Getting fired 101

[Fleur De Guerre]

Well I have a lot of my workmates on my Facebook (not the CEO of course), use a work IM system and sit with my headphones on for most of the day!

But I agree the rest is total rubbish!

 

[Miss Neecerie]

Well I have a lot of my workmates on my Facebook (not the CEO of course), use a work IM system and sit with my headphones on for most of the day!

But I agree the rest is total rubbish!

See I think the detail-things like using IM and headphones are 100% 'environment' related.....what is acceptable and thus 'best practice' in one place....might sound -dreadful- to other situations.

My work has an internal IM system..I use it to conduct business..since we are a global company....its faster and cheaper then phone calls.

I have already said I use headphones. If I am doing work that does not require the assistance or intervention of others, (database work)....why shouldn't I, if my work place allows it. (and mine specifies headphones rather then a radio in cube where others can hear it)

 

[Diamondback]

Nice thing about being (for the moment, anyway) freelance. Pay and bennies suck bigtime, but at least I can insert clauses about "my methods are my own, you are only paying me for research, analysis and a final report at project conclusion". It also allows me the latitude to have an attitude of, "How seriously do you want this done? Then sit down, shut up, get out of my face and let me work."

This one sounds like a new attempt to write the Career-Ender's Bible.

 

[dhermann1]

Failure is real, and often for keeps, and often there's no learning from it (nothing positive, anyway) and no credit for "good try."

I sometimes think that what people need coming into the world is not so much self-confidence and a sense of their own worth as an educated awareness of how little they really have to be proud of and how little each of us really deserves in life. Lessening expectations - perhaps radically.

Fletch: Are you having a bad day, guy? You sound very negative at the moment!
These kids aren't ALL jerks. And they WILL learn. And sometimes I wonder if we "older" folks don't resent young folks just because we're not young any more ourselves. I know I do!

 

[Senator Jack]

It's all that free love they're getting in on. Rotten kids.

 

[Paisley]

I'll pass on what a phone company representative told our class when I was in the 9th grade. She said the most important thing in a job was attendance. Someone asked her if there were excused absences, and she replied, "How would you feel if you dialed zero and you got a recording saying, 'Sorry, your operator is out sick today'?" Any company or organization with deadlines, emergencies, impatient clients or real work to do can't function with employees who follow the flippant advice from the article.

My advice to young people at new jobs: think about the kind of service you expect, or would expect, when you are the customer. Or imagine the kind of employee you would want working for you. Is it someone who leaves work early, may or may not show up, bothers coworkers on the weekend with matters that should have been addressed at the office, and can't hear the phone ringing for their ear pods? No? Then be the person with the old-fashioned manners and work ethic. Don't expect it to be easy; you'll have to work on self-management every day. But more than becoming a dependable employee, the self discipline will give you confidence in yourself that dodging work won't do.

 

[Fletch]

d: I resent them because life is too short, and they know it, and they're acting on that knowledge. I didn't have that option - I basically had to give up on a halfway normal working or social life because I needed what they needed and didn't see any way to get it.

Generation X had a lot of the same concerns coming into the workplace, but we couldn't rack up the numbers. As a group, we just didn't matter.

Lizzie is righter than she knows. Sometimes the things you never get are not only things you want badly - they're things you need badly.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Hmph -- I was young once, and I wasn't good at it. And stay off my peonies, ya punks, or I'll set the cops on ya.

 

[Prairie Dog]

Well, what it all boils down to for me is simply this -- a generation that, to a very great extent, has been utterly shielded from the necessity of learning it can't always have its own way. I've had this conversation with my own niece -- "There are things in this life you might want with all your heart that you *simply aren't ever going to be able to have.* That's just the way life is, and the sooner you can accept that, the better."
And as a result she is, forgive me for saying so, an insufferable little spoiled brat. And unless college somehow knocks that sense of entitlement out of her -- and I kind of doubt it it will -- I pity whoever she ends up working for.

Sad to say it's simply called 'entitlement'!
It's our fault. We indulge their every wim by giving them cell phones, i-Pods, laptops, X-boxes, D-TV's, etc. The only TV I had as a kid was the one in the living room. If I wanted anything special, I had to earn it by doing chores and by working a summer job.
The upcoming generation are brats. They lie, cheat and know little if anything about the work ethic. They 'expect' to have everything handed to them on a silver platter. They're in for a reality check when they actually go into the real world.

 

[Senator Jack]

...and they get in on all that free love!

As for the workplace, the blame goes to all the stupid execs in the 90s that started hiring gen-exers at $100,000 a year simply because they knew how to send an e-mail. This thinking flooded into every industry - publishing, advertising, etc., as every company looked for kids that understood 'now'. Sound familiar? The same thing happened in the 60s.

 

[Fletch]

They're in for a reality check when they actually go into the real world.

Tell us more about the "real world." I used to think it was a pretty okay place, where people just tried to get along and do something good and maybe make things a little better for each other. Seems like any time anyone brings it up anymore, it's just a bucket of cold water with a few dollar bills floating on top.

Yes, I know I sound different than I did upthread. I was subjecting you all to a series of bitter, satirical rants. Call me an attention-craving troll if you like - I just read a few dozen comments to Trunk's articles and was amazed by how hard some people will fight to defend the status quo even if it's no bed of roses. Either being cynical and refusing to admit it is a sign of a well adjusted American mind, or else there is a LOT of free-floating hostility running around in public these days.

 

[Ben]

Kids these Days

A few thoughts:

First, Kids these days aren't all bad. As Lizzie pointed out, many of them like and crave structure. But, as Lizzie pointed out, and so did Prairie Dog, it is up to the older generations to teach them.

You teach them not only in school but also through leading by example.

