Overly sensitive employees/apprentices

[OhGoodnessItsSoExhausting]

Ok, so I pride myself on being a strengths focussed supervisor. I always want to mentor and help my employees and apprentices as much as possible. But the last two apprentices (all apprentices in this role are graduates if that's relevant) have been soooooo sensitive and just plain.annoying!

I can't give any feedback because they 'know it already.' I can't say anything right because apparently I know nothing about transgender issues or decolonisation of the workplace and I need to hear them 'educate' me on it all and lend me books because they (20 years younger with zero experience in this role) know how to resolve ingrained, inherent systemic racism and prejudice and clearly if they were in my role they'd have solved all the problems in society which impact the role, already.

They are always 'curious about X...' and 'wondering about y...' instead of just speaking in normal language

They are driving me insane!!!

They can't manage their workload (even though I'm so worried about upsetting them I give them half what I've given to previous apprentices). Apparently it's important to be 'boundaried' and assertive with your needs. (Yes,.I know that, but I'm just asking you to do your job - you are paid more for these apprenticeships than many of the more senior staff in the organisation).

They are so bloody self absorbed and self riteous. I find them so patronising.

Is this entitlement, condescending attitude and use of fluffy language a generation thing? Or (please tell me), I've just had a bad run of two extremely annoying apprentices!!? (who I found out today are friends! So I guess they feed off each other discussing how amazing and riteous they are and how everyone else in the organisation is incompetent.)

Grrr..

Disability aside, you can guess someone's work ethic by the speed at which they walk.

I manage graduates and find mine great at the work mostly but the language of "just wondering" and "just curious whether" drives me up the bloody wall! No, you're sending an email asking someone to do something by a fixed deadline so we're not "just wondering" if they could help!!

@TheKeatingFive Then I'm guessing he was not in fact "semi illiterate".

Then I'm guessing he was not in fact "semi illiterate".

I'm willing to bet the person in question wasn't either. What was the evidence put forward for that assertion? Literacy levels aren't like tech skills, there's no reason to assume that they would be low in an older generation (quite the opposite probably).

@blueshoes idk, I think some people make that they don’t know what they’re doing my having a sort of air of importance. I felt the most useless SLT when I worked in a school did this to avoid having to deal with any urgent issues- they’d project an air of already dealing with something urgent. Then I’d learn later they were taking an early lunch or nipping to the staff room

@TheKeatingFive Again, this is from years ago, but I seem to remember that they couldn't write coherent sentences without spelling or grammar errors on every line. I'm not sure why you're so unwilling to believe that a young person could be right, to be honest. Certainly in my own life I have encountered, for example, an NHS therapist, probably in his 50s, whose emails to me were almost entirely without punctuation and consisted of a kind of stream of consciousness. These people do exist.

@TheKeatingFive As in, the post detailing this person's experience of the workplace was from years ago. Anyway, I'm looking forward to the point twenty years from now where I can complain the young people have no work ethic because they spend all their time on their florples and take mental health holidays to Mars.

@TheKeatingFive @pucelleauxblanchesmains
I’ve worked with people of all ages who have rubbish spelling and grammar. Senior colleagues of mine who send incomprehensible emails, and trainees who can’t use excel. I think some very young Gen Zers now didn’t grow up with computers at home, so they’re less computer literate but more at home with tablets. My old middle aged boss was on £80k and couldn’t rotate a PDF. It’s not all generational, some people just don’t have certain skillsets

Ha, a friend of mine is an NHS manager who had to approve annual leave for new doctors.
We spent all their undergrad days telling them* not to book things during exam/post exam/resit periods. I remember one girl from a traditional religious background saying "but I'm getting married and I have a resit exam!". Well, you were told not to book things during that time. You can either change the wedding date or resit the year.
Then the students go on to jobs and STILL have to be told not to book more holiday than they are entitled to, to check their leave dates work with the rota etc.

*I don't teach medics, but students in general.

I am really surprised. I have never ever come across this before except in people who do not usually have to write at work e.g. filling in an accident form.

My old middle aged boss was on £80k and couldn’t rotate a PDF.

This does TBF remind me of the US politician? or businessman? who was convicted of fraud because he couldn't convert Word to PDF or vice versa and didn't know that email isn't secure.

I have found young people brilliant when it comes to doing anything with social media. But they seem to struggle learning to use new computer software. They do not seem to have learned the skills of intuitively figuring out how to use a programme.

I'm not sure why you're so unwilling to believe that a young person could be right, to be honest.

What I'm unwilling to believe is that a young person's assessment of someone's word skills are indicative of how well that person does their job.

if this person held down a senior job with poor spelling/grammar, that would be very unusual for that age of employee, so he would be a total outlier. I'm sure such people exist, but it's not a widespread association with older employees.

Neither would it be indicative that new grads have higher literacy levels than older employees, because that's obviously rubbish. So I'm not quite sure what she thought her sample of one was proving.

I live in a country where teen jobs haven't been a thing for decades and it makes no difference to what someone is like at 22.

Not grads, but we used to have year 2 interns on marketing placements.

it used to take 40 interviews to find one or two interns you’d be able to bear spending a year with.

Generally, an overconfident attitude (one literally said, “what you’ll learn about marketing is…” to me, a marketing director with 15 years experience, in his first 10 minutes of interview), unreasonable expectations of work/life balance to just “chill” or “go to the gym” (used to be needed for a reason, like childcare), and generally shit timekeeping, ability to write or spell, feed themselves, make drinkable coffee, do any task set in the set way without “improving” on it, etc etc. So glad those days are behind me!

All the research shows older people have better literacy and numeracy skills than younger people.
But if you work in a field where literacy and computer skills did not use to be needed e.g care work, then I can imagine some older staff may have poor literacy and computer skills.

Me neither and why would a shop worker need it regularly?

What annoys me is how they refuse to do routine tasks like making drinks for people or setting up meeting rooms. That is beneath them apparently. So it is always older lower-paid women like me who do it.
There does often seem to be a thing with the status of tasks.

I'm curious about the circumstances in which "I'm curious about x" isn't normal language 😉 I presume there's some context I'm missing there!

"unreasonable expectations of work/life balance to just “chill” or “go to the gym” (used to be needed for a reason, like childcare)"

Work/life balance is not just for parents!

"My old middle aged boss was on £80k and couldn’t rotate a PDF."

Why would a boss on 80k be rotating pdfs? They have people for that.

Me and my American speaking 🤨 grad work in construction so not sure that strictly holds true.

People in creative industries or technical industries or basically anything that involves drawings or designs on a PDF needs to be able to rotate the PDF.

If he could not do that, I assume it was not part of his daily job.

I manage a grad scheme and although attitudes and work culture is changing with time have never had this issue.

I would suggest- If they are not focussing on their tasks, remind them they are there to work.
If they have any issues with the company regarding trans or race relations suggest they take it up with HR and focus on their work.
Don't cut their workload and set SMART objectives and manage their performance properly. If they can't handle it or are more hassle than it's worth then end their placement.