All generations have these people. Not just at work.
If anything, journalism surely has dipped over the years.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/other/the-top-3-workplace-practices-that-give-gen-z-employees-the-ick-and-how-to-avoid-them/ar-AA139Dp2?ocid=entnewsntp&pc=U531&cvid=5c77c89c73434a75b22253f7dcba07ea#comments
Completely limited to my personal experience, I just do not understand developers who cannot follow simple directions. Part of our setup is to create a GitHub account. Majority of our developers cannot follow the simple corporate step: ID is to be first-last-companyName
I am not including the "what do I do here?" or "what do I put here?" One of the steps is to create an id which is simple [first name]-[last name]-[company name] where company name was masked for this blog. There are even a couple examples on what it would look like. There have also been a couple where I emphasized this step, and STILL I see a different id. I lost count of how many brain cells or hours wasted wrapping my brain around this. The latest being that the person did not include a dash between first and last.
THEN... when I point this out to them, they ask "how do I change it?" And right at the end of the exact same step that they probably did not read are the steps on how to rename your id in case you did it wrong.... BESIDES that it is a globally known site which they should just embarrassingly just Google search. Do they have no shame and having to ask me?
Is this my only story? Oh no no. From my personal experience, I find that good developers have all followed instructions very well. Not always perfect but there is definitely a level of difference. There is a level of attentiveness to detail. I am starting to wonder if it is just better to make interviews about just creating accounts to follow instructions... but then I guess the recruiter will figure this out and train their clients.
My favorite is one developer claiming that he has an OCD in being a perfectionist and his work was by far the worst, littered with mistakes everywhere besides what I would claim to be more like perfectionists. He is a native English speaker and only that one language. His emails come out worse than all our internationals combined. Much less things like proper upper-case, consistent spacing, etc. that I wouldn't expect even with English speakers but would for an actual perfectionist.
First before getting into this too deeply, I have not had a manager who ever really cared for 1-on-1 conversations whether it is required by the company or not.
For the first decade of my career, I didn't care much for 1-on-1. I always thought it was a waste of time. Shouldn't my manager know what I am working on? Some may ask why should they know. The reason at that time was because they are the ones assigning my work and I report to them when it is done. Now, I know a little better because I have a lot of flexibility in my work and my manager does not know the specifics (if I did not tell them). Later in that same decade, managers never said anything meaningful in the meeting. They didn't care for what I said. Thus, I dreaded them because it was such a waste of my time. This was also the time period I was putting in 60-80 hours weekly with occasional 80+ hours.
In the middle, there was some transitioning on my mental outlook on work and career.
For the last decade, I have cared more about my 1-on-1 for several different reasons:
1. To learn what my manager does.
2. To learn what his manager does or looks for from him.
3. To know I am on track.
4. To see what other opportunities are out there.
5. Delegate work that is more than I can handle or at least start giving notifications that my workload is reaching its limit
I think the manager should care on what I do, but I do not get the feeling that I do. I feel that most managers find that I am a great employee and I do not need to be managed, so they spend their efforts and energy on the more problematic employees. And by problematic, I just mean those who just needs more hand-holding... not necessarily that they are a negative affect on the company. I have learned there are a lot of them.
I do not understand that part. Why spend time on those who not only take up energy but also have shown no evidence of growing?
Is it because I do not show enough ambition? I do admit that I am kind of wishy-washy on my future, but I feel that I am pretty clear that I do want more impact. Why am I wishy-washy? Because I just do not want to limit my possibilities with what I think because I believe my views are more narrow than my manager.. because they are higher than me and have more experience. And this may potentially be my current downfall. I do make it clear that I do want more impact which I hope translates to some sort of promotion. But I am fine if he just puts me in an area that I have more control over future products or people that I can personally manage.
In all companies especially the larger ones, they all require 1-on-1 meetings because it improves engagement. High engagement keeps people. But everyone that I have asked about their experience with those meetings, all think it is a waste of their time. Everyone that I ask are not managers, so I am missing a huge side of this.
Perhaps in my next call, I should ask if my managers find any use to the 1-on-1 meetings.
Of course everywhere when busy season rolls around, these meetings keep getting canceled or rescheduled. This is nothing new.
But I feel when my manager says that he needs to cancel then asks if it needs to be rescheduled... I get the feeling that he does not understand the value of these calls. I know he thinks that he is giving me time because I have lately been telling him that I do not have time to finish all my work. But these 30 minutes calls are such a minute part of my week. I think he should find a way to make those 30 minutes valuable so that it is worth my time... unless it is to maybe use that 30 minutes to talk to his manager to get what I need.
