In response to my WND column The Snowflake Generation Strikes Again, I received an email from a woman I'll call "Jane" which was so extraordinary, I asked permission to post it:
I am a team leader on one team at work and a coordinator of another program. I recently asked my manager to reassign one of the Snowflakes to another programmer. We did not see eye to eye on professionalism. Her name is Marie but "My daddy started calling me Princess when I was a baby and everyone calls me that now."
I told her it was not professional and she would be called Marie or Ms. Last-name. I kid you not! The grown, 23 year old woman started to cry! “I have never been called Marie,” she wailed. I told her to dry her tears and go home until she could come back to work as a mature adult who could handle life as a mature adult and not like Daddy’s Little Princess. I told her she was not a Daddy’s Little Princess here.
She went to HR and complained. I answered her complaint by stating that although she had excellent qualifications, she was handicapped in using them because she acted like a child and I have to handle too many doctors and hospital administrators who act like children to have one working on my team.
They reassigned her and I walked by her area yesterday and everyone referred to her as “Marie.”
I keep thinking about her and my 22 year old granddaughter who was stranded in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina. She managed to get out of her office, got to her car and headed home as fast as she could safely go -- she and her dad had planned what she should do when the announcement was sure that it was heading for New Orleans -- she followed the plan exactly so that she was home the day before it made landfall. I could not imagine this young lady as being able to do that on her own. My granddaughter never even called home -- she just headed home and when she got there she called her parents to let them know she was safe at home. The young lady at work I could imagine calling “Daddy, come get me!”
They truly are the snowflake generation.
However, before anyone gets too depressed by the above example, please watch this absolutely hilarious rendition of a song by a talented Gen Y worship leader named Micah Tyler about Millennials. You will laugh yourself silly, guaranteed.
Here's an article about him.
great video. good voice on that boy and i understood every word!
ReplyDeletei guess the princess was no longer in the 'safe space' provided by her college.
i do feel sorry for them, though.
Managing this generation is a HUGE challenge. While not all of them are spoiled brats, all it takes is one to screw up the team. Getting them to understand that they have to wear the required uniform (no yoga pants), arrive on time and be ready to start their shift on time is a nightmare. Then there is the work ethnic. WOW is all I can say. I had one young man that I wasn't happy with tell me that he was "doing the best he could". The look on his face when I told him that his best wasn't good enough for this job. I had expectation of how the job should be done and if he couldn't do it, then I would have to find someone else to do the job. When his mom called to talk to me about him, I refused to speak with her. This was a 22 year old male.....and his mother was calling to complain that I treated him like an adult? And surprise----he is now one of best employees and i just gave him a really good reference. Not the first kid that I forced to become an adult over the protest of their parents. I just tell them that I raised 3 kids and I do not expect anything from them that I did not expect from my kids. I even had one tell my daughter that she must hate me, her response "nope, I now understand what my parents were teaching us about being responsible adults." She is an EMT/Firefighter, the other 2 are working to go into law enforcement in some form.
ReplyDeleteYes- like when you are counseling a youngster that is college aged and keeps saying "no one ever told me that" and he comes back for 3 straight days of it? Mom and dad didn't do their jobs! Natokadn
DeleteGreat story and funny video. That's why parents homeschool.
ReplyDeleteThere is hope but it is not in the government fool system. Last week we hired two homeschoolers to move cut limbs and firewood. The boy was 14, his sister 12. They arrived on their 'work vehicle' EXACTLY when their parents said they would. We explained the work we needed done. They worked steady for 3 hours, completely UNSUPERVISED. At one point their work vehicle's (riding mower with cart) battery went dead. The boy came to the door and politely asked if he could borrow a battery charger. Next thing I heard was their engine running and they were back to work. They did a wonderful job.
It doesn’t take a village to raise children. It takes parents who are willing to make the sacrifice to school their children at home, and deny government unfettered access to turn them into Snow Flakes.
Montana Guy
It is so much easier for parents to keep themselves busy and child tethered to them. Actually expecting them to be responsible would make the parents less necessary.
ReplyDeleteAh, the dangers of sweeping generalizations supported by anecdotes.
ReplyDeleteYou've painted an entire generation - and that generation includes your own children, Patrice - with a very broad brush. They're not all that stupid or helpless.
