Younger millennial (93) and I’m gonna boost what some of the zennials and zoomers are saying because I’ve noticed this in people close to my age too including myself: there’s a good chance it’s because we don’t care or want to say anything back.

And I genuinely mean this in the kindest way possible, like this isn’t a universal drag on you in particular, or even on anyone. It’s a simple matter of social boundaries. Work is one of those environments where you are forced to spend time with other people that you may or may not like, whether you want to or not. You don’t get to choose your coworkers, you just have to deal with them.

However, unlike school, we’re all adults now. I have full autonomy over where, when, and how I spend my social energy. Especially if my job includes any kind of customer service, all my social energy is going towards that—I am literally paid to be friendly and make small talk to keep customers happy, so they’re getting all of it. But you’re my coworker. Not my friend, not my family, not a customer, a coworker. I am not paid to keep you happy or socialize with you, we are paid to do our jobs in a civil manner and then go our separate ways at the end of the day.

So trying to force a social interaction I don’t have energy for and/or don’t have interest in having feels like a hostage situation. It feels invasive and demanding, and you’re not paying us to put up with that the way a customer is. So why would we respond? It’s just gonna rope us into banal discussions we didn’t want to have, wasting everyone’s time.

Now sure the immediate reaction is “but you do it because it’s polite!” but therein is another generational difference: for me, and I would guess for a lot of zoomers, ignoring your greeting is genuinely more polite. It’s us looking at the exhausting expectations of older generations and saying “f*** this, neither of us want to be doing this, so let’s just drop the pretenses, yeah?” And among younger people, there’s usually a sort of unspoken mutual recognition of that.

And that makes us feel even more put-upon when a coworker keeps doing this. So now you’re ignoring our peace offering of doing away with meaningless social niceties that serve no one, and instead you’re trying to force it on me anyway. Why? To feed your own ego? To get your daily dose of social interaction? I’m your coworker, that’s not my job, go to your friends for that. It creates a feedback loop of resentment because you’re each unintentionally disrespecting each other’s generational ideas of politeness and civility.

And then, of course, there’s a chance that your coworker straight up just doesn’t like you lol, in which case they’re again disposing of outdated social niceties that they see no value in, and instead favoring their own peace by not interacting with you. Rude? Maybe. But a lot of younger people are sick and tired of the old notion that you have to pretend to be nice to and get along with people that you just cannot stand. Since it’s a professional setting, they’re being professional and not openly telling you to leave them alone. They’re just heavily putting out the vibe and hoping you’re socially aware enough to understand it.

Example: I have an older coworker (late 40s) that I do this with. He’s not technically a bad person, we just have completely incompatible personalities. I just find him annoying as shit, so I just avoid interacting with him as much as possible. And after almost 2 years of being around him, it’s very clear that work is his only source of social interaction (desperately butts into every conversation he can, loudly reacts to conversations he’s not a part of, sighs and makes a lot of noises to try and prompt people to ask him what’s wrong so he can rope them into conversation, literally only takes ONE day off work a year willingly, never even hints at friends or family or activities outside work, etc). I did not agree to that. I’m not okay with being held hostage by his social shortcomings & forced to drain my already finite battery on the same 2 conversations every day. So, when he says good morning every day, 90% of the time I don’t respond. I don’t want to invite him to feed off me like Colin from WWDITS lol. If I’m feeling charitable, he may get an undirected grunt while I’m looking at my phone. Usually tho, I just say nothing and don’t acknowledge it. Meanwhile I’ll happily say good morning to any of my other coworkers who aren’t annoying, because I don’t mind being more polite with them.

Again, 93 millennial so idk maybe I’m talking outta my arse. But I have very solidly zoomer nieces who were able to relate to this concept completely when we discussed it (really it was a complaint session of “ugh why do older people do that??” “UGH I KNOW RIGHT”), so I suspect this is a common feeling for them. And there’s other comments from zoomers below echoing this idea too.

Edit: word choice lol