Prompt the best online shop on sale of Books.

This was the line that really got me though,

"For these new 20-something workers, the line between work and home doesn’t really exist."

Tell me about it! I'm living in my office (literally) right now to deal with my debt issues. Great stuff.

~debtkid

+1 to Tim’s response.

It sounds like you learned a lesson from your previous experience. I had a similar lesson when I turned 30, I’m 32 now. After that experience my views on the workplace changed. My takeaway from that experience was that:

You need to respect your job and workplace. Leave the brazen attitude at home.

Managers don’t care about your feelings or frustrations. A good manager/leader will listen to your needs but at the end of the day, they need a job done, that’s what you get paid for. They don’t care how much talent you have, they need results. This saying was ingrained to me from a former manager “hard work is always appreciated but results matter”.

I applaud your efforts for wanting to develop your soft skills; I realized this in my late 20’s. My suggestion is to start with “How to win friends and influence people” by Dale Carnegie. I also recommend the popular books by John Maxwell.

Take the initiative on finding a mentor. Don’t limit yourself to mentors in the workplace. Seek successful people in your community and industry.

Be patient, your career is a marathon, not a sprint.

Just my two cents, and, in my day, two cents realy meant something. Why, you could buy a Squirrel Nut. Make that two Squirrel Nuts…

As for mentoring, one of the great career satisfactions I've had is the ability to act as a mentor. If your company doesn't have formal mentoring – and I suspect most don't – new employees should figure out who might be willing and able to take them under their wing. Most people, I suspect, will be flattered to be approached by a younger colleague.

I agree!–more companies should provide mentors for new employees. Unfortunately, the sad fact is that most companies are so lean that mentor programs, while a great idea, are a strain on employees who are already putting in a ton of hours.

Oddly, I bet "seasoned" employees who do choose to mentor new workers will find greater overall satisfaction in their job–and become even more productive.

Just watch the winners in the company. Learn from them–don't copy them–but learn how and why they are successful–let's call it Stealth Mentoring!

Then think about that and how you can then use your style to achieve success.

Keep hanging in there. No company is perfect–remember they are managed by humans–but you'll find a good match sooner or later (hopefully sooner!).

Tim

It was 10 and a half months I was in the job, I've been out of work for 2 1/2. :) But not to nit pick.

I totally agree with all your points, and of course it is a lot of more soft skills than hard when it comes to dealing with coworkers.

My post was more of a venting of frustration. A lot of wasted talent on people who are just coming out of school and might not be as adept in all those soft skills techniques, but need to be coddled a bit, and I definitely think that is one thing I missed at my former job.

There needs to be more emphasis on mentoring and soft-skills development. My honesty in my feelings about my job to both HR and my immediate manager were what, frankly, came back to my bite me in the ass. As sad as it sounds, I will likely keep more of those emotions to myself and keep my mouth shut when it comes to frustration, because as I commonly heard at my previous job from my superiors, "Is it done yet?" without a second thought to the soft-skills needed to handle today's Gen Y'ers.

One more thing…I shouldn't have assumed you were only in your job for 2 and half months. It appears that's how long, but I could have jumped to a conclusion there. My point is that sometimes it takes longer than we'd like for the boss/department to take us as seriously as we'd like to be taken. But the more you invest in them–work and good attitude–the sooner they'll trust you.

Tim

Your comment about being "…the ambitious Gen Y’er in a sea of complacent baby boomers," struck a chord. One of the biggest reasons new employees don't work out is, not because of a lack of talent, but a failure to fit in with the culture of the company and/or department. Your comment reveals a lot about how you felt about them–and I don't think it was lost on them.
It's not surprising the job didn't work out. Remember, they saw something in you when they hired you. They wanted you to succeed.

Before your boss or fellow employees will ever buy into your ideas, you have to prove a lot to them. Once they know you are someone who consistently delivers and who has a great attitude, they may not seem so complacent to you anymore. They should be much more willing to listen to what you have to say.

But how you say something is just as important as what you say. Two and half months is not very long to prove yourself to people who have invested a lot of time and sweat into their jobs/careers at the company.

Much of this is taken from a response I posted over at
employeeevolution.com.
So I apologize in advance to those of you who read employeeevolution.com. (Tiffany from littleredsuit.com had a fantastic post there as well under "Tech-savvy youth can’t beat efficient elders…or can they?").

What to think about in your next job:

How does your company/department communicate?
How does your boss like to receive ideas?
What is his work style? How does he like to be approached?
Learn the soft skills! It’s not all about work–it’s
about relationships!

This isn’t about kissing ass.
It’s about learning how to get your message across,
your ideas appreciated and how to best work with
your boss.

The little things are important.

Each boss has their own style of management. Your passion
and ideas, etc. may be great, but you have to fit it into
your supervisor’s style. This whole company culture stuff
is a pain, but if you want to succeed, it’s vital to learn.

I’ve seen good employees do down because they
didn’t pay attention to how to talk to the boss and/or figure out
what’s important to him.

Watch him (or her). Watch how he interacts with
others. What works, what doesn’t. Learn from this!

Don’t be someone else, but learn how your
style can work with his/her style.

It's a pain that all new employees have to go through.
It's not all about the work…it’s about building relationships within the office/company, too.

I'm not trying to scold you or your generation.
Far from it. This is just some advice I'm passing on. As is said above, I've seen some good employees fail for no other reason than they ignored the culture of the company.

Good luck in your job search!

Tim