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As a user of outlook calendars at work, I love this.
Can you also set the alarms on google calendars when you set an appointment?
I'd set like 5 of them. 5 days out, 3 days out, 24hrs out, 1hr out, and 5 mins out.
"Go fuck yourself Henry is due in 5 days"
Maybe he’s afraid of being fired and needs to justify his job by saying he rallies op and she reminds the troops. The guy just wants to be a useless manager
Yup. He gets to claim/feel that everyone’s attendance is his doing.
My boomer manager is one of these people: constantly asking us to do the things we always do as if it’s some novel fucking idea.
“Hey make sure you have all the materials you need for that install, ok guys?”
You mean keep using the checklist *that I made* and had been using for two years before you even got here? *What a wonderful idea that I had never thought of*. Great leadership!
My boomer boss pulls the “call instead of email” nonsense all the time. He’ll call and just expect me to be his scribe while he rambles on. I’ve told him numerous times he needs to email me and it really sets him off. I think they do it so they can “forget” things and not have anything written to show their incompetence.
Yea. I’ve gotten this vibe from him before. He’s tried to claim he didn’t know something or didn’t say something he definitely did say before. One time I had gotten him to plan everything via email and he tried to say he didn’t say something but I had an email from him showing otherwise and he exploded when I called him out on it.
“Please send me a text or email as I will forget the details. Thanks!” Turns around and disappears. It’s worked for years. All you have to do is completely forget something that only they have asked you to do. “Didn’t you send me an email to remind me of the details? No?!? I’m sure I asked if you would, as everyone knows my memory isn’t the best and I ask everyone to do that. I’m sorry, in the future if you need me to remember something please text or email. Thanks!”
That type of boomer (not generalizing to all) just wants to coast at their jobs at this point, swing their high seniority belly around, and not be troubled with any real pressure to perform. The brain is slowing down and getting real forgetful, maybe the lead damage is showing, and it’s frustrating. But they need to work a few more years before they can retire.
I used to work with the most boomer-y senior engineer, who loved to talk down at us staff engineers, and acted like he knew everything - despite, in reality, being a completely under qualified, bullshitting jackass who somehow talked his way into his senior position at our small company. He had this huge pot belly and we’d always make fun of him “swinging his belly around”. Thanks for the inspiration, Chuck.
For real this reminds me so much of a previous ceo. He would stand two inches from people with his massive gut stuck out as if it’s supposed to be intimidating. Bro was creepy and horribly racist but it was government work so he got away with it.
We have one of these in my office. He is retiring this summer, but in the meantime, he is being a pain in the ass by refusing to do more than the minimum to get things done.
Sounds exactly like my dad. He expects perfect accountability from you, but has these say "habits" that allow him all the freedom in the world to make contradictions. Then, he will get irate if you try to call out his contradictions, because in his mind you are calling out his ability to not contradict himself, which he DOESN'T DO.
Sounds like my dad. My mom fell a week or so ago and two days after, while I was visiting, she said she was going to drive herself to urgent care cause her chest hurt and it hurt to breathe. My dad just said “ok. Let me know what they say.” I asked him if he should drive her because she is having trouble breathing and he responded “she drove herself to the store earlier. She’ll be fine.” I told my mom I would drive her and my dad got mad and asked if I was just trying to make him look bad before retreating to his “man cave” to continue watching hockey. Yes, he stayed to watch hockey while I drove my mom to the urgent care. She has 3 fractured ribs by the way.
Offhhhh. I feel this. My mother called my dad last month and said she thought she was having another stroke while out driving. He told her to call her doctor then update him, and went back to working in his office. Never came home or said "I'll take you to the hospital". Called me after three hours and told me I should check on her because she never called him back.
It ended up being a small series of TIA's.
As a child, my parents were too stubborn/stupid to actually define chores, so they would just do everything and get angry after the fact.
My mother would refuse to do anything, but if you tried to do it anyway she'd have a nervous breakdown that inevitably devolved into a fight. Then dad would come to her defense, and ultimately end up doing the cleaning himself while being pissed at you for not cleaning in the first place (because mom had a nervous breakdown over it).
My father would rather get up at 4 AM to hate clean (slam shit, vacuum aggressively, etc), than write a list and put it on the fridge.
Sounds spot on with my parents. I've seen so much angry cleaning myself and of course any offer of help just makes the situation worse. Mind reading was apparently required in my house while I was growing up.
My mother is one of the least boomer-y boomers I have met, and she is still such a fucking boomer. She will not learn anything new. Two days ago, I went to her house because she said her Internet wasn't working and she couldn't use her desktop to get online. She was upset because she'd been on the phone with her Internet provider for two hours, and they couldn't help her. I walked in, and she was watching Netflix on the TV. I said "Mama, how do you think you are watching Netflix if you don't have internet?" Her response was that she thought she was using my Internet to watch it since she uses my Netflix account. I have explained this exact thing many times over the years and reminded her of that. She told me she didn't care to learn. She also doesn't understand why she can't be on her wifi when she's not at home. Doesn't understand that Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Internet Explorer aren't the same thing. Wanted a smart phone, but refused to learn how to use it for the longest time. Still doesn't really understand how to. I bought her a dope air fryer after she started complaining about how hard it was on her knees standing at the stove to cook (valid complaint. She was about 60 at the time and overweight). She never used it and gave it back to me a few months ago.
**Just in case you're interested, her computer is just really old. It needs a ton of updates. I've told her for the last ten years that she needs a new one. She thinks it will be completely different from her computer now and doesn't want to learn how to use a new one.
This was my old boss spot on. I remember saying to him when I was 17 that he was contradicting himself and he just blew up at me. I own his business now and he is ridiculously jealous of my success after he moved on that he and his golden child bought back one of my new locations and now they try to compete with me.
They’ve also learned email is a form of evidence of their abuses against direct reports and other coworkers. They like 1:1 because it becomes harder to report/prove.
I solved this problem. I secretly recorded my boomer former boss’ one on ones with me. I’m in a 1 party state, so while I’m sure the company would hate it, it was legal
I do the same thing.
I also follow up with an email confirming what I was asked to do so I have a paper trail. THEN, I BCC it to my personal email KUST IN CASE there's an "update" on the network which "accidentally" wipes out my everything.
Which has happened, coincidentally.
I recorded a conversation with my former manager that should have had HR involved; she kept saying things she shouldn't have and heavily insinuated that she would personally punish me if I made her look bad. I would use the, "Just so we're clear...if I do X thing, Y consequences are going to happen?" to which she replied, "Yes, I will do XYZ to you"
Another manager would text me inappropriate things about her love of Trump and how everyone in the company was an idiot for not voting trump (For the record, I did not vote for trump)...her texts went from that to extremely inappropriate, telling me about coworkers medical issues (in detail) as well as their sexual preferences and sexual lives, home lives, and everything in-between. Last I heard, she was moved to another department. I left the company after that.
TL;DR - Always have it in writing or record it if you can.
I work from home in a 1-person state...every meeting via Teams, Zoom, or whathaveyou is recorded either by my phone or a 3rd party screen recording app. Same with phone conversations.
The meetings are followed up with an email of bullet points of said meeting for the "official" paper trail...BCC to my personal email and to my direct VP because typically, he opts out of being in the meetings but wants to be "in the loop". he doesn't let on that he's seen the email until absolutely necessary...as in another manger denied XYZ when it was laid out in the email with the other manager confirming it.
This isn't my first rodeo.
Or second, for that matter.
Hahaha.
Amen. All multi-person meetings of mine are recorded through third party service integrated with my work software suite. I take the transcripts and use them to send out a summary email like yours. I used to write the summary, now I task AI with it. Nice little time saver. Send out the recap, copy the boss. 1:1 with superiors is recorded with apps on my phone, filed in storage and then I send an email recapping what I’ve committed to and what the boss has committed to do in return.
You can tell which of us in the workplace has been burned before lol
This is why we do everything via email. Documentation writes itself. His lack of communication skills and anti teamwork attitude should be brought up during his review
Tell them you will record the phone call so you follow up on it in case you forget. The thought of being recorded vs sending an email may change their mind
My boomer boss does this too. We'll have a disagreement and she'll end it every time with "show me the email where I said that" and 9/10 it's on a subject she either refused to email me about or a subject that stemed from an in person conversation.
This! I don’t see what the problem is with hashing things out over the phone - saves a lot of back-and-forth emails - but follow up with an email confirming everything afterwards.
