I was having a conversation with my son who recently graduated from college and is working at a full time job already. I was telling him how lucky he is; no more school, a new career, everything ahead of him. He confessed that he really didn’t feel that way at first and he had to make some real changes in his life because he was starting to feel so bored and bummed out. I was shocked, but I delved further. “I started to feel like all I do is work, watch TV or something, go to bed and then get up and work again. It’s the same thing day in and day out. It was so boring.”
I have to admit I laughed at first because in my opinion, nobody has it as good as him. Yeah he’s working every day, but every weekend he’s going to a concert here, watching the game at this bar, meeting friends at a club in the city, going away for the weekend to visit friends, etc. I feel like I have heard this story quite often from people my age who have been working for more like 20+ years who are probably too tired to do much of anything on the weekend, but a 22 year old guy. Boo hoo.
But then I started to think about it more and he reminded me what the past 4 years were like for him at college. Glad I didn’t hear all that during those past 4 year, but anyway, I guess I started to see what he meant. There were always people around at night during the week. Nobody was working at any serious jobs. As long as you got up for school in the morning, did your homework reasonably well, and studied when you had to, everything else was fun time. It’s no wonder it can be a little depressing when reality and responsibility sets in.
So it got me thinking of the other new graduates entering the workforce. We expect them to settle right in. Be energetic and engaged in their awesome new job. And if they’re not, we feel they are slackers and immature. Could be true, but some may just be having difficulty making the transition.
I asked him what he did to change the feeling he was experiencing and he said he started doing things like going to the gym after work and he joined a dart league with some of his friends on Tuesday nights. At least now he feels he has fun things to look forward to during the week.
I think if we feel our young professionals have promise but may be having trouble making the transition to adulthood, we can coach them to do similar things. Get them to talk about what they are doing outside of work. Make suggestions. If possible, try to get them to coordinate after hours activities where they can socialize with other co-workers. Some of them are really missing that camaraderie. It can be pretty lonely, especially if they were away at college. So get them involved and you will have a more engaged and energized employee.
Thoughts…….. Contact me at abbe@TECResourceCenter.com
