everything, and that one can be an outstanding individual without being able to do calculus in one's head? It's all right not to be Einstein in class; it's all right not to be Usain Bolt in gym class. There isn't an actual stigma associated with not being the best in everything, unless we create it by acting as if there was. |
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Jul 10, 2017 9:50:33 GMT -5
I deal or interact with so-called Millennials on a fairly regular basis as part of my job hosting open mic nights and I agree that, based on my experience with that age group in that setting, there's little or no evidence that they're really any different to my generation (X'ers) when we were their age. However, my wife works in the London office of a really big civil engineering company -- an American company actually -- and they have speacially trained personnel, whose job it is to ease Millenials into the workplace because their expectations of working life are so completely out of whack with reality. My wife works in HR and she says that the unrealistic expectations of this age group is a very real challenge for her department. Talking to her, it doesn't appear that this is unique to her company either, but something that is becoming increasingly common in large multinational companies. So, I think there must be something in the notion that Millenials have been spoilt, overly pampered and molly coddled throughout their schooling, to the point where they're quite unprepared for adult life. Especially if large multinationals are spending money on staff whose job it is to deal with them when they first enter the workplace. I do most definitely blame the parents, not the children... they can't pick how they are raised... I apologize if that was not clear. I'm basing my opinions mostly on my 16 yo and her friends, as compared to what I recall from my own childhood. I'll give you a couple examples just from school.... for one thing, they're re-labels all the classes at the highschool.. when I was there there were honors, College Prep, and 'regular'... if you were in honors, you prepared for and took the AP test. Now there's AP, Honors, and 'regular'. My daughter received her grade in 2 of 5 classes by having a meeting with the teaching and discussing what she felt she deserved, instead of the teacher grading her work. Not to mention on every test she is able to correct her work at home to improve her grade. I'm all for new ways to learn stuff, but much of it seems to just be so they can give out higher grades and not have parents whine at them. As far as being allowed to express themselves, yes, that's true, but it's also true that it's a cool thing right now... I don't think anyone can deny that. I actually think it's a bit of a problem, as that clouds thinks for people who really are LGBT... it's those that just want to be special that I get annoyed with. Again...who sets policy for the schools. It ain't the students. It's the administrators. I'm more than willing to bet the farm that the vast majority of the people setting school policy are between 40 and 65 years old. Not the kids fault. |
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Post by Rob Allen on Jul 10, 2017 11:28:30 GMT -5
Returning to last week's topic briefly - over the last several decades, we've had our collective consciousness raised about sexual orientation, and now we're seeing a similar consciousness-raising about gender identity and expression. Decades ago, people didn't see any need for a word to describe the "standard default" orientation. But as time went on they found that they did need a word, and settled on "heterosexual", which had been coined originally as a disorder. Today, "heterosexual" is not at all controversial. I think it's possible that a few decades from now, "cisgender" will be as common and uncontroversial as "heterosexual".
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Post by adamwarlock2099 on Jul 10, 2017 11:58:25 GMT -5
Returning to last week's topic briefly - over the last several decades, we've had our collective consciousness raised about sexual orientation, and now we're seeing a similar consciousness-raising about gender identity and expression. Decades ago, people didn't see any need for a word to describe the "standard default" orientation. But as time went on they found that they did need a word, and settled on "heterosexual", which had been coined originally as a disorder. Today, "heterosexual" is not at all controversial. I think it's possible that a few decades from now, "cisgender" will be as common and uncontroversial as "heterosexual". Of anything I would say it's unwillingness to conform to new things, be it subconsciously, or flat out consciously. Coupled with the reaction people have to words rather than context and intent. My 89 year old grandmother that died this year, if you asked her to describe Sidney Poitier (my grandma's crush) she would say he was a colored man, not a person of color. Which in of themselves those words say the same thing. But my grandmother means no malice and doesn't scream from the side of the street "that's a colored person". I feel both sides bear some responsibility in easing new terms into use for the betterment of society as a whole and to help us understand people that are not like you as an individual. Like would I ever call myself a cis male? Probably not. Would I be offended at being described as a cis male? No. Unless it was meant as a condescending insult and not a descriptor. Just about any other descriptor of me as a person could be turned into. |
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Post by wildfire2099 on Jul 10, 2017 19:34:38 GMT -5
Again...who sets policy for the schools. It ain't the students. It's the administrators. I'm more than willing to bet the farm that the vast majority of the people setting school policy are between 40 and 65 years old. Not the kids fault. I suppose that's true, but only to an extent... the people setting policy are doing it in response to parents, and parents are reacting to their kids. |
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Jul 10, 2017 19:53:41 GMT -5
