Fortunately for us, the middle-aged journalists-cum-anthropologists at the Washington Post are here to explain the psychological intricacies of those Americans who are roughly between the ages of 18 and 34. Indeed, it seems that just about every day, the Post publishes a new piece “explaining” those beguiling millennials to their grateful readers.
On Monday, the Post published a classic of the genre. Reporter Brigid Schulte (University of Portland, class of 1984) takes a look at a Washington, D.C. law firm that is reducing the size of its offices. But no, this isn’t what you think, i.e. an obvious attempt to reduce costs at a time when the legal market is in trouble. No, Schulte says – the law firm in question is downsizing its offices (“No one gets a conference table. Everyone has one guest chair.”) because that’s what the “millennials” want.
We learn a lot of heartwarming facts about millennials in Schulte’s piece. For example,
-Millennials value “group collaboration.”
-They have a “preference for sustainability, social connection, and healthy living.”
-They “want not hierarchy but ‘holocracy’ – a flatter power structure where their voices will be heard, where they’ll have easier access to those at the top, where they’ll be able to take on challenges and grow from the start.”
-They want “flexibility in where, when and how they work. They want more work-life balance. They want alternative routes to get to the top, and they want to redefine what being on top means.”
-Millennials are “young, tech-savvy and self-confident.” (Well, the young part is indisputable.)
Perhaps most heartening to read is that “millennials want to feel that they have a purpose and are part of something bigger with a positive impact.” They have a “desire to do good in the world.”
But wait – just three days earlier, Schulte’s own newspaper published a piece decrying the racism of millennials. The article decried the “myth” that “that today’s millennials are more tolerant than their parents, and that racism will magically die out as previous generations pass on.” Millennials, it said, are “just about as racist as previous generations.”
That doesn’t sound like a generation that has a “desire to do good in the world.”
Perhaps Schulte hit the nail on the head when, toward the end of the law firm piece, she wrote that, “In fact, research has found that what millennials say they want is really what workers from all generations want.”
Why, it’s almost as if it’s impossible to make accurate generalizations about a hugely diverse group encompassing more than 50 million people!
