OK, I'll be upfront about this. I work at HotSchedules, the company mentioned in the article, so there's some shameless self-promotion going on here. But I thought some of this stuff is pretty interesting to read about (especially workplace environments in general). http://www.cnn.com/2011/LIVING/07/20/hot.schedules.millenials/index.html
This sounds like some white boy ****, like those dumbass temps in NoCal being paid in virtual dollars.
Responded to a job posting while I was a senior at UT a couple of years ago. Did a couple of interviews, and then got offered the job. Of course, I accepted (how could I not? Ping pong table definitely sold me). Pretty lucky since this has been my first and only real job, and the company is definitely pretty awesome (yeah, I know other software companies are similar, but still feel lucky...especially staying in Austin/Texas). Anyway, since posting this, I've checked out the comments on the CNN article. Whoa! There's definitely some misunderstandings/incorrect assumptions being made. First off...we sort of have "unlimited paid vacation" (basically, as long as your manager is OK with it, you can take off as long as you want). But I don't think that was the case with Grant, unless I'm mistaken (don't think we even had this policy in place until after he left for Italy). Pretty sure it was more of a "sabbatical," which one or more other employees have taken advantage of as well (guessing it is unpaid, or at best, maybe some benefits/slight pay...not exactly sure). He's also pretty ambitious IMO, and was trying to accomplish some personal goals, which is partly why he went to Italy I believe. I haven't had a chance to really talk to him about his whole trip, but I'm pretty sure he wasn't just chilling on a beach for a year, waiting for the paychecks from HotSchedules to come in. Also, he's a pretty cool guy and really friendly...although yeah, I guess the hat in the picture does look kind of stupid. Don't really want to say much about him (don't want to say much about his personal life), but some of the negativity directed towards him based on this article really bothered me. I don't personally agree with some of the statements Dorsey and Butler made about our generation (a lot of them don't seem to apply to me or other millennials at our company), although perhaps they might be accurate in a more general sense. We have a lot of nice benefits at our company, but I think we also work pretty hard. Otherwise, we'd have 63 people on vacation right now (or something like that). (I've only taken maybe 1 week of vacation so far this year). Spoiler Also, pretty sure our CEO, Ray, is a Rockets fan.
Probably multiple openings. I'm just a software engineer, so I'm not 100% sure what openings we have specifically, but we're pretty much always looking for new hires (company makes that pretty obvious too). Our website has a spot where you can read up more on jobs and where to send resumes: http://www.hotschedules.com/jobs It doesn't list any specific job openings, but I'm not sure it ever did to be honest. Just send us something, and if everything looks good, I'm sure something can get worked out. If this is looked down upon (not sure what the BBS policy is?), I'll quit promoting our company and stick to the article.
Forget all that superficial BS, just give me a company that's light on politics and rewards achievement. (sounds easy but is almost impossible to find).
No such thing exists, unfortunately. Unless you're a loner and don't socialize whatsoever at work, but what fun is that...
I can't compare this company with others. As I said, this has been my only job...and I'm probably too young and naive anyway. But I think we do pretty good in those areas. That article doesn't touch on this unfortunately, but we tend to give out a lot of recognition and awards (including cash/prizes) for employees that go beyond the call of duty, so to speak. 2 outstanding members per quarter are selected, one by execs and one by whole company. I actually got one my first full quarter (definitely felt good given how much work I put in). Plenty of other chances for recognition too (we especially love it when our own clients offer praise to our staff). Wonder if that is related to the whole Millennial thing (we love our praise)? Of course, we like to promote people to other positions too (maybe a bit more meaningful way of rewarding achievement). I think we have an opening for a receptionist/office manager since the current one was offered a position elsewhere in the company (she hasn't even been here that long either). She was pretty awesome at her job, so hopefully we can get someone good to replace her. Couple other examples too, that just being the most recent example. Never seemed like there was much politics going on, but I might just be too naive. Seems like people are too busy playing ping pong, or playing pranks on our head of HR to really bother with that.
