Tired of Managing Millenials

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Op you suck.

It’s not ‘asking’ to take time off, they’re not your slaves. They are telling you they will be gone. Stop being a jerk.

NP. That’s not accurate. Vacation requests need to be approved. You don’t “tell” anyone you’ll be gone…despite how much you wish you could. When you are a partner, principal or owner, you can “tell.” Until then you ask, like everyone else.

+1. Some of you clearly don’t work in the private sector. I’ve never had a job where I didn’t have to seek manager’s approval to take time off.

I work in the private sector at a director level. I tell my leadership when I will be out, and my team tells me when they will be out. If multiple people are out at the same time, we work together to coordinate coverage / work ahead / adjust accordingly. People have earned their PTO and they should be able to use it for the things that are important to them.

Same.

[Anonymous]

OP is an example of why middle managers like a manager or a director are truly useless positions. Are they doing their job? Ok cool. Have their earned their PTO? Ok cool.

Do they need their nosy manager to know what they spend their paid time off on? No. MYB and STFU OP. You aren’t the boss of their life.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Oh dear god, OP. You'll manage for one whole week without two people. Can you imagine your boss telling you that you can't go to your kid's graduation? That's pretty heartless.

Signed, Gen X who's sick of everyone's sh*t

This. Another Gen X, also sick af of everyone.

Gen X fed manager here, in 100% agreement. FFS, people should be able to attend the life milestones of their loved ones. And they are entitled to their leave, it is compensation just like salary. I'm sure everyone in the office will survive a busy week in May.

If you aren't such a PITA about taking EARNED time off, people will talk to you about their plans in advance instead of trying to make them a fait accompli. This is an environment you've created.

Me again, GenX fed manager. Just want to add the my office is chockful of millennials and i find them to be as hardworking as and no more entitled than anyone else. So I'm also sick of this generational bullsh*t (even as I think much of the GenX rep is accurate lol).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP is an example of why middle managers like a manager or a director are truly useless positions. Are they doing their job? Ok cool. Have their earned their PTO? Ok cool.

Do they need their nosy manager to know what they spend their paid time off on? No. MYB and STFU OP. You aren’t the boss of their life.

Um, that's not how management works. You have to balance the employee vacation time to ensure that you can continue to get work done during busy seasons. My business season is March/April. I would need workers during that time so could not have multiple people taking out the 1st week of April. It would be detrimental to business. I'd imagine accounting firms are much the same way.

So no, part of responsible employment is not dumping work on employees when the office is known to be busy.

[Anonymous]

Oh fantastic. More ageism.

OP you just used generational terms to justify firing middle aged people and hiring younger people for less money. You could have posted without specifying their age as a factor.

[Anonymous]

Why do you need a week off or any time off for a HS Graduation? At most a day. My two kids HS graduation both I took a 1/2 day.

Other than my own wedding I never take off for a wedding they are at night or the weekend.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP is an example of why middle managers like a manager or a director are truly useless positions. Are they doing their job? Ok cool. Have their earned their PTO? Ok cool.

Do they need their nosy manager to know what they spend their paid time off on? No. MYB and STFU OP. You aren’t the boss of their life.

Um, that's not how management works. You have to balance the employee vacation time to ensure that you can continue to get work done during busy seasons. My business season is March/April. I would need workers during that time so could not have multiple people taking out the 1st week of April. It would be detrimental to business. I'd imagine accounting firms are much the same way.

So no, part of responsible employment is not dumping work on employees when the office is known to be busy.

This isn’t how management works. At all. Unless you’re a nosy micromanager and a shitty manager.

An employee wants a week off. Why does the graduation matter? If they have the time off, they have the time off. Either deny it or let them have it. But to complain that they want a week off for a graduation is stupid. How do you know if they have family in town? Or if they’re giving their kid a family trip after the ceremony?

Be their boss at work. Not their boss for their life.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP is an example of why middle managers like a manager or a director are truly useless positions. Are they doing their job? Ok cool. Have their earned their PTO? Ok cool.

Do they need their nosy manager to know what they spend their paid time off on? No. MYB and STFU OP. You aren’t the boss of their life.

Um, that's not how management works. You have to balance the employee vacation time to ensure that you can continue to get work done during busy seasons. My business season is March/April. I would need workers during that time so could not have multiple people taking out the 1st week of April. It would be detrimental to business. I'd imagine accounting firms are much the same way.

So no, part of responsible employment is not dumping work on employees when the office is known to be busy.

Your work must involve a lot of paper pushing. Many of us work in strategic or technical roles and me taking vacation is more or less unrelated to another person taking vacation, even on the same team. There’s less capacity to handle overflow issues but it’s not like someone else can cover my BAU workload for a week.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why would anyone need a week off to attend a wedding or graduation?

