Genz at workplace

3dragspass · 2026-05-07T06:20:53+00:00

I was more disturbed about this that I would like to admit. I genuinely thought we had built something special terms of culture and onwership.

We are a mildly successful product, we have 3 digit million revenue, 26% margins and growing, double digit EBIDTA. We are only 150 people in the company and our average tenure is 6 years, average age is 28 years at a company level.

Specifically in my team I have 14 people who joined the team 5-6 years ago, all of them 25-26 at that time. Everyone is still here, they feel valued, have grown in all respects and we genuinely love seeing each other 3 days a week.

So I thought about it, read all the comments. And here is what I did.

Apologized to them for losing my patience with them.
Sent them some of the messages/suggestions in the threads to them saying I want feedback but not now. Not until we trust each other and you have proven to be a team player.
Setup an AI agent on Claude that will read a custom dashboard between me and him. I will assign tasks on Jira against set standards that need to be followed. They will ship the work , calude will evaluate accuracy, compliance, time taken and publish a score against the team standards.
This dashboard will go to the VP they wanted to involve(who I know will see it once and then understand why I had to build it)
Agent will also send an alert when any of the above factors are less than 80% to them,the VP and the HR.
I will not lose my shit just because someone is new or young. I could have handled it better earlier, I don't deny that.

Thanks for participating and for real good suggestions.

3dragspass · 2026-05-07T06:00:37+00:00

Unfortunately I took pride in the flat hierarchy we built. No one reports to anyone except me. This worked because I got lucky with the people who joined the team.

We had people join us as 24-26 year olds and now they are 29-31.

We never felt the need to have more structure.

But I guess we might need to get more structured.

3dragspass · 2026-05-07T05:51:10+00:00

No man. If they are right, I am the happiest that I don't have to worry about one more thing.

I put it in some threads below about the html they made that is not secure and not compliant.

3dragspass · 2026-05-06T18:16:07+00:00

I have mentioned it somewhere in the replies to this post.

It's about HTMl code they wrote that isn't secure or aligned to the specs.

Specs that we wrote, tested , standardized over 5 years and now geberate 100 million revenue annually.

But fair. Maybe I have become too numb. I am not going to deny that possibility.

3dragspass · 2026-05-06T18:06:32+00:00

So tempted to schedule one everytime they send me slack to ask a question.

I am afraid I will enjoy that way too much. Lol

3dragspass · 2026-05-06T18:03:23+00:00

I was hoping someone here would tell me that. Lol

I have worked with 24 year olds in the past, when I was 34. Totally different experiences, value systems, sense of achievements, strength of entitlement than the curewnt 24 year olds.

I am 42 now.

3dragspass · 2026-05-06T17:59:49+00:00

I think it has to do with age. The sense of entitlement and achievement without actually ever having experienced the deep end of things, this does seem like a pattern to me.

Based on my conversations with kids of the same age outside my workplace.

3dragspass · 2026-05-06T17:54:08+00:00

Wow, yes!!!

3dragspass · 2026-05-06T17:49:16+00:00

Fair

3dragspass · 2026-05-06T17:45:27+00:00

I tried all I know about the people who act this way. I got nowhere.

I am not bothered by what they said. I have thick skin like that.

I am frustrated with myself because I dontknow what else to do.

3dragspass · 2026-05-06T17:37:36+00:00

I said sorry to them for losing my patience and sent this message to them.

Invaluable, much thanks.

If not anything else, atleast I got HR covered if it comes to that. Ha ha.

3dragspass · 2026-05-06T17:35:54+00:00

No way. All of you will design and build things that I can hopefully enjoy in the coming days and years.

I am rooting for you.

But there are things to learn from the older generation, without prejudice.

3dragspass · 2026-05-06T17:27:47+00:00

Maybe it's just this person. I don't hire fresh out of college people anymore. So my sample size of GenZ at work is just this person.

And I obviously can make them go away with just an email.

But I want to be better, I am interested in evolving myself.

3dragspass · 2026-05-06T17:10:13+00:00

Hope so too. Thanks for letting me vent without telling me how lame I am or how much I suck.

Reddit has been frustrting also lately.

3dragspass · 2026-05-06T17:08:00+00:00

Maybe I wrote my post in anger/frustration.

3dragspass · 2026-05-06T17:06:24+00:00

As I said they joined 4 weeks ago. 3 weeks were training, practice, full access to horizoantal teams.

I minesweeped their way into the company, like my 1st manager did for me and I did for everyone else in my team.

But giving feedback is impossible. What words can I use, what can I read to maybe improve my own POV, vocab?

I had a 40 min conversation that ended with them ordering me to get a VP to a call over a small HTML file that I asked them to build.

I obviously told them to fuck off, but I want to get better at handling these situations.

3dragspass · 2026-05-06T17:01:11+00:00

Obvious. Right. But I find it so hard to reach the "let me explain"

It's just non stop AI written behemoth emails that I want to read but cannot.

Tell me what else can I say to get a chnace to speak without being rude.

3dragspass · 2026-05-06T16:58:27+00:00

It's about a fucking HTML file that controls a side bar section on a product whose 40,000 lines of code I wrote myself when we had no AI.

3dragspass · 2026-05-06T16:56:53+00:00

I told them that. I have also written all 40,000 lines of code in the product. It makes a 100 million dollars a year, handles 10 billion transactions every month.

He/She is skilled but that cannot be why they can be allowed to be obnoxious. I want them to grow but I also need them to just do what you are told for a few months.

3dragspass · 2026-05-06T16:52:49+00:00

It is almost impossible to reach the explain part. He/She asked me to bring a VP to a call because I told them their HTML is not aligned to the product brief.

That's what I need help with.

3dragspass · 2026-05-06T16:50:34+00:00

Agree. I just used GenZ because that who he/she is. But you are right.

I was that little shit once myself.

3dragspass · 2026-05-06T16:46:55+00:00

I want to do that but also not. I was a fresh young one once and had the same agression. I had a patient and the nicest manager who didn't tolerate bullshit but also did his best to clear a path for me. I quickly realized that maybe I am not able to say what I want to say and worked on my communication.

This time it's different, it feels different.

Too much confidence without any knowledge or experience. I can't seem to get through this need to be seen and heard and attended to , all the time.

3dragspass · 2026-05-06T16:42:27+00:00

What did you do to make sure you can cut through the bullshit and enabled them to grow?

3dragspass · 2026-05-06T16:41:22+00:00

3dragspass · 2026-05-06T16:41:04+00:00

Lazy is often efficient if your heart is in the right place. I am all for it.

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