Patronising young people at work

[Starland2]

I work in the public sector. We have a lot of graduates. They are all intelligent lovely people but they have such strange approaches to work sometimes. For example I have a job in quite a niche specialism. I love my job and am very experienced. When the younger members of the team find out about what I do they often want to talk about it in great detail and I am happy to do so. A strange thing that keeps happening is that they will then come across people in a similar role in a different organisation. They then “helpfully “ email me and the contact and suggest we meet and chat so I can learn about how they do the job. More often than not I know the contact as it’s a smallish network.

The thing I find strange is why would I need these meetings? I know how to do my job! I think they think they are being helpful but it’s just odd and a bit patronising. You wouldn’t tell a teacher to meet with another teacher to talk about how they do their job!

I think they think it makes them look connected and helpful!?

A lot colleagues often go on about how young the graduates are in front of them. I never do this as it can get annoying for them. At the same time I want them to understand that older colleagues do have more experience!

I get this op with some fast streamers - not the ones in our Department(they're lovely) but the fast streamers in the other Department are awful patronising arseholes!!

They do their best to patronise everyone else and do that awful reflecting back thing where they try and sum up what you've said. I got recently "So what you're saying Anne is that your stakeholders aren't to going to like reducing their grant income. What makes you say that" (with head tilt). Me: Hmm let me think - oh yes my 20 years experience is what tells me this would be a problem!

I think it's projecting. They do it because they want it done to them, if that doesn't sound too weird. It's kind of sweet really but it makes sense to set them straight as and when. You don't have to be a dick about it, but I think it does help the learning process if they get told.

@AnneElliott that sounds painful! The reflecting thing would set me on edge!

In a lot of ways their enthusiasm is impressive. I was so timid when I started in my career so I guess it’s a shock to work with such confident young people. At the same time I do care about their development. I also want them to realise that they need to learn to be less irritating!

It also goes against my nature to “boast “. Whenever they tell me a contact or how to do something I feel embarrassed saying “yes I know them or yes I delivered that project”.

Boasting was seen as the ultimate sin in my family growing up!

@starland2 its a wierd one. He has a wierd mix of expecting me to take on his mental load (he kept trying to get me to book in all joint meetings, instead of trying to figure something out he expects me to spoonfeed him etc) whilst simultaneously wanting to prove he knows better by finding training courses in everything.

So for example for the first few weeks he was refusing to book any meetings in outlook because 'i was busier so it was easier for me to see when to put a meeting in' so in the end I showed him how to view someone elses calender in outlook, because he was expecting stakeholders (like heads of) to do the same. My reward - a link to a linkedin course about the basics of outlook 'because he thought it could be really useful for me....'

Or he asked me to reccomend him a course on how to do a specific bit of coding so i sent him a link to one I had used. He sent back a link to three others with reasons why he thought they were better. Although he hasnt actually done any of the courses yet

Or he sends me courses for programming languages we dont even use because he thinks I might be interested and they would be really useful for my development. But they are completely irrelevant for my skillset and career progression.

But he never or rarely actually does the courses himself, he just wants me to show him everything. So i wonder how much of it is him sending me courses of things he wants to know so I can do the course and show him?

There is a power play though because he will tell my boss that he send me a course to help me, which my boss thinks is hilarious because he knows my skills. Like I say he doesnt just do it to me but its really bizarre and ive never seen anything like it before

Sorry that was really long, apparently its irritated me enough i needed to get it off my chest

@AnneElliott

I get this op with some fast streamers - not the ones in our Department(they're lovely) but the fast streamers in the other Department are awful patronising arseholes!!

They do their best to patronise everyone else and do that awful reflecting back thing where they try and sum up what you've said. I got recently "So what you're saying Anne is that your stakeholders aren't to going to like reducing their grant income. What makes you say that" (with head tilt). Me: Hmm let me think - oh yes my 20 years experience is what tells me this would be a problem!

@AnneElliott i was just about to make a comment about fast streamers! I've had some amazing ones in my team, but I've also come across some who have a very inflated sense of their capabilities... Usually from the Depts which are much bigger (and therefore considered more important ) than mine!

I read on one of the CS blogs that the fast stream is less diverse than the Oxbridge intake, which I think goes some way to explaining it.

Tis a mystery

Not quite the same but I'm a supply teacher and was in a school the other week where a student was in the class I was covering. I don't know what he was studying but he wasn't a student teacher.

He was very young, say 18 or so, and was lovely: he had a lot of energy and enthusiasm and obviously enjoyed being in the classroom but OMG he was annoying.

He kept interrupting my lesson, even when I was mid-way through explaining something, and would ask the children a slightly related question and stopped the flow of what I was actually talking about. He'd clap when they were working so they stop what they were doing to respond and then would tell them to quieten down. He would tell me how to get the class quiet, how to take the register, how to switch the board on etc etc. I've been a teacher for 20 years now.

It took all I had not to tell him to stfu but, as a supply teacher who doesn't want to piss off a school I currently go to fairly regularly, I didn't feel I could. I did mention it to a member of staff who asked me how I was getting on with him, as gently as I could, and they moved him to another class for the afternoon.

That really doesn't surprise me about fast streamers - quieter more reflective types are weeded out in the recruitment process which I've always thought was rather a shame.

