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..

Also @Brefugee
hbr.org/2018/07/why-women-volunteer-for-tasks-that-dont -lead-to-promotion
Again I’m lucky that my second .(male!) manager taught me to put my foot down but women especially need to be selective about what we do.9

hbr.org/2018/07/why-women-volunteer-for-tasks-that-dont-lead-to-promotions

Y

☝👌
I agree. Much later in my career, there was the Director and myself. Yes, I made the tea and coffee, picked up spare milk, and loaded the dishwasher. The apprentices are there to learn how to do the tasks they're employed for. Not massage someone's ego-hierarchy in the workplace.

See also: collecting for birthdays & retirement.

I can't be arsed with that social shite, pisses me off. I never joined in with that hallmark crap.

if you think that a director or MD is paid big bucks to load the dishwasher rather than the apprentices - meh.
Sure, everyone should take a turn, but the expectation should be that office juniors use their initiative, just as we all did .

@OooErr another good one is Nice Girls Don't Get the Corner Office (aside of the use of "girl") - it's a good pointer about all the stuff that women tend to do, asked or not, that grease the wheels but get them nowhere.

www.goodreads.com/book/show/97641.Nice_Girls_Don_t_Get_the_Corner_Office

Both the director and I are male. He used to load and unload, and feed the fishes in the fish tank😂
Just because someone has 7 zeroes in the bank, drives a Bentley, has friends with funny handshakes. That doesn't mean they won't restock the toilet rolls.😂

if you think that a director or MD is paid big bucks to load the dishwasher rather than the apprentices - meh.

I dunno man, here's an idea. If the dishwasher isn't running, put your cup in it. If the dishwasher is running, wash your cup up. That works for everyone.

I’ve never understood the idea that some people are paid too much / are too senior or. Important to do basic tasks like u load a dishwasher or make a few cups of tea. In office work, whatever your grade and job, you don’t work at 100% of capacity on very difficult tasks all the time, our brains can’t cope with that. We all naturally switch between different types of tasks.

I don't see the difference between a CEO spending 5 minutes unloading a dishwasher between two meetings and an apprentice doing the same task between sending an email and doing some filing or whatever. Yes of course the CEO isn’t going to spend 8 hours a day doing dishwasher type tasks but I’d never think it odd for them to do it sometimes.

🤓☝

Glad I don’t work in your office and in mine everyone is treated with respect regardless of rank or gender

Fortunately the day I got promoted to Director I didn’t become as asshole who forgets basic office manners and still offers to get a tea for others when I am getting one for myself. I take their cup back too

The reality is if apprentices or interns who are going on to higher-paid jobs refuse to set up meetings, do drinks for visitors, or organise leaving cards, then it is the older low-paid women who end up doing it.
And the idea we volunteer for this is laughable. We are easily replaced so if instructed to do it, have to. I do not mind doing these things. But it sucks to see younger people who are going on to high-paid jobs think the job you do is such low status that it is beneath them.
There really is no clearer way to communicate clearly that you look down on workers like us.

I guess the problem is that it's a waste of company money.
On the other hand, the logical "wages" argument doesn't always hold as I've done menial tasks for interns who are paid nothing so it was obviously not helping the company financially for me to be doing that, just supporting a certain hierarchy.

In the OP's company the apprentices are somehow paid more than anyone else so there is actually a certain logic in them not doing simple tasks!

Am I the only one wondering how you all have a dishwasher? I've never worked anywhere with one, everyone cleans up after themselves.
Also maybe it's my sort of workplaces.. but having someone make tea?
People either make it themselves, with their own herbal/peach/whatever fancy flavour or get it from the cafe. Nobody would accept a generic 'cup of tea'.

The places fancy enough to need 'setting up for a meeting' have 'catering' to do that, because they're massive buildings with loads of client meetings and they don't want various clueless people wandering into the kitchens... or whatever they're called.

"Am I the only one wondering how you all have a dishwasher? I've never worked anywhere with one, everyone cleans up after themselves."

Up to about 10 people it's the sink, but while people are supposed to clean up after themselves they don't always and it's always left either to the cleaner or someone like me in admin. Many places I've worked have a dishwasher, thank God.

"Also maybe it's my sort of workplaces.. but having someone make tea?"

Occasionally for big bosses, but I think what's being discussed in this thread is mainly for visitors. Unless very informal where you can take your guest to the kitchen, someone has to make tea for visitors and it makes more sense if it's not someone who needs to be present for every minute of the meeting.

"People either make it themselves, with their own herbal/peach/whatever fancy flavour or get it from the cafe. Nobody would accept a generic 'cup of tea'."

I think that's unusual for the UK. Plenty of people still drink normal tea and plenty of offices have tea rounds, also accommodating people who drink herbal tea.
I'm abroad and here we put the tea bag on the side so it can easily be herbal if that's available.

