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?

Your reading comprehension is appalling.

I have said numerous times - the cafe owner was a man. I am a man.

He started ranting about young people. I defended them saying ‘well, it is understandable because the ladder of aspiration has been pulled from them.

I told my partner about this after I’d had the coffee and crap sandwich - she had gone to the shops to get some stuff. I requested she go and pretend to agree with him and then record it for me, please. It was just a piece of audio, and a bit of fun.

She did so - and I got a wonderful recording I’ll laugh at for years. Especially the bit at the end where again he is forced to apologise to yet another young customer with ‘not all young people are like that’.

yeah it was entertaining and I’m not in the slightest bit ashamed of it.

Oh and the holiday was wonderful - it’s a beautiful place.

I’m not going to TikTok it, or put in on YouTube and out the guy. He was nice enough but his ranting amused me and that’s my sense of humour.

Oh and as far as the ‘mansplaining’ goes - I couldn’t mansplain anything to my partner if o wanted to.

She has her own strong opinions and actually they were closer to the cafe owners in a lot of senses!

She recorded it because she’s kind enough to indulge my silly sense of humour.

I have said numerous times - the cafe owner was a man. I am a man.

He started ranting about young people.

So he is a man then?!

I defended them saying ‘well, it is understandable because the ladder of aspiration has been pulled from them.

Well that’s VERY different from what you claim you said in your OP but both statements are cruel get to the point of being unbelievable.

I told my partner about this after I’d had the coffee and crap sandwich - she had gone to the shops to get some stuff. I requested she go and pretend to agree with him and then record it for me, please. It was just a piece of audio, and a bit of fun.

You sound like a pair of absolute losers. Seriously, who agrees to this? If my DH asked that of me I’d think he was the saddest cunt I’d ever met and the only place I’d be going is to the nearest estate agents to buy a house on my own.

Not that any of it matters as it’s all completely fictional but you really should remember the porkies you came out with when you tell tales

Your fictional character mansplained in the cafe though in your fictional cafe.

Fuck me. You cannot read.

everything I have said has been consistent!

cafe owner - man.

me - man

other people in original conversation- men

my partner - woman.

what the fuck is wrong with your eyes?!

Oops I thought you said the cafe owner want a bloke 🤦‍♂️ Doh! But still - it doesn’t matter what sex they are, to make your fictional character and his fictional wife so pompous and rude is odd and it’s not ok to speak to people like that just because they aren’t women

*wasnt.

Still your fictional slef is unbelievably rude and I’m sure the fictional cafe owner pissed himself laughing about you all afterwards.

I think what ACTUALLY happened is you overheard a conversation and the pompous words you used in your OP is what you wish you’d said. And then you went and told your wife and imagined a scenario whereby she ‘caught’ the cafe owner ranting on film. It’s all just a work of fiction and you wanted a place to use the words you weren’t brave enough to use IRL. So came on MN to mansplain 😂

You can’t read.

You have been making up your own little story as you go along.

Why bother posting if you cannot grasp what was going on?!

i found the male cafe owner to be a bigot towards young people.

I challenged him on it. A few of us had a discussion, all good.

my partner kindly played along and got me a recording of it. Maybe one day I’ll use it to do a stand up comedy routine. Who the fuck knows, and who the fuck cares?!

why are you so bothered about people doing their own things? It didn’t harm him - he’ll harm himself through those rants as he alienated more and more of his younger customers whilst he makes disparaging statements towards them.

seriously- You sound utterly boring if you can’t see a bit of fun for what it is. Do you never do things for a laugh?!

Also, riddle me this - any given worker gets an average wage of £100k. Meanwhile, £10 for a sandwich and coffee (very reasonable in most parts of the UK) is considered a ‘rob’. How do businesses make all this money to pay people those high wages if you think a measly tenner is pushing the boat out for food and service? You can’t have it both ways

Wrong. When I hear someone talking bollocks, I challenge them on it. Just like I’m doing now. You can believe what you want, but it happened. Fuck it was a conversation in a cafe - what is so astonishing about that that it couldn’t have happened?!

I don’t think it’s fun to get my OH to go and wind up a stranger because they have a difference of opinion to me. I think that’s a sad and pathetic way to live, not to mention a very thin skinned way to live. I could never imagine being so sensitive. I’d also hate to have such a simpering OH who doesn’t tell me when I’m being a massive prick.

Not that I believe ANY of this happened, I think you just wanted to prevent your (illogical) views on a fancier way because you were too chicken to actually butt into a conversation and state your opinion (and I don’t blame you, most people wouldn’t).

The point is most people don’t earn £100k, so yeah - that particular shitty sandwich was absolutely a rob. The fish and chip shop next door was a much better bet - but I wanted a coffee and a quick bite and I made an error of judgment.

is it illegal to be disappointed by a sandwich now?!

Is it not possibly that a £6.50 take away sandwich can be daylight robbery? I didn’t even see it until he brought it out wrapped in cling film. Fucking thing might have been a day old.

But I did. Because I have big bollocks and I call out shit when I hear it. Try it sometime.

As I said in my first post I’m ALWAYS dubious when people declare they were part of these elaborate public conservations of enlightenment whereby the topic was, coincidentally one they’re VERY passionate about. They always happen either in cafes or in queues. Whereas IRL people don’t just butt into these kind of conversations because most people ca read the room and realise no one wants them to do that. Especially when their opinion is as ludicrous as ‘it’s not worth working for less than £100k’. To someone who runs a cafe 😂

Of course you do.

I’d DIE before I think I just had to say something because a stranger has a difference of opinion to me. I’d never be so weird or so arrogant.

A coffee for £3.50 is extremely reasonable.
A sandwich for £6.50 is extremely reasonable.

As I stayed before you’re not just paying for their food but a contribution to their wages, bills and profits too.

I just don’t understand how you simultaneously want sky high wages for everyone but also dirt cheap living. How does that work?

some of us have different principles. We don’t like hearing idiots castigating an entire generation who are having a much harder time of it then they/we did. Even if I’m the same damn age as the cafe owner.

Oh - by the way you still haven’t answered whether a sandwich could indeed be a rip off at £6.50.

that Sandwich was nowhere near reasonable for £6.50. £3 at best.

How the fuck do you know what it looked like?!

Yeah, still don’t believe you. But if you were that kind of person, who seeks fun from provoking people with a difference of opinion (who will actually have had RL experience of hiring young people) then you sound like the most insufferable bore I’ve ever heard of.

I was the person in the corner. That’s how.

Joking. Obviously. I cannot put myself in a fictional scenario.

But I don’t know what the sandwich looked like. But you would be VERY hard pressed to find a a switch in a cafe in a tourist area for £3.50. Unless it was a child’s sandwich.

But for someone who is on the righteous path to thinking everyone should be on £100k + bracket, quibbling over £3 is a bit odd

At Tebay services on the way home I had a full, freshly cooked fry up for £9.95.

Now that was exceptional value given service station prices, and the quality of the ingredients.

His 30p roll and 30p worth of salami was not.

it’s not the £6.50 for a sandwich I’m complaining about!

it was £6.50 for that sandwich.

You are totally ridiculous.