Millennials are entitled, narcissistic, lazy, disrespectful and impossible to manage in the workplace. We’ve all seen it. They sit in meetings on their smartphones. More interested in social media than work.

They have been dubbed the “Me Me Me Generation” by no less an authority than Time magazine.

Why three Me’s? Well that’s because they are the children of baby boomers who came of age in the “Me Decade” of the 1970s

The Me Generation raised the Me Me Me generation to be lazy and disrespectful and impatient. It’s not surprising as the Me’s saw the example of the hippies in the 1960s and those hippies were really bad.

Which isn’t really a surprise after the 1950s.

Although you have to really go back to Ancient Greece to understand where the slide really began.

“The children now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise.” – Socrates

Or then again…

Adolescents and young adults go through the most extreme changes. Hormonal changes surge through their bodies, they separate out from their parents and live by their own rules, which usually starts by rejecting the notion of rules completely.

But why then do adults not recognize it if they’ve been through it themselves? Because society is always changing, culture and ethics adapt and youth is usually the first place this is obvious. Adults see the culture change and identify this as unique, not something they did. The culture change proves this generation is different to their’s and therefore more than just a stage of life.

Except it is just a stage of life. Technology adds a new dimension but it’s no different. Youth adopts, adults despair, then follow.

Facebook started with a youth profile, parents didn’t understand it, then they joined and youth migrated off to Instagram. And as for those phones in meetings. There’s plenty of non-millennials that do it too!

Adolescents and young adults are definitely narcissistic and lazy but they’ll get over it. Forget that and focus on what culture changes they are signposting, because that is for all of us.