OMG This sounds so fricken familiar!!! LOL!! There is a story on Twitter of a young worker, who is in her late 20s, and she was asked to write something by her boss at work. The writing required the young lady to write the word hamster. You know, those little rodents that look like mice with no tail. Personally, I hate hamsters. I think the world can do well without them. I prefer rats. But this 20-something year old worker was supposed to spell the word hamster in something her boss asked her to write. Carol Blymire tells the story from where she works. This story is not only funny and familiar to me, but also sad. Sad in a way this is where the millennials are heading. Sad, but not surprising!
The boss (also a woman) was giving her feedback and reviewing edits she had made on something this young woman wrote.— Carol Blymire (@CarolBlymire) July 12, 2019
Here is the full story...
Again, I don't know whether to laugh or cry at this! This almost 30 year old woman called her mom to settle the differences between her and her boss??? Now, I really cannot say much, at almost 50, I still seek my mom for advice on some things. But she's had more experience with people than I have! And she's smart enough to give very good advice. But I don't go to my mom because I can't spell a word and my boss is trying to correct me. A normal individual does not do that! And I haven't gone crying to my mom since I was in 4th grade. This woman spelled hamster with a P, because she wanted it to be spelled with a P. And she didn't care what the dictionary, or professionals, or anyone else said about it, and the fact her boss was correcting her mistake, no matter how diplomatically, it still drove the young worker to tears.Here is a hopefully short synopsis of something that happened this week that I still don’t understand (1/?)In office space near a client, a young woman was meeting with her boss. She was (by my estimation) in her late 20s.The boss (also a woman) was giving her feedback and reviewing edits she had made on something this young woman wrote.They had been speaking in low tones, but their volume got louder toward the end of the conversation because the young woman was getting agitated about a particular edit.That particular edit was correcting the spelling of “hampster” to “hamster”. Apparently she had used the phrase “like spinning in a hamster wheel” in this draft (presumably) speech or or op-ed.The young woman kept saying, “I don’t know why you corrected that because I spell it with the P in it.” The boss said (calmly), “But that’s not how the word is spelled. There is no P in hamster.”Young woman: “But you don’t know that! I learned to spell it with a P in it so that’s how I spell it.”
The boss (remaining very calm and professional), let’s go to
and look it up together.
(mind you, this is a woman in her late 20s, not a 5th grader)The young woman insists she doesn’t need to look it up because it’s FINE to spell it with a P because that’s HOW SHE WANTED TO SPELL IT.The boss says, “Let’s look over the rest of the piece so I can explain the rest of my edits.”
They do, and I can see the young woman is fighting back tears.
The boss is calm, cool, and handles this with professionalism and empathy.Boss says, “I know edits can be difficult to go over sometimes, especially when you’re working on new kinds of things as you grow in your career, but it’s a necessary process and makes us all better at what we do.”Boss gets up from table and goes to her office and the young woman can barely hold it together.
She moves to another table in the common workspace area, drops all her stuff loudly on the table top, and starts texting.
A minute later, her phone rings.It was her mom. She had texted her mom to call her because it was urgent, and I’m sure her mother maybe thought she was in the ER or something.
She then ... PUTS HER MOM ON SPEAKERPHONE. IN THE WORKPLACE.She bursts into tears and wants her mom to call her boss and tell her not to be mean about telling her how to spell words like “hamster”.The mother tells her that her boss is an idiot and she doesn’t have to listen to her and she should go to the boss’ boss to file a complaint about not allowing creativity in her writing.The young woman kept saying, “I thought what I wrote was perfect and she just made all these changes and then had the nerve to tell me I was spelling words wrong when I know they are right because that is how I have always spelled them.”She then went on (still on speakerphone) to tell her mom I’m very great and office-inappropriate detail about how hungover she was and what she and her friends did with some guys the night before. Mom laughed and laughed.The colleagues in and around the workplace kept looking at one another and some even put earbuds/headphones in/on. It appeared as though this was a regular thing with her.She ended the conversation asking her mom how she should bring this up with the boss’ boss. “I mean, I always spell hamster with a P, she has no right to criticize me.”
She walked to the office kitchen for the rest of the call so I don’t know what happened next.I don’t know what to think about this whole thing. If the young woman is neuroatypical, it seems as though the editing process might be something to approach in a different way.But I don’t know what her situation is/was. Based on the way her mom spoke to her and they way they spoke to one another, it seemed as though his young woman had never been told she was anything but perfect by family.And that kind of child rearing is quite difficult on people when they grow up, and frustrating for professors, teachers, bosses, and colleagues of people who were raised that way.I don’t have any great summary or call to action on this, other than to say it was odd to witness and made me feel sad (I don’t know if that’s the right word) for this person as she loves through life.Getting edits and corrections on things at any stage in your career can make you feel insecure and dumb, no matter how long you’ve been writing.Her boss seemed as dumbfounded through the conversation as I was in overhearing it.I think I was most perplexed by the insistence of wanting to spell something the way she wanted to because SHE WANTED TO, ignoring the fact that there are rules and dictionaries.
