Sounds reasonably conscientious and professional to me... Just informal. Best combination IMO: Keep me informed, ask me for decisions when necessary, mitigate terror to my dog, talk and behave like a human, make me feel like you know your way around this and have it under control. Perfect service, no notes.
Yeah, I was going to say, this is not only professional but charismatic. I'm not sure why this is peak gen z.
I'm a millennial, and any amount of casual customer interaction was quickly killed at my first job. I was taught how to speak in a professional manner, and was told I'd be written up if I was found to be speaking too casually to customers. Speaking to customers as if they're your equal is just not something that was acceptable, even 15 years ago - you had to speak as if you were their servant.
I'm glad it's changing - there was never a good reason for it in the first place - but I still cringe when I hear an employee speak casually to a customer, because I still think they're going to get in trouble for it.
Yeah, I'm born '87, and pretty much any customer interaction at the myriad jobs I had (I got fired a bunch) was basically scripted. Bank. Retail sales. Life guard. Restaurant. You name it, I was supposed to say things a certain way, and generally in a way that I don't think was clear or congenial. I'm a people person. I deal with the customer.
And I think this is why Gen Z is the way it is. They are dealing with two generations of people who are t i r e d of boomer social norms bullshit. Gen X was the first generation in a long time to say fuck it, but we never figured out anything else to do. Millenials figured out that this shit didn't matter and how to navigate between people who care about "professionalism" and people who don't.
Gen Z is, now, mostly dealing with people who don't care about the false polish of professionalism, so they haven't even acquired the habit of putting that face on for people.
I think it happened in the boomer era because that's when all this multi nationalized standardization first became a thing. They hadn't developed the mental guards to realize it was all bullshit. I've seen so many boomers take what customer support people say personally as if they had any control over company policy. Millennials are more like hey, I know you're just doing your job and following company policy, but I need this fixed, can you send me to the right person who can help.
I love when I find my people and I can get workers to drop their guard and talk like a human. Same on the phone and in emails, I work in supply chain and new vendors are always super professional but I just drown em in emojis and eventually I get emojis back and I get people telling me about their dogs and families and the weather in Australia and shit.
Life's to short for boring emails.
I work a phone job and they expect at least some level of professionalism. That is, no swearing, no dirty jokes or being overly crude, etc. But otherwise they let us get away with a lot.
That's a more recent thing, used to be that talking to phone support was like talking to a robot because they weren't allowed to go off script. I guess companies are realizing that customers don't want to be given the same unhelpful scripted response over and over again. They probably listened to enough angry recordings to figure that out.
At least in my case the first few sentences are relatively scripted. You know the standard shit like whose calling and what’s your code. Then it’s free form.
Then there are the people who call enough for me to recognize the caller ID lmao
I think it was mainly so you'd shield the corporation's bullshit policies by taking it on your own head. Corporations dont want you saying "I know it's stupid but it's required by my job"
Because it is, in fact, gen z. I deal with a lot of contractors in a tech field. There's a lot of stuff we do that is prototype/beta level. It's not customer facing. Rough edges are fine, having to reboot it once a day is fine, it just needs to work and if it's not I need to know why.
Gen Z is wayyyyy better at that than millennials. Don't spin me some bullshit, just explain the issues and how much of a headache I'm in for. Previous folks would give me some bullshit about "well it doesn't do that but that's out of scope of our original contract so fixing it is $X/hr on retainment for our expertise and our ability to bring in affiliate partners". Gen Z is much more "man, this shit is cool, but those goal posts shifted, did the best I could, call me if you have issues and at a certain point and I if you're a pain in my ass I'll bill you".
Like they just don't beat around the bush. No spec is ever perfect, and rather than dance around it they'll just be like "I did my best, and I'll go extra until I won't and I'm not really going to bother spending much time explaining to you we're out of scope. You know it. I know it. I ain't dancing because I don't get paid to dance."
The millennial one seemed more straightforward, IMO. They told you they couldn't do it because it wasn't in the contract, and what it would cost to get that added. The gen z one didn't give you all the details.
I’m not sure why this is peak gen z.
I mean I guess it is, just in more of a "the kids are alright" sense than probably intended.
I had a pipe burst last year and it was a whole thing. The deconstruction team was led by a millennial and he had three gen zers working with him. They were amazing and so communicative.
The reconstruction was a young boomer and a couple random teams he contracted out to. Getting anything was like pulling teeth. He seemed frustrated by the questions I had after he offered nothing.
Boomer:
Millennial:
Gen Z:
I kind of like your summarizations, but the Millennials have not been saying nothing, although many have reached an age where they've given up hope. Do you not remember Occupy Wall Street? We started ramping things up, and now Gen Z seems very happy to take over and keep pushing.
