As an early 90’s millennial, I’ve never noticed a “gen z stare” as described in news articles like a “blank face that shows lack of social skill or ability to think”. The only times I’ve witnessed it happen and seen the older person accuse them of “gen z stare” is when the older person says something off hand or dumb but isn’t self aware enough to realize they’re being weird. Hell, I’ve given people a blank face countless times because I was taught it was better to say nothing at all sometimes. Especially when it came to talking to older people at work.
I remember when I was 16, some middle aged guy at work accused me of having no personality. In reality, I kept all conversations short as possible with him (like almost everyone in the store) because they were casually racist and misogynistic.
Young people in customer facing positions seem fairly unemotive in general, I’m not necessarily sure it’s a new trend. The positions these young people are in are generally minimum wage (or effectively minimum wage). They aren’t really being paid enough to smile lol, or don’t really have much to smile about.
I tend to avoid all eye contact with folks in public so I’m probably not really the best to answer it. It’s sort of something I’ve noticed, but I’m really not convinced it’s new.
That said, I do get that there’s a lot of folks who missed out on a lot of socialization opportunities during the pandemic. Whether that’s enough to lead to an epidemic of young people doing a “stare” I’m not sure.
Every young generation gets clowned on. As a millennial I remember us getting it. So it’s hard to really say if this is something real or just more “youth bad” rhetoric.
a lot of people try as much as possible not to acknowledge the humanity of service workers, its completely normal for those workers to become numb to the endless stream of jackasses. Even if the next guy coming up does acknowledge them and treat them like a human, its hard to fault any perceived carelessness. Its also not limited to young people, any supermarket I go to has older peole working and you will encounter the same phenomenon. Its the alienation of labor under capitalism.
i worked in customer service positions as a teen and 20 something. it is not hard to just say hello to people when they are in your store. it’s a basic requirement of the job.
yes, it is novel for them not to do this. and no it’s not a majority, but it’s a markedly new experience to go into a store and see a 22 year old who basically ignores customers who re actively seeking their attention/help.
I have no clue what people are going on about it’s timeless or whatever, i never dealt with it my entire life until very recently. like i have been going ot the same coffee shop for 20 years, and only in the past year have I had a barista be spaced out when i come up to the counter to order, and it’s always these young baristas, it’s not the older ones who ever do this.
and also we have issues at my job with gen z employees that we have never had ever before. i have been working there 10 years, and only in the past 2 years have we ever had to fire anyone for lack of performance or violated basic company policies… and we have had to five 6 people in the past year or so, all new hires, because they back the most basic social and work skills that we have never ever had an issue with before.
like we literally give them the rules of employment, they actively violated them and get caught, and act all confused like they didn’t understand what they did wrong. so we then terminate them and they are SHOCKED. they seem to totally lack the concept that actions have consequences and if you can’t show up to work and follow basic common sense instructions, you don’t get employeed.
and like a lot of the posters here they are massively entitled and think they are owed 100K jobs at 22 for entry level jobs and skills.
I’m going to take a shot in the dark and assume it’s been about 20 years since you have been a young 20-something? I’m not Gen Z, I’m old enough to remember a pre-911 America. I get on to my girlfriend all the time for this same thing. Yes it is their job working in customer service to make your experience pleasant, but it’s also hard to take pride in the work that you do when your employer offers no health benefits, pays you poverty wages, and the cost of everything is constantly on the rise.
The material conditions in which they are growing up are very different than what were present when we were. This kids/young adults do not know what it is like to live in a world without the constant threat of terror or an endless stream of information that seeks to use our anxiety and outrage to keep us engaged.
Have some empathy and try to put yourself in their shoes. I’m well established in my career at this point, and I can’t imagine how hard it must be for someone fresh out of college now. If I had that much student loan debt and couldn’t find a job using that degree; I’d be mentally checked out making someone’s coffee too. I’d be thinking about how the hell I’m going to pay back those loans.
No, 10 years. I have dealt with all the crap you are whining about. I worked for ‘poverty wages’ until I was in my mid 30s. And yet I never felt I was in poverty… weird. Maybe because I didn’t expect to travel, to party, and to own the latest electronic gadgets… because yeah any wage is a poverty wage when you spend more than you make, and you don’t save and invest.
It’s hard to take pride in your work when you’re whiny, entitled, and refuse to take responsibility for yourself, yes. I worked customer service jobs since i was 14, they are ridiculously easy and bare minimum effort. They are not hard back-breaking work, nor are they cognitively demanding. Acting like it’s some heroic difficult job to sling coffee or sell clothes is just sad and disrespectful to people who actually have difficult jobs.
I am so sick of being told to have ‘empathy’ for entitled lazy people who think they are owed a six figure job for doing the bare minimum. I’m glad you think life is so ‘hard’ for them. I don’t. I am not very far removed and I interact with them regularly and a lot of them are just lazy entitled nitwits, a lot of them just depended on the bank of mom and dad. I was help paying family bills at the age of 16 and many of them are still in their 20s and 30s, financially dependent on their parents. It’s pathetic. Nobody owes them anything. They have to go otu and actually make an effort… and funnily enoguh… the gen z kids I know who are making an effort at life… are succeeding and happy. They get jobs, promotions and move up the ladder. They save rather than spend recklessly and they invest and they… become financaily stable and independent?
Nobody is going to become financially successful or independent when they take their 40-50K a year job and blow 10-20K of it on ubereats, traveling, and boozing. But boy do the people who do do that love to whine about hard and unfair and awful life is.