[82lsju]

Maybe let's not generalize too much - I and most of my peers, when asked to jump, will respond, "how high and how fast?" Or maybe older millennials are different - most of us vividly remember entering the workforce around the great recession and are always thankful to be gainfully employed. Or maybe it's just the Stanford alum effect...

And yes, totally agree with Mick's broader diagnosis - most of the tech firms that laid off 15-25 percent of their workforce early in the pandemic cut underperforming employees and units, many with the plan to hire back the 5 percent who were wrongly cast out to sea with their teams. No one wanted to be the layoffs first mover in a "historic" economy because it signals weakness even when many firms simply had bloat, and in normal times mass layoffs scare off prospective hires and prompts even the (job secure) good employees to start looking at other opportunities. Now, no one blinks an eye. And very few of those jobs will be coming back any time soon.

well my current employer has had a big layoff every 18-24 months since I've been there (almost 8 years) plus who knows how many smaller ones that did not require a WARN filing, we were "due" for one the end of last/early this year but so far the axe had not fallen, I expect it might when we announce earnings next month.  We did have a "take vacation or take time without pay" the week of fourth of July.

to monitor larger layoffs the WARN filings in most states are available on the web.  Usually it is just the number of people.  In California you can request the filing (maybe other states as well), it lists the layoffs by job title and number of people in that title.  Some of the titles are pretty generic (e.g. software engineer 4 - 17), but sometimes they are specific enough that you can figure out who the person is.

[82lsju]

Maybe let's not generalize too much - I and most of my peers, when asked to jump, will respond, "how high and how fast?" Or maybe older millennials are different - most of us vividly remember entering the workforce around the great recession and are always thankful to be gainfully employed. Or maybe it's just the Stanford alum effect...

And yes, totally agree with Mick's broader diagnosis - most of the tech firms that laid off 15-25 percent of their workforce early in the pandemic cut underperforming employees and units, many with the plan to hire back the 5 percent who were wrongly cast out to sea with their teams. No one wanted to be the layoffs first mover in a "historic" economy because it signals weakness even when many firms simply had bloat, and in normal times mass layoffs scare off prospective hires and prompts even the (job secure) good employees to start looking at other opportunities. Now, no one blinks an eye. And very few of those jobs will be coming back any time soon.

well my current employer has had a big layoff every 18-24 months since I've been there (almost 8 years) plus who knows how many smaller ones that did not require a WARN filing, we were "due" for one the end of last/early this year but so far the axe had not fallen, I expect it might when we announce earnings next month.  We did have a "take vacation or take time without pay" the week of fourth of July.

to monitor larger layoffs the WARN filings in most states are available on the web.  Usually it is just the number of people.  In California you can request the filing (maybe other states as well), it lists the layoffs by job title and number of people in that title.  Some of the titles are pretty generic (e.g. software engineer 4 - 17), but sometimes they are specific enough that you can figure out who the person is.

[Mick]

I think we all find it pretty shocking.  Personally, I don't understand it, and I mean not at all.  If you don't do what your boss tells you to do, you will be gone and fast.

My five most egregious examples come from three different generations.  One baby boomer, two Gen X, two Millenials.  Laid off the baby boomer because I told him to stop writing custom code, and stick with our standards.  He kept writing the custom code thinking it would protect him from being furloughed.  Surprise!  Took down his code, replaced it with standards.  Not difficult.  He's still shocked.

Second was Gen Xer (senior role) agreed to perform an event assignment within her job description to my face, then told my direct report she refused to do the job, though she told me 24 hours earlier she would do it.  Here's the type of worker she is: when we furloughed our workers, we agreed to pay their benefits in full in exchange for the furloughed individual to spend 1-3 hours transitioning duties to other people.  Of my eight, this is the only one who said "Screw You" and went to the beach instead.  What do you think the odds are that I'll hire her back?

Third was Gen Xer.  Very difficult to work with, made life difficult for others.  She ran events.  I asked her to take one additional step that would take about two hours extra per week.  She flat out refused.  And during our busiest event week, she was a no-show for personal reasons. She was responsible for scheduling events, and scheduled two events at the same time that required the same people to attend -- and she claimed it wasn't her fault.  Adios.

