To expect mid twenty somethings to act like the adults they are?

[A1980]

This is going to be a bit of a rant so, sorry.

Work earlier this week a more junior member of staff who I supervise and who is 25 years of age, comes in announces she's not feeling well. She hasn't been eating much as her mum (whom she lives with) has gone away for a couple of weeks and she is "fending for herself" at home. Yes, she actually said fending for herself. She's actually having to cook and clean for herself too, the poor little love.

She has a little bit of a temperature and she came into my office to tell me this. But she's fine and able to shriek and laugh with other colleagues while she's googling her symptoms and she did manage to make it to work on a long commute. She looks fine, she sounds fine, most likely she is fine.

Imagine my surprise when I find out she needs to go to A&E as she thinks she has meningitis......?! She leaves all urgent work behind for other people, including me, to do for her. She's out for over four hours as unsurprisingly A&E put her at the back of the queue and threw her out immediately after she was seen telling her there was nothing wrong with her. She was most upset by this. But not so upset that she couldn't go out drinking with her mates that night as planned.

I have other junior members of staff that are like this. Low fever, sore throat, tiny rash, on the phone to the doctor or off to A&E they go as they think they're dying of some horrific disease. I feel as if I have a queue of school kids at my desk constantly who don't have any common sense.

Some of them are less than 5 years younger than me and they can't seem to handle themsleves. Some people are married with a couple of children by 25.

Is it just me. It has been a long week so I may be just be a heartless cow today

So AIBU?

I am 29 and I have got a friend like this who I have known all her 29 years. She has lived at home far too long and frankly she is a PITA.

She wants to be waited on when we have invited her around, conversations are one way with her and everything is oh so dramatic all the time. It is like hanging out with a teenager when I see her.

She also always "forgets" her purse all the time which pisses me off and I am close to cutting her out because I am not sure what I get from the friendship. I was really, really stuck for someone to have DD for an hour the other day and I know she would have been free but I doubt that she would have come and done me a favour willingly so I didn't bother asking.

Most of this I attribute to her never growing up. Her mum still asks her what she wants for tea every day and has it waiting when she walks through the door. She is very attractive but still single because she is so high maintenance.

Sorry, what a rant! But I very much feel your pain.

I am at that attitude, your 25 year old babies attitude, not yours . Really her parents need to give her a good kick up the backside.

OMG reddaisy, the mum has made a rod for her own back, and brought up a spoilt, bad mannered inconsiderate child. I would not bother with her if I were you.

I think mollycoddling is not quite the right word, because a lot of it is a kind of neglect. In some families children are just not taught what I'd consider basic life skills, like how to manage illness, sew buttons on, get stains out of clothes, cook basic meals, read a bus timetable or whatever. Too much bother for parents to instill what are, let's face it, not very interesting or glamorous skills into reluctant children.

I once had a colleague who bought cheap shoes she threw away regularly rather than have to clean or repair them. She was astonished to see me mending the hem on my trousers once-didn't know how to do that either, or bake a cake, and she seemed perversely proud of it (too posh for such mundane things).

I used to work with one of these too! She was about 23/24. If we'd had a really sunny weekend it wasn't uncommon for her to come in on the Monday complaining of sunburn which hurt so much she just wanted to do "easy" work Once she said she had sunburnt eyelids and spent the whole morning ringing around chemists, and of course had to have a very long lunch hour looking for the elusive eyelid aftersun!

If she fancied something to eat she wouldn't just get a bar of chocolate from canteen, oh no she'd go to the shop and get 3 cream cakes, sit and scoff them then complain all afternoon she felt sick, have to leave early etc.

Also the personal phonecalls, boyfriend troubles that would have her in tears EVERY Monday morning necessitating an extra long teabreak with an understanding colleague (sometimes she asked me but I didn't oblige every time)!

Thing was, she was good at her job when she applied herself, and could be very good company, but she couldn't just get on with it, she NEEDED drama and attention! I sat opposite her and found her so distracting, and can honestly say I've never seen anybody get away with doing so little work and getting paid for it!