People should stop blaming young people for not knowing stuff they've not been taught

[Echobelly]

I see quite a lot of social media posts and articles about 'Generation Z don't know how to do X' or 'Gen Z don't know how to behave in an office' or (and this has been going of for years) 'Young people starting their careers lack job skills'

A recent one has been complaining they basically don't know how to use a desktop or computer filing system because they all use phones/apps. Well that's hardly their fault workplaces are still using the stuff most people have grown up with, and that those people have then assumed everyone will know how to use it automatically. Just because 'the kids' are social media savvy doesn't actually mean they're automatically 'tech savvy'.

And with the rules of workplace and flexibility changing, again it's not suprising if some young people misjudge what's OK. I think workplaces may need to spell it out a bit more what might need to be cleared with a manager and what's OK to make a call on. Those of us who've been in the office for decades (sorry, can only talk about office-based work from my own experience) know how to make that call, but someone who's not worked before might not realise. Especially if coming out of uni where, let's face it, some people play fast and loose with their attendence at things, especially now when lots of stuff is available on a recording.

Like we knew how to do everything when started our careers, or it's school/higher ed's task to teach kids how to be 'Marketing executives' or 'Junior content managers' - no employers, that's your job! I do think people are unfair on young people like this.

Nobody knows anything unless they have been taught

Rubbish. Some things may need to be taught. Many things you can learn yourself, and take some initiative. I am 65 years old and, hand on heart, nobody taught me how to mop a floor! In a work environment I might need to know about health and safety, or handling cleaning chemicals, and those things may be taught or learnt from instructions, but the basics of a mop and bucket are pretty obvious. And if you don't get it right first time you'll know better next time.

I know lots of things that I've never been taught. Nobody should need to be spoon-fed every single thing they need to exist. That's why we have brains - to figure stuff out. If humans needed teaching everything, then there would be no development, no new ideas, and we'd still be in caves.

I suspect some of us are better at knowing things they've never been taught than others. I'm shite at it myself.

That is no doubt true. But it is also true that it is rubbish to suggest that nobody can know anything until they have been taught it. Using one brain for what it was intended is like any other part of the body - it gets sluggish if not regularly exercised. Not everyone is a top rated athlete. Not everyone is a genius. But everyone can exercise. Everyone can use their brain. Contrary to some evidence that they can't. Choosing not to is a decision.

But how do you do so? I can teach myself some things but I need to know that they are important to learn or it might not occur to me. Depending on what it is I might need a decent source of information. For example landlines don't tend to come with instructions because they are second nature to many and yet unfamiliar to others.

YANBU I bloody love when MIL complains A. About my generation as a whole (you generation raised us. Look at yourselves if you don't like it.) And B. About the state of the country, as though it's the fault of MY generation who were born into the mess "things were better when we were young" well whose fault is that? Things were good, your generation were in charge then things were shit, do the maths.

Also when parents complain about their kids not being able to cook, not cleaning up after themselves, not knowing how to use a washing machine. Well it was your job to teach them these life skills. If your kid is missing a life skill then that's on you.

I will not over-generalise. I know younger people and older people who are lacking in common sense and skills.

I do agree with an earlier poster though. There has been a massive culture shift when it comes to expectations and following the rules. There are many children and young people in schools who have been allowed to think it is their right to have things their own way. If they don't fancy going to a lesson they take themselves off to the pastoral team, if they don't want to wear shoes then mum writes a note and they get to wear trainers, if they don't want to sit in the exam room with everyone else then get them special arrangements. Of course I know that some students absoultely do require indiviudal support and special arrangements - but the number of kids who have demanded this has risen massively in the last 10 years or so.

I do wonder how some of them will cope in the world of work - when they can't just storm out of the office because they are having a bad day, or turn up half an hour late because they needed a chat, or they refuse to follow the work dress code, or use their phone whenever they want in the working day (because their mum is hospital dontya know - classes are full of kids with relatives in emergency medical situations and it is their human right to use their phone throughout the lesson).

I have spent far too much of my working life waiting on other people to arrive at meetings. Recently I was waiting 30 minutes for a young colleague who not only was very late, but who also tuned up with some coffee they had stopped to buy en route. So disrespecful to those of us sat waiting.

I wonder if some younger people lack these basic manners, common sense and sense of responsibility because they don't have as much contact with older generations when they were growing up. I know I learnt a lot of my social skills from spending lots of time with my grandparents as a child.

With some of the generational issues I wonder if part of the problem is younger people becoming less free range. You must have learned a lot from being out with your peers that didn't need to be learned from parents.