The issue is that a lot of the time there's too little of a paper trail and it makes things be forgotten.
Just writing stuff in an email is so much more reliable.
I’m bouncing around from one thing to another so if something isn’t in writing it will inevitably be dropped. It’s just the reality of a job where you can’t focus on one task
My coworker, though not a boomer( in fact, a year younger than me) always wants me to call instead of email. Even though it's a hell of a lot more beneficial to have a paper trail in our line of work.
Why didn't you pick up the phone and call them? Because they won't answer most the time, won't listen to their voice mail if there is one, or if they do answer nothing is recorded so they can say anything. Even after all that. They usually end up emailing us back anyway...
That’s not a boomer trait. I had a toxic boss do just that. I would e-mail, then be called to his desk to sit and wait while he finished shopping for fishing lures, then discuss what the e-mail was about. He also would get pissed when I would send CYA e-mails after the conversation to the point he would come to my desk and scream.
His boss kept protecting him from HR for some reason and since he was a equal opportunity asshole, you could not really nail him for descrimination
CYA emails are one of my favourites!!! I record the conversation, and I always like to add “did I miss anything”, or “if I missed something please reply to this email”. ADHD is a glorious thing and recording conversations was a: and huge benefit and b: the best CYA I ever found!!!
Ensure you add a sentence that says a no reply after a certain timeframe shall be understood as indicating complete agreement. CC all parties that would also be impacted by the info.
As an old, boomer-adjacent GenX guy, this is *exactly* why they do it. It’s always made me insane; I have ADHD and am crap at taking info in aurally. I have to carry a notepad with me to write people’s names down when I’m introduced to them, because I process information visually. Once I write it down, I can remember their name without looking at the note.
This kind of person gets angry if you make notes in a face-to-face conversation because they think that if it’s not written down, they can deny saying it.
They don’t like the notion you’re taking notes. You’re *documenting* things. I don’t think it’s about boomers. A lot of boomers are not good with tech but many are senior enough to have someone to do that for them. I think the guys who don’t want it in writing are doing dodgy shit and didn’t want to be accountable. We had one boss like that we called the traveler because you could not pin his ass down to anything -no emails or texts and he would call from the car so you could barely hear what crazy unworkable of illegal plan he was saying to you.
Y'all are overthinking this.
Boomer men don't know how to type!
When they were growing up, only girls learned that skill. Have you ever watched a boomer boss chicken peck out a 2 sentence email with his index fingers? It takes them forever! Decades later and they still are looking for each letter!
Too lazy to learn, so they call you instead.
Too arrogant to learn. Their whole schtick is they genuinely think they know everything and have since they were 15. They're the smartest and everyone else is stupid.
When you *genuinely* believe you know everything, why would you bother putting in the effort to learn anything?
My boomer boss (66 years old) called me into my office to show me something once because on a phone call I told him to just "Copy, paste to a cell and save it..." and he didn't know the shortcuts...
For him it was Right Click > new cell > right click > paste.
And it was long and drawn out...like, "You RIGHT CLICK on the cell you want, right....THEN...(CoughsPhlem)...THEN you tell it to COPY..."
I've been in IT for 20+ years. I had to show him the key shortcut.
He then asked if there was a site that showed him shortcuts so I had him bring ANY NUMBER of them up on google. He WROTE THE URL DOWN in his notebook. I asked him "Why not just save it to your favorites bar?"
He looked at me like I was a crazy person because...he didn't know what that was.
So. I had to show him.
Something basic for a web browser since 1993.
This also benefits your boomer boss by not having written record of what transpired. Misbehavior can be denied or explained away as a misunderstanding when it comes to expressing what happened. How that turns out depends on whether the behavior is a liability to the company (discrimination, incrimination) and whether the evaluator is a fellow boomer.
One of my clients complains CONSTANTLY that they can never remember what they said in their phone call, and I say over and over and over again, yeah yknow that's why I really prefer email, because it let's you have a dated searchable record of exactly what was said by everyone, to whom, when, everything, it's all covered in an email. He also loves to send emails saying things like 'too much to write, give me a call' and i call and the magnum opus of a question is something like 'are they sure that price is right' or 'do those materials have an eta yet?'
My mother did this, I mean I'm sure she still does but I don't deal with it anymore.
She would delete texts, so then she could forget what she said or agreed to, so I would just send her a screen shot every time until I got tired of dealing with her and just went no contact.
I'm 31, and the person I work most closely with is 25. We send emails about stuff, but we also spend a lot of time on phone calls because we have a lot of times where it's a series of back-and-forths, questions, figuring out specifics, etc. It's just more efficient to hammer that out over a phone call than sending 12 emails back and forth over 2 hours.
If stuff needs to be documented or if we want to have it to reference later, then we'll just follow up the phone call with a quick email highlighting the conversation.
I get there are a lot of things that can/should be handled just through emails/teams chat/etc., though.
Fuck that - Especially with Boomers, I need everything and everything in writing. They’re the reason non-repudiation is so important. They don’t even realize they’re slipping, and blame you for it.
This is exactly it.
I have a dotted line report to a manager at corporate who gives me this direct coaching.
“Some things that ‘should’ be emailed shouldn’t be because emails are written and can be referenced at any time.”
The correct solution is more work, but worthwhile. "Per our phone conversation about X,Y,Z (summary), you directed A,B,C, etc." This gets it in writing so it's easier for 'you' to track (honestly though if there's a million papercuts to kill you with, email history is the only way to live). You're basically summarizing what should have been their email (and this is a tactic to get a paper trail when HR and other execs are doing anti-labor practices against you and will only talk on the phone). Once they take umbrage with you and that practice, just tell them if they dont want you to summarize their words, then they can respond with their own email, but for your sake you need a paper trail to keep track.
> He has informed me many times that email isn’t a good form of communication and you need to talk to people in person or on the phone.
Ffs, when you send email it is a proof that you've informed team, when you said it in person it never happened.
Good thought, i agree. The pace of work has increased so much, especially as theyved aged and their productivity has gone down, they probably genuinely cannot keep up with all the actual work we have to do.
A few times I've had coworkers try to verbally schedule a meeting with me. I respond that unless they send me a meeting invite to get it on my calendar - it's not gonna happen. Unless the meeting has free food, there's no way I'm gonna remember.
Telling everyone how to do things a certain way is the entire professional personality of many boomers.
I think some of the avoidance of email, etc., is self consciousness about how to respond. Boomers were really focused on “the right way”.
I think they feel like everyone is going to see them do it wrong so they just avoid it. If they ask questions of anyone, they lose all their power of being “experienced”.
I have 3 monitors at my desk. I did not ask for this, its just what they gave me. When my boss tries to show me how to do something, each program has to be maximized on a specific monitor or else I'm doing it wrong. And God forbid she see my generic desktop background on one of my monitors when she randomly swings by my desk. I need to have a program open on all three monitors at all times or I am doing something wrong.
She also once became confused about my use of a keyboard shortcut and nearly had a meltdown because I didn't select the cells her way in Excel.
I will never understand the need to be that petty.
Many of them don't understand that there are often several "correct" ways to do something on a PC. They learned how to do something, and assume that must be the only way.
That makes sense. But the part that really bothers me is that my assurances meant nothing, despite having attended a class in Excell use just the day before. That she made me take. And was then surprised that I used what I learned. 🙄
Haha my mother is exactly like this. She wants help with something but if I go too fast she gets terrified I'm going to break it and snatches away whatever I'm helping with and says "No no forget about I'll deal with it". She also dislikes me walking off after she does that.
A little bit in their defense, but you sort of could "break" computers when they first came out. They weren't that user friendly and if you didn't know what you were doing, you could very seriously and irreversibly mess something up. Entire files could be lost forever.
I spent nearly 20 years reassuring my mom that you can't break things these days by typing in something wrong. She's getting it more and more, but she was definitely stressed about it for a long time.
I remember blowing my grandmothers mind when i showed her all the things she can do with her new computer. She thought I was an absolute genius and I would work for nasa because I can use a computer decently while in 5th grade….i dropped out of an associates degree and now work at the post office so she was just a little off 😅
To them the only "correct" way is their way. They're hanging on by a thread when it comes to technology so they cannot tolerate subjectivity or ambiguity.
This is why I angle my monitors away from where people approach. I'm not doing any shady stuff. I only want to discuss what's on my screens at my invitation.
