I don't have an apology for my lack of material lately. Only excuses. Excuse #1 www.jezebel.com they have taken any and all topics that I could criticize and criticizes it with double the witty and bitch-slapping humor that I could ever hope to have. Excuse #2 is moving to Chicago, starting a new job, and temporarily having roommates that couldn't afford to pay for the internet. So there. But lucky for both of us, I had a bit of inspiration to start writing again (and we got the internet). This blog is my best effort at showing my talent to the world. Or my friends, who are the only ones who read this. Thanks for making me feel special guys.
So what to write about now? I need a good topic to reinstate my place in the Blog-o-sphere. Living in this city is still a novelty to me so I will share a story, saturated with my editorial.
I was on the train yesterday, heading downtown to watch the lighting of the Christmas lights down Michigan Ave. At some Lincoln Park stop, five mid-50's women clamber on with their fur coats and Botox-inated smiles, smelling like too much hairspray and too many glasses of White Zinfandel. They settled stiffly into seats around me and some Columbia students and a club rep (we all got free passes to some party sponsored by Camel with free boxes of cigarettes. I could almost hear the raspy-voiced hipster next to me singing "I'VE GOT A GOLDEN TICKET") We could tell these women had not been on the Red Line since 1980. Conversation ensued. There was talk of cute servers at the wine bar with a hint of potential mid-life crisis and divorce. One women was harassed shamelessly for putting lipstick on. "Are you planning on making out with someone tonight??" the heckler spat. I couldn't take my mind off their hair. The amount of product used in their hair collectively would give Al Gore no other reason for the break down of the ozone. Stiff and big; proving my theory that they hadn't been out of their suburban boxes since the 80's for a Duran Duran concert. Their conversation veered towards the rumored relationship between Ashley Olsen and Lance Armstrong. "She's a baby!" "Ugh makes me sick. what do they have in common?" "He fought cancer! He is a champion athlete and what has she done? Coke?" The underlying hostility towards Gen Y is hard to miss (I wake up every morning hoping that a higher power has turned me into an Olsen.) After the train hits their stop and they stumble off. The Golden Ticket holder next to me can hold it in no longer "Sweet Jesus I hope I never talk that much when I'm old" "Did you see that woman's face? She looking like a parrot with all the make up" I threw in my observation "Did you see how much shit was in their hair??" We group of random 20 somethings laughed to the next stop over the desperation of those women. I got off the train with yet another reason to love being young and wild and relentless and having no reason to NOT believe that Gen Y is the shit.
Showing posts with label generation gap. Show all posts
Showing posts with label generation gap. Show all posts
Sunday, November 18, 2007
Friday, May 4, 2007
We both know I'm a phenomenal dancer
I am a student of Gen Y. I strive to see how the US population views my generation and to see if they are right on or smelly stereotypes. I found a WSJ article today about a trend in the twenty-something new professionals that I had never heard before. It struck me as such a sprawling generalization and seemed so self-important I found it hard to accept at first. But its true. Our generation needs more praise.
This issue was too impressive to pass up, but a little touchy for my single voice to try to explain. I've got my ideas behind it, and I asked some friends and my parents to let me know what they thought of this as well.
My dad’s opinion was pure coincidence. He has seen, in the workplace, an increase in praise and positive reinforcement years before my generation entered the workplace. “I don't quite agree. The change in management style actually occurred when the generation targeted by the article was kids, because managers then were parents and started applying the same style of management they used for parenting. The fact that these kids grew up at the same time many companies where going over the top on praise (because it evolved over time like anything else) is coincidental.” So perhaps the US as a whole is stepping up the compliments.
A friend of mine took the upper hand on the issue, looking at it from the management position. She is a pitching couch for the local high school softball team. She said that her girls’ need for praise has turned into their demanding praise and rejecting negative feedback. Have we come to see praise as the norm? Do we get a handful of compliments and become jaded over our failures? Do we think we are without flaws now?
Over the weekend, some friend and I had a girl’s wine-and-chick-flicks night in. We watched The Devil Wears Prada (a personal favorite – Anne Hathaway is right up there with America Ferrara for me - helping us big brown eyed girls embrace our features and size 6 self). There is a scene when Andy is complaining to Nigel that for all the Starbucks she fetches and spa appointments she books and look-sees she has to trail to, she does not receive so much as a glimmering eye of gratitude from Miranda (a character not-so-loosing based on the equally pursed-lipped Vouge editor-in-chief Anna Wintour)
I, personally, agree to the extent that I do feel better about my work and am willing to put forth more effort when I know that it will be recognized. But is that a generational characteristic or a need that all people have? Perhaps because my generation has grown up in a, until recently, peaceful time – we have never had to worry about a war draft, or saving scraps to sustain American lifestyle – we are less aware of our part as a collective, looking more closely at ourselves instead. We do not see that our hard work is propelling a company forward, but that it is not personally satisfying without recognition. Could it also stem from being raised off the Internet? Another view of it is the instant feedback that people get after posting blogs, recording podcasts, uploading YouTube videos, writing facebook or MySpace wall posts, etc. We have become accustom to hearing what people have to say about our work in our personal lives. If most of the feedback you get from friends and family on things like that is positive, then a positive shine our your own work is bound to follow. And without getting that same approval from bosses may discourage us into believe that our work is useless.
