Am I The Only Boomer Who Hates This ?

[Options]

Good catch! Let me add Silent Generation to those I am grateful to.

 

[Luck_Club]

I'm about to branch out on my own - work at home - you can bet I will keep off hours and dress like a bum that just got off her bike after a long ride! But I will keep some appropriate outfits for the rare occasions when I need to visit corporate customers.

I've been working out of a room in my house for nearly 22 years. Being on the road, I have to do face time with customers, but many days (especially as I've moved into the kurmugen class) I start my day in a bath robe and end with a cocktail. I've struggled with the "home Office" self employed vs moving up the ladder lately. From everyone in my peer group I got it made

Words of Wisdom: Don't answer the phone while in the supermarket or Target, unless after hours. EVER! Send E-mails early mornings and late evenings.

Enjoy the Home office.

 

[Yarnstormer]

I've been working out of a room in my house for nearly 22 years. Being on the road, I have to do face time with customers, but many days (especially as I've moved into the kurmugen class) I start my day in a bath robe and end with a cocktail. I've struggled with the "home Office" self employed vs moving up the ladder lately. From everyone in my peer group I got it made



Words of Wisdom: Don't answer the phone while in the supermarket or Target, unless after hours. EVER! Send E-mails early mornings and late evenings.



Enjoy the Home office.

Thank you! I gave my 2 weeks notice today. This is in part a necessity due to my child care needs but I am hoping to stretch it out and never have to go to an office again if my conservative estimates pan out. Access to health insurance will be key of course.

Definitely gonna chill and just work with my one regular customer for a while. My bike needs riding and I have some long walks in the daylight to enjoy!

 

[mcbraemer]

Smart Phones - Oh My !

LOL funny thread! I'm winding down my 30 plus year IT career and see all the kids. I've adapted to casual dress and like it. Also enjoy working remotely but with my current position I'm NOT available off hours and will NOT be on-call. Those days are done.

What I notice about the new young kids is that they are incredibly glued to their smart phones. It's almost as if they are unable to talk face to face and their social skills are very lacking. I remember being the youngest at work, for what felt like years, and got ahead by forging friendships with my elders on the job. That doesn't happen at all now.

I highlighted the comment above related to the incessant reliance on Smart Phones - because this is true !! I am afraid most young people, including my wonderful 3 grown kids, are increasingly hooked on "small devices" for communicating with others - I am SURE you all have funny (or not so funny) stories along these lines. And yes, personal communications, the ability to relate directly (face to face) with others, manners, appropriateness of messaging and post content is all part of the downside.

 

[FIREmenow]

I highlighted the comment above related to the incessant reliance on Smart Phones - because this is true !! I am afraid most young people, including my wonderful 3 grown kids, are increasingly hooked on "small devices" for communicating with others - I am SURE you all have funny (or not so funny) stories along these lines. And yes, personal communications, the ability to relate directly (face to face) with others, manners, appropriateness of messaging and post content is all part of the downside.

 

[mcbraemer]

IT "Collaboration"

Having worn a suit to an IT job for many years, I'm very happy with the more casual dress requirements. What bothers me is the new focus on collaboration such that no workspace is quiet and all projects "collaborate" by wasting most of their time talking about what they plan to do instead of doing it. Everything takes twice as long to accomplish and is rarely tested, so there is lots of re-work (now glorified by the name refactoring) required.

The idea of flexible work hours is great and I've seen it work to good advantage by folks who like to arrive at 6AM and leave at 3PM while their colleagues arrive at 10AM and leave at 7PM. Lately this has shifted so many arrive at 10AM and leave at 4PM, which just makes me think the work ethic is eroded or maybe people have just figured out a way to abuse a lax system. Some days I am first in AND last out of the office. I think they think I'm some kind of freak who works all the time, which may be part of why they keep me around when everyone else is in their 20's.

Nice observation on the new pseudo-collaboration rage ! In IT, this is rampant, and is a huge time waster. Seems politically correct to go along, but jeez, we got 3X more done without the formal collaboration process, because I just got up, grabbed a few people, we met for 5-30 minutes together face to face, and moved on. We did not call it collaboration, or Agile, SCRUM, stand-ups or anything in particular - just common sense, good work style.

 

[mcbraemer]

As someone turning 40 next month, and still working, here's my take on those specific issues.

