Is this a generation gap?

I posted this on Facebook some time ago:

"Don't understand people who sit with their backs to the people they expect to join them at their table. Surprisingly, there seem to be more and more people like this."

This was triggered by my two lunchmates always sitting with their backs to the cafeteria counter. I remember reading somewhere before that people tend to sit facing the door, to see people coming in. In this case, the seats in our cafeteria are not facing the door (the door was on the side), but one direction was facing the cafeteria counter, where people would walk out from after paying for their food, while the other faces away…to “nothing” (the end of the cafeteria)

I always sit facing the counter if I’m the first one at the table. This allows my companions to find me easily, and also allows me to wave to them if they don’t happen to spot me. (and lest you think I'm the only one...my pre-MCO lunchmates used to do that)

It already had happened once before that one lunchmate sat facing away from the counter, and also hidden by the people at the table behind him. I totally couldn’t find him until an acquaintance pointed him out to me, knowing that I usually eat with him.

Anyway, only about a week after that Facebook post, I passed the cafeteria counter after an extremely long queue, and found one of my lunchmates sitting at a table (facing away from the counter). I asked her where the other lunchmate was, since I had been queueing for ages and he wasn’t still in the queue. She had no idea…and then suddenly spotted him sitting at another table, also facing away from the counter.

Well, this wouldn’t have happened if you guys had had the sense to sit facing the counter and look out for your lunchmates, would it?

Then today…there was a long queue again, but this time I was the first out. So when I saw my lunchmate looking around for me, I waved to her. When she arrived at the table, she commented, “Wow, you could even notice that I was looking for you and knew to wave at me.” Er…that is what normal people do…

Another strange comment that I heard from my lunchmates (more precisely, one of them, but the others seemed to agree) was that the slides from a certain training were too “bare”, with a lot of empty space on the slides. I was like, “That’s how it’s supposed to be, it’s just that people nowadays cram everything into a slide because they don’t know how to present something properly.”

Then I changed the topic, because I didn’t want to start a debate. :P (or more like stopped it, since I’m not good at finding new topics…) I did sense a slight shock around the table when I said that though...

Actually I have had the opinion for ages that nowadays many people make lousy presentations. I usually don’t say it because I think no one wants to hear it, but hey, this is my blog, I can say what I want. Anyway, just saying it here in case there are some kindred spirits out there…

Now that I’m on the topic, here’s something else: Recently the managers seem to be asking those who want to improve on presentations to volunteer to do more. But the thing is, no one asks for feedback on presentations. Do they think that they will just get better at it if they do more? Well, I beg to disagree. I guess there would be improvements to a certain point, that they would get better at figuring out what to present and feel more confident. But just because you do more presentations doesn’t mean all of them are not being hated. Without any feedback, the same mistakes will keep being made, and if people hate something about your presentation but do not let you know, you might continue doing that same thing that people hate (and get better at it!).

Okay, time to stop the rant. :P

As for the title, the oldest of those is 9 years younger than me... (and the pre-MCO lunchmates I mentioned were closer to my age)