Gen Z has officially entered the workplace, and growing up during the pandemic has apparently not done them any favors when it comes to office life.
Some companies have even taken to hiring etiquette coaches to help their new hires touch grass — or at least the particle board of their cubicle.
Rosalinda Randall, an etiquette coach in the Bay area who specializes in helping zoomers work in the real world, says,
The requests come from tech campus managers, winery execs, and even country clubs. All are a variation on the same complaint: Gen Z employees are treating the office like an extension of their homes.
One supervisor told Randall a new hire repeatedly left food wrappers scattered on the communal lunch table, assuming janitors would clean it up. ‘Their manager didn't know how to handle it, as they didn't want to sound like a parent,' said Randall.
She charges $2,500 for a 90-minute workshop that teaches basic life skills like
how to make eye contact
where to stick your name tag (always on the right)
how to ask for — not demand — things from your boss.
personal hygiene (because two new hires did not shower or change their shirts for weeks)
why being an "office siren" is inappropriate
She's a highly paid mom.
And the etiquette training isn't limited to office spaces.
Randall also gives classes at hospitals.
Newly hired nurses are showing signs of apathy and entitlement. They bristle at overly chatty patients or try to shirk ‘dirty' tasks. ‘They demand to be released from bedpan duty,' she said. ‘They don't like it, so they think they shouldn't have to do it.'
Zoomers complain about the classes saying that they were promised "work-life balance," but apparently some zoomers' scales are broken, heavily favoring the life side of that equation.
And while every generation has had their critics when entering the workforce, professional workplace etiquette training for new hires has to be a first.
And really, it says as much about the Gen X and Millennial bosses hiring these trainers as it does about the young people themselves.
If they're that much trouble, just fire them already; you don't have to be the cool boss.
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