Certainly many of our vaunted institutions have not done so. For example, people complain that kid get rewarded for nothing and expect too much. Well, what does the kid who works hard think when he sees everyone getting the same benefits by not working hard?

What is a kid supposed to think when he sees companies throw away workers for a 1/10th of penny per share?

What's a kid supposed to think when he sees the government and corporations lie and never held accountable for it even though everyone knows about the lie?

Really, it is up to all of us to set a good example and help out.

Also, encourage kids to play sports. That is one place where it is easy to see how life can be a zero sum game.

 

[Fridaynight]

"There are things in this life you might want with all your heart that you *simply aren't ever going to be able to have.* That's just the way life is, and the sooner you can accept that, the better."

Is something I can't get behind and endorse.
You want to be an astronaut? Good! go make it happen!
You want to own your own business by the time you're 25? I'm rooting for you!
You want to float by on government assistance your whole life? I can't get behind you on that one

I just think if someone has a positive goal, and is willing to WORK to achieve that goal, we have no right to tell them they CAN'T do it. Everywhere in the world there are influences telling people they can't do something. What's wrong with a little bit of optimism? We shouldn't teach people that these things are guaranteed successes. But becoming so disillusioned with the constant barrage of "That's not possible" isn't going to help better our world.

 

[Fletch]

But remember, a lot of it is up to pure dumb luck. There's always someone smarter, tougher, better. Always someone who wants it more. Someone who spoke first even tho you saw it first. Always.

And nobody can better the world if they can't eat. And if you want to eat well and regularly, you had better not be overmuch concerned with bettering the world.

I'm sure Liz isn't counseling her niece to go on the public dole, either. She's just preparing her for the idea that being a mature and responsible adult is sometimes - every now and then - going to be just as miserable as not being one.

There is no limit to what's possible, but neither is there any limit to what's impossible. It can be the simplest things, sometimes.

 

[Miss Neecerie]

"There are things in this life you might want with all your heart that you *simply aren't ever going to be able to have.* That's just the way life is, and the sooner you can accept that, the better."

Is something I can't get behind and endorse.
You want to be an astronaut? Good! go make it happen!
You want to own your own business by the time you're 25? I'm rooting for you!
You want to float by on government assistance your whole life? I can't get behind you on that one

It is reality that 'all things are not possible for all people', despite someone's desire to make it happen.

You want to be an astronaut, but have a vision problem, or have a disease that would be un-manageable in space..bzzzt, you cant -make- that happen then.

Everyone telling kids that they can make -anything- happen....if they just go to college and push long enough.....is not reality.

Face it...no one wants to be a low level employee...but they are needed. No one wants to go to university for 4 years...only to find out they are not qualified for anything but being an admin assistant, but thats reality.

Everyone is told 'go to college, thats how you make it', but only a tiny fraction of college graduates 'make it' to the levels that they are 'dreaming about' and get told is their right for being educated.

If everyone who was well educated, was making what they 'deserved'....do you think they would all be defaulting on the mortgages to the houses they bought because people buy bigger then they can really afford....?


PS...I am young enough that I actually remember being told the whole 'college will -make- your life happen.....song and dance that HS and University advisors tell people now.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I'm sure Liz isn't counseling her niece to go on the public dole, either. She's just preparing her for the idea that being a mature and responsible adult is sometimes - every now and then - going to be just as miserable as not being one.

That's exactly it. It's a fine and appropriate thing to have dreams, especially when you're a kid. But part of growing up is realizing not all those dreams are going to come true -- you aren't going to win every contest, you aren't going to come out at the head of every class, you aren't going to be the top dog in everything you try to do, and you aren't always going to succeed. Sometimes, no matter how hard you try, you're going to fall, and you're going to hit the pavement, and it's going to hurt. And when that happens, it doesn't entitle you to be a tragic heroine keening at the moon about how unjust your life is -- it just makes you one of about four billion other people in the world who've had to take knocks. So grow up, for cryin' out loud, and *deal with it.*

(Or so I learned from my Depression-era grandparents, who had a heck of a lot more to keen at the moon about than any skinny-pantsed middle-class emo kid of today....)

 

[Marc Chevalier]

...than any skinny-pantsed middle-class emo kid of today....

LizzieMaine in da house!

.

 

[Fridaynight]

You seem to be confusing what I'm saying with the thoughts of entitlement that some people have.

You go to college for 6 years, you aren't entitled to anything.
You work your butt off to start a business, you aren't entitled to have a successful business.

I don't believe in being entitled to something just because you think you deserve it.

You have to constantly work toward your goals. Yes, you'll do some things that won't work, but you don't give up.
If you're happy making minimum wage, you don't have much of a drive to get better. If you're unhappy making minimum wage but won't put in the effort to get a better job, you don't have much of a drive.

My description of 'bettering the world' isn't all that grand. If you can't eat, then you find a way to eat, you just bettered your world. Then you can move up to the next step, like finding a place to sleep, etc.

and I was in no way saying that Liz was suggesting her niece to get govt assistance, that was just my roundabout way of saying if its a negative goal, then its a very different situation than if they have a positive goal.

I firmly believe everyone has the capability to own their own business, if they have the drive to do it, and are willing to work hard, both to start the business and to keep it successful once you start it. That goes for a lot of other goals as well.

I've seen disabled people do amazing things because they didn't want to give up on their goals. Not everything is possible, but a hell of a lot more is possible than people give other people credit for.

 

[Fletch]

We are entitled to exactly nothing in this cold, dirty existential hell of a world. And if we hope to get thru it with even a shred of human dignity, we can never forget that. Not even for a second. Because the second we do, the world begins slowly to crush us.

 

[Miss Neecerie]

See there is a huge difference between.

Make your dreams happen.

and

Make a decent life happen.


Kids these days are being told the first, and thus beleive they do not have to compromise at all on those dreams.