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?

@Dibbydoos shows how out of touch you are. Our mortgage is 35 years. However to buy our very modest ‘normal family home’ terrace house in the cheapest area within about 15 miles, you’d still have to earn 90k. Triple average wage… not even minimum wage…

You are just the sort of people banks, predatory lenders, large state and corporations love.

yeah - why stop at 50 year mortgages? Make them 500 years! let’s put a pledge on our great grandchildrens great, great, great, great grandchildren.

easy monthly payments for the consumer - and a constant revenue stream for the lenders. Meanwhile - everyone on the hamster wheel till they and their descendants 50 generations hence drop. For a shitty 2 bed flat.

great idea!

You say you're a bloke, OP.

A bloke who celebrates young women having to earn money from old pervs via Only Fans is downright fucking creepy. 🤢 🤮

🙄

use your fucking brain. I’m hardly celebrating it and if you can’t detect sarcasm that’s on you.

Nah, claiming 'irony' doesn't wash, not alongside the message I'm getting from your other posts.

You go to the Highlands and complain that they are charging a fair price for food and drink, boast to the locals about how you don't think it's worth working for less than £100k, you get your partner to secretly record the staff, and your comments on here have been... interesting.

I agree that young people have a very hard time of it right now, but I actually hope you're on a wind up, because the alternative is that the arrogance and ignorance is real!

Seconded

And what I detect is someone who doesn’t understand hyperbolic humour to get to the crux of a point, quickly.

look - he offered up a ridiculous statement about the ‘youth of today’ all being wasters and drug dealers.

fucking right I’ll enjoy winding him up.

Maybe there just aren’t enough young people for the number of cafes.

Anyway, as a youth planning on spending today looking for a hospitality job this thread has cheered me up.

And I never complained to him about the price of his sandwich.

but when he handed it to me and I realised I’d paid £6.50 for a cling filmed roll with a couple of bits of cheap salami in it, yeah, I thought to myself you’ve got a fuckin’ cheek ranting about the youth of today when you’re charging 2/3rd of an hour at minimum wage for this.

I think it would make sense to bring back in 15% deposit self declaration mortgages and for them to be interest only and no time limit. If anyone is stupid enough not to pay or circumstances change then the place gets repossessed or sold . Basing it on 3 x wages these days just doesn't work for so many people, or the self employed or older people who like us may well be paying huge rents but are now too old for mortgage criteria. We genuinely could pay a 600k mortgage for what we pay in rent and would be happy to downsize in maybe 12 years - and it's sadly very likely we would have inherited too by that stage .

The other thing I would like to see isa return of DIYSO (shared ownership on open market- not just new builds) Blair brought it in initially but I believe it was simply too popular!!

We did have the equivalent of ikea.the it was called MFI, but we couldn't even afford that.
We have helped our children get on the property ladder by helping with deposits but they, like us started in tiny run down houses in not the best area and have worked their way up as they progressed with their careers. Both are in their 30's now and have lovely homes. Neither of them went to uni, nor did me or my husband so there are no uni loans to worry about.
We can't help other peoples children though, I wish we could because young people deserve better than the deal they are getting. I worry about what kind of life my grandchildren will have.
Our grandchildren are very young and by the time they want to buy a house were hoping our life insurance will be enough to cover their deposits. If we are still here, we'll do whatever we can to help them.

I think sometimes the starting at the bottom, is not considered for some, as they think they went to university,.or have already achieved x experience and qualifications etc, and that depending on the role they applied for them why are they doing x tasks when they are ment to be doing x role.

me personally, anything that helps you become part of the team and help each other is one of the main things, no end of times I've been tea person etc, but while your making the teas, it helps staff of different roles to network with each other, but I guess not everyone has the same views.

Without a shadow of a doubt young people have it harder than the previous few generations, and anyone who thinks otherwise is just utterly and completely wrong.

Maybe people don't think £30k was enough to attract a graduate, yet the Spanish 2nd jobber, we met in the pub has a marketing degree from Madrid, joined us at the 'miserly'' £30k , has proved to be a real asset and received a 10% pay rise at the end of her induction period. She says that things related to work are far better here than in Spain.

We'll recruit a 2nd grad in April next year while the first will get another raise to cover cost of living. What I can't give them is massive salaries, I can give in a happy team, good flexible working conditions and training.

Where abouts in the Highlands? Rural or somewhere like Inverness.

There is a rural cafe to me on the nc500 that complains about this constantly on their Facebook. But it's just not that good a job option, they only keep the staff on for summer and it's a pain in the arse to get to.

