Take this Cheezhead writer who just finished his third RockStar. He prattles on about being challenged and claims that Gen Y can get a full day's work done in four hours. 1) - The actual useful work they knock out is about 30 minutes, as their inability to pay attention prevents them from actually, you know, working.
And there's another problem. Children who think an 8 hour job can be done in 4 hours usually don't understand the job.
It's like when my wife wants me to clean. She takes hours to clean. I take 10 minutes, and it's good enough so I can go back to playing on the computer.
Of course, this doesn't work with bosses, which is why the older generation has learned to take the full eight hours. Much like taking a full hour to clean the kitchen very slowly gets me off the hook with the wife, Gen Y should learn what happens when they go to fast. They're yelled at for being lazy. If they happen to be correct, and can get the job done, they're fired and rehired as contractors to do the work in just four hours. Why do you think you don't see road workers running on the job?
Seriously - this Gen Y is so awesome stuff is really getting old. I see a lot of people with no real world experience and no financial responsibility cruising their jobs complaining about not being challenged.
It's nonsense. Gen Y doctors and engineers and teachers and factory workers and loggers and burger flippers aren't getting work done any faster. A small subset of white, college degree urban rich kids with marketing, PR, and other service jobs are chafing that they aren't respected. Of course, those professions are also the ones where lack of experience leads to lack of results. Show me a 23 year old marketing consultant who can effectively manage an email marketing campaign for a national car dealer and I'll eat my MacBook. Those industries are under heavy spending pressure, and thankfully, this nonsense will go away as they are laid off and have to take jobs that aren't challenging but at least pay the rent.
If you don't like your job, quit and start your own business. The workload will make you too busy and tired to whine, but at least you'll find out if you really have what it takes.