Working hours:

First off, I think there are many good reasons to have specific working hours. Personnel need to take over for other people so that a position can remain manned (such as power plant operators etc). Work must be supervised and/or done in a group so all personnel must be available/working at the same time. Work is done directly with customers that need to be able to interact with or otherwise dependon the the employees doing their jobs during known time-periods (such as cashiers, cooks, waiters etc).

Then again though, many jobs have no need to be done at a certain time, place, etc, and having "working hours" for them is just an arbitrary rule with little or no benefit. I spend approximately 0 hours in any normal week working "with other people" in any capacity. When or where I do my job has no impact on the work or client satisfaction except for known exceptions (such as when I visit my clients to get information or deliver products etc). The rest of the time, I could be sitting in our company offices or on the beach in Aruba and it would have no impact on the client's satisfaction or the work done. So why do I not do more work from Aruba? Because some people haven't figured out that working hours are pointless for many jobs these days and the only thing they accomplish for jobs such as mine is to reduce quality of life and happiness from the workers. Oh, and the President of my company thinks we "look good" to clients so we need to be available in case there's a surprise new client he wants to walk around the offices (never happened without notice, but whatever).

So, in summary, many position have no need to have set working hours and they serve no purpose, so why keep strict working hours for such positions when you can have happier employees instead (and many studies such as this one have proven that happier employees produce better and/or more production for their employers).

Dress code - Again, with the exception of employees directly working with customers, what purpose does a restrictive dress code serve? Does a man in a suit type or make decisions any better than the same guy in more comfortable clothes? Does wearing a blouse instead of a t-shirt make the women in our accounting office forget how to do the books? Nope, I'm pretty sure that changing outfits does not reduce anyone's ability to do their job effectively. It can improve their happiness, which as already mentioned has been proven to be better for employers.

I'm not sure what "office etiquette" you refer to as even in my somewhat lax office, I'm not aware of any rude behavior etc that would be considered acceptable, so I won't bother discussing that one.

And that takes us back to working hours, that I've already covered.

So, in summary, I'll say that many of the "rules" exist for no good reason and can actually be harmful to employee happiness and quality of life, which in turn is damaging to the employer's business in reduced productivity. It costs nothing to say "you can wear business casual instead of a suit" or "people not working with customers don't have to abide by a strict dress code" or "you can work flexible hours" yet can cause measurable benefits/gains for employers and improve employee loyalty (Google doesn't have significant attrition and the "benefits" they provide which boost employee happiness is a large reason for that). As such, when it costs nothing and doesn't hurt business, why would any reasonable management want to avoid improving their employee's productivity, reducing turnover rates, and making their employees happier? "That's not how I'm used to things being" is a pretty poor argument against bettering a company imo, and it's really the only argument I've heard against such changes.

If things were actually improving, I would agree with you. However, I don't know that I see that happening with much consistency. Sure, employees with minimal workplace structure and oversight are "happier"; I would have been too, but probably less productive, and ultimately less successful.

 

[Amethyst]

It sounds like what you are saying is that you are a person who thrives in a structured environment. That could be said of many people, but is not necessarily true of everyone.

What I see in my workplace, under the guidance of the more competent managers, is that people who crave structure can still create it for themselves, while people who find structure stifling have less of it to contend with. Although I'm only a part-time employee, I have benefited from this. And they seem quite happy with my productivity and performance.

ISure, employees with minimal workplace structure and oversight are "happier"; I would have been too, but probably less productive, and ultimately less successful.

 

[mcbraemer]

I do dress as I wish - and that is typically just chinos and a button down dress shirt (or decent polo/golf shirt), no sneakers or flip flops. Funny, but I am absolutely the poster boy here for GQ magazine, even with these casual threads on. Ha !
I am mildly disturbed about coders coming into work looking like I did coming in from the beach

 

[mcbraemer]

Cubicleville? Wait! That's luxury! We're talking OPEN SPACE, the Next Best Thing. Cubes are awesome compared to the new paradigm. You must be retired and missed out.

OMG - last time I was at a table like this I was like 5 years old. Yeah, this is the new "preferred" setup for a "collaborative workplace". Spare me. Thankfully, I'm outtahere

 

[mcbraemer]

BINGO !!! This is also prolific in IT. You nailed it !

 

[marko]

I remember being the youngest at work, for what felt like years, and got ahead by forging friendships with my elders on the job. That doesn't happen at all now.

They don't worry about how to get ahead now . They just expect it to happen automatically . Trophy for showing up !

Sent from my SM-T230NU using Early Retirement Forum mobile app

 

[joesxm3]

Wow! You hit a nerve.