I get rare praise for the menial work I do from day to day in the office. But there was one particularly stressful report that gets sent up to some big-wigs that I had spent days going over with a fine-tooth comb ensuring it wasn’t going to get sent back to me by the CEO wondering why a $40 million charge was made to Girl Scout Troop #5555. A few days after I held my breath and pressed “send” on that report, I got an email back from my boss’s boss saying that his boss wanted me to know that I did a great job on the report. I have saved that email, spent about 5 hours beaming over the accomplishment, showing Elaine and forwarding it to my parents to put on the fridge like an A+ report card. I now work harder every month on that one report, waiting for the praise to come again. It never has, but I still bank on the fact that if it happened once, it’s bound to happen again. The ball is now in the manager’s court, though. Does he compliment my excel qualities every month over the fact that it was done without errors – which is the basic description of my job requirements, nothing out of the ordinary – or ignore the fact that I am waiting patiently like one of Pavlov’s dog waiting to get that steak again?
I ask – how much effort does it take to stop by an employee’s office and tell them thanks? Not much. Today, pat someone on the back. If nothing else, there's got to be some good karma in there for you somewhere.
This issue was too impressive to pass up, but a little touchy for my single voice to try to explain. I've got my ideas behind it, and I asked some friends and my parents to let me know what they thought of this as well.
My dad’s opinion was pure coincidence. He has seen, in the workplace, an increase in praise and positive reinforcement years before my generation entered the workplace. “I don't quite agree. The change in management style actually occurred when the generation targeted by the article was kids, because managers then were parents and started applying the same style of management they used for parenting. The fact that these kids grew up at the same time many companies where going over the top on praise (because it evolved over time like anything else) is coincidental.” So perhaps the US as a whole is stepping up the compliments.
A friend of mine took the upper hand on the issue, looking at it from the management position. She is a pitching couch for the local high school softball team. She said that her girls’ need for praise has turned into their demanding praise and rejecting negative feedback. Have we come to see praise as the norm? Do we get a handful of compliments and become jaded over our failures? Do we think we are without flaws now?
Over the weekend, some friend and I had a girl’s wine-and-chick-flicks night in. We watched The Devil Wears Prada (a personal favorite – Anne Hathaway is right up there with America Ferrara for me - helping us big brown eyed girls embrace our features and size 6 self). There is a scene when Andy is complaining to Nigel that for all the Starbucks she fetches and spa appointments she books and look-sees she has to trail to, she does not receive so much as a glimmering eye of gratitude from Miranda (a character not-so-loosing based on the equally pursed-lipped Vouge editor-in-chief Anna Wintour)
I, personally, agree to the extent that I do feel better about my work and am willing to put forth more effort when I know that it will be recognized. But is that a generational characteristic or a need that all people have? Perhaps because my generation has grown up in a, until recently, peaceful time – we have never had to worry about a war draft, or saving scraps to sustain American lifestyle – we are less aware of our part as a collective, looking more closely at ourselves instead. We do not see that our hard work is propelling a company forward, but that it is not personally satisfying without recognition. Could it also stem from being raised off the Internet? Another view of it is the instant feedback that people get after posting blogs, recording podcasts, uploading YouTube videos, writing facebook or MySpace wall posts, etc. We have become accustom to hearing what people have to say about our work in our personal lives. If most of the feedback you get from friends and family on things like that is positive, then a positive shine our your own work is bound to follow. And without getting that same approval from bosses may discourage us into believe that our work is useless.
I get rare praise for the menial work I do from day to day in the office. But there was one particularly stressful report that gets sent up to some big-wigs that I had spent days going over with a fine-tooth comb ensuring it wasn’t going to get sent back to me by the CEO wondering why a $40 million charge was made to Girl Scout Troop #5555. A few days after I held my breath and pressed “send” on that report, I got an email back from my boss’s boss saying that his boss wanted me to know that I did a great job on the report. I have saved that email, spent about 5 hours beaming over the accomplishment, showing Elaine and forwarding it to my parents to put on the fridge like an A+ report card. I now work harder every month on that one report, waiting for the praise to come again. It never has, but I still bank on the fact that if it happened once, it’s bound to happen again. The ball is now in the manager’s court, though. Does he compliment my excel qualities every month over the fact that it was done without errors – which is the basic description of my job requirements, nothing out of the ordinary – or ignore the fact that I am waiting patiently like one of Pavlov’s dog waiting to get that steak again?
I ask – how much effort does it take to stop by an employee’s office and tell them thanks? Not much. Today, pat someone on the back. If nothing else, there's got to be some good karma in there for you somewhere.
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