Generational divide at work.. plus a thunderstorm

[novicecrafter]

Work was crazy today. We had a serious thunderstorm and we actually lost power a few times (back up generator kicked in but the store was still only partially lit). Outside was down right scary, Lightening was RIGHT on top of us. In this atmosphere there were 3 of the best examples of each generation one right after the other.

Some of our baggers belong to the old school baby boomer catagory. They are the best workers hands down. They do their job with class and work very hard with NO attitude.

During the storm one of them was outside gathering carts!!!!! In the middle of a freaking thunderstorm!!! I happen to be quite fond of him and I actually asked another older bagger to go out there and tell him I threaten great bodily harm if he didnt come back inside out of harms way.

He went out there and instead of bringing the first bagger in he helped him finish up the carts so the job would get done faster and everyone could come inside. He said to me "if you cant beat them join them" with a sly wink.

During this whole incident a Generation X manager (over the baggers and cashiers) was standing outside in the enclosure soberly watching them put their life at risk for a few carts and did nothing. Just kind of stood there but didnt have the balls to go out there himself (or the smarts to tell them we didnt need carts THAT badly).

So basically you have old school workers, Gen X without the same work ethic but still lacking the fervent fairness defending traits that Y has. I personally believe (however silly it may be) that if you are a manager you are a leader. A leader doesnt send his/her people out to do something he/she would not be willing to do themself. If I were that manager I would have either told everyone to come in or gone out there myself and helped.

And of course we have generation Y. The other half of the baggers/cashiers make up this catagory. While all of this was going on one of the baggers was carelessly handling the groceries. Almost like she was throwing a hissy fit for having to do something "degrading" as bagging groceries.

Well she managed to puncture a hole in a gallon of half and half. It went EVERYWHERE. She kinda slinked off and went to another register just leaving the mess. I asked her to find a mop (lawsuit waiting to happen to have a spill on the floor unattended in a high traffic area)

she looked at me and just kinda ignored it. I ended up needing to hold up the entire line while I cleaned up enough of the mess to continue at least checking people out. I told her that she needed to clean up the rest and she cant just leave it there. After painstakingly walking her through EVERY step of the way I told her to bring the open container to the back where the damaged dairy items go. She refused saying "but I dont know where it is". I gave her specific instructions and even said any employee who is back there would be glad to point you in the right direction. *grrrr*

While everything above was happening another Y cashier was going through my line on her break. She bought a piece of cake, potatoe chips, fried chicken, and a sub sandwhich. I gently teased her about it and said that she may be slender now but just wait till she is my age (24) and has to pay for it. She looked me right in the eye and said "Oh I dont eat all of it, I just take a bite or two of each thing AND THROW THE REST AWAY". I couldnt even speak. I still cant believe it. WTF

I am ashamed of my generation. *sighs* spoiled rotten whiny brats.

[Evil Queen]

Sadly, I land just inside the Generation Y category but in age only. Unlike a lot, I actually enjoy working, thank you very much.

Makes you wish you could find some way to drill some sense into our generation, huh?

[cinema guy]

I was working in a supermarket at the time of the Great Storm in 1987. We went out in the evening to get in as many carts as possible before the worst of the weather hit. It was dark, raining and very windy. But the managers were all out there too. When to car park flood lights went out and you couldn.t see your hand in front of your face, they sent us back in.

[Bright_Star]

I'm Generation X & we're not all a bunch of do-nothing slackers. Generation Y on the other hand....lol.

[Stormraven]

When I was in the Air Force, I was stationed, briefly, on an Army base, as my job didn't exist in the Army, so they needed AF support.

We went out on maneuvers with them, and saw a similar type of gap.

In this case, it was Army attitude vs. AF attitude.

In the Army - at least when I was around - only the lower level enlisted (E4 or less) did any of the real work in setting up tents and the like. The higher enlisted and officers stood around and watched. This was the case no matter how many or few of the lower enlisted they had.

The AF detachment, on the other hand, always worked together to get it done. We were always done way faster than the Army.

[RetailWorkhorse]

"Oh I dont eat all of it, I just take a bite or two of each thing AND THROW THE REST AWAY

*Twitches*

I'm SKINNY (some of you can agree with me) and have a very high metabolism. I'm also very very cheap when it comes to feeding my black hole of a stomache. How DARE that brat toss such good food! GRR!!! *Shake fist of doom* Why buy all that good stuff it you're just gonna throw it away? Talk about a WASTE.

