General Discussion

Working in HR, I can tell you stories about entitled young folks and their enabling parents!

I once had a young woman starting her first job out of college. She was to work under me (I hired her and was really looking forward to it because I recruited her and she killed in the interviews - all 6 of them). Well, on her start date, I(and a majority of the executive staff) was called away to deal with a major crisis; but before I left ... I greeted and welcomed her, told her as much about the crisis as I could and asked that she familiarize herself with the organization's structure (who is who and does what) and the organizations policies and procedures, and I would check on her through out the day.

Her response: a smile and a "I think I would rather go with you to deal with the crisis."

My response: a smile and a "Yeah, I'll bet; but we don't want to give you the wrong impression on your first day." With that I left think, "Wow ... She's got jokes. We're gonna get along fine!" As I was headed out of the suite, I asked my assistant to look in on her.

Well ... turns out I was out most of the day and could only call into the office twice. When the meeting broke (at 4:45), I call and I got her voice mail. I then called my assistant to tell her I'd be back to the office by 5:15p.m. When I got back to the office, my new hire was gone. I spoke with my assistant and he told me that my new hire had spent the morning on the phone and had left about 3:00p.m. and didn't return.

But that's not the eye opening part ... at 9:00a.m. the next morning, I got a call from the new hire's mother, who yelled at me and told me how horrible a boss I was for ignoring her little precious!

I waited for her to pause, then responded: "Thank you for the feedback. And, please pass on to your daughter that I accept her resignation and, FWIW, I think she has made the best decision for both herself and the organization."