{"id":21,"date":"2018-02-12T09:43:07","date_gmt":"2018-02-12T14:43:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/sociology-3010-spring-2018\/?page_id=21"},"modified":"2018-04-03T12:43:29","modified_gmt":"2018-04-03T16:43:29","slug":"log-1","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/sociology-3010-spring-2018-kschutze\/data-collection-logs\/log-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Log 1"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul>\n<li><em>Between weeks 8 and 12, each student should provide a weekly reflection (500 words) on the data you have collected to date. <\/em>\n<ul>\n<li><em>What data did you collect?<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>What is your initial impression of the data? <\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>How have the data you have collected this week changed\/progressed your thinking about your research project? <\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>What challenges did you encounter while collecting the data? <\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>What are your next steps?<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I began my inquiry by examining what popular economic news sources and research institutions like Forbes, Gallup and Fortune are reporting about Millennial workplace trends and habits. Articles and reports pointed overwhelmingly to Millennial interest in finding \u201cspecial meaning\u201d (Lewis-Kulin and Peters 2017) and pursuing purpose and development through their work (Gallup 2016). These articles did not bash these changes, but rather suggested adaptations for workplaces.<\/p>\n<p>A 2016 report by Gallup noted six important shifts for Millennials in the workplace: 1) Millennials don\u2019t just want a paycheck \u2014 they want a purpose. 2) Millennials are not pursuing job satisfaction, but development 3) Millennials want \u201ccoaches\u201d not bosses 4) Millennials don\u2019t want ongoing conversations about performance rather than annual reviews 5) Millennials don\u2019t want to fix their weaknesses \u2014 they want to develop their strengths. 6) Millennials think of their work as their life, not their job.<\/p>\n<p>I also found a set of studies on Millennials in the workplace conducted by Bentley University. Interestingly, the primary challenges reported by Millennial parents who are managers in the work place, \u201cFinding time for me\u201d (76 percent), \u201cGetting enough sleep\u201d (67 percent) and \u201cManaging personal and professional life\u201d (67 percent) are logically connected to the kinds of changes Millennials want for their work lives (Center for Women and Business, Bentley University 2017). Millennials prioritize time allocation, relationships and job security, all of which can be understood as values flowing from what they saw their parents lack (Center for Women and Business, Bentley University 2017). I was surprised to read that Millennials are as satisfied in their jobs as older generations (Inc 2017) and that they expect to work more hours per week\u2014which is not to say they find that acceptable or right\u2014than the previous generation (Friedman 2013). To me, these two things point to Millennials not feeling <em>entitled <\/em>to better more meaningful work conditions, but rather advocating for them with a degree of awareness about the hard work demanded of them.<\/p>\n<p>Millennials are often positioned as the tech-absorbed generation, but as was shown in <em>Masters of Craft,<\/em> it seems as though Millennial workplace trends are a backlash against the depersonalization we associate with technology: According to Marx\u2019s theory of alienation, freely deciding to work and the nature of that work is required for man\u2019s body to belong to himself. Under other conditions, man is alienated from his body and spirit, making him akin to an animal (Schutzer 2016). When Millennials seek purpose over paycheck, ongoing conversations instead of annual reviews and prioritize their development over their satisfaction, they are exercising agency directing their work life.<\/p>\n<p>A Marxist framework appears increasingly central to my research. Thinking about the proliferation of communist and socialist-themed memes, I am curious about the degree to which millennials can trace their own workplace ideals to academic texts like Marx\u2019s <em>Capital <\/em>and <em>The Communist Manifesto.<\/em> While these ideas would have been not only taboo but threatening under the bipolar political realities of the Cold War, perhaps these ideas have made an explicit comeback for Millennials who are more distant from the Cold War.<\/p>\n<p>I started my research considering what information might be missing in order to discern what I might want to include in my survey. There is an incredible amount of existing data about Millennials in the workplace, but so much of it seems malleable and subjective both in interpretation and from the perspective of respondents. I don\u2019t know how I am going to string together politics, economics and history in a meaningful way given the immense room for interpretation.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Next Steps:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Develop survey\n<ul>\n<li>Research how to develop questions that may get at where Millennials have developed their ideas about the workplace<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Evaluate Gallup\u2019s assertions about Millennial trends<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Between weeks 8 and 12, each student should provide a weekly reflection (500 words) on the data you have collected to date. What data did you collect? What is your initial impression of the data? How have the data you have collected this week changed\/progressed your thinking about your research project? What challenges did you &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/sociology-3010-spring-2018-kschutze\/data-collection-logs\/log-1\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Log 1&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":15,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-21","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/sociology-3010-spring-2018-kschutze\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/21","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/sociology-3010-spring-2018-kschutze\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/sociology-3010-spring-2018-kschutze\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/sociology-3010-spring-2018-kschutze\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/sociology-3010-spring-2018-kschutze\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/sociology-3010-spring-2018-kschutze\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/21\/revisions"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/sociology-3010-spring-2018-kschutze\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/15"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/sociology-3010-spring-2018-kschutze\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}