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?

The thing is though that we are now in bit of a different situation so going for a supermarket job and having it on a cv during pandemic, should absolutely not be taken badly.

Either way he is an adult who should be bringing money into the household not just expect someone else to provide. And that should be the main point here

I agree with them. They should tell him that he cannot move back unless he has a job, as their finances are in difficulty. An extra mouth costs money to feed, house and clean.

I think my job is beneath me. I hate every single second that I am there. However, I think being an unemployed dosser is even more degrading and I will not stoop that low. I turn up every day. It pays my bills and keeps a roof over my head. Your brother needs an attitude adjustment. And if he would ‘rather be homeless’ than stack shelves I would be tempted to call his bluff if he lived in this house!

Okay so he has a degree but what work experience does he have? It's rare a degree alone will get you a career these days; you usually need both that and experience.

The days when a graduate can work in a supermarket and class it as work experience for a grad scheme are decades gone. He absolutely needs relevant experience. Not sure why he you don’t want him to come home to get this sorted - do you always tell your dad what to do?

But I think the point is that I worked my arse off doing waitressing and bar work which paid for my travel and general living costs during relevant unpaid internships, to give me relevant work experience. It sounds like unless all of his work is paid for and in the field he wants to do, he will see it as beneath him.

OP hasn't been back to clarify what field her brother has studied in. However, I see this all the time with students who don't realize that very few degrees actually qualify someone for a particular job. If he's studied a science, for example, there will be very few jobs directly related to his subject that don't require a higher degree. And many of those that do exist are likely to require relocation.

My particular bugbear is psychology students who think there is a job called "a psychologist" that they are going to walk into because they have a 2i, along with the other 50,000 people graduating with 1sts or 2is in psychology each year. (Nothing against psychology as an academic discipline. There just seem to be a lot of people studying it who have no idea what they can do afterwards.)

Sounds like the real world is going to smack your brother in the face like a ton of bricks.

Anyone who thinks a job is "beneath them" is an absolute twat.

point out to him how extremely unattractive it is to potential girlfriends to be living with and leeching off of Mom and Dad.

But telling them he is a street sweeper will get him laid?

What’s not clear from the OP is how he was planning to go about getting the job he does want. If he had a plan and that has been scuppered by Covid there is possibly much he could be doing at home to further that, such as wider reading, online networking etc, then he can pick it back up after all this is over. He also needs to use the time to gauge whether his chosen career will still be feasible in this post-Covid world. If your parents will genuinely struggle to feed him then it’s only right that he should do something to pay his way, but it might not be that easy to get a paid job at the moment- I’m not sure that people are just walking into shelf-stacking jobs with no experience at the moment, are they? Millions of low paid staff are being furloughed left right and centre. Could he claim Universal Credit?

It sounds like unless all of his work is paid for and in the field he wants to do, he will see it as beneath him.

Now you’re just making things up. OP said he has no intention getting one unless it’s in the field he studied for she make no mention of his expectations about pay.

Yeesh. So many posters trying to get a dig into the brother with inverted snobbery.

TBH, if I were him, I wouldn't want to work in supermarket right now either, especially depending on his degree. Like hell am I going to put my health on the line so a bunch of people can yell at me for not having enough eggs on the shelf.

I also agree with other posters who said that with some fields, sometimes it's better just to throw yourself into looking for relevant work for a couple months instead of taking energy sucking low wage jobs. @GettingFatterByTheDay If he can afford to pay for room and board for a couple of months while he looks for work, would you or your dad have a problem with that?

My sil has a law degree. He worked in a pub, pulling pints, to fund his degree. When he qualified he then did a business administration post graduate diploma, while continuing to work in the pub. After this he continued to work in the same pub until he got a job as a counter assistant in a bank.

He has been with the bank for 10 years, working his way up to manager, then area loss administrator (not sure of proper title). Sometimes he thinks that his degree was a waste of time, as he didn’t get a law job, due to the large number of applications for every job, but he has a job with excellent benefits and earns nearly £50k.

Sometimes you just don’t get the job you hoped for. If he had been like your brother he would still be living off his father!

Yes- is your problem that he won’t be working or that he will be expecting your parents to fund him - do you know for definite he doesn’t have any money to pay for board?

