Work Ethic

I read an article in my Instagram feed by Humans of NY. I thought it was excellent. Rick complained about this when he was in HR and this is what was burning him out. The whining, the poor work ethic. Before his company folded he thought he couldn't take millennials and younger anymore they drove him crazy with the whining and complaining about everything. 

Work past 5 without you feeding me? So the company had a budget for their kitchen of breakfast, lunch, and dinner. When money was an issue, budgets were slashed. No more breakfast was how it started. Oh, the whining. People threatened to quit. Mind you they were all making a 6 figure salary - to me, that should have been cut first.

Then they got rid of the huge lunch budget and made it smaller. People were quitting over not being able to eat 3 meals a day. Rick said fine if you find someone who will feed you 3 meals a day and pay you go for it. Are you sure you wish to leave due to not being feed? 3 of them said yes and left. He was so frustrated. 2 came back asking for their jobs back but Rick did not hire them, they had been replaced by people who went out to lunch or brought their own lunch. 

Granted working past 5 and sometimes into the night they wanted to eat. There was lunch food to eat and a credit card so they could order food in if staying late. Rick monitored that as well. They took advantage at times but he let some of that slide. If you have a deadline and they are there until 8pm, he felt they should get dinner delivered. The vodka they had delivered did not fly!!!!! 

This company put private citizens in space. Deadlines were a big deal. Sometimes dealing with the Russians at the space station they shared was a headache. One, being they were Russian, and two being time differences. so he understood the late nights etc he would never have begrudged those. It was the ones who stayed late, did not work just ate!

The young whipper snappers bitched a fit because the coffee maker was antiquated. You know like a Keurig. They wanted an espresso machine like in Starbucks and they got one. They still whined. He gave them 3 options it was voted and he got the one with the majority votes. 

This woman's experience is what he dealt with. He and I have the same work ethic as this woman. So I know it's an age thing.

Here is what I could copy and paste.

Her photo was attached but I don't think I'm allowed to post that. A young looking 77 yr old. 

humansofny

Verified

“I worked as a legal assistant for 50 years. And I’ve always been lucky to work for honest, kind, brilliant attorneys. All that paperwork might seem boring to other people. But I never even took lunch, that’s how much I loved it. I loved the law. It’s very precise. My work needed to be exactly right. And there was a lot of pride there. But something seems to have changed in the culture. So many of my coworkers would rush out the door at 5 o’clock. With important, unfinished things on their desk. In law, you have to get things out quickly, but it’s like they just didn’t care. Maybe it’s a generational thing. I’m older, I’m 77. So maybe there’s something I don’t get. ‘Quiet quitting,’ and all of that, I just don’t understand it. If it’s just a paycheck to you—if you’re getting by on the minimum, and not trying to be perfect, or God forbid, if you're screwing it up on purpose-- why are you even going to work? Save your pennies and quit. Find something else you can take pride in. If you’re spending eight hours a day on something you don’t take pride in, it seems to me that somewhere, deep down inside, you’re a phony. Maybe not a phony. But you’re deluding yourself. It’s going to spill over into the rest of your life. And there’s not enough money for me. Well, $20,000 a week maybe. But otherwise, there’s not enough money for me to not take pride in my work. I couldn’t do it. I know that sounds ridiculous, but I can’t. You know how people text, and there’s like spelling mistakes and grammar mistakes and everything? Not me. I’ll reread everything. I’ll go back and fix it, I’ll put in the comma. That’s who I am. You either have it or you don’t, and fewer people have it now. I think it was the digital revolution. When I first started working there were typewriters. If you made a mistake, you had to redo it. You had to be careful, you had to get it right-- until the computer came along. I remember my boss was so excited about the computer age. He said: ‘It’s going to be great! We’re going to have a paperless office!’ I knew better. I told him: ‘There’s going to be a lot more paper, actually.’ Because you can reprint everything. And nobody’s going to care anymore.’”

And just 'cause.