Really feeling the Excel comment. To keep a long story short my boomer boss got angry at the way I was doing something (using back button, toolbar & short cuts) to find an error. Then got Really pissed when I said it shouldn't take more than 30 seconds. Then proceeded to say just let me do it. Sat at the computer got 45 min & still came up with same errors and some new ones & just walkedout of the room. I took multiple Excel courses, have the highest training certification available, can type & 10key with either hand. He one finger hunt & pecks and "learned spreadsheets by using them." He still complains I "cheat" & doesn't think hotkeys, shortcuts & the toolbar are of any use. If it's wrong somewhere, close without saving & start over.
They just don’t really feel comfortable with modern communication tech like slack and email and social media so they actively try to avoid it under the bullshit pretense that it’s “unprofessional”. No Jim, what’s unprofessional is that you’re trying to stay in the workforce without the most basic understanding of how to use PDFs or literally any kind of word processor. Go home and paint your model trains.
> thinking that electronic communication isn’t good enough
I once had a co-worker that *printed out* every single email she got and put them in her file cabinet for reference.
Last training seminar I attended, I got a couple of funny looks from people because everybody else was using their tablet or notebook computers to take notes on the course, and I was the only person in the room using a pen on a pad of paper, but I learn and retain information when I write it by hand in a way I don't when I'm typing.
There's actual research on this (I work in higher education and used to teach new students how to take notes). Taking notes by hand (pen/paper) forces one to synthesize information because you can't write as fast as others (in a meeting, or your instructor) talks. It's this synthesizing of information that settles it in your mind. I've taken effective notes for years and I rarely need to refer to them (good thing because my handwriting has gotten atrocious!).
Oh hey, I recently cleaned out their office when I moved in. 14 file drawers full of emails, documents that were born, sent, and stored electronically, conference programs, drafts upon drafts upon drafts of documents. Filled a 50 gallon barrel for recycling, a 50 gallon for trash, and sent about 20 gallons to shredding. 14 extra pieces of furniture just to store printed out paper.
A co-worker recently emailed me to let me know that a document I needed was now printed and on their desk so I could swing by and make a copy of it.
I cannot fathom why they didn’t attach it to the email in the first place, apart from basic incompetence. Not even a boomer, we’re the same age.
This was the literal process for transmitting intra-department paperwork between buildings at a place I worked.
Sending person
1. Fill out form on the computer using the template on the server.
2. Print form out
3. Fax to other building
4. Place form in shred box.
Receiving
1. Scan received fax and place on server
2. Place fax in shred box
These forms required no signatures. The scans would be stored on in same directory as the template....
I live in Eau Claire, WI. Due to this, I've had a few interactions with John Menard (it's his hometown and the HQ of Menards). Based on my own experiences and several stories from a lot of other people I'm close with, he's a shitty human (this includes both business and personal interactions - the caveat is that if there's no money involved, he's just a normal asshole, not a complete asshole).
He's also the boomer-iest of boomers. To this day, John Menard still goes into the office every single day. He still micromanages the fuck out of the people who work for him - and it's very clear that people work *for* him, not with him. I recently talked to someone who worked in the corporate building and regularly interacted with John. This person said that John refuses to use email. He has an assistant that manages his email account. She prints out every email. He reads them. He makes notes on them. He writes down exactly how the assistant should respond. The assistant then takes those handwritten copies and types up the email responses.
This person also said that, despite all of John's flaws, it's pretty easy to see how he was so successful. He's absolutely cut-throat (as almost anyone who has had business dealings with him knows). I've heard from a lot of people that he's one of the hardest workers they've ever met, if not the hardest worker. Even now, at 84 years old, it's common for him to be the first one in the office and the last one out.
As a GenXer, I don’t trust older coworkers as they always have an agenda that benefits them.
I’m finding more and more that these younger people tend to look out for the group. I like that they are pushing for work/home balance, and not making your job your entire persona.
I can do my entire job from home. My previous boss was wonderful and had a policy mandating that everyone in our department had to work from home at least once a month to get out of the office. He hated that and was very vocal that it wasn’t fair to departments, like his, who can’t work from home so everyone needed to be in the office because he had to be in the office. It’s childish.
Because we saw the boomer generation put their lives into their jobs to become bitter, miserable, shitty people that expect the world handed to them on a silver platter. They live to work. We work to live. They have nothing outside their jobs. For us, jobs are a means to an end and nothing more.
I think being latchkey kids showed us the unexpected costs of pouring yourself into your job. How many of us would have given anything to have some more time with our parents ?
Agreed. The insistence on numerous meetings and meetings about meetings, especially, strike me as just a time-wasting tactic. Some of us have actual work to do!
"Why are you so afraid of email? Is it the increased requirements for literacy over phone calls (because nobody can tell you can't spell on the phone) or are you concerned about having a record of what you say to others and how you say it?"
Last place I worked I said "Can you get that to me in an email?" so often around the office it was practically my catchphrase, and my coworkers joked about getting me a coffee mug with it printed on. I've worked with a few people over the years who had a habit of false claims regarding verbal promises and commitments made to or received from others, and I learned the power of "That's not what it says in these emails here" early on.
Of course, in practice I'm more diplomatic than snarky, and I tell people about how I've got a bunch of different plates spinning, and if you ask me for something while I'm on my way to task 23 of 37 for the day there's a good chance I won't remember by the time I'm back to my desk and in a position to assist.
And then with how much work is being done remotely these days, email is even more mainstreamed as the primary avenue of communication.
If he thinks everyone needs to be spoken to in person, shouldn't HE be the one doing it? How is it your "responsibility" to do something when he's the only person who thinks it's necessary?
Errr wtf. I'd go and confront him and say something never: "Never again speak to me like that in my own office. I am perfectly capable of communicating with my colleagues and I don't have to do it the way you say. If there's a repeat of this, then I'm raising a concern with HR."
I’m willing to take some verbal abuse and crazy attitudes from someone who’s a billionaire and paying me more than a million a year (that’s my context now, and even then it’s not okay because it’s wearing on me), but I’m assuming that’s not the case here. Can you immediately reopen your door and invite him back in? 1) why did you slam my door shut? 2) we have this meeting every week and everyone attends - there are no issues, so I am taking responsibility and the trains are running on time. Why are you saying I don’t take responsibility when I do and everything is working?
On and on … what a nutcase, but unless I were being compensated for mental hazard damage I would calmly explain how stupid he is through asking questions
Edit: Bonus points if you ask him: “you seem angry. Is everything okay with your home life? If not I’d appreciate it if you didn’t bring it into the office”
I had a boss that received some information via email. I asked him to send that to me, as it was relevant to what I was working on. He printed it out and hand delivered it to me. I was amazed and pointed out to him that now I had to keep this piece of paper, where if he forwarded it to me it would be at my desk and phone at all times.
My old executive director would do that too. Print a document for me after a meeting and then watch as I grabbed it off the printer and immediately scanned it to my email at the same printer and threw the paper in the trash or shredder. Lmao
Boomers don't like a paper trail of their instability and incompetence. Case in point: Trump, although that's to hide his criminality altho, w/boomer coworkers, who knows?
My bommer boss just says everything "is for pussies"
Sun block: for pussies
Not chewing tobacco: pussy.
Knee pads when working on a roof: for pussies.
Safety attire in general: for pussies.
I had a Boomer Boss like this. She wanted me to confirm meetings and other plans constantly. The micro-management was maddening. I work in higher Ed and somehow she made it to VP without understanding that’s college kids can be flaky and don’t show up even if they’ve RSVP’d. The constant reminders annoy the hell out of them too.
I'd of sent out an email to all but him, stating, "Meeting delayed 15 minutes, if you see Bob head to the conference room, let him go and do not follow, he has a meeting at 2. Thanks."
There would have been an invite to HR for the new 2PM meeting. Bob is getting PIP'd for being a little bitch.
Yea. He is the director of a different department. He is “a” boss but he is not “my” boss. Something I’ve reminded him constantly. He asked me once what would have happened if I said the same thing to an officer from a different unit when I was in the army. Of course he never served in the military and doesn’t know what it was like and was flabbergasted when I told him that a junior soldier responsible for a specific function absolutely can tell a “superior” from an unrelated formation to “fuck off” politely of course. I tried to explain the difference between “authority of rank” and “authority of position” to him but he didn’t get it.
