Updatezz

I have just been confirmed! Its another small step in a long journey. It's customary for my company to perform a confirmation apparaisal to assess the employee's traits and of course, suitability in his role. It is possible to extend the probation another 3 months (my goodness!) or simply being asked to leave. Fortunately I have received a pretty good grade and was confirmed in my position.

I will skip my strengths (pm me if you are interested Mich), my areas for improvement are:

1) Speak up more

This I agree, and this is common for newbies.

2) Improve presentation to management

Now this stung me. I thought I was a pretty fair presenter; not excellent but should have no problems getting my ideas across. My manager's comments were that I have to structure the information in the management's shoes and present in their interest. That really got me thinking as I have missed the importance of relating to the target audience and what they are interested in. Gotta work on this 1.

3) Gen Y difference - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_Y

My VP quoted this scenario to me. By the way, this really happened during my second month, just that I didnt take it to heart.

We were inside this meeting, hosting some external vendors giving a presentation on their IT solution. Before the start of the presentation, my VP was pouring drinks for everybody. There were a total of 5 persons; 2 external vendors, my manager, VP and myself. My VP was passing the water around and he passed 1 cup to me. So I took it, said thanks and sat down.

Does this sound ok to you? Apparently, he cited this example as the Gen Y difference.

He felt that I should not be the 1 sitting down drinking water. I should be the 1 pouring drinks for everybody as we were the hosts and I am the most junior staff inside the room. I cant say I disagree on this point. It was true that I could have taken the initiative to start pouring drinks and serving everybody. His next comment was the 1 that really got me agitated.

He mentioned that people from Gen Y are used to being served.

I totally disagree on this point. Of course, I didnt said this in front of him. I just kept smiling and laughed it off. From his words, I now have a better understanding of his expectations (for youngsters like me), which I think is more traditional.

What do you think?