[blas]

We're half and half where I work. Everyone is either really young, or middle aged and older. Barely anyone in between.

There are some really awesome kids my age who come to work everyday and give it their all and are good listeners and therefore have become valued employees.

Then there are some worthless brats right out of highschool who don't take their job seriously, come whenever they please, do nothing but sit or sleep all night, etc etc....and seem to take forever to be disciplined or fired.

There are some very good role model older people who go out of their way to help new people learn and have always been the first people to go to when you need help. They will actually stop what they are doing and help you, even if they aren't trainers.

Then there are some older people who just can't be bothered to listen to anyone younger than them (like when I was trainer), some of them are just as lazy as the kids, some of them are just as worthless as the kids.

[daleduke17]

When I was at my second grocery store (first Kroger though) we had a crew that was a mix of older generation, but mostly Gen X and some Gen Y (they were just turning 16 then). Let's just say our group busted ass. The idiots, DipShits, and slackers didn't last too long as the rest would gang up on them. :-p We all had our days of being tired/slackerish/not wanting to work, but, those generally were spread out enough it didn't matter (or everyone made up for it in one way or another).

[tropicsgoddess]

I guess I'm a Gen Y (I was born in 1984). When I was working at the restaurant ,we had the Baby Boomers, a couple of Gen X people and Gen Ys. The youngest of the entire staff was the busboy who was 14 (he was my boss' grandson's best friend).

[draftermatt]

I get your point, but every generation has their good people and their bad people

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

At my job, the ratio of sucky employees to good ones is about equal for the Gen X & Y workers as it is for the older ones. The difference seems to be that with the younger employees, management seems more willing to go through the disciplinary process and terminate younger employees than they are with older ones (with a few exceptions).

Two of our better younger employees are that way because they were sat down by management and told "Either you get with the program here, or you're fired." I never hear of anything like that with older employees.

And some of the older employees desperately need it. Some of them just move slowly and bitch about having to actually do work and just hole themselves up in their departments and refuse to help other departments or backup cashier when asked to. They seem to have the attitude of "I've been here 30 years, they won't get rid of me so I don't have to do much."

Then there's one older employee who just grates on me because she will ask me and others to do simple little mundane tasks she should do herself. Like on Saturday, she asked me to do some pulls she requested that she "didn't have time" to pull. She went through her department scanning outs for the first hour of her 8-hour shift. It would've taken her 10 minutes to pull everything, bring it down and fill it, but instead she decided to do other things.

Then she had three bikes she needed brought downstairs from backstock and put on the floor. She just pulled them over to the nearest stairwell, then hopped on a computer and typed a note reading "Please bring these three bikes down" and taped it to one of the bikes. It seems to me if you have time to sit down and type a note asking somebody to do some task, you have time to do that task yourself.

And the best one from a couple weeks ago: She called me over to--get this--open a box for her. I told her I was busy and kept right on walking. Seriously, if you don't have knife use one of your keys to cut open the box. Or you could even go to the fixture room and grab a peghook. If you turn it the right way it can act as a makeshift knife and cut through the tape.

Seriously, I'm so busy unloading and filling trucks and doing my own pulls and doing other tasks that get heaped on me, I don't have time to do piddly little things you don't want to do yourself.

[protege]

I never hear of anything like that with older employees.

There's a reason for that. It's called a company not wanting to deal with negative publicity over age discrimination.

[JustADude]

There's a reason for that. It's called a company not wanting to deal with negative publicity over age discrimination.

Actually, discrimination works both ways... not that anyone actually gives a crap about young, white, lower-middle-class straight males being picked on by all the other groups...

Anyway... the younger employees could sue the hell out of them for disciplining them while giving the older employees a free ride.

[Naaman]

Anyway... the younger employees could sue the hell out of them for disciplining them while giving the older employees a free ride.

Of course they're probably bank on the fact that the younger employees don't "know the rules"

[Broomjockey]

I get your point, but every generation has their good people and their bad people

Draftermatt's hit it right on the head, so can we back down a little on the ageism, please?