Too much praise

On some nights you will find me across the street, eating my dinner with a bunch of elderly divorced guys at the bar. The food is not especially good, but it is nice to have a place where everyone knows who you are. Yes, it is my version of "Cheers."

Old divorced guys are catty or cranky, depending how you want to spin it. Sometimes we gossip about local celebs or other old divorced guys that are not there. Sometimes we make fun of the young people who come into the bar. But most of the time we spend our time kvetching.

Next Monday, I know exactly what I am going to tell the gang: it irritates me that people at work are so insistent in saying "good job" to someone who just gave talk. It irritates me on multiple levels 1) I feel obligated to say the same because I don't want to look like a bitch. 2) Most of the time the talk is horrendous. 3) I am a really crappy liar. 4) When someone says "good job" to me I wonder about their sincerity. 5)In order to avoid being insincere myself, I end up saying nothing and look like a bitch, which gives me anxiety.

On today's Yahoo finance page, an opinion piece about job dissatisfaction amongst American workers increasing dramatically since 1987 caught my eye. Especially, this sentence: "The Millennial Generation is entering the workforce with expectations higher than any generations before them," Grant [a management professor at U Penn Wharton]says. "This generation is not accustomed to delaying gratification. They are interested in getting rewarded and succeeding very quickly, and most organizations aren't set up to do this. You could expect a decline in satisfaction for that reason."

Is it possible too that a sincere pat on the back has lost its luster? That we spend so much time being nice to each other that true praise no longer seems like a reward?

Good thing I have a bunch of cranky people to tell this observation to, I have a feeling they will agree.