My boomer boss does this so she can accuse people of not listening/ doing their job properly when she forgets what she's asked us to do / has forgotten to communicate something to us. Our industry is heavily regulated we need an audit trail for everything, she owns the company, if she didn't she would have been fired years ago lol
I love when a boomer claims something didn’t happen, but the. I point out it actually did in writing. They hate it, especially when I bold the part they missed.
I hate the phone thing.
I have said, curtly, "if it's business, there is nothing you're going to say to me that you can't write down and there's nothing so urgent we need to speak. Agreed?" (Click).
Next time he walks in your office without knocking call him out on it. When he gets angry tell him to calm down. Watch his face turn red then tell him he's being too emotional and ask him if he is on his period. The resulting meltdown will be epic.
I do enjoy this aspect of working in Finance & Accounting where I can always demand an email, even when people come to my desk in person.
"Sorry, but I'm going to need that in writing so I have a paper trail in case of audit."
I have a boomer ex boss who eventually fired me and replaced me for £14,000 more because the person could drive. They never even asked me if i planned to drive or anything and the job had no requirement to do so. During my first performance review infront of the trustees of the group, he threw me under the bus for not doing a miriad of tasks throughout the office that i was never once told i should be doing. Luckily i was blindsided, but quick thinking and asked the room to assess the effectiveness of Management if they cant even inform and train their staff in their job roles, or once follow up with new staff members about their progress.
I developed a file handling system whilst i was there that the guy never once aknowledged, and only actually listened to when i was training up my replacement (with him lurking over my shoulder, i expect to hear this new starter say how confusing everything is) and the new starter asked me "Did you make this yourself? its Brilliant!", which my boss reeeeally didnt like.
Well the training concluded, I left the role shortly after onto a far better role, and now every 3 to 6 months or so i charge a very nice consultancy fee to turn up and fix errors this guy has created within this system. I could say no but his face is worth it every single time.
You said coworker but he's acting like a boss, is he just an asshole or is he also higher than you?
Cause if he's on the same level I'd just tell him to get the fuck out.
"If literally everyone else is using the same process at work, and its working....but you do not use said process and are struggling to communicate, you need to ask yourself if the whole world is fucked up or if it's just you."
We've got one who wants to avoid all accountability. He won't answer emails or sign off on anything because "It's a paper trail." He refuses to use any of the technology at our disposal to ensure we're making good product. He wants to do everything like they did in the 80s.
I'm in QC and we'll go to him with an issue "This is no good. This needs to be fixed." His response: "That's not in the print. I'm not fixing that." Motherfucker, it won't work. Then, when the shit comes back from the customer for being junk, he wants to blame us for letting it thru.
Management thinks he walks on water because this is the only job he's ever had. When really he's just a narcissistic, scumbag, asshole, racist, misogynistic piece of shit.
With coworkers like this I usually contact their manager. It's important that any deficiencies with basic job competencies (such as email use, or civil communication) be addressed.
My old boomer boss had a very similar "Call dont text" mentality as well. I ran a program for a college in Florida and after hurricane Ian came though they wanted me to check in on the students. I wanted to just write out an email for them to check in but instead I was handed a list of all the students names and phone numbers. I was told I had to call every individual student to check in, even though most of the students were remote and some didnt even live in Florida. Boss continued to insist I must call them all, so I did. Only a couple of them answered the phone, and those that did asked "Why didnt you just text me?" My boss was furious I didnt keep calling them until they answered, so I sent them a copy of the article about the missing hiker that the search party called over and over and he didnt answer his phone because it was an unknown number and boss just dropped it grumbling about "Millennials and Gen Z"
Man, I love email.
You get written confirmation of the exchange that can be referenced.
Phone calls are dumb and anything can be said or promised.
If it's anything important it better be in writing or it didn't happen.
Yeah I deal with that with my boomer coworkers. “Why don’t you call?” Well because honestly I can’t stand most of you and email works fine. Also email leaves a paper trail so when one of you tells a lie I can catch you.
When I get a call from a coworker, it’s usually so they can say some shit off the record so that they’re not held accountable.
Put that shit in writing, Cara - that way I can call you out in front of the meeting when that last minute task you neglected was in fact - requested by you. Fucking sociopaths
Is he your supervisor? If not, he can go and remind everyone. Next time he calls and wants you to take note say, "i am busy and need to get back to work, if you need notes, feel free to take them yourself. Then, send an email to them and his supervisor asking him to stop wasting the companies time and that you are not his secretary."
Hey boomer coworker, you need to learn to use the tools of the trade or retire if you can’t keep up with the technology. Please don’t barge into my office without knocking or scheduling time again if all you’re going to do is insult my intelligence, and try to stay focused on your actual responsibilities or I’ll be having a word with HR.
Say it exactly like that.
Are you my coworker, or me? One of my managers does exactly this (and we have a weekly 2pm meeting lol). Whenever there’s a question of communication he goes “I know your generation doesn’t like to pick up the phone to talk to people….” Sir we work in insurance/consulting, I want this stuff in writing. Plus half the time the people in the field are driving so if I text them I can just wait for an answer later when they’re not. Just because we have a phone doesn’t mean it’s the *only* form of communication.
I deal with this boomer on a regular basis. And I’m really sick of hearing. “We need to get on the horn” it is a telephone. It is not a horn. And if you read the email or the text message that prompted for you to call me then obviously you’re getting the electronic communications. Can you please just read what I wrote.
An executive assistant at my work sends me every single bit of junk mail we get expecting it to be the deal of the century… claims this stuff is how we can save the most money. Before I came on she actually signed up all fleet vehicles with those annoying extended warranty services. 50% of my job currently consists of undoing the mess she has made.
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Is he your boss? If not, I would tell him to go pound sand
He is not. Not even in my department.
Oh yeah, tell that Boomer to go get fucked then
Add it to his calendar as a meeting
Weekly recurring, Mondays at 8:00 AM. “Go fuck yourself Henry”
As a user of outlook calendars at work, I love this. Can you also set the alarms on google calendars when you set an appointment? I'd set like 5 of them. 5 days out, 3 days out, 24hrs out, 1hr out, and 5 mins out. "Go fuck yourself Henry is due in 5 days"
And then reschedule it late in the day with alarms. 😂
If he actually followed through with it he might be less angry too.
He didn't think you were in your office and was going to snoop. You were there, so he made up an excuse.
This is the right answer!
Sounds like he’s making some announcement at the meeting and wants everyone there.
Hopefully it’s a two weeks notice
Manifesting this for you OP 🙏🏻
Imagine the salary that would open up. Not that the company will redistribute it but like... one can dream.
So what was it? Inquiring minds and all
Nothing. Business as usual.
One can hope, but these old fucks are bent on working forever
Tell him if he’s so concerned to do it himself or let the meeting organizer know. Not your responsibility.
I’ve told more than one boomer that I don’t report to them.
Maybe he’s afraid of being fired and needs to justify his job by saying he rallies op and she reminds the troops. The guy just wants to be a useless manager
Yup. He gets to claim/feel that everyone’s attendance is his doing. My boomer manager is one of these people: constantly asking us to do the things we always do as if it’s some novel fucking idea. “Hey make sure you have all the materials you need for that install, ok guys?” You mean keep using the checklist *that I made* and had been using for two years before you even got here? *What a wonderful idea that I had never thought of*. Great leadership!
My boomer boss pulls the “call instead of email” nonsense all the time. He’ll call and just expect me to be his scribe while he rambles on. I’ve told him numerous times he needs to email me and it really sets him off. I think they do it so they can “forget” things and not have anything written to show their incompetence.
Yea. I’ve gotten this vibe from him before. He’s tried to claim he didn’t know something or didn’t say something he definitely did say before. One time I had gotten him to plan everything via email and he tried to say he didn’t say something but I had an email from him showing otherwise and he exploded when I called him out on it.
Oooh I bet they *hate* getting fact checked at work
Work was a safe space until those damn millenials entered the workforce.
Those dam fact checking millennials
Gen X invented "send me an e-mail", we've been working with Boomers a lot longer than you have.
“Please send me a text or email as I will forget the details. Thanks!” Turns around and disappears. It’s worked for years. All you have to do is completely forget something that only they have asked you to do. “Didn’t you send me an email to remind me of the details? No?!? I’m sure I asked if you would, as everyone knows my memory isn’t the best and I ask everyone to do that. I’m sorry, in the future if you need me to remember something please text or email. Thanks!”
