Hacker News Reader

Comment by hpoe | Hacker News Reader

> when the company asked a diverse group of consultants — including sociologists who study “Generation Z” and how junior high students socialize and learn — to imagine what future workers would want.

Danger Will Robinson Danger!

Why would anyone try and make decisions based on the preference of jr. High students. Making decisions based on youth in the most unstable period of their life when they are incredibly hormonal and still not all that logical seems like a recipe for disaster.

I don't know about you but my jr. High self was an idiot and nothing he said or did was a good idea.

Or is the idea that we don't want to have the next gen adapt to a new way of socializing and interacting in a professional workplace? That too seems like a bad move.

View on HN

It's not that they only consulted them, it's that they included them. That seems entirely reasonable - these people are going to be entering the workforce. Google wants to be attractive to them, or at the very least prevent being actively unattractive.

Additionally, gen Z is growing up with technology in a way that surpasses even millennials. They may have deep expectations about how technology should work in ways that older people don't.

Sure, but the grandparent alludes to the fact that what they think of as great now can easily change by the time they enter the workforce - and, given that we're talking about engineering jobs that usually require a degree, it will take some time.

Additionally, these people don't have much work experience. A lot of ideas - such as open offices, work from home or skipping documentation - feel fine until you've worked with them and found their drawbacks. It might work for some, but it does not for a lot of others.

I agree. I think as a society, we need to stop fetishizing youth. Not contempt - but tone it down a bit. Kids today have wanton access to internet and technology but aren't any smarter or better at making decisions. One might make an argument that they may be worse. Certainly more prone to group think than generations previous which is good and terrible at the same time.

> Kids today have wanton access to internet and technology but aren't any smarter or better at making decisions.

Citation needed, I guess? Teen pregnancies are way down, for example.

That could have as much to do with the contemporary social environment as it does with actual decisionmaking. Sex among youth is down overall - even pre-pandemic, iirc.

You don’t need to be extra smart to use a condom, just not being extra dumb. That’s a very low bar isn’t it?

Why anyone would ask sociologists about how tech work should be done is absolutely beyond me.

Think of it as a specialized systems engineering process, but with people. Sociologists are good at that.

In 7 years their L3 engineers are going to be those jr. high gen Z kids, and in real estate, your office furniture and space plans need to last at least 10-20 years.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com