Millennial boss explains why she won't be hiring boomers anymore, sparking debate

Corporate offices often encounter dutiful and irresponsible employees who might have lied in their resumes to secure a job position. One millennial boss, Sara Holcomb—who goes by @mad_hatter_news on TikTok—has left her audience divided after exposing a boomer employee she chose to hire. In her recent video, Holcomb shares her experience with a new employee who was not qualified enough for the job or simply put was "too old to work."

"I hired this 65-year-old lady," Holcomb said after getting a concerning mail, "I told her several times that we're closed on Friday. If she has any questions she needs to discuss with me, she needs to call my cell phone." Through her training email, Holcomb had already explained to the boomer employee everything about the log-in process so she could work smoothly on the first day of her work. Still, the employee enquired through an email, asking the boss how to log in.

Holcomb decided to call her new hire and sort out the issues, but she was greeted by voicemail on the other end. She soon realized that the new employee didn't have a cell phone. "Do you have a cell phone? You have to send me a Zoom code, then I text it back to you and that's how you log in," Holcomb recalled telling the employee who only listed her landline number in the resume. "I told her that she had to receive this text message in the training email. She didn't even read the email." A frustrated Holcomb decided to leave a voicemail instead.

"Susan, I'm kind of concerned because I gave you all of the information on how to log in and then you responded asking how to log in," Holcomb candidly said in her voicemail. "You also gave me a landline phone number and I'm just seeing this now." It didn't take Holcomb long enough to figure out that the boomer employee had lied about her qualifications, including her previous experience with Zoom and having a cell phone as well.

"That was the second lie," Holcomb said. The first was that she was able to receive texts, both for Zoom links and log-ins, but also as a general qualification for the position. Holcomb still told Susan that "not having a phone" was not the primary issue because she would have helped her to log in with an alternative means on her work day. Holcomb claimed that the boomer employee having technology issues and just being too old to work was the reason she would be careful the next time she hires someone.

"Now I have to stress all night thinking that this employee won't be able to work tomorrow and that it's going to be chaos at 8 a.m. on a Saturday," she ranted. "I have other people, teachers, people who I manage who are Gen Z and millennials and are fine." But this is not the first time she has had an issue after hiring a boomer. Every time she had hired one in the past, Holcomb had experienced similar issues with them. The viewers on TikTok weren't happy with how Holcomb painted the picture of a boomer employee and assumed there might be more to the story than what Holcomb revealed.

@saphyrethesanguine wrote, "Sorry, no work on personal phones. That does not promote a healthy work/life balance. Gotta provide a workphone if that is the expectation." @calyps09 noted, "Well, the training should’ve included confirming she can access all pertinent systems. This is a training failure." @niamh.ob.x92x quipped, "Millennial here, I have a landline. It's the only phone number my employer gets. My cell number is for personal use only." @terry9935 added, "The issue isn't with the boomer, it's the employer that's assuming the employee is going to use a personal device for work." A lot of others thought that the trainer should have been more considerate with the older employees, regarding they take longer to figure out modern tech."

You can follow Sara Holcomb (@mad_hatter_news) on TikTok for more millennial commentaries on professional topics.