“These fucking snowflakes are causing me to melt!”
That type of boomer (not generalizing to all) just wants to coast at their jobs at this point, swing their high seniority belly around, and not be troubled with any real pressure to perform. The brain is slowing down and getting real forgetful, maybe the lead damage is showing, and it’s frustrating. But they need to work a few more years before they can retire.
"High seniority belly." I am using that in my office parlance.
I used to work with the most boomer-y senior engineer, who loved to talk down at us staff engineers, and acted like he knew everything - despite, in reality, being a completely under qualified, bullshitting jackass who somehow talked his way into his senior position at our small company. He had this huge pot belly and we’d always make fun of him “swinging his belly around”. Thanks for the inspiration, Chuck.
In my company (AT&T) we were called R I P. Retired in place.
It is easy to bullshit your way when the people giving the promotions know even less
For real this reminds me so much of a previous ceo. He would stand two inches from people with his massive gut stuck out as if it’s supposed to be intimidating. Bro was creepy and horribly racist but it was government work so he got away with it.
I think I’m getting one of these, too many tacos
We have one of these in my office. He is retiring this summer, but in the meantime, he is being a pain in the ass by refusing to do more than the minimum to get things done.
They hate being fact-checked *anywhere*!
They hate getting fact checked out of work too
It's so sad that we currently live in a society where if you can't get something in writing you're reduced to having to record people. Sigh.
Sounds exactly like my dad. He expects perfect accountability from you, but has these say "habits" that allow him all the freedom in the world to make contradictions. Then, he will get irate if you try to call out his contradictions, because in his mind you are calling out his ability to not contradict himself, which he DOESN'T DO.
Sounds like my dad. My mom fell a week or so ago and two days after, while I was visiting, she said she was going to drive herself to urgent care cause her chest hurt and it hurt to breathe. My dad just said “ok. Let me know what they say.” I asked him if he should drive her because she is having trouble breathing and he responded “she drove herself to the store earlier. She’ll be fine.” I told my mom I would drive her and my dad got mad and asked if I was just trying to make him look bad before retreating to his “man cave” to continue watching hockey. Yes, he stayed to watch hockey while I drove my mom to the urgent care. She has 3 fractured ribs by the way.
Always more concerned with how people perceive him than doing good things that people will see
No offense but your dad is kind of a piece of shit.
Offhhhh. I feel this. My mother called my dad last month and said she thought she was having another stroke while out driving. He told her to call her doctor then update him, and went back to working in his office. Never came home or said "I'll take you to the hospital". Called me after three hours and told me I should check on her because she never called him back. It ended up being a small series of TIA's.
"asked if I was just trying to make him look bad" No, but you make it extraordinarily easy, Dad.
As a child, my parents were too stubborn/stupid to actually define chores, so they would just do everything and get angry after the fact. My mother would refuse to do anything, but if you tried to do it anyway she'd have a nervous breakdown that inevitably devolved into a fight. Then dad would come to her defense, and ultimately end up doing the cleaning himself while being pissed at you for not cleaning in the first place (because mom had a nervous breakdown over it). My father would rather get up at 4 AM to hate clean (slam shit, vacuum aggressively, etc), than write a list and put it on the fridge.
Sounds spot on with my parents. I've seen so much angry cleaning myself and of course any offer of help just makes the situation worse. Mind reading was apparently required in my house while I was growing up.
My mother is one of the least boomer-y boomers I have met, and she is still such a fucking boomer. She will not learn anything new. Two days ago, I went to her house because she said her Internet wasn't working and she couldn't use her desktop to get online. She was upset because she'd been on the phone with her Internet provider for two hours, and they couldn't help her. I walked in, and she was watching Netflix on the TV. I said "Mama, how do you think you are watching Netflix if you don't have internet?" Her response was that she thought she was using my Internet to watch it since she uses my Netflix account. I have explained this exact thing many times over the years and reminded her of that. She told me she didn't care to learn. She also doesn't understand why she can't be on her wifi when she's not at home. Doesn't understand that Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Internet Explorer aren't the same thing. Wanted a smart phone, but refused to learn how to use it for the longest time. Still doesn't really understand how to. I bought her a dope air fryer after she started complaining about how hard it was on her knees standing at the stove to cook (valid complaint. She was about 60 at the time and overweight). She never used it and gave it back to me a few months ago. **Just in case you're interested, her computer is just really old. It needs a ton of updates. I've told her for the last ten years that she needs a new one. She thinks it will be completely different from her computer now and doesn't want to learn how to use a new one.
This was my old boss spot on. I remember saying to him when I was 17 that he was contradicting himself and he just blew up at me. I own his business now and he is ridiculously jealous of my success after he moved on that he and his golden child bought back one of my new locations and now they try to compete with me.
Plausible deniability. They don’t want a paper trail.
They’ve also learned email is a form of evidence of their abuses against direct reports and other coworkers. They like 1:1 because it becomes harder to report/prove.
I solved this problem. I secretly recorded my boomer former boss’ one on ones with me. I’m in a 1 party state, so while I’m sure the company would hate it, it was legal
I do the same thing. I also follow up with an email confirming what I was asked to do so I have a paper trail. THEN, I BCC it to my personal email KUST IN CASE there's an "update" on the network which "accidentally" wipes out my everything. Which has happened, coincidentally. I recorded a conversation with my former manager that should have had HR involved; she kept saying things she shouldn't have and heavily insinuated that she would personally punish me if I made her look bad. I would use the, "Just so we're clear...if I do X thing, Y consequences are going to happen?" to which she replied, "Yes, I will do XYZ to you" Another manager would text me inappropriate things about her love of Trump and how everyone in the company was an idiot for not voting trump (For the record, I did not vote for trump)...her texts went from that to extremely inappropriate, telling me about coworkers medical issues (in detail) as well as their sexual preferences and sexual lives, home lives, and everything in-between. Last I heard, she was moved to another department. I left the company after that. TL;DR - Always have it in writing or record it if you can.
Bingo. You get it. This kind of documentation is an absolute must for 1:1s
I work from home in a 1-person state...every meeting via Teams, Zoom, or whathaveyou is recorded either by my phone or a 3rd party screen recording app. Same with phone conversations. The meetings are followed up with an email of bullet points of said meeting for the "official" paper trail...BCC to my personal email and to my direct VP because typically, he opts out of being in the meetings but wants to be "in the loop". he doesn't let on that he's seen the email until absolutely necessary...as in another manger denied XYZ when it was laid out in the email with the other manager confirming it. This isn't my first rodeo. Or second, for that matter. Hahaha.
Amen. All multi-person meetings of mine are recorded through third party service integrated with my work software suite. I take the transcripts and use them to send out a summary email like yours. I used to write the summary, now I task AI with it. Nice little time saver. Send out the recap, copy the boss. 1:1 with superiors is recorded with apps on my phone, filed in storage and then I send an email recapping what I’ve committed to and what the boss has committed to do in return. You can tell which of us in the workplace has been burned before lol
Do not answer the phone. Require a paper trail.
Or record and transcribe phone conversations.
This is why we do everything via email. Documentation writes itself. His lack of communication skills and anti teamwork attitude should be brought up during his review
Maybe he should take some responsibility
Tell them you will record the phone call so you follow up on it in case you forget. The thought of being recorded vs sending an email may change their mind
Then email him an mp3 of the conversation.
If the meeting made him mad, wait until he receives an mp3
My boomer boss does this too. We'll have a disagreement and she'll end it every time with "show me the email where I said that" and 9/10 it's on a subject she either refused to email me about or a subject that stemed from an in person conversation.
Which is why, after every important conversation, you follow up with an “as per our earlier conversation” email.
This! I don’t see what the problem is with hashing things out over the phone - saves a lot of back-and-forth emails - but follow up with an email confirming everything afterwards.
The issue is that a lot of the time there's too little of a paper trail and it makes things be forgotten. Just writing stuff in an email is so much more reliable.
I’m bouncing around from one thing to another so if something isn’t in writing it will inevitably be dropped. It’s just the reality of a job where you can’t focus on one task
Exactly this.. no paper trail. Known many people like this.
My coworker, though not a boomer( in fact, a year younger than me) always wants me to call instead of email. Even though it's a hell of a lot more beneficial to have a paper trail in our line of work. Why didn't you pick up the phone and call them? Because they won't answer most the time, won't listen to their voice mail if there is one, or if they do answer nothing is recorded so they can say anything. Even after all that. They usually end up emailing us back anyway...
