[sukhbirST]

The first ball being a bouncer does not mean you walk away retired hurt. I have seen the opposite in life and career. Infact such bosses turn out to be opposite once you show your work. Maybe the previous employee was not able to complete work in time.. there can be many reasons. I always tell people that, you should not speak till 6 months but observe and watch. Narayan sir has rightly brought out the truth though bitter it seems.

[malim]

Originally Posted by slango97

You may think and say we have been pandered to by our parents, that we've grown up too comfortably, etc. But this shows that you are biased against younger ppl and are out of touch with the realities of growing up in the modern world.

That's quite a leap of logic, to which your own words
form a singularly appropriate response:

Please spend more time talking to our generation and understanding why we are the way we are, instead of observing from afar and ridiculing us.

[iamwhatiam]

While many others have focused on picking the side of the employee/employer based on their biases, I just wanted to call out how heartening it is to see this generation stand up for itself. Whether right or wrong in this particular case (we'll never know), this confidence is much needed.

A lot of folks from previous generations (including myself) just sat and bore the brunt while our managers and supervisors got us to work long hours, who themselves probably did the same when they started out. Someone has to break that cycle and start to move the balance a little bit more towards the employee vs. the employer.

[ZenMaster]

Honestly this just seems to be a case of mismatched expectations from two generations of employer/employees.

The Manager just like any typical Indian manager expected a young guy should "prove his worth" by going above and beyond the contractual requirements to make "his" project a success because that's "his normal" and because he thinks his dream is the most important thing and that the employee's dream should be to work for his boss's dream.

The new recruit on the other hand like any new inexperienced recruit believed the corporate fluff by HR and beautiful corporate jargon and expected "professionalism" which after spending time in Corporate India (non-IT) I can attest that we severely lack. Unlike his previous generation he expects his employer to live upto the jargon in their PPTs and expects to be compensated for his overtime work and be treated respectfully.

What we are seeing is 2 people having to learn something the hard way:

The Manager seems to have learnt that the new generation expects professionalism and boundaries because they are aware of and have seen the pitfalls which can happen otherwise

The recent grad who's never work in a corporate organisation found out that reality doesn't always meet expectations and under the glossy surface, corporate jobs are not that glamorous as he thought when he was in college and on LinkedIn.

This situation is bad only if both parties take the wrong message away from this experience. I.e. the Manager thinks Gen-Z is entitled because they refuse to suffer like he did in his young days and won't be hiring them anymore & the Gen-z recruit coming away thinking that the boss is Toxic because he didn't immediately understand his employee's expectations and isn't the Professional European style boss he hoped he would be and doesn't understand the value of other's time.

The only difference between the old and new generation was that they didn't have the technology to broadcast their thought to the entire world about how much they hated their bosses and instead chose to talk crap behind people's back during Tea-time and play office politics.

The truth is after 10 years with enough "corporate" experience, both these guys will come to an understanding somewhere in the middle.

Every new generation complains about how Toxic & old fashioned their previous generation is and Every old generation complains about how entitled the new generation is.

[lapis_lazuli]

Originally Posted by V.Narayan

that he knows how to show the proverbial middle finger {pardon this crude expression}.

.

Have you been able to extensively interact with a fairly large number of 23-26 year olds, to accurately gauge their thought processes and their expectations from life or work, for that matter? In India or abroad? What is your take? Especially the ones with a tech background and coming from affluent urban settings? While it may be tempting to draw quick conclusions, just because we are in our 40s or 80s, it may not be the easiest, to make an accurate, fair conclusion! It might as well be badged the same way as the reddit post discussed here. We are trying to play the shrink here, perhaps, guesstimating the entire scenario in our minds. The fundamental problem is IMHO, in the thinking planted in these young minds. With very low attention span due to incessant internet consumption, the ability to interpret work contracts reasonably, is also gone. Neither do companies think it necessary to have a 6 months orientation program across all departments.

[Joe367]

Originally Posted by V.Narayan

I always get surprised by how many young team BHP employees {most from IT} talk of their inability to deal with a lousy boss. For crying out aloud a manager who is only a few years older to you, who is probably only one or two grades above you is the smallest problem life throws at you. Lousy bosses are destiny's way to give us practise to deal with bigger challenges life will throw at us as we go through it.