"The places fancy enough to need 'setting up for a meeting' have 'catering' to do that, because they're massive buildings with loads of client meetings and they don't want various clueless people wandering into the kitchens... or whatever they're called."

No. Where I work there is a conference centre with catering, but it needs to be ordered in advance. In our own offices, we have rooms for up to 12 people. We don't have the budget to order catering every time so we make the tea and coffee ourselves for guests.

I've only ever worked at large corporates or 'trendy' startups/scaleups. That's probably why I have no clue what a 'normal' office is like 😂Never seen a stocked pantry with mugs for visitors, everything in there belongs to someone so it would be impossible to make cups of tea! Visitors usually show up already clutching a thermos or takeway coffee cup anyway.
Proper catering does have to be booked in advance but there are usually bottles+glasses in meeting rooms anyway, nothing extra to set up.

Hmm, I don't think it's a question of 'more important'. But would they even be in a position to wander leisurely into the kitchen?
I've had bosses (whatever their rank) who spent hours in meetings. No kidding. Lunch= meeting, if a meeting finished early there'd be someone else they grabbed to talk to. I don't know when they got to do any actual work!
By contrast apprentices/juniors/whatever wander about with nothing much to do. And their line managers have the opposite problem. What can we get them to do. The level of busywork I've seen generated just to occupy interns...

Lots of places have large meetings and no catering. Places only have catering if there are lots of that kind of meetings almost constantly. Not say twice a week.

For sure but in a big meeting they would pour water and make sure people had seats as readily as anyone else, the ones I know anyway.

We provide tea, coffee, water and biscuits in big meetings. Also sometimes have to arrange the furniture as we are not a big company so the large room gets used for other things as well. It does not take that long, but it does take some time.
Even if all you offered was water you still have to fetch the glasses and bottles of water - ideally pre-refrigerated. So all this just pour the water leaves a step out. And then someone has to wash up afterwards.
I work in a small company now. I used to work in a large company with permanent meeting rooms with refreshments automatically in all rooms. But someone still had the job of setting up and clearing away at the end of the day - often me. A place has to be enormous to have someone who only does catering. It is more normal that an admin worker will have that as part of their role.

I would definitely be feeding back to the university how you feel - it's not in the student's interest that you stop doing the apprenticeships but if they are not vetting appropriately you need to. We've had interns apply to us - who have supplied us with a recommended reading list for us on their CVs - completely beggars belief how utterly naive these kids can be. Whilst the raw intelligence might be high, the lack of self-awareness is breathtaking - like a fine wine they need a few years before they should be let loose on society.

In our university (i.e. an enormous employer) we can have catering for a meeting but only if we have the budget.
If it's a big meeting we have a minute taker. That could be an admin person but sometimes it's a research meeting and we're all academics.
Anyone left at the end puts the room back the way it was. If there's no catering we'd all bring our own drinks.

We've had interns apply to us - who have supplied us with a recommended reading list for us on their CVs

Seriously? 😂

what was on it?

When I hear my Mil talk about her experience during the war, which was horrific, I have very little sympathy for your pov. Every generation has its challenges...you don't fix shit by blaming everyone else.

"there are usually bottles+glasses in meeting rooms anyway, nothing extra to set up."

If they're real glasses, as opposed to plastic, somebody has to clear them up after the meeting and it's probably not the guests. To be fair, most of my bosses will do this after a small meeting.

I wonder if part of this attitude comes from the source of their salary that your company is not paying them - so somehow they think they are a gift to you? And you should feel grateful.
We get a grant for interns and during the interview one of them remarked on what a great scheme it is that we get an intern for free...I was keen to point out that their salary was only part of their costs and that the time spent training them (instead of billable time with clients) would be more significant in terms of cost than their salary and unless we found an excellent intern we wouldn't be making use of the grant - we did turn down grants from two very well thought of Russel Group Unis as the standard of applicants they sent was not high enough, for us to spend our time on.

I wonder whether covid is part of the problem. Lockdown and two years where most of their social interaction was virtual. The thing about virtual life is you by and large only have to interact with people you choose to and in very limited contexts. You never have to just get on with people you would not have chosen yo be with, you don't see how other people interact and the compromises they make. You don't get the experience of having to get to know people not like you and finding things you respect and value them for.

I think of being out in society like pebbles in the sea: we are constantly knocking around each other and getting our sharp edges knocked off. We get smoothed by each other. These kids are all still sharp edges and fragile points.

(Going off-topic, this is why I don't think mass full time remote working is good for society. The workplace is one of the main vectors for having to rub along with people you would not have picked socially. Indeed, many people give not having to spend time and effort being pleasant to people they haven't chosen a great benefit of remote working. I think mass long term WFH is going to exacerbate the divisions in society and increase extremist politics.)