A Millennial Job Interview

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• Donald Sensing November 27, 2017, 12:52 PM

  When she says she needs to take the day off for a “mental health day,” it’s not a joke. That’s real. I had a long conversation a couple of months ago with a very senior manager of a national insurance company who told me that all new hires have to start employment answering the phone as a customer-service rep. She said the Board even had required the new CEO hire to do that. For if they can’t cut it there, they don’t move on.

  “Millennials,” she told me, “are almost immediately stressed out talking with customers. Normal customers, just calling for a clarification about something. When an irate customer calls, their heads explode. It’s not at all unusual for a new-hire Millennial to take a sick day to see a counselor after only three days on the job. The counselor then gives them a week or two of recuperation for mental wholeness. In the old days, they would have just quit or we would have fired them, but now we have to run short-staffed because they are on medical leave and the job must be held for them. Believe me, they know it, too, and are experts at gaming the system. I can’t wait to retire.”

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• Snakepit Kansas November 27, 2017, 6:12 PM

  Big Don,
  Fortunate they are not equipped with similar training and experience then dropped into a combat zone.

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• Casey Klahn November 27, 2017, 6:44 PM

  Whew! That is an eye-opener.

  I am on your premises, and you are an employer, therefore I have a job and you bear responsibility for my every well being. I guess that’s what she was thinking. If you can call that *thinking*.

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• Gordon November 28, 2017, 12:31 PM

  About 15 years ago, the neurotic hypochondriac daughter in law had just been dumped by a call center run by an insurance company. She had too many absences. She was complaining on social media about how (the company) needed to understand that some staff have issues that need to be accomodated, and blah, blah, blah, etc. Everyone else I knew, to whom I showed the whine, thought she was nuts and in need of a reality check: companies don’t have to do that.

  Now I see she was just ahead of her time.

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• Gordon November 28, 2017, 12:43 PM

  And Casey, that’s a parody, but just barely. I was having lunch with some early 20-somethings. We talked about their college efforts. I said, “When I was your age, one could go to a state school, and work part time during the school year, and full time in the summer, and graduate owing nothing at all. But you have a Vice-president for Diversity and a climbing wall. I hope you used the wall.” I also took the blame, saying people my age allowed college costs to explode and didn’t stop it.

  Later, one of those in the audience told me privately that she was greatly offended by my bringing politics into the discussion. I looked at her like she was nuts, because I couldn’t figure out what she was talking about. She was clearly trouble, and I kept my distance and arranged for her not to be on my teams in the future.

  Welding, man. I need to get me some welding skills. That should carry me till death, and I don’t have to put up with millennials.

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