I spend a lot of time dealing with the age group under discussion and I've found the above information to be applicable to the vast majority of middle-class (and higher) kids in this age group. I've actually been shocked by it sometimes. Kids who seem incredibly confident, but they crumble almost immediately when faced with hardship they can't talk their way out of.
Your company is very good at making you feel good, they have made you feel loyal to them and you are working hard because of that.
Both of those things are driven by low self esteem and validated by self-promotion. Managers are just as lazy evaluating as they are at working.
I know a lot of good companies that operated this way, but got crushed in the recession. Now all of the job opportunities are at places where you basically sign up to get your soul sucked out of you.
Nice job, RC. This is what corporations and other companies have forgotten, in my opinion. When I was in school, I worked at a grocery store that is consistently ranked as one of the top 20 places to work in the country. The feel their was kind of like what you described your company as (only, we didn't have a sweet ping pong and gaming lair). Everyone got along, had a good time, and as long as we were sticking to food safety measures, and getting our work done, nobody had a problem with it. Many pranks were played, and it was a great time. Customers tend to notice this immediately, also. If employees are having a good time, smiling all the time, customers will be happy also. An employee's attitude is reciprocated in a customer's, in my opinion. I always tend to notice these things when shopping. Wal-Mart is consistently one of the worst places for this thing. The employees almost never seem to be happy or willing to help. Anyways, if I ever started a business, I would hope to run a company like this. I truly believe it makes a world of difference. In this day and age, companies take themselves too seriously, and will do anything for a profit. Sometimes, the complete opposite is what is needed to achieve the goal of having a successful company.
Yep, agreed. Works pretty well I'll admit. One thing I always thought was interesting is that we weren't really negatively affected too much by the recession (well...we could have grown FASTER I guess, we were hoping to get some clients on board but many had to delay decisions due to the economy). I started a little over 2 years ago (Summer 2009, right out of college). Maybe had 30-40 people. As the article points out, we have 64ish now, and are definitely hoping to have more soon. No layoffs, no benefit cuts (probably more benefits now...we didn't have a ping pong table initially, only a "HotBall" table), etc. Possibly would have grown faster, except we were a bit limited on office space. Our office expansion/move kept getting pushed back (probably delayed by 6-7 months IIRC), and people started having to share offices. Once that was taken care of, I think hiring picked up again. Revenue, etc. all our very healthy, although I'm not sure how much I can/should comment on that. Of course, I think a lot of companies are having record revenue/profits...but just refuse to reinvest it into their company/workers/customers. We're a bit of a special case I'm sure (we started hitting some crazy growth periods in the last few years as our business has gotten more and more successful), but I'd like to think a lot of our success can be attributed to our workplace environment and just general good management at the top. Agreed. Obviously biased (plus I definitely don't have experience running a business), but seems to work very well for us. Partly why I was interested in the whole "workplace environment" thing. Maybe we are a bit unique in some ways, but I think this could work for a lot of places. I remember wanting to work in video game development, but the generally horrible working conditions killed that idea pretty quickly. For more shameless self-promotion, I believe CNN will be airing a video segment today (~2PM central I think, although should be online too) to accompany the written story I linked to earlier. No idea what it includes, although looking forward to it. Wish they could show some of our pranks: <iframe width="425" height="349" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/HV7L2ajSPTs" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <iframe width="560" height="349" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/BY1XbDYQLgg" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> (I believe we actually kept that crawfish as a pet...so don't get mad at us PETA)
The article as a whole is pretty bad, but this is the most offensive. First, a 33 year old is talking about "his" generation to companies? A generation defined as 18-30? Then, he is talking about how "his" generation grew up listening to Baby Einstein? The company founded in 1996 but didn't really take off until 98-2000? Even and 18 year old wouldn't have grown up on that. Stupid.
yeah I don't get that, if you're 33 years old, you were born in the 70's - your parents were baby boomers, and hence you're Gen X, not Gen Y.
I noticed that as well, and my only explanation is that this guy is just capitalizing on the fact that a 20-something version of himself giving these speeches wouldn't get paid a dime. He's a Gen X-er who has apparently made it his mission to be "in-tune" with Gen Y.