Some of the rural cafes/businesses are just fairly shit compared to other jobs and it's not that deep.

Young school students don't want it as they can't get to it. Adults don't want it as its just a short temporary job and you can get summer jobs locally that aren't as tourist focused. Combine that with managers who bitch to customers and Facebook all about how rubbish staff are or potential staff and just why would you.

I agree. I intensely dislike ageism, whichever way round. Many extremely industrious young people, who are pouring loads of work and energy into tackling climate change too.
Also, many poor middle aged and older people who are renting still/again. Not all have done brilliantly well out of property. I take as I find, and try to avoid generalisations if I possibly can. People are people. Having said all that, I do feel especially sorry for the very young these days. They made such sacrifices during the pandemic, and haven't really been thanked. Climate change is going to affect them more, and so little is being done about it, which is heartbreaking 😔

So because you’re all blokes and she’s a woman, it’s ok to go into someone’s business, and use deception to wind them up and film them for you to laugh at? This is your holiday?? What a pair of sad acts. You sound like a mansplaining fool and your wife sounds awful too.

Or rather, your imaginary ego and imaginary wife sound like awful people, I bet my life it’s a load of old rubbish.

Also your SE centric attitude is embarrassing. Many area of Scotland aren’t the Bonny highlands you know - a lot of areas are I do dates with crime and poverty. It’s likely absolutely true that a lot of young people he k owns turn to dealing drugs. Not everyone lives in a £100k-a-year-is-a-crap-wage bubble

This is the product of all and sundry going to university to study Mickey Mouse degrees. Not a popular term but it’s so true.

As you go through OP’s posts on this thread, you realize she’s not living in the highlands, but on cloud cuckooland.

You've lost me at this. Obviously I don't know where "here" is for you, but as you've specified SE I searched for all homes under 475,000 in Kent, as it's a pretty good example of a SE county. I'm sure the people who currently live in the 21000 homes listed there, and those extras in the 475000-499000 bracket, not to mention the millions whose homes aren't currently on the market, would love to hear how their homes aren't even "half decent" in your eyes.

Young people might struggle in some ways but other than possibly a brief period in say the 70s-2010s generally the vast majority of them still have it better than any other generations before them. And even in those decades, as people have pointed out, there were still significant issues going on then that meant life was far from rosy for everyone PLUS things were only great if you were white, British, and straight - and even better middle class and male. Ask a 70 year old first generation Pakistani or Jamaican immigrant how easy they had it as a 'boomer!'

My sibling is aged 27 - in his circle, all of his friends have their own homes, most are on at least their second. Most have at least 1 kid. None of them work particularly fancy jobs, a lot don't have degrees. I'm 6 years older and nearly all of my friends have their own homes. We/they didn't benefit from their parents or grandparents giving them money to buy, because most of their parents are either still paying off their mortgages, or their houses aren't worth hundreds of thousands anyway. Outside of the south east it is perfectly possible to live a pretty good life on an average wage!

@latetothefisting i'm 31 and I'd love to live I this parralel world your speak of where most 27 year old own a home on an average salary

It was definitely easier in the past.

I was getting my first job in the late 90s. Property prices were low, I remember my friend buying a one bed room garden flat in Clapham for £66k. She earned around £25k. It was a basement flat, but still, brilliant location, 5 mins from the tube.

There was a real sense of optimism after 1997 when money finally started going back into public services. My wages went up with inflation every year. I remember as I began to get more senior getting a 4% rise on a £45k salary and thinking that was a big increase.

I did a rough calculation a while ago - that £45k I earned in my early 30s would be something like £70k now had earnings kept in line with inflation.

I've made some bad decisions since and am pretty broke now but there is no question that it was easier for that period at least

A lot of them do get money from parents and grandparents.

Half of all first-time buyers have family assistance.
inews.co.uk/opinion/bank-of-mum-and-dad-helped-kids-buy-home-face-financial-ruin-1660573

Tough for those who don’t, of course. Very difficult indeed.

I think young people have got a better handle on a work-life balance, and i think they are using older generations as an example. In my organisation the directors were moaning that the young ones, just finished studying and in their first proper corporate jobs, just don't see prepared to work a 60 hour week. They have no worries about saying "nope, sorry, can't accept this last minute request at 5pm because i have plans this evening".

Of course, a lot of young people, students etc, are living at home with parents who do everything and don't charge rent - a lot of young people who would in previous generations have had to earn money, don't feel that pressure