Again...who sets policy for the schools. It ain't the students. It's the administrators. I'm more than willing to bet the farm that the vast majority of the people setting school policy are between 40 and 65 years old. Not the kids fault. I suppose that's true, but only to an extent... the people setting policy are doing it in response to parents, and parents are reacting to their kids. Yeah...I don't buy that at all. Barring you showing me some concrete statistics, I'm just gonna have to disagree completely. You're describing a classic scenario of the tail wagging the dog and I simply don't see it. |
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Post by wildfire2099 on Jul 10, 2017 19:54:52 GMT -5
I suppose that's true, but only to an extent... the people setting policy are doing it in response to parents, and parents are reacting to their kids. Yeah...I don't buy that at all. Barring you showing me some concrete statistics, I'm just gonna have to disagree completely. You're describing a classic scenario of the tail wagging the dog and I simply don't see it. I'm not sure what sort of statistic there could possibly be... all I can reference is my personal experience with teenagers. |
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Post by thwhtguardian on Jul 10, 2017 19:56:53 GMT -5
I suppose that's true, but only to an extent... the people setting policy are doing it in response to parents, and parents are reacting to their kids. Yeah...I don't buy that at all. Barring you showing me some concrete statistics, I'm just gonna have to disagree completely. You're describing a classic scenario of the tail wagging the dog and I simply don't see it. And even if true, it still points to the same direction as you pointed before as to where the "blame" for the behavior should lie. If kids are petulant and shallow you don't cater to them as that only reinforces those behaviors. |
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Jul 10, 2017 20:03:42 GMT -5
Yeah...I don't buy that at all. Barring you showing me some concrete statistics, I'm just gonna have to disagree completely. You're describing a classic scenario of the tail wagging the dog and I simply don't see it. I'm not sure what sort of statistic there could possibly be... all I can reference is my personal experience with teenagers. So, as thwhtguardian points out, you've got parents and administrators catering to kids. The only power the kids have is to be pains in the ass. So again, it's the adults fault. |
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Post by LovesGilKane on Jul 10, 2017 20:05:10 GMT -5
on the millennial side of things, regardless of whether boomers and X’ers set up the false-expectation idiocy, millenials - as with any generation - have the right, the ability, to reject the idiocy. furthering it and amplifying it means that the fact they themselves didn’t set the ‘Ridiculousness Olympics’ in place doesn’t matter much.
millenials didn’t invent casual and gross plagiarism either, bt at least x’ers and boomers recognised that it was a crime when said-crime was committed and the x’ers etc. got caught. the Millstones (and GenY), when shown that they’ve ripped something off to an actionable degree, merely stare blankly and say ‘I don’t understand.’ or worse, narcissistically claim that ‘their’ instance of plagiarism was okay because, well, it was done by ‘them’. ‘but it’s by ME, wonderful me!’
no honey, not wonderful. and secondly, so what?
but frankly i have far less problems with millenials than I do with GenY’s (age 29-37 or so), because many millenials have been trained like Pavlov’s Dogs to have these so-called ‘faults’ laid at their table, whereas messily-spoogetastic-onanist GenY’s knew better; they had been warned of a mysterious word known as ‘consequences’, and were so slimily up-themselves that they simply never thought anyone would catch-on and call-them-to-account.
It’s the difference between being cadaverous due to being abused by food-deprivation in a cult, vs being electively-vegan to score a pop-culture job to the point of looking like multi-gendered/non cis Jack Skellington-in-drag doll.
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Post by wildfire2099 on Jul 10, 2017 20:15:34 GMT -5
Yeah...I don't buy that at all. Barring you showing me some concrete statistics, I'm just gonna have to disagree completely. You're describing a classic scenario of the tail wagging the dog and I simply don't see it. And even if true, it still points to the same direction as you pointed before as to where the "blame" for the behavior should lie. If kids are petulant and shallow you don't cater to them as that only reinforces those behaviors. I certainly don't dispute that far too many parents are bad at parenting.. my ABA wife will certainly attest to that! |
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Post by Roquefort Raider on Jul 10, 2017 20:34:37 GMT -5
I'm not sure what sort of statistic there could possibly be... all I can reference is my personal experience with teenagers. So, as thwhtguardian points out, you've got parents and administrators catering to kids. The only power the kids have is to be pains in the ass. So again, it's the adults fault. The adults I blame aren't the parents nor even the teachers, but the theorists at the department of education (or ministry of education, depending on one's country) who try to implement social engineering grand strategies and personal psychological development programmes instead of letting teachers do their job. So, so many people in those offices have never taught a class. They're like Catholic priests talking about St. Thomas Aquinas when providing marriage counselling. |
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Post by LovesGilKane on Jul 10, 2017 21:19:56 GMT -5
So, so many people in those offices have never taught a class. They're like Catholic priests talking about St. Thomas Aquinas when providing marriage counselling. like so many virgins penning fan-fiction-cap-material, then due to 'sjw-enabling', feel free to describe their 'work' as 'erotic fiction' on par/equivalent to Anne Rice's erotic novels. which had an EDITOR. and publication standards. unlike fan-fappage. and fan-fappage is okay; in its own context due to its own context. but it's NEVER 'a novel on par with Anne Rice's works'. and never will be. |
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