We have a contractor here at Giant Pharmaceutical Company. We'll call him Phil. We also have a new hire. We'll call her Sally. Phil and Sally are both much younger than I. And Phil and Sally are both having a hard time being what I politically incorrectly call Indians (as opposed to being chiefs).

They question everything, but not in that philosophical kind of sense, in the "I'm not sure you're right" sense. This would be fine if they had experience. But they don't.

There are times when you, as an employee, need to just shut up and do the job and stop trying to be the smartest guy in the room. This apparently is now gone from the academic curricula. I waste too much time trying to find nice ways of saying "Stop thinking, shut up, and do your job" to these two.

I'm thinking it's the age gap, but maybe it's just me.

Are any of you relatively older folks running into this with the younger crowd?

Boxing coaches sometime complain about smart students. Apparently the dumb ones just do what they are told, even the exercises that seem stupid. The smart ones question everything constantly, and aren't always satisfied with a task being required to build a base skill for something more advanced that will be introduced later.

I question things because I like understanding the rationale behind them. In the past it has been miscontrued as me challenging, but others recognize it as part of my makeup (ENTP) and how I learn and process.

Being that way myself, I have an understanding of that kind of behavior and a tolerance to questions of purpose and motivations. I myself like to understand what I am doing. So if it were those kinds of questions, I'd understand. But it's more like this:

Me: Highlight text A, copy it, and paste it into file B.
Them: Should I also highlight text Q, F, and W and paste them into file Z?
Me: No.
Them: But yesterday on a completely different project, we highlighted Q, F, and W and pasted them into Z.
Me: And that was a completely different project. On this project, we copy text A and paste it into file B.
Them: So you don't want Q, F, and W?
Me: No, I do not.
Them: Are you sure?
Me: Yes. I'm sure.
Me in my head: I'm the one telling you what to do, dumb ass. Of course I'm sure. How about you just shut up and do your freaking job?

It can be exhausting, always "negotiating" what you want done. In my line of work, it's particularly excruciating. Because we speak different languages sometimes.

I try to invest a little bit into the explanation up front -- drop little hints about the goal of the task, why it might different from before, or what is particularly important about the task.

No kidding, dead serious -- I have used the "Bruce Willis in Pulp Fiction" illustration on numerous occasions. I actually ask them if they've seen Pulp Fiction, and if they remember the part about Bruce Willis and the watch from Vietnam. I tell them, "Remember how he ended up wishing he had told her the story about the watch, so she'd understand the goal of the entire exercise? Well I'm going to give you a little more information that you need so that context is there -- but I know what I want you do and I want you do it."

Then a little bit of blah-blah about how it's going to play out in Court, at the deposition, at the mediation, or at the client meeting. I have the added advantage of being a "front man" of sorts. The important work things I attend, I'm the MC. The person helping me do tasks is not. So it's a built in advantage -- but you'd still be surprised. Somebody that's never taken a deposition in his or her life has an opinion about how the documents should be organized. It's a balance -- you want to listen, and respect the experience and opinion of the human being in front of you (because everybody can gain some wisdom about how to do things better from his or her unique vantage point), but at the same time, a lot of people's ideas turn out to be some version of "It would be easer for me if did things this way." (Having lost sight of the important goal of the project).

No. My biggest problem has been younger hires having too few ideas and showing too little initiative. I've actually pretty much stopped considering applicants under a certain age (unless I've seen something that suggests that person has unusual potential) because of the bad experiences with some who just didn't seem to understand what working a job was all about. If I was allowed to pay more money we'd probably see more young self-starters, and then perhaps I'd run into the problem James complains about.

This. The mercurial nature of the work at Giant Pharmaceutical Company is not well suited for people who cannot shift gears and do things more than one way. It seems to me that the questioning and push back comes from not wanting to be of present mind in their work, wanting to do stuff on autopilot.

And sometimes those who question how things are done are the best employees, too. The shorter the leash, the less incentive - if I don't think my opinion is appreciated, I'll probably keep it to myself, even when it could be to the benefit of my co-workers or employer. I do best in jobs with little supervision - micro-managers make me tense. When I worked at the hotel, I had my own system for doing the night audit paperwork - and I did it in about 25 minutes when everyone else took an hour or more. Same output, significantly more efficient. And the managers were fine with it.
If I had been told to "shut up and do my job" instead of being allowed to ask questions and give feedback, I would have been a significantly less motivated worker.

I also do best with minimal supervision and believe that to be the best managerial style. I'm not sitting on these people's shoulders. As I said above, I ask questions. I don't want robots.

That said, I don't want to have an argument with you about following a simple instruction. This isn't "Why are we putting this text into a new file?" I'll answer that if I can, although sometimes the answer is "I don't know" or "That's the job". This isn't "Could I drag and drop the text instead of copying and pasting?" I like thinking like that. It's "Are you sure that we're supposed to be putting this information in that file?" based on zero knowledge of the job.

Let's say they hired a new person at Jimmy John's to make sandwiches. The counter turns to them and says "Please make a BLT." "Do they want mayo?" is a good question. "Are you sure they asked for a BLT?" is not.

"Can we make a BLZ instead?"

Would "Z" be zucchini?

Zombie.

Seems more an experience gap than an age gap.

For example, it could be possible for someone of your same age to have less experience and react in the same way as your co-workers.

This is what I would do in that situation:

I have never done that task before, and you have. There is clearly a knowledge differential between us. I would ask "Why is it done this?" and you would explain. Once I understand the reasons, and once I've done it a considerable amount of times, then I would offer suggestions on how to improve the processes the next time the situations presents itself.