Horrible Bosses: what the Millennials are saying
Remote work in some spheres is way broken and Gen X bosses have to step up
Let me first say, I am Gen X, so I can throw shade on my own generation… so here goes.
I dropped into Tik Tok the other day to follow the chat threads on some of the more popular posts about #remotework and found a glittering array of simultaneously ingenious and disheartening attempts by remote Millennials to hoodwink their distant and dullard Gen X bosses.
But frankly, IMHO, it isn’t the Millennials’ fault. I lay this at the feet of the bosses, and likely to the dysfunctional companies they all work in.
The social medias are chock full of tactics to make yourself look like you are online and working when you are doing anything but, such as:
Opening a Word doc and putting a rock / heavy jar / shoe on your keyboard
Starting a Teams call with yourself
Hitting “play” on a long YouTube video (there’s a great 3-hour tutorial about how to use Excel for this) and walking off
Installing a mouse jiggler or a “Move Mouse” tool
I asked one person if she was doing this for a real reason, because someone cared, or if she was just worried that someone cared. She replied that if she were in “yellow” status for more than 18 minutes, her boss messages her a random question to see if she will reply. She has timed this. So has he. Can you imagine how unproductive that is all day?
Lots of people remarked that maybe they wouldn’t get called out on the spot, but the other shoe would eventually drop and they would lose their job sooner or later if they didn’t appear to be busy online…CONSTANTLY.
I felt bad for one woman who said “I feel like these tiktok’s tricked me into dumping my job to work remote and now I’m working longer hours, more slammed than ever and regretting it.”
Another woman said “even if I am reading something for work, I feel it necessary to click something in case everyone thinks I’ve gone awol.”
GAH. Y’all, this sucks.
If you have people working for you who feel like this, you need to stop the madness.
Trust is really fragile right now. Generational differences make it harder. For me, this tiktok chat is the proof of that. Young people are anxious about being kicked to the curb more than ever because of a millisecond of inactivity online.
And worse perhaps, instead of throwing their substantial creativity at doing amazing work, they are expending those resources on outsmarting a remote work system, just wanting to hold onto a job they don’t care about, because you haven’t made the job matter to them.
So what do you do? Here are FIVE actions you can take right now:
Check in with your company’s and your own team’s culture — is trust a cornerstone (truly?). If not what can you do to change that?
Does everyone in your team have measurable goals that allow you to focus on deliverables and not on time online?
Do people in your team care about their jobs and the work they do? Lack of purpose is a big reason people would rather take a nap or fire up Netflix than work. Does your team feel it, or do you need to articulate it for everyone and repeat and repeat and repeat…
Do you check up on people’s online status (…be honest with yourself)? Is this giving you information that helps you and your team be more successful?
Do YOU take breaks to go offline? Everything you want your team to do has to start with you doing it yourself. Every. Thing. If they see you swim with sharks, so will they. So be brave. Go offline. Take that walk.
Microsoft has great data about brain activity and stress when we don’t take breaks from our online meetings. People are frying their brains. Literally.
Horrible online status-watching Bosses are making people fry their brains. If you know one of those, please forward this post to them with all my love. I know they’re doing their best, but we can help them do better.
Good luck out there, and please don’t fry your brain!