To be fed up with the lazy graduates I work with....

[H0bnob]

And I say this as an early 20s recent graduate myself! So many young people both in my immediate team and within my department seem to have such a shocking attitude to work I'm finding it really grating. Most of these people have just finished there degree/masters and have never had to work before now and the attitude it just shocking!

To add to this, everyone seems to have anxiety and depression to some degree. I am absolutely NOT dismissing mental health issues and having lived with several i know how debilitating they can be....but to use it as an excuse to get out of everything is just taking the piss....being too lazy to do your job is not the same thing as being depressed, grow up for Christ's sake and take some responsibility.

One of my colleagues (same age as me) has had almost 20 sick days in the last 6 months for mental health...and yet goes out drinking and taking drugs every weekend without failure. When said colleague is in they also do nothing but sit on their phone and complain about being bored and tired. My managers seem reluctant to do anything too with the worry of accidental discrimination and so the rest of us are forced to continuously pick up the slack. Its really doing my head in now, am I being hugely intolerant?? Fully prepared to be told I I as obviously you never know what's going on behind the scenes but christ this is relentless! Apologies this has turned into a proper rant im just so frustrated by society at the minute.

@MrsLargeEmbodied

the lazy older lady in my office is not given extra work, the younger hard working lady is given the work, because the lazy older lady just cannot be bothered

More likely it's the manager who can't be bothered managing.

@KerryWeaver

H0bnob Tue 30-Nov-21 20:19:54

Not at all. I am on annual leave for a few days over my birthday, I think it's totally fine tbh, how about you?

Well, if you say so.

What a strange little dig 😂 if you've nothing relevant to contribute to the thread why bother?

@Lotusmonster

I’m sorry but the small matter of a global pandemic meaning mainly online teaching, self isolation and no graduation ceremonies plus the same debts plus lecturer strikes has probably left its mark on the mental health of cohorts x 24 months!!! Are you really surprised at that as well as the pitiful access to MH referral services across the UK. Sorry OP I find your ‘snap out of it’ mentality a bit shit.

Rubbish, this has been going on for years, covid will now be the go-to excuse for the next couple of decades. The fact is that some people are more resiliant than others, many many tears ago I was told by one of my Physics teachers Never look too able to cope, you'll be everyone's mug, those who crumple into a heap of tears will always get away with it.

I'm it sure it's just hung people. The laziest person I ever managed was a bloke in his 50s that had got away with it for years.

But there does seem to be some form of entitlement among some new entrants. I've lost the will to live with recent fast streamers who (luckily) work for another Gov Dept but unfortunately I have to work with them.

I've had "so Anne, what you're telling me is that this policy (insert completely impractical/illegal/opposite to the Govs manifesto) is going to be a problem for you (head tilt)." Yes fast steamer my 20 years in tells me that you're not going to get that ridiculous idea through the Lords/Spads/No10.

I'm an FE teacher, and we're finding this across the board with out students. They have no idea how to be college students. They're attached to their mobile phones to the point that they even take them to the loo with them. It's got to the point we're now considering if a 'phone jail' is going to be the only way of dealing with the issue of phones disrupting lessons.

They seem to feel the timetable is optional, the punctuality in general is abysmal, and the overall attendance not much better.

Getting them to do work outside of lessons is akin to asking them to walk on their eyelashes. The level of support they expect to complete tasks is bordering on spoon feeding, and they have no idea how to respond to written feedback at all, however clearly it's detailed for them.

In a nutshell, the best part of 2 years (for a lot of them) of lockdown and distance learning has left a cohort of learners who have precious little idea of how to function as a college student.

In previous years, there have always been a handful of students who need this level of support to find their feet, but now it's a handful who don't.

The college counselling service is overbooked for the foreseeable future, so students are now been given a talking changes leaflet and left to their own devices.

The amount of time before, during and after lessons which is spent on pastoral care has sky rocketed, and that's just the bits I'm dealing with as a teacher. All students have an allocated mentor, and we have a student support team to help, plus extra support for those with EHCPs and diagnosed needs so the majority of these needs are met by people who have their entire work day to support these things. That's still not enough.

To be blunt, I question whether the majority of them will be fit to practice in their field by the end of the year.

Well to balance all this moaning out, I am an aged 40 something in a school with loads of twenty something teachers and they are, in the main, incredibly hard working, resilient and determined, despite all the challenges covid has thrown at them in terms of living in tiny house shares in lockdown and missing out on social lives. They are also facing the challenge of how to have stable family lives with huge student debt and buying a house way out of their reach unless they have family help. They are off sick a little more than older colleagues, but they have less experience, will be finding the job tougher still and probably have less built up resilience to bugs! I’m really impressed by them and hugely grateful for their energy as I gradually become old, grumpy and exhausted!

@CurlyhairedAssassin.

Really good post - I agree with you.

Having returned to uni in my 40s I was incredibly impressed with the smart, intelligent, hardworking young people on my vocational degree course. So much more dedicated than the students I hung around with in the late 80s.

