Getting fired 101

[Lady Day]

In all seriousness, though, I think it's very important to show young workers that there's a right way and a wrong way to act in the workplace. This is the first job most of these kids have had, and the lessons I teach them will hopefully carry over in later life. The thing is, contrary to what media yahoos tell us, they seem to appreciate a bit of structure and discipline -- which does give me just a slight bit of hope for the future.

True, I see a lot of young kids with the attitude of "Hey you needed someone to work, Im doing YOU a favor by working here. So let me have a little slack." I see that a lot. :eusa_doh:

Not saying all kids dont understand that you will be directed, you will be criticized on the job if you are not working well, and you can be fired. But some dont get that.

LD

 

[6StringShooter]

"Hey, new guy, you didn't turn up for work yesterday."

"Yeah i, uh, like, took a day off"

"Here's your pink slip, sonny. And leave the damn ipod at home"

bk

Preach it, brother!!!

I know that as a recent college graduate, I am not as experienced at some of you folks on here when it comes to conducting oneself in a corporate setting...but my goodness! That article is ridiculous. NOT doing most of these things is common sense. Forget office politics...my mama would drive up to Indiana and slap me if she found out that I called someone over the weekend for work...

The new etiquette is driven by the fact that young people who grew up online don't know how to operate any other way except transparently. The good news is this means they have great social skills; the bad news is they have no idea that they're breaking all the old rules.

P.S. How does growing up online equate to great social skills?

 

[6StringShooter]

I thought this reply to the article was especially enjoyable to read:

Ok, I am 14 and looked at this article because i assumed it would help when i got a job in a year or two. I'll admit, I'm young and don't really know that much about work etiquette, but as soon as i got done reading tip # 2 I knew this article was a piece of garbage! Anybody with common sense (working or not) is smart enough to know tip # 2 is a sure way of not getting or keeping a job. And even I know, just from my parents, that you don't call and bother people on the weekend. It's called family and personal time. Anybody who doesn't know that needs to get a life other than being a work-aholic! Oh, and I really like tip # 5! No offense, but Facebook is a college kids and younger website. Teens don't want much older adults on there, and frankly, I seriously doubt that succesful business people would actually care about it, none the less actually want to register and be a part of it! I'm sorry to be rude, but Mrs. Trunk, you need to wake up and drink some coffee before you write articles that are loads of rubbish and only serve to anger and confuse people who actually know what they are talking about. Not to mention giving teens who are looking for a job bad tips that will help them to never get a job!

It is sad when a 14 year old has more common sense than a columnist/author...

 

[Paisley]

Hey, I can do this, too

1. Always be completely honest with your bosses. The days of old-fashioned diplomacy are gone--people don't have time for it. Your boss hired you, so she must need your opinion.
   
2. Multi-task. Do all your assignments at once and tell everyone that you're up to your butt in alligators. Tell your boss you need an assistant: you'll look so busy that this will seem authentic.
   
3. Don't do anything that isn't authentically you. Do only the things you love to do and leave everything else to people with green cards.
   
4. Set your own schedule. Since everyone from the partner in charge to the managers have irregular schedules, it must be OK for you, too, even if you're the receptionist.
   
5. Get work done during your commute. Just turn off your cell phone and you'll be free of all distractions during red lights and public transportation. It's almost as good as working from home.
   
6. Keep a blog about your job, and don't forget to include humor. Studies show that managers and corporate officers spend a lot of their time reading employees' blogs. It's your ticket to the top, so name names!

 

[matei]

While I find that article laughable, I don't actually ask my boss for time off. I inform him that I'm leaving at such-and-such a time, or that I'll be off whenever. Likewise when I "work from home" (management speak for "pretending to work while having a lie-in").

I don't agree with that mindset among bosses that weekends are fair game to have you do work. Unless someone specifically requests my time in advance, I turn down any last-minute or "urgent" requests. My time at home with my family is my priority, not some pointless project.

I work to live, not the other way around.

 

[Fletch]

The bosses are getting into this notion that any time is their time. They'll phone you when you're not at work, now?

Since the industrial revolution they've been trying to crush the worker.

You had me up to here, Baron. I agree that modern office work infringes more and more on our private lives (that's why I will never again work in an office). I agree it's insidious. But you'll reach no one - especially not status quo free-market moralists - with 1930s Stalinist-dupe language like "The Bosses" vs. "The Worker." People today hear that and immediately pull the plug on you, including whatever good points you may just have made.

 

[scotrace]

"Well, Edith, I needed a few days to center myself, just so you know."

lol lol

 

[Senator Jack]

Apparently, this is what passes for facetiae nowadays. What was the Kids in the Hall skit about the guy that made everything sound sarcastic? Even his apology for sounding sarcastic was sarcastic so no one knew if he was being earnest.

