Millennial Writer Cries at Work, Puts
Mother on Speakerphone after Editor
Corrects Her Spelling
PJ Media,
by
Stephen Green
Original Article
Posted By: Hazymac,
7/16/2019 8:05:05 AM
How does a boss manage a worker who believes their feelings trump reality, right down to the way she "feels" about her misspelled words?
Gently. And probably badly, even though that's no fault of the boss in question.
Carol Blymire -- a "communications and public policy executive, branding consultant, professor, writer" -- took to Twitter on Friday to tell the story she overheard of a young writer, probably "in her late 20s," going over edits with her boss. (Snip) What issue caused mentor and student such agitation and aggravation? Had the boss been needlessly cruel? Had the young writer pushed some radical agenda, and was refusing to tamp it down
Reply 1 - Posted by:
tessie 7/16/2019 8:15:49 AM (No. 125084)
I read this as it unfolded on Twitter. I don't know what was more disturbing, the whip Millennial or the co-worker who shared the episode on public domain.
9 people like this.
Reply 2 - Posted by:
Rather Read 7/16/2019 8:20:05 AM (No. 125090)
I wonder if this is made up? I hope so. If I was the manager, that woman would have been fired immediately.
15 people like this.
Reply 3 - Posted by:
F15 Gork 7/16/2019 8:26:37 AM (No. 125105)
Millennials are enough to make one turn pro choice........
14 people like this.
Reply 4 - Posted by:
HotRod 7/16/2019 8:30:04 AM (No. 125110)
They don't call them snowflakes for nothing! They melt down when they are criticized or don't get their way.
31 people like this.
Reply 5 - Posted by:
chumley 7/16/2019 8:38:07 AM (No. 125126)
I had a similar experience with some millennial relatives on FB. I chided one who was being absolutely absurd and inappropriate with the vulgarity. I said it was not convincing anyone of their argument and the sign of someone who was low rent and not raised right.
The firestorm I was hit with was unbelievable; mostly consisting of misspelled words and fbombs from strangers.
I'm no prude. I've spent plenty of time in factories, barracks and locker rooms. I'm no stranger to such language and have used plenty myself. That doesn't mean it is appropriate for public consumption. Every other word does not have to begin with an F.
55 people like this.
Reply 6 - Posted by:
Bur Oak 7/16/2019 8:39:03 AM (No. 125127)
About 15 years ago I fired a married man about 35 years old. His mother called the president of the company to complain about me.
32 people like this.
Reply 7 - Posted by:
NorthernDog 7/16/2019 8:52:53 AM (No. 125145)
Reminds me that some teachers have been admonished for using a red pen to correct homework assignments and tests. Apparently the color red is 'mean' and 'startling' for precious Millennials.
25 people like this.
Reply 8 - Posted by:
montwoodcliff 7/16/2019 8:56:42 AM (No. 125148)
Q: How much is 2+2
A: 5
Teacher: Close enough!
If that snowflake went to her boss's boss, she would be fired. My son fired a worker who kept coming in always a half hour to hour late. When he discussed it with her, she said, that's the way we did it at Princeton. That did not go over well. She too, was crying on her way out.
19 people like this.
Reply 9 - Posted by:
Ida Lou Pino 7/16/2019 9:24:54 AM (No. 125182)
I ugree width the yung ladee. Werts shut be spield tho wey dey mayk yu feeel gud>
Howe kin yu rite eef yu doan feeel gud;
21 people like this.
Reply 10 - Posted by:
hurricanegirl 7/16/2019 9:25:55 AM (No. 125186)
FTA: "How does a boss manage a worker who believes their feelings trump reality, right down to the way she "feels" about her misspelled words?"
You fire them and "gently" suggest as they're stomping out the door that they GROW UP!!!
11 people like this.
Reply 11 - Posted by:
mizzmac 7/16/2019 9:29:12 AM (No. 125187)
If a man can call himself a woman because he feels like one (or likes dresses), why can't a professional writer spell a word incorrectly because she wants to? This is what she's been taught: whatever she thinks or feels is right, and no absolutes exist. For anything. See what we've done?
13 people like this.
Reply 12 - Posted by:
Highlander 7/16/2019 9:29:51 AM (No. 125188)
It truly is a shock to the psyche to be confronted with the reality that what you accepted as right and true, and internalized, is wrong. That fragile little thing’s mother betrayed her in not preparing her to accept justified criticism in the real world.
13 people like this.
