Brother refusing to get a job that is beneath him

[GettingFatterByTheDay]

My brother is just about to finish uni and is due to move back home. He does not have a job and has outright admitted that he has no intentions of getting one unless it’s in the field he studied for. He said he will not waste his time working as a shelf stacker. Because of this my dad is reluctant to let him come home as he has just taken a massive pay cut and may lose his own job. My mum is working extra hours in a job she doesn’t particularly love either to keep them afloat. Mum feels guilty telling him he can’t go home and wants me to agree with her due to the current situation but his attitude stinks. He’s told her he’d rather be homeless than work in a shit job that is “below him” and be eternally unhappy laying the guilt trip on. AIBU to agree with my dad here? Times are hard for everyone right now, I doubt many people are living the life of Riley at the minute!! Either he gets a job, any job or should live elsewhere surely?

Could your parents agree with your brother that he spends 3-6 months signing on

You don’t get 3-6 months signing on.

After a couple of weeks don’t they fix you up with any old job and if you don’t like it they stop your benefits.

WHAT? Refusing to shelter your child in the middle of a crisis because he's being a bit of an ass? This is a pointless argument - he probably can't get a job stacking shelves anyway. Lots of people who need to feed a family are trying to get those jobs. Let him come home, live in his old room and eat what's in the kitchen, but don't give him any money. He will realise that a great job offer does not come stapled to the back of his degree pretty quickly. And once lockdown is lifted and he wants money to go out he will probably find he is happy to take any job.

I wouldn’t refuse to have him home. But he would come home with the clear understanding that if circumstances dictate that he needs to get a job to help with his share of household expenses, he will get any job he can rather than being ridiculously picky. His attitude needs checking. Might be harsh but that’s the harsh truth right now.

Whats his degree in?
Laziness?

WHAT? Refusing to shelter your child in the middle of a crisis because he's being a bit of an ass? This is a pointless argument - he probably can't get a job stacking shelves anyway. Lots of people who need to feed a family are trying to get those jobs
I am at this moment watching on the news how desperate farmers are to get their crops picked. If they don’t get enough labour the food will be wasted.

I am at this moment watching on the news how desperate farmers are to get their crops picked. If they don’t get enough labour the food will be wasted.

There was a whole thread on this very recently, let me see if I can find it. Lots of U.K. people applying and being rejected. IIRC it turns out that more experience was needed than people realise and the pickers have to live on site - not that the latter would be an obstacle to OP’s brother, mind you.

fruit picking thread here

your brother sounds like a self entitled arsehole

Thank you Aardvaark - love the name 😆

Do you live at home OP? If you do then you have a say only if you are paying into the family pot. If you don't then keep out of it.

Either way it really is unfair of your parents to try and get you to side with them. This is between them and your brother. Unless you want him to bear a grudge against you for years to come.

No jobs are beneath any of us! Tell him to stop being so fucking entitled. Nobody owes him a thing.

YANBU and neither are your parents.

The only reason your brother is saying he would rather be homeless is because he doesn't think it will come to that.

Your parents are partly to blame for his entitled attitude as he clearly hasn't been supporting himself in any way through uni: he's an adult now and needs to get with the program.

This is the real world. All of you stand your ground.

Your brother is entitled to choose how he spends his days.

You parents are entitled to choose who they let share their home.

I think you should live and let live in this situation and avoid getting caught up in blame and shame.

I am at this moment watching on the news how desperate farmers are to get their crops picked. If they don’t get enough labour the food will be wasted

But they don’t want British Labour.
Loads of people have applied for these type of jobs. They aren’t even rejected. They just don’t hear anything. Then the farmer complains he can’t get British people to work.

I suggest unless they import the labour then the farmer isn’t interested.

Even if someone isn’t experienced you would think that they would rather have a few who need training that gets the produce picked than let the food rot.

As someone who spent their childhood on farms fruit and veg picking (families would treat it as a holiday) I can tell you if a 5 year old can do it then it isn’t exactly rocket science.

Picking is not a job for amateurs
Especially not ones like this guy who doesn't sound keen on very hard manual work

Farmers are like any other business in that when they need say 100 experienced workers quickly for 3 months or so,

They don't want to hire individual randoms they don't know and have to train
Crops have to be picked within a certain time period, or they are no good

So farmers go for a reliable agency that supplies workers with the appropriate skills and experience

With the pressure on food prices and the tight margins on farms to survive,
the days of kids spending a couple of hours picking for pocket money are long gone
(except as a favour to the family of the kids)

it's all about maximum efficiency
It's a production line

I grew up in rural poverty and the unofficial jobs I was allowed to do then as a kid would be illegal now
and now wouldn't be worth the farmer empoying me anyway

How much training can it need to harvest crops or pick fruit? It’s hardly brain surgery. Little kids were doing it a few decades ago. If a graduate can’t be trained to pick fruit in a couple of hours, it speaks volumes about the intelligence of people who are admitted onto degree courses.

It's a different employment world now

As a teen in the early 1970s, I applied and got a job at a care home to start the next day,
no references or checks - DBS didn't exist - no experience

I was washing and toileting vulnerable people, often alone in the room

Now, he'd have to go through checks & probably some training to get care work
Shelf-stacking, driving, deliveries would be far fewer hoops to jump through if he really wants a job

It's about speed - experienced pickers are VERY efficient
If there were sufficient time to get up to this speed, it would be at least a few weeks

and also not damaging the crops
East European workers come from traditional agricultural areas and have worked on farms before
Like with many manual jobs that people undervalue, there is a skill to doing them efficiently to the required standard

Under time and cost pressure, farmers can't waste time training someone,
who'll probably drop out on about day 3 when his muscles seize up when he tries to get out of bed

Little kids were never working at the rate that adult pickers are required to do now on farm
Never required to produce the same amount of fruit or veg per day

It's the difference between relaxed picking for pocket money
and working on a very fast production line

Totally different

Then perhaps fruit farmers need to lower their standards. Either they want to harvest their crops or they don’t. They’re not really in a position to be picky at the moment. And, yes, I know about the pun and couldn’t be arsed to find an alternative.

How is being unemployed by choice ok, but he believes working in a supermarket to be beneath him?

Tell him he’s a lazy snob. Tell him “Karen from mumsnet says you’re too lazy and a snob” if you don’t want to upset him yourself with the truth.

Quite a lot of farming jobs require use of VERY expensive equipment. It's no longer a question of being a job a five year old can do - those jobs have been mechanised out of existence. The jobs that exist now require a high level of physical fitness, excellent co ordination and a degree of knowledge that a lot of people don't possess.

It's not something anybody can do.

He could get a job in a supermarket in the evenings or weekends or (when they reopen) a bookies or pub, leaving his days free to attend interviews for his dream job.

I'm with you and your dad.

YANBU but you’re brother is. What “highflying job that isn’t beneath him”, is he looking for? He has a terrible entitled attitude, what employer wants to take that on especially at the moment?! To me it feels like him setting the scene for sitting on his arse for ever and a day with everyone subsidising him

Being brutal but so what if he has a degree. Lots of people do, l have 2 and my partner has 3. My partner thought he was going to between jobs so investigated working for deliveroo (not that there is anything wrong with working for them). He would have been more than happy to do that, despite his 2 under graduate degrees and 1 post graduate degree