@CurlyhairedAssassin

I'm not sure what you expect when schools are supposed to ram mental health & wellbeing down students' throats. It's what Ofsted want to see. What I personally want to see is young people being told that lots of anxiety is entirely normal, especially for someone their age, with the life changes they are experiencing. Too many students are feeling normal everyday anxiety about exam stress or workload and then putting themselves in the bracket of having "mental health issues". In my view schools aren't making clear the distinction very clear. It needs looking at.

In many schools there is also a lack of push to encourage resilience.
The focus should be on equipping young people with a can do attitude, despite their fears about their exams, COVID etc. I do fear that we are mollycoddling young people and protecting them from the harsh realities of life. Yes, this generation does have it tougher than their parents' generation when it comes to affordable housing, job availability, and now COVID, but it doesn't mean they won't or can't cope with it.

By putting mental health issues in the public spotlight SO MUCH, to the extent that it's everywhere you look, it kind of becomes a real focus of a young person's viewpoint on life. They can't see anything beyond how they are feeling at any one moment.

Of course, you're not supposed to say anything along these lines - what a terrible person I would be if I did yadda yadda. It's veering on woke. But I bet LOADS of people think it in work situations. While we carry on carrying the can and the workload of others who are just not trying hard enough.

There is a mental health crisis in this country. Schools are absolutely not putting it in the spotlight too much. We (at primary) are educating our children in ways to take care of their mental health and resilience is ALWAYS a big part of this. The high suicide rate and sectioning rate amongst the 18 - 25 year old bracket obviously passed you by then? There is a huge crisis in mental health care. There are no beds and people in crisis are unable to access support until it's too late or things have taken a really serious turn. A 'can do' attitude is no shield against depression, psychosis or schizophrenia.

YANBU but it’s your lazy management/hr teams fault that they can’t be bothered to hire/train/manage staff. Some people fall on their feet and will ride the wave until their luck runs out.

DH currently works with someone hired with no experience who he thought was a new graduate. Turns out they never completed their course. His manager is crap and only interviewed one person. They don’t know what the role entails themselves and only interviewed this one person.

A lot of places also cheap out on wages and generally you get the staff you pay for. People like yourself who care about doing a decent job of things will eventually move on because you will never be valued as much as the bsers and time wasters. Sorry

I’ve dealt with a lot of graduates over the last few years.

The ones that stand out are:

The one who suffered from social anxiety and produced a letter from her GP saying she was required to spend 15 mins every two hours on Facebook so that she could relieve her anxiety.

The one who had so many Instagram followers, she had security concerns and wanted a dedicated office.

The two grads who were a couple and walked around the office holding hands and kissing. They were quite sweet, but I was inappropriate.

The guy who refused to wear a security lanyard because he felt it was degrading.

We’re educating people into idiots.

Well you sound quite aggressive and angry. You need to speak with your manager if you think you’re doing more than your fair share.

As a general rule I can understand young people suffering increasingly with poor mental health. They grow up in a largely boundaryless environment, feeling not 100% masculine/feminine? Have you thought about swopping sex? If you’re female, you should be scared of being raped every time you leave the house. If you’re a person of colour, you’ll struggle to get anywhere because every white person hates you, work hard enough you’ll get what you want, if you don’t you want get that perfect job so you can afford all the necessary stuff which will make you happy, you’ll never get a house, you must be the best performing student ever, you need to inject shit into your face to look even remotely ok, your life must be instagrammable, you must be online all the time, the only person who matters is you, don’t worry about wider consequences of actions. Quite frankly I’d be surprised if you find many young people without some mental health problems against the backdrop we make them measure themselves. It creates nihilism.

People with mental health issues are encouraged to do social things.

Having said this I do understand and it’s long been an issue. When I first started work in a professional services firm, I would be photocopying, filing etc, for the last 20 years though new grads see themselves as consumers, is the employer offering them the right service? Is the job interesting enough etc. it’s unrealistic expectations set both in the educational system, by parents and the employers themselves on the milk rounds.

It’s good that so much more effort is put into mental health awareness.

Suicide rates for teens are still less than they used to be 20,30 and 40 years ago albeit higher than a few years ago. It tends to be males in their 40’s and 50’s who are by far the most likely to commit suicide. They don’t get called snowflakes and people don’t go around suggesting they should be taught more resilience.

The high suicide rate and sectioning rate amongst the 18 - 25 year old bracket obviously passed you by then?

The highest suicide rates are 40 - 44 and 45- 50 years olds. 75% higher that of young people. The rate doesn’t reduce to that of 18-25 year olds until you reach 60.

The highest suicide rates are 40 - 44 and 45- 50 years olds. 75% higher that of young people. The rate doesn’t reduce to that of 18-25 year olds until you reach 60.

It's odd because this is also the demographic which many seem to view as privileged/gammons/etc, when from what I can see there are many more men than women of this age bearing sole financial responsibility while the partner doesn't work.

Going back to the OP, I think it's also increasingly common for youths to not be particularly money focused. In fact I read an article a while back which said exactly this.

