NOT ON MY NICKLE YOU WON'T!

I guess it is a good thing I’m not a boss anymore.

Really, I never was much of a boss – or to be more precise, I actually only had one person that reported to me and who was there at my pleasure. I hired that person and I could have fired that person. So that made me a boss, I guess.

I always made my instructions and my expectations clear. I mentored where the people needed mentoring and corrected where they needed correcting. I was not particularly easy on them when it came time for their reviews nor was I hard on them. They knew where they stood with me and there never were any surprises in their reviews. They knew my reasons for my expectations and understood that they were there to meet them. They did, and we got along fine. During my six years I had two different people in that position, and we all started and ended up friends.

However, it is a good thing I am not a boss anymore.

I read in Sunday’s paper that it is a common complaint from today’s young people who join the work force with the expectation that their bosses will embrace technology as much as they do to discover that the bosses don’t think it is appropriate to do personal work on company time. These young ones expect to be able to read news stories online, read and answer their personal e-mail and visit various social networking accounts. They want access to everything from YouTube to Facebook and Hotmail. They say that they will not let these personal activities interfere with their job responsibilities.

Give me a break! I wasn’t born yesterday. I see what young people are doing with their computers, their cell phones, their texting, etc. Do I think if they are allowed to do this on the job it will never interfere with their job responsibilities? The article says that young people who do this at work tend to be more willing to put in time after hours in exchange for flexibility on the job. Do I think this is accurate? Absolutely not. And especially not after hours on overtime pay! They are as preoccupied with these things after work as they are during the eight-hour workday.

The article says that today’s young work force wants it this way and employers had better figure out how to get the jobs done and let the kids have their toy time.

It is a good thing I am not a boss anymore. I’d probably have to go on sick leave from apoplexy!