Retail employee: No, you can't bring pets into this store.
Millennial: (How can I make this awful pug suddenly into a service animal?)
It goes both ways, and I will not stop pointing it out on these posts that try to put one generation on a pedestal while crapping on another.
I have to argue this one. millennials are the creators or driving forces behind entire industries dedicated to custom service and goods. They desire more and higher levels of customization and accommodation than any generation before them. The largest mainstream adoptions of things like tatoos and body modifications, once counted cultural and now part of mainstream society, has been millinneals. The general millennial customer wants their phone, laptop, gameboy, hand bag, shoes, background image on their tv, web browser, etc to the minutia to all be a reflection of their selves and their personal preference. Boomers tend to want service yes. They tend to figure they paid for a service and expect to be satisfied over and above. It’s a generational difference. Individuals vary, and you’ll find in retail many millennials are just as or more impatient than boomers, needy, demanding, unreasonable. Those are traits of humans not generations.
Working in retail and food service for so long, I can confidently tell you it's way more common to be cussed out by a baby boomer over even small mistakes. Teenagers and millenials can be surprisingly pleasant since they're more laid back. Workers are people, not products to abuse. Working as a carhop at sonic, I would sometimes forget to bring straws out with the trays, and more often then not, if it was a baby boomer, I'd be guilt tripped and yelled at for it. Younger people, some did it, yeah, but not nearly as often, because older generations have less respect for younger workers.
Perhaps so, but having worked the front end at a car dealership I can confidently tell you that if someone came in and made your life hell it was probably a millennial. Common scenario: lost car keys. The keys at the time could be between $200-500. If you had no keys at all, the car needed to be towed in to make one. Almost everyone didn’t like the price. Boomers would usually own up, say it was their fault and that they guess they’d be more careful, and buy a spare so it didn’t happen again. Millennials would usually throw a fit, become outraged. Lecture on how unfair that was (a common easily once a month one was “got drunk and flushed keys down toilet” believe it or not,) try to get it covered by warranty (which covers decency’s not negligence,) go look online and everywhere else (no one could program out jeys except a dealer,) so they’d then try complaining, trying to pressure their salesman in to getting them a free key, talk to the managers, then finally buy a key, treat you...
... like dirt the whole time, and then no matter how courteous, helpful, or sympathetic you were, there was a 70% chance you’d get a bad yelp review (a bad yelp for the dealer, when it’s the manufacturer who designed the key and programming procedure, and any dealer would have to do the same thing. When that bad yelp meant that you would have to go to a review meeting,) and it wasn’t just keys. It was telling them that without an appointment they’d have to wait a few hours for an oil change, or that we had WiFi but no computers, or that we didn’t have XYZ perk or amenity, that they had to wait for the courtesy shuttle to get back, that you won’t give the a free loaner or rental for a repair where the $100 part will take a couple days to get, and so on. Half the time they might not complain to your face, they’d write a yelp or call a manager after they left to complain about something you could have explained while they were there if they’d told you they didn’t understand it.
So no, I stick by my assertion that it is not generational. That some people are just jerks, and that millennials and boomers have cultural differences. Like in our examples- boomers tended to treat dining out as more of an experience and a treat. They tend to expect a certain level of service, and given the repetitive nature and simple (although often quite hectic) environment in most restaraunts expect the staff to have a good grasp for procedures, things like “drinks come with straws” or “a spoon might be useful to eat soup instead of hands.” Millennials tend to have different ideas, tend to expect a company or someone else to be take personal responsibility from them, things like that. Location is also a factor, as is job and income amongst other things. I’ve met people from 6 generations or more in my life and can say they all had cool people and twats, and where you live and where they are from also factor in.
***TANGENT***
To anyone who would defend the key outrage: yes, that’s a lot of money for a key. But understand that the cheapest “OEM” smart keys still tend to be at least $70. It’s the nature of the device. Our particular keys had security protocol built in. You needed multiple keys to program a key, you need the physical car, a special $10,000 lap top with a secure link (1 link per license, only dealers and authorized shops can get one, they were $6,000 a month each,) a technician must go in to the cars computer and clear the old codes, set a new key code, then program the new keys, it took about 45-60 minutes labor to do that. The $200-500 included that labor. Shop labor was $145 an hour. This prevents car thieves from stealing cars by programming keys and driving away or hacking (like BMW had) and makes it so old lost or stolen keys no longer work. The key price and rules are explained and a written signed paper is given to the customer on purchase. They know when they buy the car
Why so much for labor and such? Yes. Some dealers are rip off artists, and all will probably rip someone off at some point depending on what you define as a rip off. Mine was a pretty good dealer though, in business over 40 years same family owner. Dealerships tend to pay most skilled staff a living wage. Not a huge salary, but above minimum wage. To do that, to pay someone who must own over $20k in their own tools and have years of school and experience more than the $13-18 they could make in fast food without that investment, means charging more. To pay for the $10k lap top and $6k a month fee to be able to make keys, the $200 a month Maintenance and data package for the $5000 key machine, it costs money. Then you have to pay the parts guys too and service writers. Maybe keep the lights on and make a little profit. So it seems like a lot but after the math is done we didn’t make a lot of money on keys.
I’m gonna punch myself in the face in 10 years when millennial vs baby boomer memes become gen x be gen z memes
Why do we have to compare millennials and baby boomers it’s so stupid
like something i never understood is how people cant take the time to wait for shiz. Like im in the drive through line with my dad and he is like freaking out because we waited 20 minutes for our food but i honestly didnt care i just listen to some music and stare out the window and just zone out for a minute. He always telling me to that im too impatient and stuff but it seems only my parents get cheesed up when they gotta wait for that long.
Patience is an important virtue, but even the patient can seem “impatient.” The distinction is between wasting time and spending time. Everything takes a certain amount of time. If you give an employee a task, you’d have an expectation where unless something out of the ordinary happened, they should be able to finish in say.. and hour. If they take an hour and 10, not so big. Much more though and you feel like time isn’t being used wisely. When you’re waiting on someone else, not because it should take so long, but because they are simply not able or willing to perform a task efficiently, your time is being wasted. Depending on your responsibilities, people relying on you, your goals and ambitions, and life- this can be upsetting. Work 10 hours, sit in traffic 3, that leaves you 11 hours in the day to sleep, do errands and take care of things, spend time with family and friends, and do the things you want. Each time you are held 20 minutes those are 20 less to spend elsewhere.
Millennial: (How can I make this awful pug suddenly into a service animal?)
It goes both ways, and I will not stop pointing it out on these posts that try to put one generation on a pedestal while crapping on another.
To anyone who would defend the key outrage: yes, that’s a lot of money for a key. But understand that the cheapest “OEM” smart keys still tend to be at least $70. It’s the nature of the device. Our particular keys had security protocol built in. You needed multiple keys to program a key, you need the physical car, a special $10,000 lap top with a secure link (1 link per license, only dealers and authorized shops can get one, they were $6,000 a month each,) a technician must go in to the cars computer and clear the old codes, set a new key code, then program the new keys, it took about 45-60 minutes labor to do that. The $200-500 included that labor. Shop labor was $145 an hour. This prevents car thieves from stealing cars by programming keys and driving away or hacking (like BMW had) and makes it so old lost or stolen keys no longer work. The key price and rules are explained and a written signed paper is given to the customer on purchase. They know when they buy the car
Why do we have to compare millennials and baby boomers it’s so stupid