My Team’s Gen Z and Gen X Are Dying to Exit the Workplace. I Nearly Died [Laughing].

Funny team members = Hilarious workplace

4 team members, 2 extremes, 2 residents in the middle.

When your team gets big enough, weirdoes from all walks of life start grabbing your attention. In my case, big enough refers to a headcount of 4.

And the funniest stories come from the extremes.

Isabelle, my Gen Z team member, has retired from work, at work. She gets busy growing her nursery in her cubicle and punches the clock at 4 pm.

Joe, my Gen X team member, is ever ready to push, push, push. He is dying to become my boss.

They make me laugh. Like, daily.

Isabelle and Joe Share 1 Similarity

In-principal, that is.

Both are dying to retire from the workplace. That is it. Everything else is comparable to night and day.

I will start with Isabelle… since she has taken my readers by storm and earned me decent coffee tips from HR practitioners.

“Fire Me, Please.”

My company had a retrenchment wave 3 months ago.

About 15% of my colleagues were asked to leave. Luckily for me, sales revenue secured by my team was climbing steadily. Our names are not scribbled into the Death Note.

Joe, Dora, and Alex breathed easy.

Isabelle was… upset.

And I got confused.

Upset? Why?

I had no idea. That is… until Dora whispered into my ear in the pantry one day.

“She is upset that she wasn’t fired.”

Did I hear wrongly? It is possible.

After all, I rushed a commercial proposal late last night for Angel [my boss] and slept only at 3 in the morning. My feet were light as I dragged myself to the lovely pantry coffee machine.

I got Dora to repeat herself.

She repeated word for word.

It felt as if a hydrogen bomb dropped on me. My mind went into hyperspace after the explosion.

Isabelle has been with me for 3 months and remains an alien. Second-guessing her thoughts is a perfect recipe for failure.

And I couldn’t hold myself back. I was too curious.

“Can you ask her to come to the pantry?”

Dora smiled and left.

Isabelle took her seat in front of me after 5 minutes. For once, she was punctual.

“What’s up, boss?”

I was straight to the point. I asked how Isabelle felt about the recent retrenchment wave and whether her motivation at work was affected.

Isabelle gave me an unbelievable reply.

“I was disappointed. I thought I would be fired. And I would be so happy! I mean… look. Everyone had a severance. Some of them, I heard, received 15 months of salary! How cool is that?”

I choked on my coffee. Almost.

It must be my fault. I should have explained things better.

“Isabelle, you are right, but not quite. It is one month of severance for 1 year of service. If you are fired with less than 2 years of service, you get 0.5. That’s it.”

Her Doe’s Eyes got bigger.

“Really? Only 0.5 months? Pathetic. I was thinking about retirement from the workplace after retrenchment. My Mum got retrenched and retired ever since. I want to follow in her footsteps.”

Huh? Follow what?

I almost died a million chuckles.

Retirement from the workplace? At 27? I had a few drips of coffee left, so I asked her why.

“I want to be a digital nomad, travel from Prague to Pontianak to Perth, and get my content to make money for me.”

I started tapping into all social platforms.

I couldn’t find her after repeated searches. Maybe she is using a different handle from her name? Could be. So, I asked her for it.

“I haven’t created any content yet. I am still learning from the best.”

Haha, okay.

Sure~

“Tell Me the Criteria for Double Promotion This Year.”

A different form of crazy.

This came from 48-year-old Joe.

Dora and Alex, the residents in the middle, call him a bulldozer behind his back. I can understand why.

Joe carries himself in a hurry. He is desperate to rise to the top. Fast. He forms a stark contrast to Isabelle.

• With Isabelle — I walk to her desk.
• With Joe — He crashes my office.

“What is the sales KPI for this year? If I can double or triple it, do I get a double promotion?”

His overbearing eagerness can be hilarious.

I thought he was motivated. Nay.

He was in a rush to retire, too.

“I tried building businesses. Flopped thrice. 7 years zapped just like that. My friends made me realize how far back I am. I must catch up. I must hit C-Suite level and retire at 55.”

He slapped me with numerous I must, I must, I must. And I MUST admit. It gets tiring at times.

I did the sums.

Joe is 48 this year. He aims to retire at 55. That means he has a 7-year runway.

He is currently at the senior sales consultant level. There are 6 levels between him and the C-Suite. Each level requires 2 years of at-level experience at minimum.

The math is impossible.

I shared this set of calculations with him. Joe got pissed.

“Don’t tell me it cannot be done! You are my reporting supervisor. You should be coaching me how! I will approach Angel if you are not the right person!”

I got hammered by his saliva again.

And I wondered what the problem lies. Like, really. The most experienced guy and my youngest team member are dying to retire from the workplace.

Or are they retiring from me?

And they are [both] doing their best to speed up the process.

Sometimes, they got so annoying… I thought about helping them accelerate a little.

Yes, I feel like firing them when they push my buttons. Life might feel [slightly] better at work without them. Maybe.

Angel, my boss, disagreed.

“Everyone wants a quick fix. It is normal. Besides, you never know who you will be hiring into the team. Are you sure you will not get another Isabelle or Joe? My experience tells me otherwise.”

Words of wisdom.

Of course. She is not dealing with their drama directly.

The Close

Isabelle, the youngest Gen Z team member, wants to receive a severance package and retire for good.

Joe, my Gen X experience hire, wants to rocket himself into the C-Suite via double promotion year after year. Oh, and to retire from the top at 55.

Both are trying to exit the workplace fast.

They got me thinking.

Why so?

No idea.

Here’s what I know.

Isabelle has the prettiest sunflower and cactus in the office. I praised them once. She smiled, tied a yellow ribbon on the cactus, and gave it to me as a gift.

I smiled back.

This happened while Joe was bossing Dora and Alex around to get more work done…

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Oh, oh, you can buy me a cup of black too! Thank you!