Here's the thing, most of it doesn't bother me. I embrace it. I like going to work in shorts and ripped t-shirts. Yes, I started with suitcoat and tie in my early engineering days.

I do not like the "drag in at 1PM" thing.

And mostly, I don't like the: "Oh, here's a Millennial, let's ask them, they have the answers" attitude. It is crazy.

The ageism in IT borders on disgusting.

I was a while ago, back around 2001, but one job I was at had a hip, young, good looking guy who was "Internet Savy".

He claimed to be and "ISP", but I think he actually ran a porn site. The Director was enamored of him and he was the golden boy.

Eventually he started skipping showing up for work. Turned out that he liked his cocaine.

 

[joesxm3]

Nice observation on the new pseudo-collaboration rage ! In IT, this is rampant, and is a huge time waster. Seems politically correct to go along, but jeez, we got 3X more done without the formal collaboration process, because I just got up, grabbed a few people, we met for 5-30 minutes together face to face, and moved on. We did not call it collaboration, or Agile, SCRUM, stand-ups or anything in particular - just common sense, good work style.

SCRUM, the biggest daily waste of time I have ever seen. Especially since I was not really involved with the group that was running them, but I had to listen to all of their minute details. They never got things done on time, but they certainly knew what they all were doing.

When we were a tiny start up company, with out next paycheck riding on getting things done, you would not believe the motivation. After being bought by Mega Corp and having our processes "improved", well you can guess.

The manager of the SCRUM group decided that he would move to Florida but still wanted to keep his lucrative job and would manage his five people remotely. Next thing you know, almost all of them were working from home most of the time. When you are working in isolation, working at home can be good, but if you need to collaborate with people, being together is much better.

 

[exnavynuke]

If things were actually improving, I would agree with you. However, I don't know that I see that happening with much consistency. Sure, employees with minimal workplace structure and oversight are "happier"; I would have been too, but probably less productive, and ultimately less successful.

Except, study after study has shown that flexible hours etc DO improve productivity. The studies on attire similarly show either no change or an improvement in productivity with casual attire, though a couple studies came to the conclusion that career growth for individuals with classic business attire tended to be higher, but those were also in specific fields. Microsoft (and its employees) tend to be pretty successful despite having a long history of casual attire. Google, same. The list goes on and on from there if the studies aren't convincing.

Working hours: Proof that you should get a life | The Economist
https://www.shrm.org/about/foundation/products/Documents/9-14 Work-Flex EPG-FINAL.pdf
Forbes Welcome
EMPLOYERS NEED » Improved Performance & Productivity
etc etc

 

[Yarnstormer]

I can't imagine working in a room like that, especially if people are talking on the phone. I would get nothing done and probably spend the majority of the day worried there was ketchup on my nose or something!! Way too "on display" for me!

 

[imoldernu]

Greatest generation: born between 1910 and 1924

Silent generation: born mid 1920's to mid 1940's

FromWikipedia:

While there were many civil rights leaders, the "Silents" are called that because many focused on their careers rather than on activism, and people in it were largely encouraged to conform with social norms. Time magazine coined the term "Silent Generation" in a November 5, 1951 article entitled "The Younger Generation," and the term has remained ever since...... The name was originally applied to people in the United States and Canada but has been applied as well to those in Western Europe, Australia and South America. It includes most of those who fought during the Korean War. In the United States, the generation was comparatively small because the financial insecurity of the 1930s and the war in the early 1940s caused people to have fewer children.

They have also been named the "Lucky Few" in the 2008 book The Lucky Few: Between the Greatest Generation and the Baby Boom, by Elwood D. Carlson PhD.

 

[euro]

I'd rather hike a mountain than stand in a park milling about trying to catch a Pokemon character. I also don't understand being with a group of friends and everyone is talking or texting to others who aren't there. So... there are some things I just don't get

+1 on that!

 

[shotgunner]

Simon Sinek is an author and motivational speaker, one who I really like. In this video he talks about the challenges the Millennials bring to the work place along with the use of cell phones and social media. High tech in the office when I started working was a multi line phone and a typewriter with a correction ribbon. Times have really changed.

 

[Milton]

retirement (early, i will be 62 1/2)

scrum, the biggest daily waste of time i have ever seen.

+1

 

[Amethyst]

I was chatting with the young (to me; he's probably 37 or 38) man who is my current supervisor, and definitely (and deservedly) on the fast track upward. He scoffs at the notion that people are all that different depending on their generation. He says people are people. No wonder we get along.