Being an adult is all about dealing smoothly with unpleasant situations without flying off the top and putting every small issue on the internet. On the scale of maturity this young person has yet to open his score.

Ragging was considered to be normal during the time when I was a child. People belived ragging will make the new generation stronger - prepares them to face all the difficulties that may come in future.

The problem is that we assume everyone to have the same level of physical and mental health - that everyone will be able to deal with stress at the same level. We find it surprising when one person ends their life for reasons we consider to be silly or another dies because of overwork.

[DigitalOne]

IMHO, this is wrongly being framed as a Generational conflict.

A 23-year-old coming from rich/upper middle class, urban background who can live of his parents will have a completely different perspective from a guy coming from, for example, Jabalpur staying in a cramped PG, attending interviews day in and day out. I may be stereotyping but I strongly suspect this guy comes from the former category.

If all 23-year-olds had this attitude, the WITCH companies would have folded by now .

I simply don't buy this 'this-generation-that-generation' argument.

[rkv_2401]

I don't agree with posting about these things on social media. However, doesn't anyone think that there is a chance that the manager's response is a HR/PR-written one in response to being lit up on social media?

So, this guy's so-called "startup" (i.e. he and his college buddy co-founder) didn't qualify among the top 100 within Karnataka for that year.

These startup competitions or other forms of startup support don't mean all that much, at least in tech. I know a tech startup in TN that is a global first in a high-value B2B market, solving a problem that was thought to be impossible, even by esteemed professionals in the field with PhDs and 20+ years of work experience. Disrupting large ticket players who were trying to do the task manually claiming partial automation. Never got any funding (sometimes, for ridiculous reasons such as not having a patent for their algorithms - if it got patented, then anyone could just view and copy the algorithm for themselves?) and had to bootstrap themselves. Now they have proven themselves and are starting to land projects accordingly.

My point is that startups like DotPe, yet another restaurant wait management system which at least as of September had no authorization for their APIs - exposing the entire order history of any of the restaurants they were partnered up with to anyone with a smartphone, and that allegedly allowed you to place or modify an order on anyone's table without even physically being at the restaurant! (https://x.com/deedydas/status/1838137082683728323), can be worth a hundred million dollars, but real new tech innovations frequently do not see the day of light as far as startup support is concerned. No offense intended to anyone who works at DotPe. Wait management systems are at least somewhat common applications because I had to build one during my final-term project at uni.

Not saying their startup was any good or not. But the support offered, or lack thereof, is not the strongest of indicators.

Originally Posted by slango97

People can say what they want about gen Z (some of what you say is indeed true), but bottom line is that our generation is not willing to tolerate irritating managers, long hours, and unnecessary office politics.

I have seen a lot of comments directed at our generation of people. Some about freshers demanding salaries that the seniors feel they do not warrant (especially in IT), some about youngsters not tolerating bad workplace culture and this means they won't learn interpersonal skills/how to deal with real adversity, etc.

Let me request you for a second to put yourselves in our shoes. If you had had the opportunity to make relatively large amounts of money when you were 2-5 years out of college, enough for you to start contributing towards securing your family's future, would you not grasp at it with both hands?

If you had the choice to avoid a pushy, at best, manager, and work with someone whom you look upto, whom you can learn a lot from, and whom treats you well, would you not take that chance?

The country has changed a lot in the last 20 or so years and while my generation could do a better job appreciating the nature of this change, there is no reason for us to take choices that aren't the best for us or to intentionally make our lives harder for ourselves by sticking to disempowering/toxic workplaces. I am sure everyone can appreciate that life is complicated and hard enough as it is.

If you want a professional or personal development challenge, there's a plethora of opportunities available to you in the current day be it a technical, interpersonal, disciplinary or whatever other type of challenge you want to put yourselves through. Want interpersonal skills? Start a side hustle selling items with a small ticket price. Want a disciplinary challenge? Run a marathon in a set amount of time, and then beat that time the next year, or shape your body in the gym.

Yes, we learn from adversity and challenge. But IMO there is no reason to seek out adversity or to try not to avoid it, be it through leveraging education and knowledge, familial support, or connections. I've found that at least some of the industries that claim to be purely meritocratic, rarely are.

[Latheesh]

Originally Posted by DigitalOne

IMHO, this is wrongly being framed as a Generational conflict.

Agree. He had the "option" to say NO and he said it. I see nothing wrong there.

