With apologies to Jeff Foxworthy, I couldn’t resist trying for a bit of humor to brighten your day.To catch up on the background, read “The Millennials are Coming…”. You will quickly understand that we in business are facing a new generation of workers who come from a world that is alien to businesses today.
You might be a millennial if…
1. You think your company user-group meetings have something to do with drug rehab.
2. You don’t understand why they are making all that fuss about you printing out the nudie fliers on the company printer for your best friend’s band’s show.
3. You marvel at how your interests have “grown up”, from tracking your friends exploits on FaceBook, to tracking Jessica Simpson’s exploits on E! Online.
4. You have posted in your cube the multi-page list of cool downloads from iTunes, to highlight your natural leadership ability.
5. Your concern on hearing comments about an "Axis of evil" is that you must have missed a really “rad” party.
6. Your tried to set up the next weekly team conference call as texting-only, to make it more productive.
7. You are certain that the company policy against drinking while entertaining customers only applies if you are under age 21.
8. You are protesting the unfair company medical benefits limitations on procedures so critical to your age group, like body implants, piercings, and tattoo removal.
9. You recommended to the training department that a 3D virtual reality game would be a perfect way to prepare new employees for company jobs.
10. You overheard some executives talking about the “dot-com bust”, which was a mystery since you couldn’t think of a woman named Dot who worked in this office.
You also might be a millennial if all these points strike you as intuitively obvious. See more of these published previously. This is so much fun that I might make it a regular offering, if you help me out with some new points. I’ve always believed that there are serious messages that we can learn from every bit of humor.
You might be a millennial if…
1. You think your company user-group meetings have something to do with drug rehab.
2. You don’t understand why they are making all that fuss about you printing out the nudie fliers on the company printer for your best friend’s band’s show.
3. You marvel at how your interests have “grown up”, from tracking your friends exploits on FaceBook, to tracking Jessica Simpson’s exploits on E! Online.
4. You have posted in your cube the multi-page list of cool downloads from iTunes, to highlight your natural leadership ability.
5. Your concern on hearing comments about an "Axis of evil" is that you must have missed a really “rad” party.
6. Your tried to set up the next weekly team conference call as texting-only, to make it more productive.
7. You are certain that the company policy against drinking while entertaining customers only applies if you are under age 21.
8. You are protesting the unfair company medical benefits limitations on procedures so critical to your age group, like body implants, piercings, and tattoo removal.
9. You recommended to the training department that a 3D virtual reality game would be a perfect way to prepare new employees for company jobs.
10. You overheard some executives talking about the “dot-com bust”, which was a mystery since you couldn’t think of a woman named Dot who worked in this office.
You also might be a millennial if all these points strike you as intuitively obvious. See more of these published previously. This is so much fun that I might make it a regular offering, if you help me out with some new points. I’ve always believed that there are serious messages that we can learn from every bit of humor.
Marty Zwilling
Posts
Entered by me due to external entry problems)
ReplyDeleteHi Martin,
I am a millennial born in '84 and have been in the "real world" for 1.5 years. There is a lot of truth in your posts, but don't be consumed by stereotypes. Not all of us are afraid to wear suits from 9-6 and turn off Skype or AIM :) We are full of ambition and very educated; however, we lack real experience and our ride to the top is a bit bumpier than we expected.
Many companies have created development programs to put "us" through training in their way of doing business. In 3 months, I went from a biology student to a much more polished IT consultant. It was a structured, classroom setting containing 19 millennials making for a nice bridge from university to the working world.
Many millennial entrepreneurs and those in the corporate arena are expressing themselves via blogging. Several of my classmates and I
started blogging about how to deal with work-life balance, working with different enerations, dealing with failure, how to make those big purchases (car and home), traveling, etc. It is a way to release that entrepreneurial spirit while we are gaining experience in the business world. It is an interesting phenomenon, and I will be stopping by your blog to see what you have to say. Great stuff!
-Trina
http://leadingassociates.net/
Back in the BBS days we called them Squids, and said things like "Ahoy sharkbait!" when some newbie or rookie just got a computer for Christmas or their birthday or whatever and then joined up the BBS we were all on.
ReplyDeleteNow they are called millennials as they entered the computer work force after the change of the millennium.
Let me add some more:
#1 If you think Y2K was a WWE Professional wrestler.
#2 If you think a mainframe was a part of your bicycle that you attached wheels and handlebars to it to get it to work.
#3 If you use swear words and slang for marketing and public relation suggestions.
#4 If you play your iTunes playlist in your Cubical with speakers at full blast as a way of motivating employees to work harder.
#5 If you think posting your party pictures of you drinking beer from beer bongs and beer hats with tubes coming out of the beer cans attached to it, as a way to promote your professional business image.
#6 If you talk negative about your company, coworkers, and managers on your blog that is publicly searchable by web engines like Google. Then think that nobody will notice even if you used real names.
#7 You think that Debugging requires you to call an exterminator to get rid of the cockroaches in the office.
#8 You never heard of Total Quality Management and quality assurance, and think that programs you write should normally crash the system and servers 12 times a day.
#9 You think that writing sloppy program code as fast as possible is the best way to gain your manager's attention to promote you and give you a raise.
#10 If you don't know what you are doing, instead of asking others, you just goof off at work at the water cooler, coffee pot, snack room, or keep going out for smoking breaks until someone tells you what you are supposed to be doing.
These are really great! Thanks.
ReplyDelete