Tired of Managing Millenials

[Anonymous]

Sounds like you're tired of managing. This is your job. And the fact that you told them to work it out themselves means you are bad at it

[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.

+1000 - signed, yet another Gen Xer.

Sounds like your employee was being proactive about arranging for coverage of her work while she will be gone - that's a good thing!
I truly can't imagine any of my managers in my career telling me I can't take vacation time. (With two specific events as exceptions, but I knew about those for more than a year in advance.)

Don't be a jerk. Weddings and graduations are big deals. You'll survive the week.

[Anonymous]

Why do you know what they need the time off for?
Do they have to provide reasoning? Is it first-come-first-serve or is it by priority, which you decide? If you have an employee out on maternity/paternity leave can no one else take a vacation?

If its first-come-first-serve is there a centralized calendar where people can see time is already taken off? Do you have a maximum time someone can put in for leave? For example, Graduation in May- when is the earliest they can submit vacation? Can they submit a request 15 months ahead of time?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm tired of working for jerks.

And how does a millennial have a hs graduate? I'm 36 and am an older millennial.

+1. Give that person a sticker and a week off. Honestly, you sound like a ridiculous person. Both of these life events are important. Why can't you just work a little short staffed for a week? Unless you are actually doing life saving surgery it very likely won't matter anyway.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why do you know what they need the time off for?
Do they have to provide reasoning? Is it first-come-first-serve or is it by priority, which you decide? If you have an employee out on maternity/paternity leave can no one else take a vacation?

If its first-come-first-serve is there a centralized calendar where people can see time is already taken off? Do you have a maximum time someone can put in for leave? For example, Graduation in May- when is the earliest they can submit vacation? Can they submit a request 15 months ahead of time?

Exactly. If you start “first come, first serve” it becomes a race to who can snag plum times. It’s very toxic.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Op never came back, so it’s likely coverage really doesn’t matter except the TSP report maybe delayed a couple of days.

[Anonymous]

This is why the great resignation is a thing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is why the great resignation is a thing.

And why so many people complain that they have no money. LOL
No one wants to work for it.

[Anonymous]

As far as I'm concerned, vacation time is earned. Employees can use it wherever. It's not the employees' problem if the company cannot handle people taking time off.

If 80% of the staff take off time from Christmas to new years, then then company should just close for that time.

If your company can't handle people taking time off, that means you don't have appropriate levels of staff.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Op never came back, so it’s likely coverage really doesn’t matter except the TSP report maybe delayed a couple of days.

Yup. We’re supposed to believe that two workers with years of experience are being unreasonable and throwing fits about time off vs. OP being the one who is unreasonable. If you’re in a job where you absolutely cannot take time off certain weeks, you know that and work around it. The workers pushing back tell me this is not one of those jobs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sounds like you're tired of managing. This is your job. And the fact that you told them to work it out themselves means you are bad at it

Yeah, this stood out to me too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

It's February and the leave was requested for May. That's months in advance. And not every place has formal "conflict resolution" policies - I've worked on ones where it was "try to work out the holiday schedule among yourselves before coming to me" (I'm not saying this was GOOD management, but there was no formal policy even though we needed to be open to the public every day but Christmas Day). It could totally be coverage based.

[Anonymous]

Sounds like you're bad at your job.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As far as I'm concerned, vacation time is earned. Employees can use it wherever. It's not the employees' problem if the company cannot handle people taking time off.

If 80% of the staff take off time from Christmas to new years, then then company should just close for that time.

If your company can't handle people taking time off, that means you don't have appropriate levels of staff.

Would you be cool with your local post office, emergency room, or grocery store closing between Christmas and New Year's? Gas stations? I really don't think people are thinking this through.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The mom with hs graduation has likely known that date since September. She should have put in her request and gotten approval months ago. The employee who just found out about a wedding and booked the trip is kinda screwed. I wonder how long they have worked there and how the time off policy has been communicated and previously administered. Everyone should know how it works. Sounds like the employee attending the wedding just doesn’t give a f#*k. Let her take the time and replace her asap.

Graduation dates are not announced at the beginning of the school year in many places, including where I live. In November, they give a two week window when graduations will be and they don't announce the specific dates for each high school until around spring break time.