Alex Buscemi
It’s a sentiment you’ve heard countless times and it’ll make you either nod your head in agreement or let out an exasperated groan: “Gen Z is too soft.”
The stereotype says that Gen Z, those born between the mid-to-late ’90s and early 2010s, aren’t as emotionally resilient as previous generations. They can’t handle stress or adversity and any negative criticism will reduce them to a sobbing mess. But is it true?
Things like this are tough to measure. However, experts agree that Gen Z has grown up under more stressors than many in the Western world have faced in a long time. They’ve come of age during a dramatic moment of social upheaval. They face a more uncertain economic future. They’re also more conscious of their emotions — and more willing to express them. Considering these factors, it tracks that Gen Z could be perceived as more fragile.
The classic debate has been reignited by a recent TikTok video wherein user @thirtynotthriving shared an interesting restaurant experience and gave some advice on how to deal with Gen Z’s supposedly tender emotions.
This woman made a video after seeing a Gen Z employee reduced to tears by her older employer
“This has happened two times now. I’ve just witnessed such a crazy display of Gen X not working well with Gen Z. It just is like f****** not working. So I live on the sunny coast and, I don’t know, I’ve had this experience two times now in the last few months. And I don’t know whether it’s a sunny coast thing or if it’s like a generational thing. But hear me out.”
“I just went and got this baguette with ham and cheese. My order was taken by a young girl. She was probably like, I don’t know, 16, 17, maybe 18. I don’t know, couldn’t really tell. I could tell she was young. She didn’t seem very confident. So I was just like, you know, ‘Take your time. I’m in no rush. You do you.’ So she puts my order through and fumbled a bit. I think this is probably going to go one of two ways. It’s either going to come out perfect or it’s going to come out completely wrong. 15 minutes pass. Okay, all I ordered was a sandwich. 15 minutes pass and I hear her speaking to some other people at the restaurant just saying like, ‘Oh, wait, what was your order again? I forgot.’ And I was like, okay, she’s definitely forgotten my order. That’s fine. But then she goes inside and she tells her boss that she’s already forgotten the order that she’s taken outside. And then the door closes, like that’s going to help. It’s literally like an old Queenslander building. We can hear everything.”
“And then he starts yelling at her saying, ‘You can’t just keep forgetting orders. Like, you can’t do this.’ He’s yelling. She’s panicking, obviously. She starts crying. Oh, my God. Nobody’s technically in the wrong, it’s just that she’s obviously forgotten the order and she’s obviously gotten a little bit frazzled. And then he’s… It’s not like he was being aggressive. He was just obviously quite frustrated. Could he have handled it differently? Absolutely. Would I ever yell at somebody? No. Or at my staff? Absolutely not. But both, you know, are in their right to say something. But then she starts crying and he’s like, ‘It’s okay. It’s okay, it’s okay. Like, you know, whatever, we’ll figure it out.’”
She goes on to describe another instance where she saw an older manager raising their voice at a Gen Z employee, who was similarly panicked by the encounter
“This happened to me a couple of months ago at another cafe where the young kid was crying and really panicking, really, really panicking, hyperventilating almost, because she’s f***** up the orders and then the owner, who is definitely Gen X or Boomer, is quite vocal in their outrage, not in an aggressive way like he wanted to step in, but in a way that was loud enough that everybody in the restaurant can hear. So yeah, it’s just like this intense relationship between older managers and business owners and their younger staff. And you’re hiring young staff because you don’t want to pay much which I get that, business is tough.”
She adds that employers should be more gentle with Gen Z as they are “more soft” than previous generations
“But you need to learn how to work with younger people, especially different generations. Gen Z is more soft, they’re more fragile. They want to work more collaboratively, they… just like whatever, and you can’t just f****** yell at them, that’s not… that isn’t going to help them. You shouldn’t yell at anybody, that isn’t going to help anybody. I think when a Gen X yells at a Gen X… I mean, I don’t know maybe back in the workforce when a Gen X yelled at a Gen X, they’d just pull up their socks and just get on with it like, ‘Well, I’ll f*****g show them. I’m gonna work the hardest I’ve ever worked.’
The youngest generation in the workforce right now. I think they’re just like heartbroken, like, ‘This is too much, l don’t know, I just cannot f*****g handle this.’ It’s just a sandwich. But anyway, I got my sandwich. Was it worth the 30-minute wait? Absolutely not. But that says more about the restaurant than the young girl crying. Anyway, I think just people need to learn how to work with each other better and have a great day.”
Commenters had a mixed reaction to her video
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