Young people - workshy, or a wee bit canny?

[SwanBuster]

Inspired by a spirited discussion in the Scottish highlands.

A local cafe owner (late forties) was bemoaning his staffing situation to another forty something man, who was buying a coffee with his daughter. I was waiting for mine.

”I’m understaffed - can’t get the workers. I’m paying them 20% above minimum wage but the 18-30 generation don’t want to work - they’d rather sell drugs or be on benefits’.

The chap he was talking to said :

‘oh really - yeah it’s terrible that, they just don’t have the ethic’.

At this point I (another forty something) interjected, and said :

“Well, can we really blame them? Vast swathes of them have been disenfranchised through the cost of housing. They don’t see a path to a stake in society any more”

He said “Utter bollocks - I worked hard and they don’t want to”. The other guy agreed.

Then another guy (again forty something 😂) started agreeing with me, saying he sees it in the corporate world that it’s the sorted 50 somethings who bought cheap houses who are the workshy ones cruising along.

I agreed - imho, no point in working unless you get £100k. Only then can you hope to match the lifestyle of a retail worker from the past”

All the while a young person was waiting for her coffee looked very non pleased and the cafe owner apologised saying “not all young people obviously”

AIBU to think the young are right to “lie flat” and not bother if things don’t change?

Thanks, Swanbuster. We’re very proud of him. It’s not the walk in the park that lots of (old) people think it is.
it’s turned our thinking on its head, tbh. Our son is doing the job because it fits in with his life. Several of his colleagues are career workers. They have families, commitments and ambitions. Have to be honest, before he started it hadn’t occurred to us that it was a career for lots of people.
I've never - never- disrespected hospitality staff. If I was being completely honest, they just weren’t on my radar because I'm not in hospitality.
But our son’s experience has
made me realise just how much most people take service staff for granted.

Bullshit. I doubt the average teenager is any more or less workshy than in the past. There is a Hogarth painting from the 1740s of a lazy teenage apprentice! Older people have always complained about the young. Besides, who DOES want to work? Most people I know hate their job.

If anything, teenagers today are MORE ambitious, career-focused and hard-working than ever. It's why they drink less alcohol than the previous generations.

I can understand if young people feel that way, the message that they are getting is pretty bleak:

1. you will never afford your own house
2. you won’t be able to afford children
3. retirement will cease to exist long before you near retirement age
4. the world is going to burn down around you due to climate change

i am naturally optimistic so hope things will improve in time but I totally understand why some young people may feel that there is little point in ambition.

Of the young people I know they all work but the focus does seem to be on working to live and not being that fussed about climbing the career ladder. A very healthy attitude in many ways.

Everyone should lie flat.
Employers don't care about their employees. They want people to have virtually no sick leave by coming in when ill, to give little compassionate leave and expect people to come into work when they are suffering, pay too little and expect staff to be happy about the ever growing inequality between bosses wages and staff wages etc etc.

Rubbish

IMHO the current generation of young people are IN GENERAL entitled, work shy and all about their rights and not their responsibilities.

don’t shout at me. I said in general. As a generation.

1. you dont need qualifications
2. don't need to pay tax

I wouldn’t say young people are work shy at all. I work in a team with 7 other people. We are all aged between 20-30 and all of us have 2 jobs. First job starts at 6am and the second job finishes at 9pm.

This exactly. Working hard is a mug’s game on the whole. A lie sold by capitalism.

I’m a millennial who manages gen z staff. It’s definitely a wild, wild experience. They have a very different attitude to work. Perhaps it’s growing up watching us not get on the housing ladder (SE) and pay vast amounts in rent. As millennials we grew up thinking if we worked hard and went to uni, life would work out. So I very much see where their ideas and frustration comes from!

But from a management point of view, it’s let’s say…. challenging. We have more international staff than ever before, mostly due to work ethic.

I think the young have been shafted personally & they should be angrier about it

This, completely. I don’t think the young are workshy at all, but I wouldn’t blame them for downing tools and giving up at this point. They’ve been dealt a really shitty hand. Don’t agree with the not working for less than £100K though.

I'm in my 50s, I completely agree.

Every generation has had something to complain about.

Postwar youngsters could say they were left to pick up the pieces of previous generation’s war.

In the 60s, de industrialization began, boomers coming of age and entering a crowded jobs market, and youngsters found themselves again having to adjust to the market. Not to mention the threat of Cold War getting hot.

70s were particularly tough with massive inflation, crippled economy, everyone has heard the stories.

80s generation lived through it thinking were about to be nuked any minute.

In the 90s, they saw their parents losing their homes during the recession and were thinking that ozone depletion would mean the world would end in a few years.

The noughties brought the financial crisis, people losing their jobs and housing already expensive.

Those youngsters sat back now thinking it’s never been harder, will be wishing telling a different story in 20 years time.

Do you not think that it’s appropriate to work up to that £100k though, and have the slips to do the job well?Surely you don’t think every school leavers should just be able to walk into a £100k job even if they can barely spell their own name, and the only other option is not working?

TBH I’m disinclined to believe it when people say these conversations where several random strangers in public joined in with these insightful and articulate statements. Did everyone stand up and clap afterwards?