TBH, I'm not excusing pulling sickies, but I find the attitude of older people laughable sometimes....."I worked at the same company for 35 years, I did loads of boring grunt work, I worked 70 hours a week!". Like a weird race to the bottom.

OK, great.....good for you? I however do not want to be treated like shit. There are millions of companies and jobs out there - why shouldn't you move if elsewhere is offering more money or more interesting work? Also, you only get one life - I do not want to work 70 hours a week. For what? A huge house? I have a nice life, a house and everything I want on a more modest salary working 37.5 hours a week - and time for my friends and hobbies too.

It really is odd how young people seem completely unable to differentiate between 'anxiety' and 'feeling worried'. The amount of young people (friends and family) that I've heard say 'I can't go to that meeting, I have anxiety', 'I've cancelled my driving test, I'm too anxious', 'I decided no to go to the interview as I have anxiety so it's obviously not the right job for me' when it is perfectly reasonable for be nervous/worried/scared about all of those activities!

Sadly a lot of people seem to think that they shouldn't have to do anything that has them feeling at all out of their comfort zone, and it gives 'anxiety' a bad name. This only hurts people that genuinely have anxiety as it's become the new 'stress' or 'back pain' and is used as an excuse, so it's starting to get an eye roll at work rather than being taken seriously

I think (an awful lot of a) generation has been failed by being mollycoddled/helicopter parented, where mummy and daddy remove any potential obstacle or protect from any possible upset. This then goes into education where you can't fail

As a result some people entering the world of work are getting a huge and very nasty shock. It isn't their fault though, if you've been sheltered from any remotely unpleasant experience while you grow up, you really can't be expected to have built any resilience.

The worst bit is seeing people in the office in tears/having a tantrum because they don't want to do something, and the dawning realisation on their faces that crying isn't going to get them their own way/out of the task....

The OP was scrupulous in saying her remarks were about graduates in her work, not generalising, so not bashing, and has been back to say her intention was not to hang public service out to dry

Thats not quite the case though is it... the OP said after lambasting young people, went onto to say Apologies this has turned into a proper rant im just so frustrated by society at the minute

To me that means he/she clearly means all young people.... apart from miraculously themselves....

I also say again, any public sector organisation will deal with repeated sickness due to MH in exactly the same way they deal with any other repeated time due to illness.

I’m sure you have better things to do on your annual leave than to name change and criticise other young people. If you’re a graduate too, you’re also learning. Be more humble, you’ll go far.

@PrincessPaws
I agree wholeheartedly with the substance of your post.
I would just demur that "anxiety" itself is not a disorder but an entirely normal feeling in circumstances that provoke it. It is simply a state of feeling anxious (worried, agitated etc) It does not mean the same as an anxiety disorder. The trouble is that this error is common and many people seize on the word "anxiety" to imply that they have an actual anxiety disorder.

I am anxious/ have anxiety (genuinely) at times but I am confident that I do not have an anxiety disorder. I just get worried and stressed when I have challenges or time pressures with no obvious outlet.

@Octavia174

The OP was scrupulous in saying her remarks were about graduates in her work, not generalising, so not bashing, and has been back to say her intention was not to hang public service out to dry

Thats not quite the case though is it... the OP said after lambasting young people, went onto to say Apologies this has turned into a proper rant im just so frustrated by society at the minute

To me that means he/she clearly means all young people.... apart from miraculously themselves....

I also say again, any public sector organisation will deal with repeated sickness due to MH in exactly the same way they deal with any other repeated time due to illness.

It means the young people I work with...and the general use of self diagnosed mental health issues as a scapegoat for laziness across society (not limited to any one generation)

@Mickarooni

I’m sure you have better things to do on your annual leave than to name change and criticise other young people. If you’re a graduate too, you’re also learning. Be more humble, you’ll go far.

I'm sure I do but this post was sparked by a conversation with my boyfriend and I wanted to gather opinions on the matter and see if i was alone. I'm sure spending 5 minutes out of my day to type it up, and then following up through the afternoon in between activties as I am generally interested in replies, isnt considered a waste of annual leave.

I know I am still learning...hence I am trying hard to better myself at my job and gain as many new skills as I can. Its just a shame others don't seem to be too, which is sort of my whole point...

@H0bnob don’t worry, I didn’t think you were bashing public sector workers- my comment was directed at other posters. Also please don’t take all these comments to heart, mumsnet can be great, but also feel pretty harsh when you’re the OP. I don’t think you have said anything to imply mental health issues are not serious for many people.

I think it's a shame that some people on here seem to be so dismissive about depression and anxiety

On the whole people here are differentiating between having feelings of depression and anxiety and having a disorder. And those things are very different. But it seems that there are increasing numbers of younger people feel anything which causes distress is a disorder and warrants special attention and adjustments. This is what is not helpful. And yes, if people are struggling to cope they deserve support but only in order that they can do what is expected of them, not get out of doing what they don't want to do. Not sure if the comment about people getting into mental health as a power trip is a dig at anyone in particular, and I sure you are right. Personally I got into it to help alleviate suffering and be of service. But after 20 years in MH I did not expect to end up helping so many young people learn lessons that their parents should have taught them.