The two Millenials are interesting.  One of them runs our expertise/experience management database.  We have a diversity goal that requires us to perform to very specific measures, and it's difficult to calculate those measures based upon the requirements set forth by the sponsoring agency.  This was an assessment of 12 months' worth of data.  There is a simple, yet incorrect way to calculate the data and I warned her at the outset that wouldn't be sufficient and to calculate the data using my approved method.  With two weeks until the data was due, I checked to see if she was calculating the diversity metrics properly, and basically, she either lied to her boss or pretended that she didn't understand the assignment. In short, she was conveying "no" to both me and her boss, that she didn't and wouldn't perform the task to my easily-understood specs, so she could save about 85% of the hours required to complete the task.  So I gathered about 60% of our team, gave each of them the instructions, parted out the task in equal components and assigned my most micro-managing director to make sure it got completed.  In four days, 90% of it was complete.  And the Millenial was furious -- at me.  I embarrassed her, you see.

Otherwise, she's a performer.  this was a hiccup for her, but I'll pay close attention to see if she has this, or other shortcomings.  She's going out on maternity leave.  I don't have much say as to whether she can return.  On the whole, I like her, but this incident threw me.

As to the other Millenial, she's a low-ceiling coordinator who has been agitating for a managerial role, better pay and a higher bonus since the day I arrived a year ago.  I've found that over the last six weeks, she's been saying no to about 1/2 dozen assignments that belong to her (if she wants to be a manager).  She took medical leave ten days ago as her peers increasingly clamored for her to do her  #$%& job, and she will be out for five more days.

[Mick]

I think we all find it pretty shocking.  Personally, I don't understand it, and I mean not at all.  If you don't do what your boss tells you to do, you will be gone and fast.

My five most egregious examples come from three different generations.  One baby boomer, two Gen X, two Millenials.  Laid off the baby boomer because I told him to stop writing custom code, and stick with our standards.  He kept writing the custom code thinking it would protect him from being furloughed.  Surprise!  Took down his code, replaced it with standards.  Not difficult.  He's still shocked.

Second was Gen Xer (senior role) agreed to perform an event assignment within her job description to my face, then told my direct report she refused to do the job, though she told me 24 hours earlier she would do it.  Here's the type of worker she is: when we furloughed our workers, we agreed to pay their benefits in full in exchange for the furloughed individual to spend 1-3 hours transitioning duties to other people.  Of my eight, this is the only one who said "Screw You" and went to the beach instead.  What do you think the odds are that I'll hire her back?

Third was Gen Xer.  Very difficult to work with, made life difficult for others.  She ran events.  I asked her to take one additional step that would take about two hours extra per week.  She flat out refused.  And during our busiest event week, she was a no-show for personal reasons. She was responsible for scheduling events, and scheduled two events at the same time that required the same people to attend -- and she claimed it wasn't her fault.  Adios.

The two Millenials are interesting.  One of them runs our expertise/experience management database.  We have a diversity goal that requires us to perform to very specific measures, and it's difficult to calculate those measures based upon the requirements set forth by the sponsoring agency.  This was an assessment of 12 months' worth of data.  There is a simple, yet incorrect way to calculate the data and I warned her at the outset that wouldn't be sufficient and to calculate the data using my approved method.  With two weeks until the data was due, I checked to see if she was calculating the diversity metrics properly, and basically, she either lied to her boss or pretended that she didn't understand the assignment. In short, she was conveying "no" to both me and her boss, that she didn't and wouldn't perform the task to my easily-understood specs, so she could save about 85% of the hours required to complete the task.  So I gathered about 60% of our team, gave each of them the instructions, parted out the task in equal components and assigned my most micro-managing director to make sure it got completed.  In four days, 90% of it was complete.  And the Millenial was furious -- at me.  I embarrassed her, you see.

Otherwise, she's a performer.  this was a hiccup for her, but I'll pay close attention to see if she has this, or other shortcomings.  She's going out on maternity leave.  I don't have much say as to whether she can return.  On the whole, I like her, but this incident threw me.

As to the other Millenial, she's a low-ceiling coordinator who has been agitating for a managerial role, better pay and a higher bonus since the day I arrived a year ago.  I've found that over the last six weeks, she's been saying no to about 1/2 dozen assignments that belong to her (if she wants to be a manager).  She took medical leave ten days ago as her peers increasingly clamored for her to do her  #$%& job, and she will be out for five more days.

[82 Card]

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.  

This is an evergreen tale. As a child, I heard these stories at the holiday table from family friends that were professors. I remember reading this stuff about my own generation in the 70s. I've seen the same story about every generation since. With all these generations of lazy, irresponsible, entitled brats, it's a wonder anything gets done at all.

[82 Card]

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.  

This is an evergreen tale. As a child, I heard these stories at the holiday table from family friends that were professors. I remember reading this stuff about my own generation in the 70s. I've seen the same story about every generation since. With all these generations of lazy, irresponsible, entitled brats, it's a wonder anything gets done at all.