We seem to be writing a lot about work, as I’ve done recently on napping (at work), vacations (from work), and pouting (about work).  In the course of writing those posts, I came across this piece from last year about how younger employees – i.e., recent college graduates – need too much coddling in today’s workplace.  They’re expectations are high, and their thresholds for pain are low. (But let’s be careful not to turn this into a “kids-these-days” hate-fest.  I am almost one of those kids, given my age.  And besides, kids-these-days can do a lot of things better than kids-back-in-the-day.  But back to today.)

Nurtured on a steady diet of self-esteem, the swaggeringly confident children of the ’80s and ’90s are flying the nest and starting to land in the workforce. They’re clamoring for quick feedback, meaningful involvement, and pumped-up recognition-and roiling old-school colleagues who dub them impatient, needy, and arrogant. The kids are frustrated too: Entry-level duties are a far cry from the dream jobs they’ve been made to feel are their birthright.

So why is Generation Y like this?  The article suggests a few causes: too much praise as children, an inability to recognize their ability to “improve over time,” the false idea that they are gifted, and so on.  But they’ve done some good things for the workplace, too.

They’re civically engaged (garnering comparisons to the “greatest generation”), and they can be surprisingly loyal. “They’ll quickly leave a company, yes,” says Tammy Hughes, president of workplace consultants Claire Raines Associates. “But they will be extremely loyal to companies that demonstrate loyalty to them, and it’s a very civic-minded loyalty. They expect companies they work for to be responsible.”

So, they’re not so bad.