[Chetan_Rao]

The world's full of too many 40/50/60 year olds who seem to have forgotten the phrase is 'grow/develop a thick skin', not 'be born with a thick skin'.

Maturity is an acquired trait, nobody's born with it. Judging a 20-something with the accumulated experience of a middle-aged person is as absurd as one of those starter job positions advertised with wanting 10 years of 'experience'. You can expect it all you want, nobody actually has it .

[asingh1977]

Originally Posted by V.Narayan

The employer's response is balanced, mature and professional. The ex-employee's postings on reddit sound like a need to seek validation, to seek dopamine and to show his virtual internet friends/followers that he knows how to show the proverbial middle finger {pardon this crude expression}.

It is just a standard response which any employee would give to another employee, layered in corporate cool-aid. There was no need to give a reply, post damage done, cause it does not help in any way. Also there is no apology tendered in the employer's response. (A generic email is not an apology) The employer has been rude and disrespectful, he still does not understand what he did in 8-9 hours (which usually takes months, as you mentioned below) was incorrect and grossly aggravating to a human's morale and self - esteem. This is something Indian colleagues do not understand of each other. Specially for subordinates. Respect.

Regarding what the ex-employee seeks on social platforms, it very well could be what you have thought so, or anything else. We will never know!

Originally Posted by V.Narayan

If he did this on day one he clearly entered the job looking for a reason to get accolades on the internet for his "principled stand". I cannot understand how a conversation with anyone that you don't agree with can be termed toxic. The word toxic gets tossed around a lot on the web these days. Bad abusive behaviour over weeks or months with public insulting could be termed toxic. But if you don't have the moral fibre to deal with one conversation where you are in disagreement then you are simply not ready to be a self supporting adult. I am also not sure if his real resignation letter was as brave as he has made it out to be on reddit.

I think in the corollary of events it is quite evident what happened on that one day. So you are saying one day of insult is fine to live by? It seems evident that the new joiner tried to explain his point - of - view, but was further ridiculed and then the verbiage "fancy term" and "western developed nation behavior."; were thrown around. How long does it take to understand someones true intent and behavior? Not months. A momentary lapse is enough to find out. As per the employee, this was not one dialogue delivery by the employer. Multiple times during the day, this behavior was exhibited which was incorrect and demeaning. Vis-a-vis: if someone is layering their true character under saucy goodness, and false pretensions (which happens in interviews) then the malignant behavior of a person is difficult to detect. There is no exact science around this, to be honest. You go by "gut" and logical examples. The employee saw enough of this in 8 hours. Moral fiber is purely subjective. Is there any measurement metric around how much insult one can endure? For sure in India the index would be probably 150/100 (100 being max), with Europe being 0/100. Does one need to test themselves and reach a threshold of say: 50 (hypothetical), then call it quits? There is no right or wrong answer here. Those are just made up numbers for this post!

Originally Posted by V.Narayan

Unlike what he believes, my humble assessment is that this chap, if he becomes an entrepreneur will be a toxic employer. He lacks the capacity to maturely deal with a simple difference of views and has a need to convert everyday conversations into an "issue" to wave from the ramparts to his invisible reddit friends. It is most likely that his parents pay for his living today. If he desperately needed that job for survival, he would think of cleverer ways of handling a bossy boss.

He has just started out! This was an opportunity for the current entrepreneur, to have groomed and tutor the 1-day-resign employee. But this would entail for the manager to swallow the bitter pill, put the ego to one side, and explain what he "really" meant to the new staff. It does not matter to us as examiners, what the background of the new joiner was. If he desperately needed the job for survival, and could not resign: exploitation. Which becomes prevalent once the management knows the background and desperation of an employee. Even worse in governmental organizations. Since a fired government employee, can really not fit anywhere, that easily. It is also known as arm-twisting! The new person was in a safe zone, so he decided to leave. Should not we all be in such situations, always? Not at the mercy of our employer? What cleverer ways you think this employee could have done to manage? Shirk work? Will get caught and insulted more. Talk it out (and explain his point), he did that, and was insulted. Talk to HR? They play second fiddle to line, and never keep confidentiality. Biggest gossipers in any office! The only way forward would have been: suffer in silence. Which most do in India. Since most managers went up the rungs, being tortured and roughened, they think it is the same as the rightmost birth right. Is that a way to teach someone? Please.

