Well, wasn’t I just the cattiest wolf ever in yesterday’s post? Slashing out at Gen-Y like the sad, still-sometimes-flannel-wearing Gen-Xer that I am. I would say that I’m simply out of touch because I’m now over 30 and I just “don’t get” the generation after my own. Truth is, though, that I don’t even get my own generation most of the time.
I really don’t get, however, the attitude that I have witnessed in some younger coworkers. Things like expecting kudos because they showed up at the time they were supposed to show up. This was a true moment from my last workplace (stupid me, thinking that such a thing was kinda sorta mandatory).
Uh-oh, I’m feeling another catty surge. Maintain, Loba. Maintain!
I guess I just don’t expect that much out of my work. I expect a regular paycheck. I expect to work with like-minded professionals (most of the time). I expect that I will enjoy some of what I do, but that’s not the point (see expectation number one). I don’t expect to get constant kudos for doing what I’m paid to do. When I started where I am now, I had to fill out a form stating when I would arrive and when I would leave. I just assumed that this would be a daily expectation, not something that required daily affirmation.
True, I severely stretch the limits of “business casual” with my Docs and more-casual-than-business attire some days (I tend to use as my excuse the fact that it’s just not the designer/IT style to be dressy, which works most of the time). I also indulge in the Gen-X/Y need for ADD-style computer use, with multiple programs and multiple tabs running in Firefox, all vying for a piece of my attention (like right now: I’ve got five programs running and seven tabs open to different Web sites, including one of the ones I manage).
However, I also know that when it comes time to buckle down and get the job done, I do just that. I come in early. I stay late. I take work home with me if I need to do so. I pull weekend duty or late-night duty. No, it’s not fun. It is what it is. Yes, my boss thanks me profusely and I very much appreciate that. But I don’t expect it, because 9 times out of 10, she’s right there in the trenches with me, doing the same thing.
I need to be more lenient, I suppose. The work place is a constantly evolving place. I know for a fact that I would not have made it in the work environment my grandparents worked in. Then again, look at all that has changed since then. Would their environment have existed if they’d had IMDb, blogs, and online news one mouse-click away? Probably not. But would they have lowered their expectations of coworkers and employees because of these things? Should they have? Should we?
