Its Time for Sunday Talk November 18, 2007

Defining life events…

• Columbine High School • 9-11 • Enron, WorldCom, etc. • War in Iraq • Nuclear threat from North Korea • Emerging nations—China, India

Impact of technological advancement…

• Never experienced life without computers • Reverse accumulation of knowledge—the younger you are, the more you know • All information is a click away; so is the competition • The world is a click away

Millennials at work…

• Work well with friends and on teams • Collaborative, resourceful, innovative thinkers • Love a challenge • Seek to make a difference • Want to produce something worthwhile • Desire to be a hero • Impatient • Comfortable with speed and change • Thrive on flexibility and space to explore • Partner well with mentors • Value guidance • Expect respect

Canice's take

I have mentored 6 (so far) students that belong to this generation. They are appreciative of the mentoring to a point. That point seems to be graduation from college - then the impatience kicks in.

Most applied to come back to work as staff members, however they expect to be hired at a grade above the usual first grade or series, usually citing they know more to begin with then oldsters (anyone older than they are). While the ones I worked with were smart, there was a lack of experience in managing diverse teams of workers- I mean its one thing to manage a group of employees all in you same age range, but in the real world, at least where i work, teams can be people from very little beyond high school age and education to people with doctorate education and over 60 in age...balancing these diverse personalities, education, work experience to optimize the "team" concept is often something the former students are lacking in. Some are lacking in basic office skills unrelated to the computer- drafting a memo, writing a comprehensive executive summary, in some cases even how to speak and dress...

I seem down on them, huh? I am not really. I just wonder sometimes why we in this country seem to think that making people feel good all the time is so dam important. If I do something wrong, I expect to be told about it, hell in my work history I got fired once for screwing up on the job(decades ago). not now.

Case in point, last week we ran a analysis tool against a new software application in testing to eventually go online. The report revealed there were hundreds-hundreds!!!!- of coding errors, over 100 critical, meaning they either would cause the system to crash or expose data to mishandling, allow hackers to redirect the application, etc.

I called a meeting and discussed it with the programming team. They argued that the software errors were not expected(duh) and they didn't accept any critisim , "...because it was a hard project and why do we have to do it anyway. " Are you kidding me!!! Its what the firm hired you to do, what you said you could do, what we pay you to do...if you had concerns, you should have said something..."Oh, we didnt know we could say anything".........UGHHHHHHHHHHHHH

OK enough sermonizing...who wants carrot cake and ice cream?