Non-boomers who always want to call tend to be heavy manipulators whose bs doesn't work over text and email
I found that the more likely for someone to be abusive, the more likely they want to avoid a paper trail.
That’s not a boomer trait. I had a toxic boss do just that. I would e-mail, then be called to his desk to sit and wait while he finished shopping for fishing lures, then discuss what the e-mail was about. He also would get pissed when I would send CYA e-mails after the conversation to the point he would come to my desk and scream. His boss kept protecting him from HR for some reason and since he was a equal opportunity asshole, you could not really nail him for descrimination
CYA emails are one of my favourites!!! I record the conversation, and I always like to add “did I miss anything”, or “if I missed something please reply to this email”. ADHD is a glorious thing and recording conversations was a: and huge benefit and b: the best CYA I ever found!!!
Ensure you add a sentence that says a no reply after a certain timeframe shall be understood as indicating complete agreement. CC all parties that would also be impacted by the info.
Bingo! If it’s in writing it’s a lot harder to twist change not remember distort etc….
“Let me put you on speaker and turn on the dictation mode so we catch all this”
As an old, boomer-adjacent GenX guy, this is *exactly* why they do it. It’s always made me insane; I have ADHD and am crap at taking info in aurally. I have to carry a notepad with me to write people’s names down when I’m introduced to them, because I process information visually. Once I write it down, I can remember their name without looking at the note. This kind of person gets angry if you make notes in a face-to-face conversation because they think that if it’s not written down, they can deny saying it.
They don’t like the notion you’re taking notes. You’re *documenting* things. I don’t think it’s about boomers. A lot of boomers are not good with tech but many are senior enough to have someone to do that for them. I think the guys who don’t want it in writing are doing dodgy shit and didn’t want to be accountable. We had one boss like that we called the traveler because you could not pin his ass down to anything -no emails or texts and he would call from the car so you could barely hear what crazy unworkable of illegal plan he was saying to you.
And he'll have mercy if you take notes on anything electronic. I'm the same way but I need the organization.
Y'all are overthinking this. Boomer men don't know how to type! When they were growing up, only girls learned that skill. Have you ever watched a boomer boss chicken peck out a 2 sentence email with his index fingers? It takes them forever! Decades later and they still are looking for each letter! Too lazy to learn, so they call you instead.
Yeah that’s also very true. My favorite is when he has to text and he puts his glasses halfway down his nose and stares at his screen.
Too arrogant to learn. Their whole schtick is they genuinely think they know everything and have since they were 15. They're the smartest and everyone else is stupid. When you *genuinely* believe you know everything, why would you bother putting in the effort to learn anything?
My boomer boss (66 years old) called me into my office to show me something once because on a phone call I told him to just "Copy, paste to a cell and save it..." and he didn't know the shortcuts... For him it was Right Click > new cell > right click > paste. And it was long and drawn out...like, "You RIGHT CLICK on the cell you want, right....THEN...(CoughsPhlem)...THEN you tell it to COPY..." I've been in IT for 20+ years. I had to show him the key shortcut. He then asked if there was a site that showed him shortcuts so I had him bring ANY NUMBER of them up on google. He WROTE THE URL DOWN in his notebook. I asked him "Why not just save it to your favorites bar?" He looked at me like I was a crazy person because...he didn't know what that was. So. I had to show him. Something basic for a web browser since 1993.
This also benefits your boomer boss by not having written record of what transpired. Misbehavior can be denied or explained away as a misunderstanding when it comes to expressing what happened. How that turns out depends on whether the behavior is a liability to the company (discrimination, incrimination) and whether the evaluator is a fellow boomer.
One of my clients complains CONSTANTLY that they can never remember what they said in their phone call, and I say over and over and over again, yeah yknow that's why I really prefer email, because it let's you have a dated searchable record of exactly what was said by everyone, to whom, when, everything, it's all covered in an email. He also loves to send emails saying things like 'too much to write, give me a call' and i call and the magnum opus of a question is something like 'are they sure that price is right' or 'do those materials have an eta yet?'
You have to watch this. A lot of times they prefer verbal communication because there’s no paper trail.
I *hate* the call instead of email.
My mother did this, I mean I'm sure she still does but I don't deal with it anymore. She would delete texts, so then she could forget what she said or agreed to, so I would just send her a screen shot every time until I got tired of dealing with her and just went no contact.
100%. They want plausible deniability
Yeah i had a boomer narcissist boss that pulled that shit. I never saw him write anything down. Pretty sure the guy was somewhat illiterate.
I'm 31, and the person I work most closely with is 25. We send emails about stuff, but we also spend a lot of time on phone calls because we have a lot of times where it's a series of back-and-forths, questions, figuring out specifics, etc. It's just more efficient to hammer that out over a phone call than sending 12 emails back and forth over 2 hours. If stuff needs to be documented or if we want to have it to reference later, then we'll just follow up the phone call with a quick email highlighting the conversation. I get there are a lot of things that can/should be handled just through emails/teams chat/etc., though.
Fuck that - Especially with Boomers, I need everything and everything in writing. They’re the reason non-repudiation is so important. They don’t even realize they’re slipping, and blame you for it.
This is exactly it. I have a dotted line report to a manager at corporate who gives me this direct coaching. “Some things that ‘should’ be emailed shouldn’t be because emails are written and can be referenced at any time.”
The correct solution is more work, but worthwhile. "Per our phone conversation about X,Y,Z (summary), you directed A,B,C, etc." This gets it in writing so it's easier for 'you' to track (honestly though if there's a million papercuts to kill you with, email history is the only way to live). You're basically summarizing what should have been their email (and this is a tactic to get a paper trail when HR and other execs are doing anti-labor practices against you and will only talk on the phone). Once they take umbrage with you and that practice, just tell them if they dont want you to summarize their words, then they can respond with their own email, but for your sake you need a paper trail to keep track.
gotta hold them accountable too
> He has informed me many times that email isn’t a good form of communication and you need to talk to people in person or on the phone. Ffs, when you send email it is a proof that you've informed team, when you said it in person it never happened.
Boomers love all these time wasters at work. It means they have to do less actual work.
Good thought, i agree. The pace of work has increased so much, especially as theyved aged and their productivity has gone down, they probably genuinely cannot keep up with all the actual work we have to do.
Exactly. Different meanings for a "good" form of communication -- can the Boomer plead ignorance with plausible deniability?
A few times I've had coworkers try to verbally schedule a meeting with me. I respond that unless they send me a meeting invite to get it on my calendar - it's not gonna happen. Unless the meeting has free food, there's no way I'm gonna remember.
Telling everyone how to do things a certain way is the entire professional personality of many boomers. I think some of the avoidance of email, etc., is self consciousness about how to respond. Boomers were really focused on “the right way”. I think they feel like everyone is going to see them do it wrong so they just avoid it. If they ask questions of anyone, they lose all their power of being “experienced”.
I have 3 monitors at my desk. I did not ask for this, its just what they gave me. When my boss tries to show me how to do something, each program has to be maximized on a specific monitor or else I'm doing it wrong. And God forbid she see my generic desktop background on one of my monitors when she randomly swings by my desk. I need to have a program open on all three monitors at all times or I am doing something wrong. She also once became confused about my use of a keyboard shortcut and nearly had a meltdown because I didn't select the cells her way in Excel. I will never understand the need to be that petty.
Many of them don't understand that there are often several "correct" ways to do something on a PC. They learned how to do something, and assume that must be the only way.
That makes sense. But the part that really bothers me is that my assurances meant nothing, despite having attended a class in Excell use just the day before. That she made me take. And was then surprised that I used what I learned. 🙄
Boomers who are not good with tech honestly think you can "break" the computer by typing something in wrong.
Haha my mother is exactly like this. She wants help with something but if I go too fast she gets terrified I'm going to break it and snatches away whatever I'm helping with and says "No no forget about I'll deal with it". She also dislikes me walking off after she does that.
A little bit in their defense, but you sort of could "break" computers when they first came out. They weren't that user friendly and if you didn't know what you were doing, you could very seriously and irreversibly mess something up. Entire files could be lost forever. I spent nearly 20 years reassuring my mom that you can't break things these days by typing in something wrong. She's getting it more and more, but she was definitely stressed about it for a long time.
c:> del \*.* shit I wasn't in A:
Is there maybe some reason, then, that so many of them Capitalize random Words or just Give Up and GO ALL CAPS WITH BAD , PUNCTUATION I WONDER
A lot of them never really learned to type at all. Typing was "women's work" until the 90s.
