68 Annoying Gen Z Office Behaviors That Might Have Millennials Questioning The Future Of Work

Professionalism has gone out the window. My younger coworkers talk to clients of our business like they are best friends. They dress (and often look) like they are going to bed or more likely just rolled out of bed. One had her back cheeks hanging out. Another had her entire bra showing. Be on time- walking in at 9:01 is not how to properly be on time. Get off your phone.

Worst though… entitlement.

When they won’t Google basic terms they’re not familiar with. It’s weird because I’ve interacted with people who don’t even try it before asking someone else. Everyone has their own work to do - they’re not NPCs that are only here to explain game mechanics. I’m happy to help but not if I’m going to get used as a Google bot for them.

When they ask me when I’m free to meet instead of putting time on my calendar so it’s blocked off. I don’t know when I’m “free” bc every day is different and I get pulled into meetings suddenly. Just use Outlook and it’s scheduling assist especially if we’re in different time zones.

Not Zoomer specific but I get annoyed when people message me “Hi” without any context at work. Please just say what you need.

I work in retail so the bad behaviour I notice is I think a lot of the younger gens need to understand they're not in school anymore. You can't just walk off when you're supposed to be on a register and do whatever you want. Not everyone is going to be friends with you. And after a certain point there is no more hand holding, you either do the job or you don't work here anymore.

I'm an elder Millennial, and most of my colleagues are Gen Z. I love them, they're intelligent, funny, kind people, but they have no sense of initiative. They stand around bored a lot of the time. There are things to do, things that aren't hard and wouldn't take much effort, but would occupy some time, be helpful to their colleagues, make the place look better, and make their shifts go by faster, but they just stand there. Unless they're specifically given a task, they just don't do anything.

I am not in favour of doing more work. I'm not interested in doing anything that's beyond my job description. But if I'm bored, I'll find something to do. And if that helps my friends/colleagues, that's great.

Leaving their messes for other people to deal with and then getting offended when it comes up in conversation. Being held accountable for literally anything. It’s why I left management. They need kid gloves handling.

Older millennial here, the “No problem” thing was frowned upon when I first entered the workforce too back in early 2000’s. It was explained to me back then, that saying that somehow implied that their request was otherwise a problem. Needless to say I’ve used it since regardless, throughout my now 18 years in a few different career fields. Have only ever got flack from generations older than myself. There’s only 1 Gen Z guy in my large office that I know. Seems pretty much like my generation was at that age, still a bit immature, but wanting to work for the most part and make a living. Maybe I’m a bit more laidback, but I’ve not noticed any generational bad habits from other younger folks I work with.

So something I haven’t noticed being brought up yet (or maybe it’s been commented on and I literally haven’t noticed it yet lol) is the type of industry you’re in. How a person acts in an advertising agency vs. a law firm vs. a warehouse is going to be very different from the other.

I, 31F, work in an ad agency as a writer in NYC. Because of this, there is an expected air of casual artistic nonsense in my workplace. There’s a bar cart in the corner that people can drink from if they work late (which is very common), people wear jeans and sneakers and tshirts, and the President of the agency is a dude in his early 50’s who’s covered bald-head-to-toes in tattoos who swears and plays hallways basketball with the interns when he has a few minutes to spare.
I can never imagine any of that flying in a law firm.

And in my case at the ad agency, I have no nits to pick about the Gen Zs there except to maybe be less self conscious and nervous. No one will bite. But then again I remember being that age, so it’s not a fault I find harmful.

Im a middle millennial. The biggest clash i see is the older generations feel like work is a blessing and you should devote your whole life to it, and put up with anything and everything that comes with it. My job is hard, we work a lot of overtime, weekends and holidays and at least half of it is physical labor that sends multiple out with ergonomic injuries every year. That coupled with the mental labor and office politics can be rough. A lot of the younger staff in the past few years have either complained and tried to change the system or straight up quit because they thought it wasnt worth it. And older more senior staff seem baffled and some seem offended that Gen Z won't sacrifice all of their time, and their health for these jobs. So they come at them over things like clothing, and mannerisms. Ive seen some older worker become downright hostile over the length of a 22 year olds skirt - when we change into scrubs almost immediately when clocking in.

I personally think "say less" is rude. I can't say less I already said it. "Talk less" is what it communicates to me. Kinda mean.

I think this is just a 'youth' issue, but now that I'm a working mom, listening to Gen Z complain about their (relatively minor) problems with no sense of perspective for what anyone else is going through is exhausting. Like, every day I'm out here surviving, and they're stressing about someone not using their work mailbox the way they requested.

But I think that's more a symptom of how difficult life is, and the way it's pressing down on me and making it hard to find empathy. I was 100% the same way when their age!

