The Trophy Kids Grow Up: How the Millennial Generation is Shaking Up the Workplace

Chapter 8. Free to Be Me

Tyler Shaw felt trapped in "meeting hell." He had just joined a new team at Best Buy Co. and was horrified to find that he was expected to spend five hours each week in meetings without any set agendas. To Shaw, it was the ultimate example of inefficiency and an obstacle to his goal of achieving a pleasing balance between his job and his personal life. "All of those meetings were as painful to me as kryptonite is to Superman," he says.

Shaw quickly started campaigning against so many meetings, questioning what they accomplished. "People are so used to shuffling into a conference room like sheep, thinking that if they're all in a room together, they'll get something done," he says. "It's a hard habit to break, and I got ...