Not worth bothering with what?

If you don’t bother, how do you live? Pick some £50 notes from the magic money tree every morning?

50 somethings? I'm 50 something and when I bought my first house (after living with the in-laws for 18 months) interest rates shot up to 18%. Both of us worked full time and the best we could afford was a 2up 2down in a run down area. All our bits of furniture were either 2nd or 3rd hand and we didn't have a landline or washing machine for the first 2 years. This was in the 1990's.
I think youll find it was the 60+ (so called boomers)to who prospered.
we had a number of friends our age who bought a few years earlier who lost their homes when interest rates went up so high. It was an awful time.

Why should the young make more effort when their chances of ever owning a home or achieving real financial security are increasingly small, unless they’re lucky enough to have very rich parents. Even if they do, the future’s not looking particularly bright for western societies or global stability, not to mention climate change. Might as well coast along and enjoy life while they can.

So the current generation of young people are the only ones who have ever gone through tough times? Grow up! Incidentally, while I did own a home once a marriage breakdown has led me to being 63 and with no chance of ever owning property again - should I just adopt the same attitude and "coast along"? Owning your own home is not a right, and why should your employer suffer because you can't be bothered putting in any effort? Do you seriously believe that everyone bought a house several generations ago? My grandparents rented all their lives without this sense of entitlement that people seem to have these days.

Some of you would do well to study history and see just how tough some people had it.

I’ve posted on several threads about this, as we have just stopped recruiting interns and apprentices due to poor work ethic.

Dont know about you but I’m staggered by the level of entitlement, coupled with a total inability to accept constructive criticism - even if it’s ‘oh just so you know we say “Good morning, My Workplace Industries, Gen-Zedder speaking” rather than just “‘Ello?”’. They take it REALLY badly, even had a couple get up and leave with the first minor comment then the next day I’ve got an angry mum on the phone asking why I ‘screamed’ (it’s always screamed, I don’t scream) at her DD 🙄.

Also find that, despite being very clear about the role expected, they think they’re above making tea for meetings, setting up meeting rooms, doing basic tasks etc. I never do anything like get them to take dry cleaning out (like I had to when I was in their position) or book personal appontments but I do expect them to find a meeting room when I say I’ve arranged a meeting. The sheer fury of having to do a menial task, when they’ve been told they’re amazing because they have a degree, astounds me. Don’t get me started on the conversation policing in the office.

They aren’t willing to start at the bottom and work their way up. I don’t know why. I have my theories. But yes ‘challenging’ is absolutely the right word.

I don't agree with the 100k point, because that's about consumerism which is like a moving mirage (you'd earn 100k and still feel like it wasn't enough, you deserve a bigger house etc etc).

But your point about house prices being so out of reach for even the hardest working, most frugal, relying on parental help, minimum wage worker is a good one, because those individuals won't feel obligated to be part of society in a way other generations have and that is a big risk - the social contract is breaking up, and that means a more unstable society is coming.

If we are talking generalisations here ..... my DS, his GF, all his friends (apart from one) and the DC of all of my friends all have jobs and are hardworking.

A couple of those in their mid-late 20s have managed to save for a deposit for a house. Admittedly they have stayed living at their parents home whilst saving, but all of them have paid some housekeeping as none of the families are well off (not breadline either, more average wage). House prices are also fairly cheap here in comparison to some other places - but I'm just showing a different side to the story .

I think there is a percentage of people who are unemployable. They're just so unappealing to employers and they make no attempt to change that.

But there's another percentage who feel shamed for being unemployed when they have tried to find a job but don't have the right experience, can't ''perform'' at interview, don't have a degree (even though the job doesn't require it), they're too old, they're too unattractive, they don't have a car and can't drive to where the jobs are.... Employers and recruitment agents get away with their biases and discriminations meaning it's always the same demographic left depressed about being unable to find a job. The govt should be making sure that this can't happen, that companies can't hire only young people, or only people who already had a job.

I think this is bollocks. I came of age in the late 90s /early 00s, and the feeling then was one of optimism. There was no sense rhat young people of that era were particularly hard done by, not at all. Most young people I knew had disposable income for trips away etc. Life expectancy was rising, with young people expecting to live longer healthier lives than their parents and grandparents. There were economic issues, but not on the current scale. Wages were much higher relative to the cost of living (and have stagnated for the past 15 years or so while inflation has eroded purchasing power).

Current times are very, very different. The negagive impact of climate change is now a reality, not a hypothetical future. This and many other things means that things feel far less optimistic.

I don't even know anyone who earns £100k - people of
any age - aside from some of our managers - none of my friends' families do.

Actually this thread is goady bollox IMO.

I work hard btw (gen x) but i have a copy of Tom Hodgkinson's ''How to be Idle'' on my shelf. Excellent book. Really made me think. Although he's not suggesting doing nothing and signing on, but he's not recommending becoming a wage ''slave'' either. I am still a wage slave but I took something from the book. ie not to outsource my entertainment to netflix. I still do that actually but I'm aware I'm doing it and I have artistic projects on the go.