In order not to feel like a dinosaur and to keep up with the younger generations, and to understand the Millennials and these newer ones from Generation Z who are increasingly filling our officess, I have to learn the new meaning of some expressions, which I have always observed in to the negative narrative...
In the last couple of months, two colleagues have dared to call me a "Hater" 🙂
The first time it was a colleague, who has been in the company for a couple of years, unlike me, who has been there for almost two decades, and who belongs to the millennial generation.
When he told me that I "hate", because of his age, I concluded that he saw it as my negativity.
I had to ask him: "And what exactly do I hate?".
"You hate my proposals and the decisions I make," he said, forgetting, perhaps out of ignorance, that I had worked out what he was proposing, as well as the decisions he had made, a few years earlier and had decided for and against with senior management.
When I told him that, he "tucked his tail" and with the remark "You could have told me, because I didn't know", answered him: "Dear colleague, you could have just asked. I don't know what's on your mind, I don't have the possibility mind reading (Thank God), so that I can get you out of awkward situations before you, by your own decision, fall into them".
I don't know why certain people, who are newly employed, hesitate to ask older colleagues, those who have been in the company longer than them, about some settings they find. Probably in this way they think that someone will recognize their proactivity and resourcefulness, knowledge and that they will be raised to a higher level? By diminishing the past merits of older colleagues? It won't...
And the second time, a young colleague from generation Z who came to me to report the damage to her official mobile phone and get a new one, said to me "What a hater you are".
From the way she told me, it seemed to me that she was in a positive narrative.
Of course I had to ask her why she thinks that...
Unlike the previous story with a colleague, she told me that it was cool and that she really likes haters, people who have a slightly more negative attitude and use harsh words in communication.
I gave her a new mobile phone and she left my office satisfied, leaving me thinking...
For me, a hater is someone who hates, who has very negative attitudes, who uses hate speech, who sees the worst in everything and everyone, who poisons the people around him and who is basically a sad guy.
It's not me
And for that reason, I was surprised by the comments of colleagues of younger generations.
I helped her and him as well as countless other colleagues, and what they called me touched me a little.
Maybe because I am an older generation, which used that expression exclusively in a negative context, when it was necessary to marginalize someone...
When I saw the delight on my colleague's face when I gave her a new phone, I thought how the rest of my colleagues, over 400 of them, would feel about me when I sent an email in a few days so that they could stop by to exchange their phones.
Wow, they'll think I'm Santa and brought them Christmas and New Year's gifts.
I don't believe that any of them will call me a hater.
But now I know (what I've always known):
It's not a matter of what someone tells you, but who tells you...