Originally Posted by V.Narayan

I always get surprised by how many young team BHP employees {most from IT} talk of their inability to deal with a lousy boss. For crying out aloud a manager who is only a few years older to you, who is probably only one or two grades above you is the smallest problem life throws at you. Lousy bosses are destiny's way to give us practise to deal with bigger challenges life will throw at us as we go through it.

Do you know how much power (and career impact) a manager (over a direct reportee) wields in the private work space..? They can totally control future remuneration upgrade, performance grade, project types, even technology stack, manifest false performance improvement plan (PIP) with HR ---> asked to leave. (Which I think cannot happen so easily in government jobs, so people seek them so vehemently) What do youngsters per-say want today? They just want to learn, and be given new opportunities, and be aligned with the cutting edge. Which is different to people in the 40+ bracket. Who are happy with what they are, do not want to learn. I have seen the new generation, ready to pick up abstract challenges, and research it out, burn the oil, and show proof of work. It may not be consumer grade, but the foundations are there. This is what the manager in this case should have done/said. There is nothing like destiny at the office, when one can make choices and move out. It is waiting for the inevitable (getting pink slipped) are made to suffer like a dog! Quite boolean.

As mentioned above there is never much of a way to deal with a bad boss, in India. The voice is just an echo in an empty valley. To reverberate back, lifeless. One has to resign, and move on.

Originally Posted by V.Narayan

Question for members who have run a team in any industry - give a thought if you would hire this person. I wouldn't. Too much baggage. Too many games. Too much of self puffery.

This employee is a mistake of the hiring team (and the manager). They did not check fitment, or were lying about the JD from day 1. This is what happens when one is conniving and deceitful in the hiring process. If the person is sharp, can answer my questions, no red flag, I would hire him.

Originally Posted by V.Narayan

If you apply your mind and if you are mature and balanced there are a dozen ways to deal with a pushy boss or pushy client or pushy Govt official. Being an adult is all about dealing smoothly with unpleasant situations without flying off the top and putting every small issue on the internet. On the scale of maturity this young person has yet to open his score.

I really do not see a dozen ways? Unless the party at fault is ready to change. Most of the time, the upper echelons do not want to change. Regarding pasting the issue on the www: it is what the world is. Once out of office (released), one is on their own. We cannot hold any liablity. His maturity, well: he seemed well rounded in his approach to the hiring and his reasons. He blew a gasket since he felt insulted and unwillingly cheated. All have their snap points. Are we not humans..? Can we be humans..?

[arnabbhagabati]

Originally Posted by handsofsteel

However, what seems to be universally agreed upon is that it was pretty churlish on his part to post it on Social Media. That, and that alone, is sufficient to cast aspersions on his traits/ intentions.

This seems to be the general opinion here

I agree that no judgement can and should be made based on social media posts.

Ideally we should not be even be taking sides - we don't know the whole story.

(BTW do we even know for sure this is a real story of a real person and not some sort of self validation stunt?)

But what is wrong in posting one's experience in social media?

He did not mention the employer/manager's name so this was clearly not meant to defame/attack anyone.

We can debate on whether it was really a toxic workplace, could he really judge a company culture in just one day, is working with bad boss a life lesson or not etc etc., but as long as a person thinks something is wrong, he/ she is allowed to speak, no?

As far as him revealing his identity affecting his job prospects is concerned, that is a choice he has made, as an adult.

(I don't think he would be interested in working for employers that judge employees for voicing an opinion anyways)

I don't think putting out his experience/opinion on social media was anything wrong at all.

Can someone explain why everyone is saying its childish, immature etc.?

Looks like I am missing something?

[subraiyr]

I fail to understand some of the comments above which tend to show sympathy with the young lad and fail to understand the workplace

Workplaces have all kinds of individuals, the good, not-so-good, bad, ugly, loud-mouthed, stab you in the back etc. It is a reflection of our society where we have the same set of individuals. And this is not just in India, it is across the world. I work in a firm which has offices and a workforce in approximately 100+ countries. I have spoken to many of them in Europe, North America and Asia Pacific and they accept the reality of diversity. To those who will question me on how I manage this, I also moonlight as a life coach and this provides me with a huge network within my firm.