And seeming offended that anyone would suggest the use of an outside resource as reference.This happened earlier in the week and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it.Again, if there is some sort of learning challenge or if this is someone who requires a different kind of coaching, that’s one thing. And I hope she gets it.But it seemed more like someone who has never been told no, or that she is anything other than 100% perfect and amazing and can do no wrong. And that is going to be exhausting for anyone in her orbit.I asked a colleague about it, and he relayed a story about the time he gave an early 20something feedback on a writing assignment.
The young man quit the next day and had his parents call to tell him what a terrible boss he was for “correcting work that didn’t need corrected.”I worry about how kids are being raised sometimes. I really do.Anyway, that’s all on that thing that happened. I hope she gets the help she needs because life in Washington, DC is going to be very hard for her if she wants to argue about hamster being spelled with a P.And, again, I want to be clear: if this woman is neuroatypical or has learning differences, I truly hope she is given workplace coaching that will help her succeed and thrive.
But if she was just raised to think she’s always right? Hoooo, lord.
The sad part is, the mom called the boss an idiot and told the 20-something year old to go to the boss's boss and file a complaint. The 20 year old woman asked her mom how she should go about filing a complaint. I wonder if that girl still even has a job. I mean, I'm sure the boss still has her job. But I would fire that worker for sure. She's too emotionally unstable. To cry over being corrected. This is what today's kids have become. And it is sad.
This reminds me of Sara, the little teenage girl I knew back in the earlier 2000s. She had this friend named Lindsey, who wanted to cross pomeranians with chihuahuas and sell the puppies. I told Lindsey how wrong it was. I was very diplomatic. I had nothing personal against Lindsey. But Lindsey reacted exactly the same way this worker in the story reacted to her boss correcting her on how to spell hamster. I'm almost tempted to believe this is the same person. Or maybe it was Sara. Sara would be almost 30 now. But either way, the attitude is exactly the same. And I am wagering it's probably for the same reason; because they were never really parented in their childhood. Just like in spelling, there is a right way and a wrong way to breed. Mixing breeds without just cause is one thing that should never be done. But no one who is mixing breeds today is doing it for a good reason. They're doing it for no other reason than to cash in on this hybrid vigor.
A few days after Lindsey left the chihuahua group, Sara developed a bad attitude as well, and she also began acting like this young worker in the story. Sara even went on to play Mcgillicutty on the Pluba forum. Obviously Sara was still butthurt. LMAO!! I flat-out called Sara a backyard breeder. Because she didn't want to learn. I was still learning at that time myself about how to breed the right way, and Sara and I were buddies then, and she did seem to want to do the right thing in breeding. So, I shared what I learned with her as well, by way of the group. But Sara got to a point where she didn't want to learn anymore. She thought she knew all there was to know about breeding chihuahuas. While she was good in picking up about health-testing, she was still breeding low-standard chihuahuas and getting her puppies from backyard breeders and puppymillers.
But there are right ways and wrong ways of proper breeding, and Sara and Lindsey just didn't want to learn how to breed the right way. Like the girl in this story, they wanted their method of breeding to be the right way, so they kept on doing it. But doing something over and over again does not mean that it will make it the right way. That just means you'll be doing the wrong thing over and over again. Like putting a 'P' in hamster. Spelling it with a 'P' over and over won't make it actually happen! Instead of changing the majority of people who spell hamster the right way, just change the way that worker spells it, until she is spelling it the right way like everyone else. But these millennials don't ever learn that! And it's the fault of the parents. In the case of this worker, my guess is it was the mother. Probably the same with Sara and Lindsey, as I doubt either one of them had fathers in their lives. At least, not the biological father. A father figure probably came along for them later on. But this is why a father is very important early in a child's life.
There's a line in the movie The Color Purple where it is stated "I've never known a child to come out right unless there's a man around. Children gots to have a pa." Makes little sense spelling it out, but the idea is correct. Someone like me, who has had her father in her life from the beginning, can honestly tell when I'm around someone who hasn't had a father from day one. Not sure if abusive fathers count. But anyways, we're today seeing the results of fatherless families in today's world. Kids are more angry and violent than ever before. Kids are more confused than ever in every aspect. And kids think they know more than the adults and professionals. It's sad and sickening.
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