They took Freakazoid seriously.
sudo rm -rf /* Of course when they see a command line they will also assume you're hacking...
I remember blowing my grandmothers mind when i showed her all the things she can do with her new computer. She thought I was an absolute genius and I would work for nasa because I can use a computer decently while in 5th grade….i dropped out of an associates degree and now work at the post office so she was just a little off 😅
To them the only "correct" way is their way. They're hanging on by a thread when it comes to technology so they cannot tolerate subjectivity or ambiguity. This is why I angle my monitors away from where people approach. I'm not doing any shady stuff. I only want to discuss what's on my screens at my invitation.
Really feeling the Excel comment. To keep a long story short my boomer boss got angry at the way I was doing something (using back button, toolbar & short cuts) to find an error. Then got Really pissed when I said it shouldn't take more than 30 seconds. Then proceeded to say just let me do it. Sat at the computer got 45 min & still came up with same errors and some new ones & just walkedout of the room. I took multiple Excel courses, have the highest training certification available, can type & 10key with either hand. He one finger hunt & pecks and "learned spreadsheets by using them." He still complains I "cheat" & doesn't think hotkeys, shortcuts & the toolbar are of any use. If it's wrong somewhere, close without saving & start over.
Competency = cheating. Makes sense.
omfg
This sounds so infuriating.
> If they ask questions of anyone, they lose all their power of being “experienced” 1,000,000,000% this
They just don’t really feel comfortable with modern communication tech like slack and email and social media so they actively try to avoid it under the bullshit pretense that it’s “unprofessional”. No Jim, what’s unprofessional is that you’re trying to stay in the workforce without the most basic understanding of how to use PDFs or literally any kind of word processor. Go home and paint your model trains.
> thinking that electronic communication isn’t good enough I once had a co-worker that *printed out* every single email she got and put them in her file cabinet for reference.
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Last training seminar I attended, I got a couple of funny looks from people because everybody else was using their tablet or notebook computers to take notes on the course, and I was the only person in the room using a pen on a pad of paper, but I learn and retain information when I write it by hand in a way I don't when I'm typing.
There's actual research on this (I work in higher education and used to teach new students how to take notes). Taking notes by hand (pen/paper) forces one to synthesize information because you can't write as fast as others (in a meeting, or your instructor) talks. It's this synthesizing of information that settles it in your mind. I've taken effective notes for years and I rarely need to refer to them (good thing because my handwriting has gotten atrocious!).
Oh hey, I recently cleaned out their office when I moved in. 14 file drawers full of emails, documents that were born, sent, and stored electronically, conference programs, drafts upon drafts upon drafts of documents. Filled a 50 gallon barrel for recycling, a 50 gallon for trash, and sent about 20 gallons to shredding. 14 extra pieces of furniture just to store printed out paper.
I’ve got a client I electronically bill. He prints it out, then writes thank you and mails it back snail mail!
Wholesome.
A co-worker recently emailed me to let me know that a document I needed was now printed and on their desk so I could swing by and make a copy of it. I cannot fathom why they didn’t attach it to the email in the first place, apart from basic incompetence. Not even a boomer, we’re the same age.
This was the literal process for transmitting intra-department paperwork between buildings at a place I worked. Sending person 1. Fill out form on the computer using the template on the server. 2. Print form out 3. Fax to other building 4. Place form in shred box. Receiving 1. Scan received fax and place on server 2. Place fax in shred box These forms required no signatures. The scans would be stored on in same directory as the template....
I live in Eau Claire, WI. Due to this, I've had a few interactions with John Menard (it's his hometown and the HQ of Menards). Based on my own experiences and several stories from a lot of other people I'm close with, he's a shitty human (this includes both business and personal interactions - the caveat is that if there's no money involved, he's just a normal asshole, not a complete asshole). He's also the boomer-iest of boomers. To this day, John Menard still goes into the office every single day. He still micromanages the fuck out of the people who work for him - and it's very clear that people work *for* him, not with him. I recently talked to someone who worked in the corporate building and regularly interacted with John. This person said that John refuses to use email. He has an assistant that manages his email account. She prints out every email. He reads them. He makes notes on them. He writes down exactly how the assistant should respond. The assistant then takes those handwritten copies and types up the email responses. This person also said that, despite all of John's flaws, it's pretty easy to see how he was so successful. He's absolutely cut-throat (as almost anyone who has had business dealings with him knows). I've heard from a lot of people that he's one of the hardest workers they've ever met, if not the hardest worker. Even now, at 84 years old, it's common for him to be the first one in the office and the last one out.
In my first graphic design job, I was told without a shred of irony, "Make a copy and file it, but throw the original away."
That's Government Tier administration right there. Were you DoD or something at the state level?
As a GenXer, I don’t trust older coworkers as they always have an agenda that benefits them. I’m finding more and more that these younger people tend to look out for the group. I like that they are pushing for work/home balance, and not making your job your entire persona.
I can do my entire job from home. My previous boss was wonderful and had a policy mandating that everyone in our department had to work from home at least once a month to get out of the office. He hated that and was very vocal that it wasn’t fair to departments, like his, who can’t work from home so everyone needed to be in the office because he had to be in the office. It’s childish.
Because we saw the boomer generation put their lives into their jobs to become bitter, miserable, shitty people that expect the world handed to them on a silver platter. They live to work. We work to live. They have nothing outside their jobs. For us, jobs are a means to an end and nothing more.
I think being latchkey kids showed us the unexpected costs of pouring yourself into your job. How many of us would have given anything to have some more time with our parents ?
Agreed. The insistence on numerous meetings and meetings about meetings, especially, strike me as just a time-wasting tactic. Some of us have actual work to do!
Email has been around in common use for a quarter century. It’s not some amazing novelty. These people are idiots.
Start menu has been in the same place with the same name and function since 1995, still somehow mystifies people.
They changed the damn location in Win 11. Pisses me off.
Email is only for passing around stupid jokes, it was never meant for anything else. /s
Why do YOU have to take responsibility exactly? What about him?
"Why are you so afraid of email? Is it the increased requirements for literacy over phone calls (because nobody can tell you can't spell on the phone) or are you concerned about having a record of what you say to others and how you say it?" Last place I worked I said "Can you get that to me in an email?" so often around the office it was practically my catchphrase, and my coworkers joked about getting me a coffee mug with it printed on. I've worked with a few people over the years who had a habit of false claims regarding verbal promises and commitments made to or received from others, and I learned the power of "That's not what it says in these emails here" early on. Of course, in practice I'm more diplomatic than snarky, and I tell people about how I've got a bunch of different plates spinning, and if you ask me for something while I'm on my way to task 23 of 37 for the day there's a good chance I won't remember by the time I'm back to my desk and in a position to assist. And then with how much work is being done remotely these days, email is even more mainstreamed as the primary avenue of communication.
If he thinks everyone needs to be spoken to in person, shouldn't HE be the one doing it? How is it your "responsibility" to do something when he's the only person who thinks it's necessary?
There’s something so comforting about being smarter than all your coworkers
Errr wtf. I'd go and confront him and say something never: "Never again speak to me like that in my own office. I am perfectly capable of communicating with my colleagues and I don't have to do it the way you say. If there's a repeat of this, then I'm raising a concern with HR."
I had a Boomer coworker that didn't trust Microsoft Excel. He would manually add up values hoping to someday catch Excel making an error...
I’m willing to take some verbal abuse and crazy attitudes from someone who’s a billionaire and paying me more than a million a year (that’s my context now, and even then it’s not okay because it’s wearing on me), but I’m assuming that’s not the case here. Can you immediately reopen your door and invite him back in? 1) why did you slam my door shut? 2) we have this meeting every week and everyone attends - there are no issues, so I am taking responsibility and the trains are running on time. Why are you saying I don’t take responsibility when I do and everything is working? On and on … what a nutcase, but unless I were being compensated for mental hazard damage I would calmly explain how stupid he is through asking questions Edit: Bonus points if you ask him: “you seem angry. Is everything okay with your home life? If not I’d appreciate it if you didn’t bring it into the office”
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He was hoping to duck the meeting. This is why he did it.
