Throwaway account.

I (M, 30) lost my younger brother when I was 22. He had cancer and fought very hard. Ever since, I’ve been donating blood on the anniversary of his death every year. I take the day off from work, visit his grave, donate blood, and then come home, relax, and watch his favorite movie. I know it’s a simple, personal tradition, but it means a lot to me.

My girlfriend of 9 months, Anna (F, 31), asked if I could meet her and her mom( I have met her many times before and it wasn’t the meet the parents for the first time situation) for lunch yesterday. I told her no and explained again about what I do on my brother’s death anniversary. She got upset and said, “Well, it’s my tradition to have lunch with my mom every time she’s in town, and she really wanted to see you! You can do your stupid blood donation tradition any day.”

I explained to her that it’s not just about the blood donation. Later in the evening, while I was resting and watching my brother’s favorite movie, she texted me again, asking me to join them. I reiterated that I really didn’t want to and would hang out with her mom next time. She replied that I had embarrassed her in front of her mom with my selfishness and laziness.

Since then, she’s been distant. Do I owe her an apology? AITAH?

We see each other at parties and say hi. That’s the entire extent of our relationship. Recently went out to dinner where he was my server. Dude was a shit server. Got my order wrong, never checked on the table, refilled waters, and was busy mingling and taking shots with another table of people that he knew.

The bill was $160 and I gave him $16. You don’t automatically get 20% just because I know you, I’m also not expecting you go above and beyond. Just do your job correctly. And to go around telling others that I’m cheap who then brought it back up to me - fuck off.

Edit: This happened in the US.

For context, I'm a peak Millennial, and went to school when assigning entire books, library research projects, oral presentations, and the like were still common. Smartphones and using laptops for notes didn't come into play until I was in college. There were kids who got exceptions from things due to intense special needs (like intellectual disability), but there were no "my kid is too anxious to do homework" parents.

For the past few years, I've been seeing a disturbing trend when young professionals come into the corporate environment. I'm aware that because these are white-collar jobs, I'm probably seeing the young people who had the most support and structure at home. Even so, they struggle with what I would assume are basic tasks, like saving files or checking a task off the team checklist when they complete it. (Obligatory "not all young people" goes here. There are some driven and brilliant ones).

Generally, if they struggle with something, they don't look at the written job aids. They don't Google. They sometimes look at the video resources. Their default solution is to call or email their manager for every process question. We try to be empathetic but also direct them back toward the resources when the questions are very basic, and we get blank stares, or the young person says, "I thought it would be faster just to ask you." There isn't really a drive to answer their own questions.

When I entered the workforce, older coworkers were upset that Millennials used first names, swore, and didn't always wear ties, but they couldn't deny that we had the drive and skillset. Now I'm the "older coworker" and I'm worried by what I see. I'm having to teach things like time management, reading comprehension, and accountability to people in their mid-20s. I know you all tried to teach these in school, and I see you and appreciate you. Thank you for trying to do what you can for these kids.

EDIT: Thank you all for participating in a convesation about how these trends do (or don't) affect your school, your workplace, and your families!

I do want to clarify, since a few people have made the assumption that we are just throwing new hires to the wolves: Orientation, job shadowing, 1:1 check-ins, and skills-based training are all still part of the equation, in addition to the resources I mentioned in my original post.