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Millennials hate trophies, but I love my award November 11, 2009

Posted by Blake Sunshine in millennials, millennials at work.
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Millennials don’t care about trophies, but that doesn’t mean we don’t appreciate recognition.

And the good thing about being recognized is that it reminds you that you still have a lot of room to improve, grow and learn.

Which is why I’m really excited and honored that my coworkers at NI voted me this year’s “Rookie of the Year.”

Award

Millennials may hate trophies, but I love my award.

Millennials at Work: Don’t worry about finding your passion October 30, 2009

Posted by Blake Sunshine in corporate, millennials, millennials at work.
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Growing up I used to worry ALL THE TIME that I wouldn’t find the one thing I was good at. In my head if I wasn’t going to the Olympics and I wasn’t famous than I had totally failed at finding my passion. Luckily as I grew older I realized that there were other professional avenues in which I could find my passion, and I would say that in my current job I am extremely passionate about the work I get to do.

But I know a lot of Millennials who are still afraid they may never find their passion. I know Millennials who want to save the world, and I also know Millennials who don’t want to settle into a job before they discover their calling.

Today after I ate at Mighty Fine Burgers, I was browsing their website and took a look at the culture section. One of their core values is “Choose your attitude- Learn to love what you do even if you aren’t doing what you love.”

mighty fine

I love that value, and I think it’s one Millennials should adopt. You don’t necessarily have to find your passion this second. Just because you have graduated from college it doesn’t mean you have to do something you love today. It also doesn’t mean that you should stop looking for your passion. In fact, you should always be looking for ways to do the things you love, but if you don’t have it figured out this second try to learn to love what you do anyway.

(Also, thanks to Hilary and Andria for taking me to Mighty Fine for the first time today. Amazinggg burgers and shakes.)

Millennials at Work: Why paying your dues sucks October 11, 2009

Posted by Blake Sunshine in millennials, millennials at work.
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A common complaint about Millennials that I hear pretty often is that they don’t want to pay their dues at work. Even though I always here this complaint, this past week I found myself complaining to my mom about something work related. (Now I wasn’t sure I even wanted to write about this topic since my boss and lots of people I work with read my blog, but I think this is a common problem with Millennials at work. Since I am always honest on my blog and with the people I work with, I figured it would be a good idea to talk about it anyway.) Anyway, back to my story. I was complaining about a specific task that I find to be both mundane and painful to complete at work. As I was complaining, my mom stopped me mid-sentence and said, “suck it up you have to pay your dues at work.”

And I think she is right. Millennials at work have to do tasks that they find mundane, painful, useless and terrible. But an important part of climbing up the corporate ladder is proving yourself, and the best way to prove yourself is to do a fantastic job at a terrible task that no one else wants to do. Now doing a fantastic job at a sucky task, doesn’t mean that it will suck any less, but it does mean that people will respect you for not complaining and will appreciate that the task is getting completed.

That being said, I still don’t want to do this task. And that made me wonder, why is it so important for Millennials to pay their dues at work? If I hate doing a task and I’m not good at it, wouldn’t it make more sense for me to do something else that I am really good at instead? Wouldn’t I be benefiting the business by working on something where my skills and talents can be properly utilized?

Probably, yes. But I have been assigned to the task and I have to complete it. Which is why I am going to suck it up and do a damn good job at this task that I hate, even though I don’t want to.

So to all the Millennials out there, do you think paying your dues sucks too?

Do Millennial Join Unions? September 20, 2009

Posted by Blake Sunshine in millennials, millennials at work.
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Last week I was reading this article about new leadership in the AFL-CIO, and a quote by their new leader, Richard Trumka, really stood out to me.

“Ultimately, it won’t matter how many unions are in the AFL-CIO if we fail to capture the imagination of Millennials.”

I love that Trumka realizes that Millennials are the future of the AFL-CIO. But with union membership declining heavily year-over-year, I wonder what kind of role Millennials play in the Union workforce. Millennials love teamwork but do they want to be part of this sort of team?

I did a little research and found one important group of Millennials who are in unions: teachers. There are a lot of Millennial teachers, and considering that most teachers join unions for the legal protection they provide, I was not surprised to see this group of Millennial union-joiners. But, I wasn’t able to find any other Millennial-friendly professions that have unions. Which makes me wonder where Trumka thinks these excited Millennial union joiners are going to come from.

The article also explains how new branded AFL-CIO social media sites have been created to capture the attention of Millennials. But I do not think it’s enough. If the AFL-CIO wants to reach out to Millennials they need to be accessible in more ways than just social media. If Unions want Millennial members they have to stop focusing on the person’s profession and focus more on the benefits membership provides.

Millennials will change professions throughout their lives more than any other generation in history. Why would I want to join the teacher’s union today if I plan to go back to school in a year and pursue a business degree?

I seriously wonder why a Millennial would want to join a union at all.

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