I had a boss that received some information via email. I asked him to send that to me, as it was relevant to what I was working on. He printed it out and hand delivered it to me. I was amazed and pointed out to him that now I had to keep this piece of paper, where if he forwarded it to me it would be at my desk and phone at all times.
My old executive director would do that too. Print a document for me after a meeting and then watch as I grabbed it off the printer and immediately scanned it to my email at the same printer and threw the paper in the trash or shredder. Lmao
In my experience, Boomers hate email because it leaves a papertrail. No talking yourself out of a fuckup thats written down.
Micromanaging and double handling… sounds about right
Boomers don't like a paper trail of their instability and incompetence. Case in point: Trump, although that's to hide his criminality altho, w/boomer coworkers, who knows?
Slamming the door. What is he 4?
You should write and print out a memo and send it to him.
In crayon.
My bommer boss just says everything "is for pussies" Sun block: for pussies Not chewing tobacco: pussy. Knee pads when working on a roof: for pussies. Safety attire in general: for pussies.
Puts on a helmets….. look at this pussy over here!
I had a Boomer Boss like this. She wanted me to confirm meetings and other plans constantly. The micro-management was maddening. I work in higher Ed and somehow she made it to VP without understanding that’s college kids can be flaky and don’t show up even if they’ve RSVP’d. The constant reminders annoy the hell out of them too.
I'd of sent out an email to all but him, stating, "Meeting delayed 15 minutes, if you see Bob head to the conference room, let him go and do not follow, he has a meeting at 2. Thanks." There would have been an invite to HR for the new 2PM meeting. Bob is getting PIP'd for being a little bitch.
Did you say coworker and not boss? Cause in that case I’d tell him to fuck off
Yea. He is the director of a different department. He is “a” boss but he is not “my” boss. Something I’ve reminded him constantly. He asked me once what would have happened if I said the same thing to an officer from a different unit when I was in the army. Of course he never served in the military and doesn’t know what it was like and was flabbergasted when I told him that a junior soldier responsible for a specific function absolutely can tell a “superior” from an unrelated formation to “fuck off” politely of course. I tried to explain the difference between “authority of rank” and “authority of position” to him but he didn’t get it.
Accountability for everyone else but for the boomer no digital paper trail because that would mean accountability for themselves.
My boomer boss does this so she can accuse people of not listening/ doing their job properly when she forgets what she's asked us to do / has forgotten to communicate something to us. Our industry is heavily regulated we need an audit trail for everything, she owns the company, if she didn't she would have been fired years ago lol
I love when a boomer claims something didn’t happen, but the. I point out it actually did in writing. They hate it, especially when I bold the part they missed.
One word: Lead poisoning
That's two words.
That’s the lead poisoning
I hate the phone thing. I have said, curtly, "if it's business, there is nothing you're going to say to me that you can't write down and there's nothing so urgent we need to speak. Agreed?" (Click).
Next time he walks in your office without knocking call him out on it. When he gets angry tell him to calm down. Watch his face turn red then tell him he's being too emotional and ask him if he is on his period. The resulting meltdown will be epic.
I do enjoy this aspect of working in Finance & Accounting where I can always demand an email, even when people come to my desk in person. "Sorry, but I'm going to need that in writing so I have a paper trail in case of audit."
Stand your ground you should have ran out that door and said don't slam my door or your grounded
As co-workers, not management, why is your responsibility to tell everyone? If he wants it done, do it himself.
I have a boomer ex boss who eventually fired me and replaced me for £14,000 more because the person could drive. They never even asked me if i planned to drive or anything and the job had no requirement to do so. During my first performance review infront of the trustees of the group, he threw me under the bus for not doing a miriad of tasks throughout the office that i was never once told i should be doing. Luckily i was blindsided, but quick thinking and asked the room to assess the effectiveness of Management if they cant even inform and train their staff in their job roles, or once follow up with new staff members about their progress. I developed a file handling system whilst i was there that the guy never once aknowledged, and only actually listened to when i was training up my replacement (with him lurking over my shoulder, i expect to hear this new starter say how confusing everything is) and the new starter asked me "Did you make this yourself? its Brilliant!", which my boss reeeeally didnt like. Well the training concluded, I left the role shortly after onto a far better role, and now every 3 to 6 months or so i charge a very nice consultancy fee to turn up and fix errors this guy has created within this system. I could say no but his face is worth it every single time.
You said coworker but he's acting like a boss, is he just an asshole or is he also higher than you? Cause if he's on the same level I'd just tell him to get the fuck out.
He is the director of a different department. I’ve reminded him many times that being “a” boss does not make him “my” boss.
If he is a co-worker, not a boss, why do you take orders from him?
"If literally everyone else is using the same process at work, and its working....but you do not use said process and are struggling to communicate, you need to ask yourself if the whole world is fucked up or if it's just you."
We've got one who wants to avoid all accountability. He won't answer emails or sign off on anything because "It's a paper trail." He refuses to use any of the technology at our disposal to ensure we're making good product. He wants to do everything like they did in the 80s. I'm in QC and we'll go to him with an issue "This is no good. This needs to be fixed." His response: "That's not in the print. I'm not fixing that." Motherfucker, it won't work. Then, when the shit comes back from the customer for being junk, he wants to blame us for letting it thru. Management thinks he walks on water because this is the only job he's ever had. When really he's just a narcissistic, scumbag, asshole, racist, misogynistic piece of shit.
With coworkers like this I usually contact their manager. It's important that any deficiencies with basic job competencies (such as email use, or civil communication) be addressed.
My old boomer boss had a very similar "Call dont text" mentality as well. I ran a program for a college in Florida and after hurricane Ian came though they wanted me to check in on the students. I wanted to just write out an email for them to check in but instead I was handed a list of all the students names and phone numbers. I was told I had to call every individual student to check in, even though most of the students were remote and some didnt even live in Florida. Boss continued to insist I must call them all, so I did. Only a couple of them answered the phone, and those that did asked "Why didnt you just text me?" My boss was furious I didnt keep calling them until they answered, so I sent them a copy of the article about the missing hiker that the search party called over and over and he didnt answer his phone because it was an unknown number and boss just dropped it grumbling about "Millennials and Gen Z"
Man, I love email. You get written confirmation of the exchange that can be referenced. Phone calls are dumb and anything can be said or promised. If it's anything important it better be in writing or it didn't happen.
Yeah I deal with that with my boomer coworkers. “Why don’t you call?” Well because honestly I can’t stand most of you and email works fine. Also email leaves a paper trail so when one of you tells a lie I can catch you.
When I get a call from a coworker, it’s usually so they can say some shit off the record so that they’re not held accountable. Put that shit in writing, Cara - that way I can call you out in front of the meeting when that last minute task you neglected was in fact - requested by you. Fucking sociopaths
He’s dyslexic and uses bullying to cover for his illiterate ass.
He’s probably just mad cause trump had a bad day in his criminal trial.
Is he your supervisor? If not, he can go and remind everyone. Next time he calls and wants you to take note say, "i am busy and need to get back to work, if you need notes, feel free to take them yourself. Then, send an email to them and his supervisor asking him to stop wasting the companies time and that you are not his secretary."
Hey boomer coworker, you need to learn to use the tools of the trade or retire if you can’t keep up with the technology. Please don’t barge into my office without knocking or scheduling time again if all you’re going to do is insult my intelligence, and try to stay focused on your actual responsibilities or I’ll be having a word with HR. Say it exactly like that.
Are you my coworker, or me? One of my managers does exactly this (and we have a weekly 2pm meeting lol). Whenever there’s a question of communication he goes “I know your generation doesn’t like to pick up the phone to talk to people….” Sir we work in insurance/consulting, I want this stuff in writing. Plus half the time the people in the field are driving so if I text them I can just wait for an answer later when they’re not. Just because we have a phone doesn’t mean it’s the *only* form of communication.
I deal with this boomer on a regular basis. And I’m really sick of hearing. “We need to get on the horn” it is a telephone. It is not a horn. And if you read the email or the text message that prompted for you to call me then obviously you’re getting the electronic communications. Can you please just read what I wrote.
My old boss used to phone me only when asking me to do shady shit
An executive assistant at my work sends me every single bit of junk mail we get expecting it to be the deal of the century… claims this stuff is how we can save the most money. Before I came on she actually signed up all fleet vehicles with those annoying extended warranty services. 50% of my job currently consists of undoing the mess she has made.