Each generation is in some way an extension of the previous one. It can be a good thing, like in this case.
As a millennial I think we tried to follow the life plan set out by boomers that was sabotaged by boomers, realized it didn't work, tried to change it, failed, then lowered our ambitions and are now just trying to survive while making things at least a little bit better.
That sounds completely spot-on. Doesn't help that we were "guaranteed" their formula would work for us and then it didn't, at all.
Kinda hate "quiet quitting" you mean, doing exactly your job and nothing more because employers no longer care to promote from within, develope skillsets, or compensate fairly? When working harder smarter and better doesn't advance your career, why do it?
Man, I hate it so much when people get pissy when you just ask normal information questions. Definitely a boomer-and-older thing IME.
Company: Precision Home Security
Employee review for: Madison
Madison is an asset to the company. Not only does she have high technical acumen with the product, but she also has an approach to customer service which is disarming to the customer. She has met her goals of up-selling by mentioning product up sells built into organic conversations. Her empathy toward both the customer and their belongings is to be praised. While her approach may be considered non-traditional, she serves the customers with the highest level of care while also coming off as infinitely approachable.
Manager Recommendation: Offer an immediate 20% raise and fast-track her to become a trainer for our other installers.
It was believable until that last part. I'd expect something like Madison failed to smile and offer the Precision Promise at the beginning middle and end of the sale. Maybe I'm just a pessimist.
I also do this and I'm just a jaded millennial who is pretty sure my job doesn't matter, and am preparing for the water wars in 20 years instead of trying to build my resume further.
I'm pretty sure this started with Gen X, increased with Gen Y (excuse me, Millennials), and has significantly increased with Gen Z (Zoomers).
At least Gen X didn't get some stupid moniker that stuck.
The Zs are the first ray of hope in a long time. They’re like fully actualized Gen X. They’re doing their own thing collectively.
Millennials just needed to be blamed for everything that the Boomers and Gen Xers did wrong first.
As a millennial, everything has always been my fault anyway. Glad to help the younger generation how I can.
I mean honestly, I sort of see my role at work as preparing the future management for Gen Z.
I was already getting the blame, might as well have fun with it.
Plus I always get the messages after teams meetings: "holy shit, you're like the first person I've ever known to use a meme correctly and professionally. "
I think :"Damn. I'm an effective communicator. "
Gen-Xer here. I feel like a lot of us tried repeatedly to do the right thing, but we got constantly told to shut the fuck up by a lot of the boomers. And as they vastly out-numbered us and held most of the power, eventually we gave up.
I'm glad to see younger generations with more authority and bigger numbers trying to do the right thing. Godspeed.
My impression is that Gen x was a counter reaction to boomers and lashed out but boomers had too much power so it ended up being unfocused and chaotic. Millennials saw that chaos as was like this is all fucked but can we try and make things just a little bit better, we just want to survive. Then Gen Z sees all the bullshit and is like this all sucks, we're just going to do our own thing. Kinda feel like gen z is doing what we wish we could do if there was less societal pressure to follow a life plan that doesn't work.
The fact that they dress like Gen Xers is such a relief.
I remember when we “rediscovered” hippy stuff and then old people would be like “oh that’s so nice to see”.
Now I’m that guy, and it is really relieving to see young people dressed and acting mostly like we did at that age.
The way it feels to me is that Gen x was like rebels without a cause, while Gen z is more like rebels who just want to live their lives. Like gen x was trying to lash out against society while Gen z accepts that it sucks but tries not to let it mess with them. Meanwhile I feel like millennials are just trying to survive and figure out how to achieve a semblance of the economic security boomers had.
The best part of this is that the one thing they were really concerned about and took extra precautions with was accidentally frightening the dog :)
That was really sweet. It’s the difference between not caring at all and just not caring about the job.
100%
Being genuine as a tech earns trust so when you have to charge the customer they know you're not fucking them. The price you lose in sales you make up for in good will and word of mouth.
I read all of this in Benito Skinner voice and I imagine this person with impeccable manicure.
But I would argue, peak professionalism, like they said all the things that were required AND was mindful of the little dog!
There's a lot of people on this planet who would go absolutely baboon boinking bonkers if they heard a service worker say "That's a you problem." And not a single one of their genitals have worked without pharmaceutical aid since the 90's.
I speculate it's not going to be long before the abusive nursing home industry fucking BOOMS. So many people are going to look at an elderly person they have power of attorney over and say "You're not in hell yet, but you should be." Bedsore Meadows is gonna have a waiting list, mark my words.