Reply 13 - Posted by:
Lawsy0 7/16/2019 9:38:44 AM (No. 125195)
I could crawl under the porch at the embarrassing memory of the time I stuck Webster's Dictionary under my wonderful boss's nose to show him I had spelled a word correctly. Then I slammed the dictionary down on my desk. He calmly walked over to my desk and quietly said, ''There are two books that are shown our undying respect. One is the Holy Bible the other is any dictionary of our precious language.'' Then he went to lunch. I went into eternal shame at the thought of what I had done.
9 people like this.
Reply 14 - Posted by:
Edgelady 7/16/2019 9:51:58 AM (No. 125204)
I used to work in HR in a law firm in the late 1980's and hired potential legal secretaries, testing applicants' spelling, grammar, etc. I started to notice that young ladies that graduated in the late '70's and '80's had test scores on spelling and grammar that were significantly lower than women my age and even 10 years younger than me. As time went on and still younger women came in scores got worse. And it wasn't just the computer age, we were still using a main frame computer system, desktops didn't come until late 80's early 90's. It was the public education system! And what's not learned in public school can be attained by reading, reading something other than romance novels or Cosmopolitan. These young ladies were even then woefully prepared for the real world. I wouldn't be surprised if this Twitter story was truthful.
11 people like this.
Reply 15 - Posted by:
fayebeck 7/16/2019 10:09:29 AM (No. 125226)
I bet the chick spells it New Hamshure. She does sound like a typical female to me. Next comes the criminal charges. My wife before she become sane would accuse me of "hating ALL women" when I would suggest that she go back to learn to cook.
2 people like this.
Reply 16 - Posted by:
DVC 7/16/2019 10:11:31 AM (No. 125227)
They really do need to grow up.
Too many participation trophies and never being told "NO" and given any real correction.
Embarrassingly foolish, childish, and ultimately hopeless unless she grows up.
At that age, I wonder if is is even possible?
8 people like this.
Reply 17 - Posted by:
fayebeck 7/16/2019 10:13:53 AM (No. 125231)
I have to remind #3 that it's Not the School's Fault. It's the PARENTS FAULT fhat the ditzy chick can't spell.
6 people like this.
Reply 18 - Posted by:
Rinktum 7/16/2019 10:20:05 AM (No. 125240)
We have abandoned absolutes and it is biting us in the figurative backside with enthusiasm. There is no authority to look to for guidance as everyone is their own little arbiter of right and wrong. Young people are weak, soft and have been brainwashed to believe the world should be fair. In the past, children learned that life is not fair. Anything worth doing is probably going to be hard, and you learn from failures much more than from your successes.
These young people have been done such a disservice by their parents and others. The School of Hard Knocks is going to have to serve as their grad school because if they don’t grow up, they will fail as workers, spouses, parents and human beings. Sounds like this young lady needs to apply immediately. Parents if you care about your children, let them fail in the little things while they are young and they will learn that life is not fair. The best lessons in life are the ones you learn the hard way. They build character, determination and, self-confidence.
12 people like this.
Reply 19 - Posted by:
mc squared 7/16/2019 10:20:42 AM (No. 125242)
Going to get worse as Illegal Citizens flood the school system and grades must not be lowered.
8 people like this.
Reply 20 - Posted by:
F16 guy 7/16/2019 10:24:06 AM (No. 125247)
This is a regular occurance in the business world!
7 people like this.
Reply 21 - Posted by:
padiva 7/16/2019 10:32:16 AM (No. 125258)
About 20 years ago, I worked for a software company. The owner had prepared several pages to be sent to the customers. I found errors in it. My immediate boss was not in that day. I didn't want the errors to go to the customers.
At the end of the day, I took the papers and my corrections to the owner. He calmly said 'Constructive criticism is always appreciated.'
8 people like this.
This story reminds me of my first day as a cub reporter on a daily newspaper. My editor pointed out a word I had misspelled and told me to look it up in the dictionary (yes, I’m that old). I couldn’t find the word in the dictionary and couldn’t figure out why. He pointed out that was because I was pronouncing it wrong. The word was “memento,” which I had always pronounced “momento.” That word stuck in my head and over the years I’ve noticed that so many people also pronounce it incorrectly.
5 people like this.
Reply 23 - Posted by:
PlayItAgain 7/16/2019 11:10:41 AM (No. 125293)
These are the people who believe that you can "identify" your gender.
Thankfully, science and reality still rule in some areas. V still equals IR.
If that ever gets "redefined" we're toast.
3 people like this.
Reply 24 - Posted by:
maryann4629 7/16/2019 11:10:47 AM (No. 125294)
When my kids were in early elementary school, I talked to a teacher friend who said she "loved" to see misspellings because it means that kids are being creative, and writing about things beyond their spelling lists, or something. Okay. That's probably all right--up til middle school (at the latest.) At some point the little snowflake in the article needed to be held accountable and taught that she isn't always right.