@TwoBigNoisyBoys

OP I’ve just suspended studies for the final year of my degree (but that’s another story) as a mature student. We have modules in both level 5 & 6 on professionalism and employability (which I don’t really like very much, but that’s me being unreasonable and only because they’re not so relevant for me) and honestly, the emphasis on networking/information dissemination/co-production/collaboration is unreal!

I wonder if it’s the same across many other degrees now and your young graduates are keen to show off their enthusiasm and knowledge? As an aside I would also dislike this in my work role so I can see both sides

Something I've noticed is that a lot of universities now are taking the same material or classes and repackaging it for different sectors. A big university in my city is increasingly folding all kinds of things into what is essentially an MBA program. So if you train as a librarian at the masters level, you are really taking slightly adapted MBA classes with a few specialized library related classes alongside.

And the networking stuff seems to be a huge part of it. It's mostly meaningless filler.

It's a bit weird but if multiple people are doing it there must be a reason.

I don't think its that strange if they are grads to assume others don't have masses of experience, because they won't have masses of experience, and will be applying for jobs they have no experience of. That's normal for their stage of career

Courses guy just sounds like a knob though, who doesn't know what he's doing but equally doesn't want to admit he doesn't know what he's doing

I do also think I've been told networking is key about 1000x throughout my early career, mostly be middle aged men. So it potentially is what is being taught, and when I think about it possibly is possibly the only bit of career advise I was ever given. So I'm going to blame the motivational speakers at graduation ceremonies

Can you not just ask courses guy why he keeps sending people links to courses? And report back

It's networking

There was a time when people learned their job starting at the bottom and learning the ropes and working their way up, getting promoted for a reason.
You would not ask anyone to do a job you could not or had not done yourself, and you were respected in your position.

These days graduates get those jobs. People with no experience of work or life, but a degree in whatever. They don't have a clue but they are good at making you think they do !
Networking is a clever foil for inadequacy. It is a stalling technique and a lot of it is to display diligence to the employer. It is expected and accepted as part of a learning process leading to promotion.
It's all bollocks really.

This is one of the reasons why I went freelance. I was the manager of my department and had twenty+ years of experience in my field, yet I was having to deal with very patronising graduates in a partner department who were, at times, really quite obnoxious and rude. The other thing that shocked me was that they thought it was utterly reasonable to sit at a desk and listen to music while they worked in a shared office.

I just thought "screw this", took a payout and went my own way.

I'm glad I read this thread because this is happening to me, not in a professional capacity, but in an aspect of my private life. I've never come across it before. A certain person (male, aged 24, educated) has already finished doing quite a few things most people/ I have spent a lifetime perfecting and is very keen to tell me how to improve myself. With links to helpful courses and tips on how to be kind. He explained to me how to book a flight. Very patronising. I tried to be patient. In the end I told him to stfu, because if he wants to mix with the grown-ups he will have to be one, and because I am a post-menopausal woman and can't be bothered with it. He was filled with confusion and a complete lack of awareness of what I had said. I think it's power play too because he always did it in front of other people. I don't know how I'd cope with this at work. Clearly I'm not as nice as you lot. (although I do actually know how to be kind)

@Warandpeas

Is it LinkedIn culture at play? I think with younger people there’s a strong sense in which offline relationships need to be “curated” in an online setting, and there’s a sense of kudos in growing your network in this way. I suspect being right at the start of their careers they imagine other colleagues will similarly be looking to curate a well connected work persona, failing to take into account its very much a novel phenomenon. Just a guess!

I think you're spot on - I've noticed this recently, particularly with colleagues under the age of 30.

You lot need to work on perfecting "The Look" when dealing with your grads. Works every time

Radishes, courses grad would piss me off!

You need to get comfortable with telling them, you already know the person/project.

I left a company for 4 years and then was asked to come back in a very senior position. I had a conversation someone who hadn't been there that long about a certain far reaching policy that I was expanding on.

They then sent me the policy and cc some people and told me 'this may help you developing the policy so you can fully understand the aim of the policy'. They also copied a few people in.

I simply replied 'Thanks, if you check the policy, the name on it is mine. I wrote this policy and it hasn't been changed since I left. Its one if the reasons that I was asked to come back. Because I am in the best position to develop it'.

I literally wrote the policy they were 'helping me with'. Then I let it go.

They learned something. I ensured everyone on the email chain were aware I know what I was doing.

Haha actually teachers are always made to endlessly tell each other how to do our jobs. We have fab meetings where the newly qualified ones excitedly explain to us how teaching is evidence based now and all the spiffing new theories they learned at uni. Those of us who've been teaching more than 5 mins remember, however, the endless cycle of new theories discrediting old ones (learning styles, anyone???) but thankfully, the NQTs explain to us that we're just too old to understand the new ones 🤣🤣

Eek! I used to be a fast streamer and am now desperately wracking my brain to try to remember if I ever did anything so annoying I don’t think I did, but there’s always that chance…

Interesting point about diversity - it’s heading for 13 years since I left the CS ( it wasn’t for me) but I do remember feeling like the odd one out as a non-Oxbridge grad even then.

It sounds like the newbies are thinking they're doing you a favour by sharing their contacts. Maybe head them off at the pass in the initial conversation, by saying what a small world your field is and how you know everyone already, so please don't be sending on contacts.

@Kbish1i hope they were embarrassed!

Yes I agree @GuidingSpirit that fast streamers very often come from similar backgrounds which I think does explain it.

I do wonder if their training courses tell them that they're the cream of the crop or something as I can't believe that they got their self important view of the world all by themselves!