Of course, I'm going along with BK on this one. Bosses steal your life. With a bit of luck, I'll never have to work for or be one again.

Regards,

Senator Jack

 

[Cobden]

All the author needed to add would be the following:
11) Impregnate the bosses daughter and refuse to call her
12) Use office furniture to turn your cubicle into a fort. Defend this with elastic bands fired off rulers and high powered staplers and
13) No need to use the bathroom, do what ever needs doing in your bosses dustbin

to make it absolutely definite that you'll get fired. Truly appalling advice.

In fact, I'm going to add that as a comment

 

[Fletch]

What utopia are we living in when we teach our young people that they deserve any respect beyond basic human decency while at work? The first time they find themselves security-guarded to the parking lot for dragging their heels on some pointless make-work project that happens to be the boss's pet, they're going to realize that the only way you earn your way in this world is by giving other people a substantial measure of control over your time and energy.

 

[Viola]

Look, I'll come in on time and work hard all week. I will not take time off except in truest emergency and I will not "just let you know" I am vanishing into the aether. I will not wear headphones at work unless I am a vintage phone operator or Lt. Uhura.

But I do not want to Facebook you and do not be calling me on the weekend because you want to work Saturdays and go play golf on Tuesdays.

-Viola

 

[Paisley]

My coworkers don't even have my home phone number. If they have an after-hours accounting emergency that requires my help, they can get my number from the office manager.

And in certain industries, there are times when it's all hands on deck. You don't even ask for time off.

 

[Archie Goodwin]

They are better educated than any generation that has ever come before them (at least in the U.S.); they came of age and are currently living in a period or record low unemployment; and, they primarily work in office jobs. I keep waiting for reality to slap them in the face, but I am coming to realize the slap may never come. I've seen it in the last three consulting positions I've held: we need them more than they need us. If they don't like a job, it usually takes only a couple of days to find something else.

 

[dhermann1]

Neoteny

Neoteny is the retention by adults of a species of traits previously seen only in juveniles (Wikipedia). This is what's going on, folks. It's one of nature's many fiendish little tricks. That's why 50 is the new 40, 40 is the new 30, etc. I am living proof that 60 is the new 12. The longer juveniles can stay juvenile, the longer they can develop long term survival traits (according to this theory). Unfortunately those of us who believe in silly old ideas like responsibility and manners will have to learn to deal with it. But I do believe that this natural phenomenon is at work here.

 

[Fletch]

A lot of the older folks are saying the younger need to learn the work ethic. The Y-ers may be dedicated, practical, problem solvers who give 120% to what they believe in. But what about when they have to do something they don't believe in?

Previous generations learned the lesson that you don't get to pick your battles - that a true work ethic means giving 120% whenever you are told. Not just when it's vitally important, or an exciting challenge, or the right thing to do, or when it needs to be done - but whenever the man damn well says so, because he is writing the checks.

The principle "question authority" has brought us priceless gifts that were not allowed to our forebears. But what no one teaches in school is that the nature of work and the market will never adapt to that principle. The military was excellent training for previous generations in doing what, how, and when they were told - the precise qualities the people writing in to Yahoo! find lacking in the current crop of younger workers.

A certain cynicism was cultivated in the WW2 and 50s generations, it's true, but the lesson was learned and learned well: how not to be in complete charge of your own life, to deliver and execute regardless of the circumstances, and to keep your grievances and bitterness to yourself and not to ask for help from, or changes in, the common culture.

 

[Baron Kurtz]

You had me up to here, Baron. I agree that modern office work infringes more and more on our private lives (that's why I will never again work in an office). I agree it's insidious. But you'll reach no one - especially not status quo free-market moralists - with 1930s Stalinist-dupe language like "The Bosses" vs. "The Worker." People today hear that and immediately pull the plug on you, including whatever good points you may just have made.

Yes,i usually lose people around about that point. They'll go with me only so far. because they're all in the pocket of the bosses (stalin, of course, and all his cronies, being the worst of the bosses, doesn't make it any less the reality of the work environment for the majority) Honestly that's the last politicking from me on this thread.

Venceremos!

bk

 

[LizzieMaine]

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 she looks at me like I've issued a pronouncement in Sanskrit -- because that notion, that concept, is completely foreign to her worldview. She doesn't know how to lose, or to fail, or to come up short, because no one's ever let her experience it -- whenever she's been about to screw up, someone's come along and bailed her out or changed the rules for her or pulled strings, or done whatever had to be done to keep her from falling on her fragile little hiney.

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.

 

[happyfilmluvguy]

I wonder where she works.

 

[Feraud]

I wonder where she works.

lol Good point.

Now anywhere for very long with that attitude.

 

[Fletch]

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.