When starting a new job, recognize that there is plenty learn from your more experienced co-workers. Just because you have your own opinion does not mean you should automatically assume that your voice is equal to the voice of experience.
The book is called Lost in Transition. The author is a Notre Dame sociologist. The subject is that among young people today moral choice is just a matter of personal taste.
When asked about moral choices, for instance, one young man said he’d do what made him happy. He said he had no other way of knowing what to do but how he felt internally. He is neither bound by, nor aware of any moral values in our culture. “What makes it right or wrong is how I feel about it,” he said. Maybe that’s one reason for senseless shootings in our schools.
Individual opinion has overcome social morality. This misplaced value of one’s opinion goes with many graduates’ to their first jobs. They act as though not much worthwhile has occurred before they got there.
In other words, there’s not much to learn from experienced co-workers. It’s all just everybody’s opinion.
Maybe this comes from social media and TV that urges viewers to go to the web and express their opinions about everything. Out of college, nobody was interested in my opinion until I’d been around long enough to know my job.
If you’re beginning your career, don’t assume that business is just a roundtable where we all just throw out personal opinions, and that yours is worth much.
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