‘Every day there was a new excuse’: Founder says he'll never hire Gen Z again, reveals surprising reason

"I fired my Gen Z intern last week, and I am never hiring a Gen Z again."That was the opening line of a LinkedIn post shared by Akshat Tongia, the founder of ContentFloww, a company that builds organic content strategies for AI and finance firms.The founder went on to describe the challenges he faced with a Gen Z intern. According to him, the intern had taken 16 sick leaves since joining and frequently arrived late to work."Every day there was a new excuse for coming late — traffic, an accident, his alarm didn't ring. You name it and I have heard that," he wrote.With that kind of attendance record, the founder said he had every reason to be frustrated. But despite the absences and delays, the intern continued to deliver results."But somehow, even during those sick leaves, he delivered his work. In fact, one of our major campaigns was ideated by him," the founder said.He added that the intern had generated more results in three months than many permanent employees. Even so, he felt that overlooking the behaviour could affect office discipline."If I had allowed that behaviour to continue, everyone in the office would have started taking discipline for granted," he wrote.

The founder then said he called the intern into his office and handed him a termination letter. The employee read the letter and smiled. The reason soon became clear."The letter didn't fire him from the company. It fired him from the office and gave him the chance to work from home," the founder revealed.Explaining the decision, he said the intern was balancing college and work while travelling around 40 kilometres to the office."I know this because I spoke to his mom a few days ago, and she told me how the commute alone took hours of his day," he wrote.According to the founder, the long commute and academic commitments never affected the quality of the intern's work."Gen Z interns are juggling more than we realise — college, commutes, life, all at once," he said."Yes, they may take office discipline lightly, but rarely their work," the founder said.Tongia concluded by saying, "I'm done hiring Gen Z for the office. But I'll never stop hiring them for the work."Commenting on the post, some Linked In user said the issue was not about Gen Z but about how workplaces evaluated employees.One user wrote, "Gen Z often gets judged for the surface stuff (leaves, lateness), but when the work delivers, that's what actually matters. You kept the talent and fixed the friction."Another commenter argued that the discussion highlighted a bigger problem in many workplaces. "The real insight here isn't about Gen Z at all, it's that most offices are still measuring presence over performance, and that's a leadership blind spot that's been costing businesses good talent long before this generation showed up," the user wrote.Onr LinkedIn user said that long travel times often leave workers exhausted before the workday even begins."Have never met one in reality who understands the situation that travel takes more toll than a whole work day. Half of the energy is lost stuck in the traffic itself," the commenter wrote, adding that employees in cities such as Bengaluru can spend hours travelling to and from the office.The user also questioned whether jobs should be judged by visibility in the office or by actual output, writing, "Never understood — is job more about control + visibility or getting the job done?"