6 people like this.
Reply 25 - Posted by:
ARKfamily 7/16/2019 11:32:05 AM (No. 125306)
Just seems like people can't humble themselves when they make a mistake. . .
4 people like this.
Reply 26 - Posted by:
bad-hair 7/16/2019 11:51:46 AM (No. 125328)
Cwy me a wivver.
4 people like this.
Reply 27 - Posted by:
DVC 7/16/2019 11:56:49 AM (No. 125335)
FTA:
"Young woman: “But you don’t know that! I learned to spell it with a P in it so that’s how I spell it.”
This is HILARIOUS. What a sad, childish little fool she is. I hope she gets fired, THAT just might give her a wakeup call, but probably not.
Loser.
5 people like this.
Reply 28 - Posted by:
Nimby 7/16/2019 12:03:38 PM (No. 125341)
And now schools want to do away with GRE for admissions!!! Go figure!
2 people like this.
Reply 29 - Posted by:
TheRevJMP 7/16/2019 12:09:20 PM (No. 125345)
Come on. I know the millennial generation is self-centered and soft, but this has to be fake news. Doesn't it?
1 person likes this.
Reply 30 - Posted by:
chumley 7/16/2019 12:09:36 PM (No. 125346)
#7's post reminds me of one in the military in the 2000's. A young airman didn't like his annual performance rating. Rather than press on and try to do better next year, he told his wife. His wife was an airman on the Wing Commander's staff. She was pretty and blonde but none too bright. She stomped into the General's office and tried to get him to "fix it".
The General called our commander, a colonel, and asked him if he knew his airmen were jumping the chain of command. The colonel was embarrassed and called the husband airman in for a chat. They say echoes of the "chat" are still reverberating through squadron HQ. Meanwhile the blonde wife was unceremoniously fired by the General and returned to whatever menial job she originally came from.
The story is still told to new troops as a warning.
4 people like this.
Her Mom is the one at fault. Wonder which college she paid to get her daughter into?
4 people like this.
Reply 32 - Posted by:
EQKimball 7/16/2019 12:23:50 PM (No. 125359)
When both spellings are correct (they are), reference should to the publication's style book. I never heard of an editor so patient and a writer so childish.
1 person likes this.
Reply 33 - Posted by:
Vaquero45 7/16/2019 12:42:06 PM (No. 125379)
#33, you can bet she went to some "Ivy League" school for upwards of $50,000 a year. This is a common problem at every newspaper, monthly magazine, and major corporation in the U.S.A.
I spent over 30 years handling claims for a very large property/casualty insurer. During the last six or seven years, I kept a copy of the Gregg Reference Manual at my desk, and had to pull it out about twice a week to show people the error of their ways. They confused "except" with "accept", "there" with "their", "your" with "you're", and amazingly enough, "ensure" with "insure". I had to tell a colleague (who had just gotten an MBA) that "denial" was the act of saying "no", whereas the way he spelled it - "denile" - was a bad way to name a river in Egypt. This problem went all the way up to upper management. Millenials, of course, are the worst offenders, because NOBODY ever taught them that they were wrong!
We'll get our revenge when we land in nursing homes. We'll be able to write graffiti on the bathroom walls that none of the staff will be able to read: we'll write it in cursive!
7 people like this.
Reply 34 - Posted by:
nosillod 7/16/2019 12:51:36 PM (No. 125388)
I once had an employee who's mom called in to tell me he was quitting. He was in his mid 30's. Never did hear from him. I recently terminated a 23 year old young man who was told to deliver some equipment to a customer who was waiting on it and expecting it. When asked why he didn't deliver it he just waived his hand and said "Whatever"
4 people like this.
Reply 35 - Posted by:
Maggie2u 7/16/2019 1:07:34 PM (No. 125401)
True story, it just happened this week. We have 5 children, 4 are GenXers, the youngest is a millennial. (He's a bit younger than the others.) He moved back home a couple of years ago and since then, because we have not been well, he does most of the shopping. He claims he can't read cursive, so I've taken to printing out the shopping lists. Well, the other day, I had two lists, one for a fabric store (cursive) and another for Costco, he grabbed the wrong list. When he came home, I was kind of laughing and said when did you realize you had the wrong list. He said when he couldn't read it and asked a lady my age to read it to him, his smirk disappeared when I replied, 'I bet all she said to you was...'Millenials.'
1 person likes this.