I only took 3 days off work for my own wedding (wedding was on a Saturday; I took off Thursday, Fri, and Monday)

-also a millennial

Are you also one of those people who brags about returning to work 4 weeks postpartum?

You are making things worse for your coworkers, please stop.

No absolutely not. I took 6 months off w each baby.

I just didn’t need that much time to get married. We went in a 3 week honeymoon later on but for the wedding itself I didn’t need much time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why would anyone need a week off to attend a wedding or graduation?

I only took 3 days off work for my own wedding (wedding was on a Saturday; I took off Thursday, Fri, and Monday)

-also a millennial

Are you also one of those people who brags about returning to work 4 weeks postpartum?

You are making things worse for your coworkers, please stop.

No absolutely not. I took 6 months off w each baby.

I just didn’t need that much time to get married. We went in a 3 week honeymoon later on but for the wedding itself I didn’t need much time.

LOL. You took 3 weeks and 3 days off for your wedding then.

[Anonymous]

It sounds like OP is managing minimum wage workers at a sandwich shop. This is not how you manage professionals.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP is an example of why middle managers like a manager or a director are truly useless positions. Are they doing their job? Ok cool. Have their earned their PTO? Ok cool.

Do they need their nosy manager to know what they spend their paid time off on? No. MYB and STFU OP. You aren’t the boss of their life.

Um, that's not how management works. You have to balance the employee vacation time to ensure that you can continue to get work done during busy seasons. My business season is March/April. I would need workers during that time so could not have multiple people taking out the 1st week of April. It would be detrimental to business. I'd imagine accounting firms are much the same way.

So no, part of responsible employment is not dumping work on employees when the office is known to be busy.

Your work must involve a lot of paper pushing. Many of us work in strategic or technical roles and me taking vacation is more or less unrelated to another person taking vacation, even on the same team. There’s less capacity to handle overflow issues but it’s not like someone else can cover my BAU workload for a week.

Yes, law and finance are very paper pushing fields. We have government deadlines that are dictated throughout the year. Our annual calendar revolves around them, as does our revenue stream. So we cannot have individuals out during this time. IF an atty wants to miss this season, I guess she can but she would miss out on a ton of billables, which would hurt the bottom line.

So yes, management must consider the business calendar when granting vacation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP is an example of why middle managers like a manager or a director are truly useless positions. Are they doing their job? Ok cool. Have their earned their PTO? Ok cool.

Do they need their nosy manager to know what they spend their paid time off on? No. MYB and STFU OP. You aren’t the boss of their life.

Um, that's not how management works. You have to balance the employee vacation time to ensure that you can continue to get work done during busy seasons. My business season is March/April. I would need workers during that time so could not have multiple people taking out the 1st week of April. It would be detrimental to business. I'd imagine accounting firms are much the same way.

So no, part of responsible employment is not dumping work on employees when the office is known to be busy.

This isn’t how management works. At all. Unless you’re a nosy micromanager and a shitty manager.

An employee wants a week off. Why does the graduation matter? If they have the time off, they have the time off. Either deny it or let them have it. But to complain that they want a week off for a graduation is stupid. How do you know if they have family in town? Or if they’re giving their kid a family trip after the ceremony?

Be their boss at work. Not their boss for their life.

Your comment doesn't make any sense. I would not grant vacation during our peak season except for emergency. I don't care why someone is asking. That is pretty easy to understand.

[Anonymous]

Is this a white collar thing? Have none of you ever worked in a job where coverage actually matters, or were you even doing desk work internships and such in high school and college? There are a TON of jobs out there where you need a minimum number of staff on hand for basic operations on a daily basis. And no, nobody pays extra salaries al year round to ensure that as many people can take leave as they want any given week. I'm sure you wouldn't want to pay the increased prices and taxes for that at the coffee shop, hospital, Social Security office, etc.

Don't get me wrong, this is a major reason I like my current white collar job even though I miss some of my more active, public-facing past jobs but we don't even know what kind of work OP does. Maybe coverage actually matters.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is this a white collar thing? Have none of you ever worked in a job where coverage actually matters, or were you even doing desk work internships and such in high school and college? There are a TON of jobs out there where you need a minimum number of staff on hand for basic operations on a daily basis. And no, nobody pays extra salaries al year round to ensure that as many people can take leave as they want any given week. I'm sure you wouldn't want to pay the increased prices and taxes for that at the coffee shop, hospital, Social Security office, etc.

Don't get me wrong, this is a major reason I like my current white collar job even though I miss some of my more active, public-facing past jobs but we don't even know what kind of work OP does. Maybe coverage actually matters.

Yes, but when coverage matters, schedules are put in place months in advance and there is a procedure for requesting leave. For instance, you can only have every other Christmas off. Or that if two people request at the same time, that seniority trumps.