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?

Why work for a low wage in the arse end of nowhere where you have no place to call your own and place a stake in society.

hoysing costs whether renting or house prices have pushed people further and further away, resulting in communities where it’s just not viable to work in unless you already own property.

You sound a hundred times more boring if you can’t envisage people enjoying winding up bigots.

Then I’m surprised that a man with ‘big bollocks’ is too pussy to say something about the quality of sandwich that offends him so greatly or ask for a better one to be made.

No, I can’t for a moment understand why it would be funny to wind up and lie to someone who has a difference of opinion to you. It I’m not a massive weirdo so that’s probably why.

I don't think there's been a massive change in work ethic, but attitudes towards work have definitely shifted. I'm in my 30s (so not quite as young as Generation Z) with good qualifications and experience. When I go into an interview I look at it as a two way street and have declined offers/second interviews because I didn't like the benefits/pay/company culture/hoops they make you jump through. There are lots of jobs out there at the moment and people have choices. Covid has also made people think more deeply about work/life balance.

There is also a lot of money in influencing. I don't blame younger people for wanting to work for themselves, especially if they are able to build a successful business and earn more than they would at a traditional job. That's the opposite of lazy.

The idea that you work for one company forever and get a decent wage that allows you to afford a good quality of life no longer exists. Companies always look out for their own interests and younger people have woken up to the fact that they need to do the same.

That is absolutely his prerogative to sell shit sandwiches. I’m not going to complain. If he wants to hoodwink hungry tourists so be it.

Now but you do sound incredibly tiresome, stupendously dull and definitely 100% need to practice your reading.

Never before have I had to repeat in such excruciating detail my posts, based on the complete fabrication your mind was making out them.

I suspect you own a string of buy to let’s right?

So you’re happy to challenge him on his opinion of the young workforce but not on his dubious selling practices? You, the self appointed challenger of wrong-doers? Riiiiight. It all absolutely adds up and makes sense

What a weird assumption? Where has that come from?

You sound like a bitter and not especially well educated genZer. Rather than allegedly a man in a too job somewhere past Tebay.

If you think I’m boring because I don’t find side-splitting humour in winding up strangers whose opinions differ from mine, I can take that - I’d be alarmed if you thought our humour was on the same wavelength

It is definitely a lot harder for younger people to make their way nowadays.
In previous years, people could work knowing that they would be able to buy their own property and live a good life. Now, it's a lot, lot harder. If you are on a low or even average wage, it can be incredibly difficult even to rent.
I can see why young people wonder why they should even be bothering. It isn't like it was in the past when certain things such as home ownership were much readily available and affordable.

Yes, on this you have it absolutely correct.

It is absolutely his decision to run his business however he sees fit - bad value sandwiches hidden under the counter ripping off tourists who will only ever visit once? frankly I like it. It’s actually quite a sustainable if ethically dubious way to live.

Ranting about young people whilst there are 3 customers waiting because he ‘can’t get the staff’, yeah - fuck it I’ll say something.

your imagination is absolutely pitiful of you can’t conceive of this situation.

oh believe me, my education is broad and comprises both upper echelons of academia and the real world.

Probably vastly different to your myopic specialisms that have led to the lack of breadth in your mental models of what is and what isn’t conceivable in the spectra of human social interactions.

oh believe me, my education is broad and comprises both upper echelons of academia and the real world.

Probably vastly different to your myopic specialisms that have led to the lack of breadth in your mental models of what is and what isn’t conceivable in the spectra of human social interactions.

As much as you think you’re the smartest man in the room, if you have to use word salad to make your point, I tend to think you know Jack shit about anything.

Reminds me when Joey off friends wanted to write a smart-sounding letter and used a theasaurus to replace all the normal words 😂

And I find it REALLY hard to believe that your academia ‘compromised’ the ‘upper echelons’ when you think a sustainable economy is having everyone earn £100k pa but pay cafes £3.50 for a sandwich.

I see my Bullshit Bingo card has been filled as these interactions happened in a queue! Fictional conversations with other members of the public ALWAYS happen when in a queue.

A sandwich for £6.50 is extremely reasonable.

A McDonalds large extra value meal costs that much, according to google. Seems rather better value, even though I'd usually prefer a (nice) sandwich.

In fact, a quick google shows me that almost any Subway foot-long sub costs that much, and I love those.

I'll take your word for it that £6.50 for a crap sandwich is normal in tourist cafes and make sure never to buy food in such a place.

OP is entertaining in so much as sounding like a fantasist, as well as being pompous and nasty. And doesn’t understand the subject matter they seem to commenting on, wages and the economy. And gets worse with each post. Keep going.

And it’s those who don’t understand the word salad who usually make such statements, i tend to think.

And don’t disparage Joey. He was an intellectual tour-de-force compared to the shower of shite you’ve come out with on this thread. You didn’t properly read my original posts, made up your own narrative and have been back pedalling ever since. A Pathetic display.

Comprised - not compromised. Two entirely different words.

where the fuck did I say everyone should be earning £100k? Where?

If you had even the slightest amount of brain power you would have understood the point that fiscal and monetary policy has created a horrendous mess that’s meant working for less than that is becoming increasingly pointless if you don’t already own assets

but you haven’t the capacity to join the dots.

Although perhaps I did ‘compromise the upper echelons’ by calling them out on their own bullshit in the vacuous micro and macroeconomics courses I did.

It’s very typical of people like you to try and beat down people like me, because it’s variably those who don’t have the capability to think critically for themselves who follow conventional models of economics.

*invariably - autocorrect

You are under the misapprehension that McDonald’s and Subway are generally more expensive than independent places when it’s very much the other way around.

And you are under the misapprehension that the average consumer gives a shit.

I don’t think I’ve back pedalled once?

And I understand what those words mean but I don’t think you realise that they actually don’t go together and make a coherent sentence. I’m very wary of people who use big words in lieu of anything intelligent to say