I get what you're saying @JingsMahBucket, but the poster very specifically said her brother's reasoning was that lots of work is "beneath him" not that he had another strategy of getting relevant work experience. We can only go on what OP says and that's what people like me have responded to.

What is her brothers alternative plan? At the moment it sounds like he's just waiting for a company to realise how amazing he is and snap him up. That isn't the real world.

Like hell am I going to put my health on the line so a bunch of people can yell at me for not having enough eggs on the shelf

So who do you suggest does do the job then, Jings?

When my brother graduated we were in the middle of a recession, he had worked at a supermarket right through studying for his degree to pay for his car & finance going out etc. He carried on working there whilst doing a PhD that he got paid for & managed to buy a house with his GF, he only got a job in his field because I showed him an advert ironically in Cosmopolitan magazine for a job at British Rail. Since then he has worked for Royal Mail in their IT department, was headhunted by IBM, a job that took him all over the world & then returned to Royal Mail when he got married & had a family as there was less travelling involved, he is one of their highest grade IT workers now despite doing odd jobs in factories & filling shelves in supermarkets.

@Hoarder123 you don’t say how long your sil spent trying to get a job in law before he applied for the bank instead. I think you are illustrating two separate things here - 1. That it’s sensible to do part time work while job seeking and 2. That you might need to look for a job in a different field.

OP seems to think that the two are inextricably linked for her brother. I think they are separate issues.

As long as he can pay his way (it's April, is there another student loan payment due? And then after that if he wants to do the whole UC thing, he can pay that to them) what difference does it make to his parents if he chooses to jobhunt fulltime or work shelfstacking etc? Or, if they don't want him home then just say and let him stay where he is/move area for work.
And why is this becoming some kind of family decision involving siblings?

Btw what's his degree going to be in?

Your brother is wrong and unrealistic, and YANBU, he is.
Of course.
However...I graduated in a recession (over 30 years ago), rather shell-shocked by an awful final year, and with no plans except a desire to earn my own living and keep a roof over my head independently of my parents, and so I took crap jobs with no clear strategy on how long I would be doing the crap jobs or how I was going to go about finding a career path that would lead to something other than more crap jobs. And I'm afraid that, although it was starting to come right by the time I was about 28/29, that slow start did hobble my confidence for a very long time, well into my 30s. Still affects me now, to be honest, but less so.

So...I would say to your brother, take the crap jobs, because money, good qualities on your CV, self-respect, fairness to your family - but don't stop thinking and working towards what you really want to do, and make sure you keep on that path, while you're stacking shelves and cleaning.

I suspect some of the 'rather be homeless' bluster is just that, bluster, and he's actually terrified of leaving university in the middle of a global shitstorm. He'll be alright, but he has to keep working and planning. Lucky for him he can come home!

Well OP? This just a wind em up and watch em go?

What is his degree?
Why do you get a deciding vote in this?

@BackseatCookers
I get what you're saying @JingsMahBucket, but the poster very specifically said her brother's reasoning was that lots of work is "beneath him" not that he had another strategy of getting relevant work experience.

This may be unpopular but if my degree were in STEM and I could get a job in two months, then yes... being a grocery store shelf stacker during this current health crisis could be seen as being "beneath" someone. Again, like hell am I putting my health on the line for no thanks.

This also may feel different to me because my mother was of the Windrush generation and look how they got treated. After all that deportation BS with the scandal, the UK government had the audacity last week to ask the former NHS nurses of that generation to return to work to help with COVID-19. They can fuck right off with racist plantation mentality. I'm not putting my life on the line for the virtue of "helping out" when the general public and the government won't appreciate it within a week, let alone the next month. And that's for a nursing / medical capacity. No way for something like working in a grocery store. @Zaphodsotherhead that may partially answer your question. Someone else can do that job, but not me.

Like I said, if I were @GettingFatterByTheDay's brother and I had money to pay my way while looking for a job, I would focus on that for the next few months. If he could get an online job that's part time while he's looking for his permanent role, then even better.

I also agree that the OP has been back yet and that feels a bit off.

I sort get the principal of it. He’s obviously studied hard enough to get his qualifications. However nothing is beneath anyone, and principles don’t put a loaf a bread on the table

I’d let him come home, particularly now. and give him time to find a job he wants. If say he was still unemployed in six months, then I’d lay down the law.

Have fun on the park bench then is what I'd be saying to him.

Haven't rtft, but has he ever had a job?