My childhood wasn't free range but I don't think it even occurred to my parents that they then needed to teach me those things. I remember a disastrous bike outing where it was assumed I "just knew" how to ride safely on the road despite no one ever teaching me.

My own DD claims she's learnt more from tik tok and horrible histories than she ever learnt at school !

I don't think all of it needs to be taught. I wasn't taught it (I'm 47).

I had an awareness of the environment around me, I never turned up late, asked for advice/guidance where needed, observed the working practices around me and asked for elaboration if needed. Yes learnt to navigate the environment but no, I wasn't taught it. I also did see this with others.

I was motivated to learn. Personally, I see less of this now, I have found that workers now have to be told a lot of things they could figure out and learn themselves but don't. Is it an age thing, not sure. I know it drives me nuts at work when asked by new staff things that with a bit of awareness, self-motivation and common sense they could cope without the hand hold and spoon feeding.

I've worked with and trained a lot of first jobbers in the past few years. They're a mixed bunch, exactly as we were a mixed bunch back in the day.

For many of them it's their first experience of work, so they have to learn all the things my generation learned through Saturday and holiday jobs which aren't available to them now, but that's not their fault.

I think overall they're a more likeable, kinder, bunch than we were.

I have spent far too much of my working life waiting on other people to arrive at meetings. Recently I was waiting 30 minutes for a young colleague who not only was very late, but who also tuned up with some coffee they had stopped to buy en route. So disrespectful to those of us sat waiting

That had nothing to do with age and everything with entitlement. You say yourself that you have spent far too much of your working life waiting for other people, so those people won't all be in their early 20s now. Every time there's a thread on here about lateness loads of people post about how it's not their fault.

I think our trainees are really good. But i don't think they get asked to do "grunt" work, most of the work they do is proper work and not just photocopying and taking letters to other offices - the dreaded "by hand". I used to hate doing those because you'd turn up and people would keep you waiting ages in reception before they'd condescend to come and get the letter from you.

Entitlement has nothing to do with age.

I have found that workers now have to be told a lot of things they could figure out and learn themselves but don't. Is it an age thing, not sure. I know it drives me nuts at work when asked by new staff things that with a bit of awareness, self-motivation and common sense they could cope without the hand hold and spoon feeding

Well I still think it's more efficient to ask. But maybe it's a google generation thing. If we wanted to know something, we had to go to the library or open an encyclopedia. Now all anyone needs to do is ask google. Or come onto MN and ask questions you can google quite easily. Maybe it's just a feeling that you can ask for an answer and it is given to you straight away instead of hunting around for it.

But also I think people often do look for the answer but can't find it. So they ask. If you don't want that to happen you need a decent intranet with all the policies and answers on there.

This is a stretch.

20 year olds and younger are the First generation to reach adulthood in the digital age - for the entirety of their lives they’ve had access to google and YouTube; two incredible sources of information if you want to know how to do something.

So I have little sympathy for those who do not have the nouse to look things up when there is a knowledge gap, especially in the workplace. “Fake it until you make it”.

There is an element of people working from home now that is contributing to those new to the workplace not knowing “how to behave” in an office and do things a lot of us take for granted

Going back to July/August 2021 when we were starting to be encouraged to go back to the office. It coincided with 5 new graduates starting, each aligned to a different line manager. I was one of the line managers and the only one out of the 5 that came in.

All the grads wanted to be in to learn the job, not wanting to work from their bedroom (as most 21/22 year olds are) and generally spend time with their new colleagues.

Because the other line managers refused to come in as they openly admitted “I have my office set up I am not going anywhere” it meant I was left to deal with all the day to day questions of “how do I do this” for about the 20th time and essentially do the job of 5 managers. It also meant that I couldn’t have a work from home day because by then it was expected that I was the in office line manager 🙄

Interestingly three quit within a year as they didn’t feel fully supported when they started. I also quit and that was one of the reasons given in my exit interview

I have little sympathy for those who do not have the nouse to look things up when there is a knowledge gap, especially in the workplace.

Of course, you have to have enough knowledge of the subject to be aware that you have a knowledge gap in the first place, and that there's something you need to look up. Like, say, how to spell "nous". If you don't know, then there's a good chance that you don't know that you don't know.

I vividly remember my first week in an office and a woman who worked there laughed at me quite spitefully for not dividing all my Outlook emails into folders. I had no idea that's what people did! I'd never used fucking Microsoft Office, it was Gmail all the way til then!

I don't think anybody does this! I have one folder called "important" and delete all the other crap.