Further life experience will mature a great deal of them, just as it does most people.
Either that, or they'll get their way and take over and run things the way they want, and then everyone else will be the problem. Changing the world to their standards - that's pretty much what every youthful generation says they want to do, isn't it?
I'm with you. Not every millennial is as obnoxious as this one. Most are pretty darn cool. Patrice needs to get out more and open her damn mind.
DeleteJennifer K
Warning: Broad Brush Micro-aggression Ahead.
DeleteEvery generation since World War III has been less industrious, less religious, and more self-absorbed than the previous. Looking at the early Snowflakes you can rest assured that they will not disappoint. Thus every generation can whoop up on the next. It’s a seniority thing.
Montana Guy
When ever I hear a story such as this I think of my mothers father. He came to the middle of Illinois from Whales by himself at the ripe old age of 14! Could almost any of our present day 8th graders do that!!!
ReplyDeleteBrilliant post (and video).
ReplyDeleteWhat's in a name , depends entirely on how one feels where that name is going, NOT! I once met a woman her name was strawberry,wow I said,REALLY,strawberry.Who gave you that name ,oh my mom great lady. STRAWBERRY! We were both waiting at the bus stop. when I finally got around to telling my friends ,we all laughed at that name. I was about sixteen at the time and now in my fifties.I met up with that woman years later,she did well in her life and yes nurse strawberry. Beautiful,educated and getting married.Still I named my children common names but did princess do her job well and who made up the stupid snowflake generation, perhaps that's a dumb saying too but what's in a name.If I had a princess or a strawberry working for me,perhaps that name would not suit me but as a grown up I know to get past it.maybe we need to get to point in our lives to get past all this stupid sh*@t. What famous model/actress named her child Apple? Answer: Gwyneth Paltrow.If princess was really named princess,good law suit on discrimation.
ReplyDeleteHer name was Marie, but her Daddy called her Princess and had since she was a baby so she wanted to continue to be called Princess. I said, not professional, we'll call you Marie or by your last name. I just could not see calling a grown woman Princess in a meeting with government officials and upper management. Also, several years ago an employee insisted upon being called by her nickname which was Boo! Sorry, cannot do it! This is not cartoon land or Comedy Central. This is a professional office and we deal with upper management and top echelon government officials. Princess was not was not satisfactory. My manager and I just assumed that she had never heard the word "no" and did not like it. I've not painted anyone with a broad brush, just relayed my experience with this person and my granddaughter. I feel that I am a "grown up" but when I have a Lt. Governor, Secretary of State, Secretary of Health and Hospitals, and various other officials, and we are presenting our specs on a multi-million dollar contract, Princess just does not seem the best name to run past them.
DeleteI laughed at your comment. I know a Strawberry too. She's a lovely young lady. I'm glad she's overcome her name, which was given to her.
DeleteThe strangest name I've come across with my students was a little boy whose name used every letter of the alphabet, and his last name was only four letters long. My daughter teaches kindergarten, and recently met the students she'll have in class next year. A little girl is named Jkmn. How would you pronounce it? I thought it was "Jackman." I was wrong. It's pronounced Noel. Get it? Jkmn...no L. Yep. You can't make up this stuff. Idiots.
I love that video! The letter you posted, though...that left me speechless.
ReplyDeleteI helped two students register for college this week that knew what they wanted to do (good money) but decided when they heard,the career involved shift work, that they were not so sure-it might inconvenience their lifestyle. Walmart has openings...Natokadn
ReplyDeleteFor prepared Grammy, hahaha. My son had to renew his mass drivers lic and the guy in front of him in line wrote his name on the card and my son was laughing because the woman behind the rmv window was complaining to the guy in front of him. YOU CANT HAVE ALL THOSE LETTERS! My son asked if he could help the man, who later found out he was from Kenya. His name bebe, but there must of been twenty letters for the first name only. My son just shrugged it off, good guy Bebe ,the woman put Bebe on his wanting to apply for a drivers permit.The registry changed his name, to how it sounded and not his name, how they do that but my son said, he might of been ghyutrdshjkmnbvchuyfghjk but he became Bebe.my son showed Bebe to a Starbucks, need a coffee Bebe, hahaha.
ReplyDeleteI'm laughing again. This little boy's dad was from Kenya, but his American mom was the one who named him.
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