Just generally a lack of consideration drives me batty. And there are some 'workplace' culture things that they don't grasp. Like one coworker routinely goes for their snack break at the same time, regardless of how busy we are, when the culture in my department was always to try and take breaks only when we aren't busy. Oh and assuming his preference for break time/lunch time is the default, and never asking what my preference is. Stuff like that. Courtesy things that say that you are thinking about anyone other than yourself.

It's not a language issue at all, for me. Maybe I, myself, am too informal. But I was a bit surprised to hear Gen Z coworkers forget to gender some of my nonbinary and trans coworkers and volunteers correctly. I'm chalking that one up to lack of experience/exposure, but I was kind of surprised that generation doesn't know better.

Edited to add: I'm 40, so, elder millennial.

Wearing crop tops or really cleavage, bra showing clothes.

A behavior that I mostly notice from folks under ~30 that drives me kind of crazy is when someone gives me something and just says "here you go" or doesn't even say ANYTHING.

Take a second to explain what you're giving me, what you expect me to do with it, whether there will be more things like it, etc-- just something like "Here's this week's TPS report. Double check the info on page 6 and send it to Kelly by noon for approval" or whatever, even if it seems obvious!

I teach Gen Z students in grad school and overall, I’ve observed that younger people seem to place less value on building and maintaining in-person relationships and communication. It’s almost as if the only relationships most value are those that happen online, and everything else is taken for granted.

So I'm pretty smack dab in the middle of the millennial age range. Senior engineer and over see 50ish people give or take. Usually have a handful of Gen Z people doing internships or as permanent hires.

One thing that has been an issue repeatedly with several different people has been sending an email that is professional. Sound like a Karen, but I just don't like your tone, haha. Many of them struggle with the proper amount of familiarity to have in what is a business interaction. There is also the matter of proof reading, not exclusive to your generation, but seemingly worse.

They have a hard time asking for help from their superiors. In my line of work no one expects you to know everything when you walk in the door. I do expect you learn and ask when you don't know. They usually try googling answers and mess things up rather than quickly asking a superior or coworker in the office.

Honestly those are the only two I can say are a constant.

Gen Z should show up as they are to the workplace! I’m a younger millennial and we all burnt out playing the dumb archaic games. Don’t let us do the same to all of you

Be yourself, advocate for yourself and negotiate for yourself, set and enforce strong boundaries and if older generations give you a hard time try to learn to work together without hiding your identity in the process

You deserve to be yourself in the workplace.

Xennial here. Please remeber you are NOT hanging out with friends. You're at work. I'm not your friend, I dont care about your personal life, mental health issues or struggles with neurodivergence; I have my own problems. It's not personal, I just dont care about you on the same level as your friends, family and former teachers. 

Seriously, the expectation from Gen Z that everyone cares deeply for them and will accommodate their every whim and quirk is exhausting. Literally everyone has problems and a whole life going on.

Overly relying on Teams/Slack/email to communicate. I’m mentoring and training a group of Gen Z staff and many of them will send a Teams message in reply to an inquiry, get no response, and then just kinda … let it go? Look, I am a Gen X’er who haaaaaates the phone but there ARE a lot of times where picking up the phone is the fastest solution. Also - make a call if it’s more than 3 emails to explain.

I'm a director for a college within the IT department, as well as the network/systems administrator, and I work with quite a few people within Gen Z - there are a lot of things I appreciate about them, but the one thing that gets me is the lack of effort sometimes. I can't stand when someone comes to me, asking for a solution, and looking dumbfounded when I ask what steps they took for troubleshooting. There are different mindsets I've seen in my years for how someone tackles problems, namely with their critical thinking and how they figure out a problem, but some of these younger technicians feel like they just want the solution to be immediately found on Google or else it's not worth looking into at all.

Not all Gen Z technicians have been this way though - I've had some that are absolutely brilliant and have tackled problems in ways I hadn't considered, which is always fun to learn from! Also seeing fresh perspectives within the IT world is a good thing, especially with how things are evolving.

Some things I have witnessed: filming TikToks when they think no one is watching, sharing too much of their personal problems that involve their family and relationships, calling out frequently, and thinking anyone 27 years of age and up are just old. I constantly hear the terms “pushing 30” and “pushing 40” when quite literally there is so much growing up to do and other things to focus on rather than age.

GenXer here…my biggest issues with GenZ are two fold - main character syndrome and manners. Nope, really don’t give a dang what you did last weekend or how you were traumatized by something I’d consider a minor inconvenience. I realize that sounds harsh but I’m not at work to make friends; im at work to make money so I don’t starve.

Manners, whether you (general) like it or not, are the social grease that allows many disparate groups of people to work together without constantly offending people. Being polite isn’t performative (for most, it’s a reflex anyway) but it’s 100% necessary for a more tranquil work environment. My work is stressful enough (senior software engineer) without having to navigate interpersonal land mines because people ‘don’t want/feel the need to be polite.’ Politeness costs nothing, rudeness costs everything.

And, yeah, I was all f**k that noise when I was in my 20s. I was horridly obnoxious back then. I try not to be now.