07-26-2020, 07:33 AM
Mick, your "those who say 'no'" examples are alternately shocking and not shocking at all, but does raise a question I'm curious about, but first some background...
To me, as a Gen X, the idea of saying no to your boss - not for any legit moral objection but because you just don't want to - is simply an eye-popping concept. In fact, in my first and only corporate job at an ad agency in sports marketing, I told my supervisor I didn't agree with taking on a client that I felt was shady. He told me "as soon as your name is on the door" you can say no. That conversation led me to leave and become an entrepreneur. After leaving I found out the client I thought was shady, never paid its bills and stiffed the agency $30 grand - haha!
At the same time, I have a university professor friend who told me the Millennial generation developed a practice of not doing anything they didn't want to do. That included doing college class assignments. If this wasn't bad enough, "students" would complain if they got failing grades, and say the fact they paid for their degrees - and his salary - meant they couldn't fail. This is some serious hubris, and ostensibly came from parents who never held their kids accountable for anything. Obviously I don't want to paint every kid and Millennial parent as irresponsible, entitled brats, but this was the prevailing behavior he told me he saw as a undergrad professor.
So my question to Mick is: Are the ones who are saying no and refusing to do work they are assigned, predominantly Millennials? Or does this somehow apply to other generations as well? Again, I'm shocked anyone would refuse to do what their boss tells them to do because I wouldn't dream of that (I questioned but never refused to do assigned work). But I also have the insights from my college professor friend that makes it seem actually plausible, at least for some of a certain age group.
To me, as a Gen X, the idea of saying no to your boss - not for any legit moral objection but because you just don't want to - is simply an eye-popping concept. In fact, in my first and only corporate job at an ad agency in sports marketing, I told my supervisor I didn't agree with taking on a client that I felt was shady. He told me "as soon as your name is on the door" you can say no. That conversation led me to leave and become an entrepreneur. After leaving I found out the client I thought was shady, never paid its bills and stiffed the agency $30 grand - haha!
At the same time, I have a university professor friend who told me the Millennial generation developed a practice of not doing anything they didn't want to do. That included doing college class assignments. If this wasn't bad enough, "students" would complain if they got failing grades, and say the fact they paid for their degrees - and his salary - meant they couldn't fail. This is some serious hubris, and ostensibly came from parents who never held their kids accountable for anything. Obviously I don't want to paint every kid and Millennial parent as irresponsible, entitled brats, but this was the prevailing behavior he told me he saw as a undergrad professor.
So my question to Mick is: Are the ones who are saying no and refusing to do work they are assigned, predominantly Millennials? Or does this somehow apply to other generations as well? Again, I'm shocked anyone would refuse to do what their boss tells them to do because I wouldn't dream of that (I questioned but never refused to do assigned work). But I also have the insights from my college professor friend that makes it seem actually plausible, at least for some of a certain age group.