I have a couple of rants bubbling up this weekend, but I don't know if they've both reached the point of coherence. Here goes for number one:

There's been a whole lot of news coverage lately asking the question why doesn't anybody in Generation X ever keep a job very long? As you'd expect, they get it wrong. There's an easy answer for this, and it's not that we're particularly lazy or hard to manage, or that we're idealistic, or that we're all running off to pre-IPO dot-coms, or whatever. It's this:

Employers discourage loyalty.

Say it a few times, let it roll around your tongue. Put the stress on the first word, and then on the second, and then bark it out one word at a time. Employers. Discourage. Loyalty.

If your brain doesn't want to wrap around the concept, you've been reading too much Newsweek and we're going to have to cut you off. Otherwise, allow me to explain.

Generation X grew up watching a recession and then the following boom. We saw the oil crisis, and how much it screwed up the economy. Many of us watched our parents get "downsized" away after they'd worked for the same companies all their lives. We then looked on in amazement in the 80s as the economy turned around and everybody started getting great jobs ... except the people we knew, who were either too old (our parents) or too young (our friends and older siblings), or who didn't have "enough" or "the right" experience for whatever job. And we knew that this was bullshit.

So then after we all got out of college, the economy picked up enough speed that we got to the point we didn't know anybody who couldn't get a job. Everybody was hiring at breakneck speed, and it started not to matter that you were the wrong age or you had the wrong college degree, because so many companies just needed people, any people, in order to try to get enough accumulated intelligence to make it possible to get things done.

So now we've all got jobs. And they suck.

Because it turns out that the mentality that we were too young or had the wrong experience or degree never went away at the management level. They only hired us because they decided they'd never find any good people and we'd just have to do. Yes, even though we all have jobs now, and we're probably paid pretty well, the truth is that our employers still think that we're not really the right people for our jobs. Ask them. They'll tell you they have their doubts. Bastards.

Since our employers have already decided that we're not capable of doing our jobs, they treat us incredibly poorly. They pay us a lot of money, so they reason that we must not be worth it. As a result of this pretzel logic, we get to watch our employers hire outside people to manage us instead of promoting from within ("he works for us already, he must be an idiot"); we get to see senior level management get bonuses for work we did ("congratulations to Steve, VP of Engineering, for meeting all of his deadlines for deliverables! Great work Steve, here's your bonus!"); we get either comically small or no bonuses at all ourselves for those same deliverables; we apply for promotions and are dismissed out of hand; we watch as decisions are made to "increase shareholder value" instead of to make the company better; and we are prevented from doing the jobs we were hired to do by decisions that were made by management that, frankly, doesn't understand what it is we do, doesn't think it's important, and won't bother to ask us.

Oh, and when it comes time for raises, too many of our employers are stuck in that old mindset that gives 2%, maybe 4 or 5% for "excellent" performance. (And remember how unlikely it is we'll get the "excellent" rating since our employers have already determined we're overpaid and underperforming). Do the math. If we leave and get new jobs, on average the new pay is equivalent to a 20% raise. My previous employer gave me a year-end bonus equal to one day's pay (before taxes) and a raise of under 2% at my annual review. I had a job offer for 25% more money before I'd even gotten the first paycheck to reflect that 2% raise.

Is there anything that makes us want to stay in a job under those circumstances? The latest brilliant scheme is the stock option. You know what? Stock options don't work either. Because in spite of the carrot we still have to put up with the same management that doesn't respect us, thinks we're overpaid, won't let us make decisions, and takes credit for the work we do. The only way stock options really work is if your employee number is low enough that there's nobody who's your boss except the president of the company. Well, there's one other way, and that's if you're hired in right before the IPO and given tons of options for the sole purpose of fixing the stuff that bad management did wrong. Otherwise, the value of your options is probably low enough that you can still be bought by another employer.

Oh, and management doesn't see all this as a retention problem, they see it as a hiring problem. Since they've already decided that they people they have working for them are overpaid, underqualified, and hard to manage, they don't think it's significant that those same people are leaving. At the same time, they can't hire new people fast enough, can't pay them enough, and end up hiring more overpaid and underqualified staff. Lather, rinse, repeat. They don't perform exit interviews (or if they do, they don't do anything with the results) and find out why it is their door is revolving at such high speed. They've already decided that the problem is the employees, not the management. "Due to the large number of staff departures, no bonuses will be given this quarter."

So Generation X employees quit their jobs all the time because their employers aren't giving them any reasons to stay. While the employers may think we're overpaid as it stands now, every time we leave we make more money. While the employers don't think we're worthy of promotion, every time we jump ship we gain a rank on the other side. While the employers don't give retention bonuses or raises, we often get signing bonuses for joining up with new companies. And while the employers might give stock options, there's always the chance somewhere else that we'll be taken seriously, treated with respect, and given credit for jobs well done. Our employers have proven to us that they have no intention of doing any of those.

That's why Johnny won't keep his job.

link (2000-05-06)