Simon Sinuk on the Millenial Generation

[paloftoon]

What do you think of this? It'll be interesting to hear perspectives here compared to work.

 

[Southern Discomfort]

Yeah I watched this a couple of days ago. It is interesting. In terms of the autistic way of being I don't know how much you can really change when it comes to us. I do think we spend way to much time with our technology though, all of us, including me. I'm on my computer about 10 hours a day or something stupid!

 

[paloftoon]

Some people don't like this video because those people say that millenials are in the situation they are in now because their parents and others told them that it was okay to borrow so much money and that they would easily be able to pay it all back. Boy how wrong many of them were. . .In others words, everyone is to blame for the situation we are in today.

 

[SocOfAutism]

I've been looking at the generations in the workplace because I just did a study about autistic workers and I had a surprise finding that 90% of autistic Boomers in my study were in supervisory positions whereas only about 30% of Millennials were. I believe about...68% of Generation X were in supervisory positions.

So far from my research into what (all, not necessarily autistic or NT) generations do at work, I found a few interesting things.

When a generation is the age that Millennials are now, they are always spoken about negatively. The stuff I found from the early 2000s was very negative about Generation X and could not predict Millennials, which were then called "Gen Y". Similarly, no one can predict how a generation will behave as they age and continue to work. No one predicted the social conservatism of Gen X as they enter middle age or the work ethic of young-elderly Boomers.

Millennials behave very differently than all three of the generations before them, which is why they have a lot of problems. Think about it- they are still the minority in the workplace. Both the Boomers and Gen X are still in there. So whatever they do differently is going to be abrasive to the rest of us.

The oldest of the Generation Z/Post 9-11 generation is now in their second year of college. They are not Millennials and no one has any idea how they will behave. It's erroneous to say that they will be like Millennials because Millennials were not like anyone before them. Generation X seems to have different values than Boomers, but socially, they behave the same. Years ago, Gen X was written about as though they might as well be removed from society.

I personally have a sneaking suspicion that things are harder for autistic Millennials- that something special happens when you add autism to Millennial and it doesn't go together as smoothly. Maybe Millennials on a whole are "more neurotypical" than other generations? But that is just a hunch at this point. I have not found enough to back that up yet. Still working on it.

 

[dragonwolf]

I saw a review about it that made a lot of sense to me -- he's a professional guru. He makes his living selling "solutions" to "problems," so of course he's going to claim there's this big, mysterious problem with millennials.

People say that millennials have a higher rate of unemployment, for example, but it's actually because "millennials" still consists of people in the 18-25 range. Unemployment rates have always been higher among younger people, and if you shift the scale to include only older millennials -- those of us that are in the 26-34 range -- you find our employment rate is right in line with national averages. Additionally, if you look at all age brackets over time, you find that when the older generations were our age, unemployment rates were proportionately the same.

That, alone, makes pretty much all the other crap fall flat, because it's all based on the idea that millennials are disproportionally more unemployed, that we're lazy, entitled, brats who expect everything to be handed to us.

And supposedly, it was because of those stupid participation trophies. I don't know about anyone else, but I found any and all awards that I didn't feel I actually earned (that is, put forth hard effort and dedication) to be utterly meaningless.

What does bother me, though, is that I can't entirely stand up to some of the accusations of lack of social skills, but it's not because I'm a millennial, but rather because I'm autistic.

 

[Hoatzins]

It is a little tiresome to hear so many of the same ideas so many times.
You could even hear these discussions while growing up, if you paid attention. The critique of overpraising. The snark at plastic trophies.
We are all here, on this forum, because social media is a useful tool. It helps us forge connections. The people in your life may not appreciate your special interest, but there's probably someone online who will. Someone, somewhere, probably has better advice on how to relate to your boss than your NT coworkers.
If it is a question of work ethic, that is going to vary from person to person. I started working eight hour days in construction. I now work eight-hour days in a fast-paced restaurant. If there is a bad sensory day, I keep working. If I go non-verbal, I keep working. If I am sick, I keep working.