Reply 36 - Posted by:
lakerman1 7/16/2019 1:14:42 PM (No. 125410)
Back in the 1980s, a colleague teaching in our graduate program corrected the grammar and spelling on a new student's paper.
The student became irate, and said, 'my mother does all my papers.'
And he dropped out of our program.
And during my time as a Business School dean, a mother called me and said her son was in an 8 AM accounting class - that he was not a morning person, and she demanded I transfer him to an afternoon accounting class.
I told her to come to the afternoon class, where there were forty students filling the forty seats, and point out to me which of the forty students
that I should remove from the class, to make room for her son.
She hung up.
4 people like this.
Reply 37 - Posted by:
dbdiva 7/16/2019 1:54:14 PM (No. 125444)
Sadly these parents don't understand that they are doing their kids a serious disservice. By coddling them and wrapping them in cotton they are not teaching them the skills needed to navigate adulthood; nor are they teaching them resilience.
At some point in their lives their feelings WILL be hurt probably more than once. I can guarantee it. Also eventually Mommy will be gone and will no longer be available to intercede on her darling's behalf.
I know some lessons are hard to teach but they are well worth the effort if only so the rest of us can avoid all the mush minded millenial morons who will be infesting workplaces everywhere. Thankfully I'm retired but the last six months I worked I was responsible for training a millenial who had the attention span of a new born gnat. There were many days when I just wanted to smack him but luckily I was able to restrain myself!
I can only imagine how employers will fare when millenials are all they've got.
3 people like this.
Reply 38 - Posted by:
zoidberg 7/16/2019 2:05:24 PM (No. 125459)
#10 - 2+2=5, for large values of 2.
2 people like this.
Reply 39 - Posted by:
jeffkinnh 7/16/2019 2:23:09 PM (No. 125475)
You DO know that spelling words correctly is part of old white male privilege, right? Some old white guy wrote down his opinion as to how the word should be spelled and pronounced and that's what stuck. Now we have young brave radicals that want to have THEIR privilege. The problem is, they EACH want to have their privilege, meaning that there could be a hundred different spellings for the same word reducing the language to meaninglessness. Of course the millennials cannot foresee this problem or care. All that matters is their feelings.
More and more people are being raised that have no critical thinking ability. There is a cry about the discrepancy between highly paid people and those not. The lack of the ability to think and therefore produce useful work is a root reason for that gap. The slackers are anchored on the bottom by their own absence of skill. The producers are continually rising. It's not surprising that the gap between them continually grows.
1 person likes this.
Reply 40 - Posted by:
kono 7/16/2019 3:17:01 PM (No. 125492)
I wish #34 had cited a reference that says both spellings are correct. M-W indicates that in medical contexts it is also acceptable to pronounce it "hampster"; but the only acceptable spelling given for any context is "hamster".
This story made me grimace, like it did for many others here. But it also made me smile, because it was the word that prompted me to learn to consult the dictionary in 2nd grade (49 or 50 years ago)... when I got dinged for spelling it with a 'p'.
4 people like this.
Reply 41 - Posted by:
skacmar 7/16/2019 5:06:07 PM (No. 125554)
Sorry Mom, we don't discuss personnel issues of employees with others due to confidentiality (I have had to actually say this before). The employee is then made to cry even more as we have a discussion about listening to your supervisor, this is not college or high school anymore. Also, there are a lot of other "writers" who would happily spell hamster without a P and would not argue about it. Is how a word spelled really worth losing your job?
1 person likes this.
Reply 42 - Posted by:
Zarin 7/16/2019 10:23:47 PM (No. 125772)
Oh, yes OP! Language is sacred. The Word of God has created us all. Thus we need to be precise in our usage of words. We cannot communicate if we cannot agree on the definitions of words. That is something the Communists have used and still use to destroy the culture, distorting meanings to sow confusion. Spelling has always been difficult as in the past as we did not have so many books and interconnections to standardize the language. Once Webster got his dictionary into print spelling should have become fairly stable. Then some idiot 20th century Education School decided that spelling was secondary & not important. Now we have the younger generations who have no respect for the language and have been coddled to the point of mental illness. NB Jonathan Haidt & Greg Lukianoff's 'Coddling of the American Mind.' These kids have been encouraged by their parents & teachers to be weak, to be offended, & to be self-centered narcissists. Their manner of thinking is pathological in that they use cognitive distortions quite readily - and no one is disagreeing with their erroneous thinking patterns. They often jump to conclusions, catastrophize, use emotion rather than reason, blame others, use black & white arguments, etc. The result is that 20% of them are demanding more mental health clinics at the universities.
1 person likes this.