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A Chicago area girl born and bred, I've lived in Mississippi, Montana, Michigan, and...ten years in the wilds of northeastern Indiana, where I fought the noble fight as a book editor. Now, I'm back in Illinois once more...for good. (At least I intend to make it that way!)

Friday, November 18, 2016

What He Said.

Why I am an entrepreneur at heart:

http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2006/07/10-reasons-you-should-never-get-a-job/

(Which is good, considering the lack of people pounding down my door to hire me!)

Time to up the income scale...
Janny

Frankly, My Dear, I Don't Give a Sh*t

You know, sometimes you dodge a bullet.

A potential client on Upwork had a business book he wanted editing on...about how to keep Millennials happy in your workplace.

You know. How to keep a raft of recent college graduates endlessly entertained, affirmed, praised, and rewarded for basically not PRODUCING anything yet...but they will. Oh, boy! They will! Just ask them about what they're gonna do for you...

...as long as you can keep them engaged with your enterprise for long enough.

While I understand that this, unfortunately, IS the work force that many companies are facing--I found myself reading this guy's tips on how to keep these kids on board, and thinking, "Why in the world do you want to work so hard KEEPING these prima donnas? That's just enabling a delusion at your company's expense."

And that's what it is, ladies and gentlemen. 
In the mental-health and recovery professions, we call aiding and abetting someone in their illness "enabling" them. You clean up the drunk's messes, you call and make excuses for the drug-addict kid, you coddle and protect and shield, because obviously, they're only screwing up their lives and the lives of everyone around them because they were Underloved In Some Important Way and We Have To Make Up To Them For It.

Hogwash.

Mental illness is an illness. It needs cauterizing and treatment, not coddling. Yes, it hurts. Lots of things do. But the light at the end of the tunnel is worth going through the healing process to get to.
Drug and alcohol abuse is an illness, but it's also a behavioral DECISION. (At some point or other, you take that first drink or you smoke that first weed. Yes, YOU do it. No one forces you to.) And it needs correction, not cooperation. Accountability, not accommodation. 

Same goes for the mental illness rampant in the Millennial generation's members who believe the world owes them a living, full-blown, luxurious, and debt-free, FROM DAY ONE.
And yes, they'd like it on a scale better than Mom and Dad's, too, thanks. 
Um. No.

If you're sitting behind your desk at the factory wondering how you're going to keep kids like THIS employed at your firm...stop wasting your time and energy.
Because it IS a waste. And worse, it's contributing to the perpetuation of a mental illness.
It's called being delusional.
And the sooner you can STOP catering to it, the sooner it'll get cured.

But if you maintain that you somehow have to change the way YOU do business so that these kids will be motivated to stick around?
Um. No.
Trust me. They won't. The moment someone dares to shatter their "safe place" or fails to reward their special uniquenesses, they'll walk anyway.

Which is where the title of this post comes from. Because, frankly, you shouldn't care if they do. There are plenty of other able and willing hands out there to take their places.

Don't kowtow, wheedle, or try to appease these spoiled specimens. Set them free. You'll be doing them a service.
You'll be enabling them to discover that $7 an hour jobs are plentiful out there for people with no other options, as well as realizing that eating and indoor living cost money...money OTHER people are willing to sacrifice and work hard to get.

Between those two insights, they might come to their senses and understand, finally, that it's not up to The World to cater to THEM...but the other way around.
And THEN, they might be staff members worth keeping. Because they'll actually understand that they need to show up, and be on time, and keep their mouths shut, and learn a few things, BEFORE they'll get that corner office.

Then, you'll have great people to work with.
But until then, please, stop bending over and inviting these special little snowflakes to kick you again.
It's not doing any of us ANY favors.
And that behavior certainly doesn't deserve an owner's manual to encourage ANYONE to perpetuate it.

Thoughts?
Janny