The young lad is probably hyper-sensitive, has not faced too many interpersonal challenges in life and therefore at the first instance is ready to jump off the bridge. I see this in the current generation, toughness seems to be the last thing on their mind and what they look for as Simon Senek says in instant gratification. We hire a huge number from campus esp the Category A MBA institutes and engineering institutes. And we see it in these folks. They prepare a document for review and if not appreciated they sulk.

Please understand the so-called movers and shakers in the industry did not get there because they worked normal hours and were charged for overtime. There was passion involved even though it was not their own company or their product. There was pride in folks of being part of something big. And this translated into passion. If this young lad said that he was asked to do overtime and that went against his belief system, something is seriously wrong with his expectations of what work and the workplace are. All of us have gone through it. I see my campus recruits go through it. Some complain and they get weeded out thanks to performance and the ones who work their behinds do cut, because they made a difference in their output. I wonder if the young lad's dad asked him to pick him up from the airport late at night, would he have said it is overtime and he would not do it?

A big point to note is that all this happened on Day 1. How many interactions did this lad have with his boss on Day 1 to warrant such behaviour? How many days of OT did the boss ask him to do in that 1 day? I also understand that there are non-negotiable periods in one's life when you have to push back and the employer needs to understand. As long as you have a plausible reason it is fine. But to jump at the drop of a hat and say no and then trumpet it to the larger world, is tough.

I am sure by now employers of choice have seen his rant and will probably not touch him even with a barge pole

To those who say the employer has to put on the pretty face, have a saviour-like attitude and be chirpy on the employee's day one, please understand that he too has feelings, challenges, timelines and commitments to keep. While most employers are sensitive to an individual on day 1, they sure will not paint a rosy picture of the firm once the candidate has joined.

Better expose them to true work culture rather than what is marketed

[rbvg@]

Originally Posted by somersault

I completely agree here. But the core question is, how this employee concluded to these perceived problems highlighted above in bold, in a short span of one day (8-10 hours) interaction with a single person (manager) within the company.

The employee in the reddit post mentioned that he spent 4 hours on a slack huddle with the Employer.

The employer:

• Ridiculed him saying that work-life balance is a western concept
• Remarked about his personal activities outside work
• Offered no overtime compensation
• Scolded him

Isn’t that enough to shape one’s perception of the company and its practices, especially if such remarks come from the CEO?

[v1p3r]

This guy is hilarious. One day, one conversation, and he quit? He didn't have the skills to tell his boss that he wouldn't be doing it. Instead, he quit and then crowed on social media. Imagine the first time he fights with his spouse!

What makes it even more hilarious is that he's claiming to be an 'entrepreneur'. I would love to see him hold his patience when a fresher lectures him about not working late.

Originally Posted by slango97

Well, onus is also on managers to at least try and make a good impression instead of belittling and ridiculing people on their first day for wanting to have a life outside of work.

Manager / CEO made a good enough impression that this guy joined, right? He joined of his own free will. If he joined without meeting the RM or the CEO, then he's not very bright for accepting a blind offer.

Originally Posted by slango97

People can say what they want about gen Z (some of what you say is indeed true), but bottom line is that our generation is not willing to tolerate irritating managers, long hours, and unnecessary office politics.

My friend, you speak with the privilege of someone who has grown up with parents of a certain income, possibly in a metropolitan setting. There are MILLIONS of graduates who are hungry for opportunity. They come from towns that you can't even point to on a map - like Koderma, Vidisha, Bahraich, Kendrapara. Their English may not be great, but they know that maths and computer science don't care for English. They are the guys who dream of being students in a Super 30 class. Even if they don't make it to IIT, then they can get an engineering degree and become WITCH employees. Their lives (and those of the families they support) will change irrevocably as a result. An IIT kid has already put in 16 hours of studying at the age of 16, so working 16 hours a day is zero additional effort for most of them.

Originally Posted by slango97

You may think and say we have been pandered to by our parents, that we've grown up too comfortably, etc. But this shows that you are biased against younger people and are out of touch with the realities of growing up in the modern world.

I work in a company where the median age is about 26. 80% of my tech colleagues are not comfortable with English. They are also the highest paid in their extended family - they didn't come from privilege or comfort. They don't find anything wrong with long hours of gruelling but productive work, because the monetary reward and career growth is very evident to them. In tech, our attrition rate is low single digit, in a niche of ML and data which is in high demand. So we're clearly doing something right with workplace culture, something that external audits seem to have verified as well.