Can we stop acting like everyone has an equal capability to become well off?

[DeluluTaylor]

Based on the pension thread but not about OP. All this ‘why do people spend their whole lives on MW’ is so woefully ignorant. Some people don’t have a choice.
Neurodiversity
confidence
childcare availability
institutional racism
learning disabilities
trauma and it’s impact
Lifelong insecure housing
Being able to speak English but not write it
So many, many reasons why it is difficult to climb up the ladder. I’ve never been able to as I don’t have the right skills for management. But the world needs more worker bees than managers!
Who do they think should do these jobs?

I would love these posters who think the right attitude and work ethic can get you anywhere to actually coach me in how to get a decent career.

Looking over my life I seem to have the right attributes - fairly intelligent, found an unconventional way to complete a degree, have pushed on and overcome so much devastation and trauma/poor start in my personal life, not giving up even when everything seemed hopeless. Taking what work I could get and getting myself off sickness (MH and neurodiversity related) benefits without being prodded by the DWP, who had written me off.

Unfortunately I ended up back on benefits after doing well for a year or so in the job - manager changed and became unreasonably demanding and difficult and after months I ended up breaking down and having to leave, as I hadn't been able to find something better in that time. I've done some ad hoc physical labouring type work since then.

Actually getting a decent job seems to be the problem. Being given a chance, aged 40 with a poor work history.

Please - if I can do it, give me some advice and guidance as to how!
I actually know I have a lot to offer - it's just proving it on paper/in an interview (they seem to be so narrow) that's the problem!

There should be things like the idea of sure start to give support to adults ?

I think it all boils down to what you want in life too.
People saying that you must do the best and aim the highest you can are basically saying life is about having the most money you can.
Personally, I think actually enjoying the job you do is more important, especially as so much time is spent doing it. And some people do really like their MW jobs.
Life is more than work though, and the people who like and want to stay in MW jobs could be thriving in other areas of their life.
The happiest people I have met have been people who enjoy their jobs.

Certainly think with women this is part of the equation too and something SAHMs need to factor into the equation unless you have the kind of career you can just ‘pick up’ at any point -

Drives me mad- so few people appreciate the luck in their lives

I agree enjoying your job Is important Don't know many people who have been that lucky It would be good if that was more likely

No one has properly explained who will do the minimum wage jobs when "everyone" progresses. So if I work in a bar with four other people and the manager leaves - do we all get to be manager? Or does my two years of bar work provide me with the skills to earn a lot of money somewhere else? Where would that be?

Lots of people have examples of someone earning good money coming from nothing, but I am sure if they think about it, they know more people from privileged backgrounds who are earning good money.

Learn more about ADHD before you commment.
it is an under-development of executive functioning. Or in severe casing no executive functioning skills at all.

severely autistic people can’t speak. You don’t expect them to be able to do so. You accept them.

severe ADHD means no ability to make good decisions, no consistency in applying decisions even if someone helps you make the right decision in the first place, impulsivity, no ability to recognise what remedial action would help you not to repeat an error, and then no ability to implement it even if you know what you should be doing.

Undiagnosed ADHD goes in hand with dropping out of school, vulnerability in relationship choices, crime, drug-use, low paid work, debt, poor living standards.

please remember that ADHD is on a spectrum just like autism.

@BettyBohfull heartedly agree

No one ever will explain this to you as it has no answer. It's the fundamental flaw that makes nonsense of their argument, so they tend just to ignore the question. Or in the case of the person I asked it of earlier, divert attention away from it with insults.

I have physical and mental health problems and have done for my whole life. I will never be ‘successful.’ I struggle on doing as much as I can, but there is no way I can get rich or become a success, and it’s taken me a long time to come to terms with that because I am quite an ambitious person.

@XenoBitch I agree! I started a mw job in my 40s, admittedly it was to facilitate school pick ups and Dh was on good money. I didn't account for the fact that I am really good at it and love it. I undertook additional training and am now at one of the more senior levels, there isn't a whole lot of upward movement and I'm on low wage not mw. I have never felt so much respect and pride in my work before. I also work with an amazing team. All my previous working life I didn't really get that you could like your job. I am very grateful that I can do it without the sacrifice of a low income lifestyle. Most of my colleagues don't have my good fortune and are on lower wage but manageable. They are talented and hard working and often a hell of a lot smarter than the people I met when I was in a respected profession.

I gave plenty of examples.
Who will do minimum wage jobs? We have a massive unemployment among young people. Staff are not hard to replace in minimum wage jobs because they, on a whole, require no specialist skills.
If you work in a bar, you may not develop any additional skills.. or you may. For example, you may develop mixology skills and work towards becoming a head bartender (40k annually in London, 35k in St. Ives so considerably more than minimum wage) or complete a sommelier course and find a better paid job in a swanky restaurant or as purchaser for a specialist shop.
Or you may look to complete additional courses not related to bar work alongside your job and change industries entirely once you gained qualifications. That's what I have done while working for a coffee chain.
Will you be making "good money"? I don't know. Depends on what you consider to be good money. Most people, I imagine, can make more than minimum wage at the very least.

I have seen someone answer that on another thread. Apparently the MW jobs are for teens and retired people. Anyone inbetween them doing a MW job is a failure or has "something wrong with them".

Don't assume I know nothing about ADHD.

My point is that there isn't a 100% correlation between untreated ADHD and any of these things. Sure it may make these things more likely but there are plenty of people with these struggles that don't take the same path. Equally there are lots of people without ADHD that become pregnant as teenagers or enter into abusive situations.

There are lots of people that have learnt to self regulate and manage their ADHD so that it is less destructive to their lives. They have made different decisions despite suffering from the increased impulsivity and lack of executive function associated with ADHD. It isn't all about luck and it isn't all about a ND condition.

Feel there are families where generations have no drive whatsoever. Many white working class families will see no value in school, won't bother following up or caring how their child is doing.

Probably won't do well at school, some may have a few GCSEs, some won't even have them. Many just avoid going into school completely and refuse. They'll grow up, claim benefits and then complain about the "bloody immigrants" who are "stealing their jobs".

Compare this to an Asian immigrant family, even if they are from modest backgrounds themselves they'll push their children to achieve their best. Try and get their children into the best schools, if the child is struggling they'll sit with them and direct teach them the material. They'll push them to attend the best uni, and choose well paying careers.

Society needs all kinds of people to function, some doing MW might want that level of responsibility and find it ok. I don’t think it’s a failing particularly.

I do think we should help teens or older people even get those jobs with different policies but that’s another issue.

Surely you must realise that there aren't as many of this middle level jobs as there are minimum wage jobs?
So if you take my four bar staff, one can be manager, one can be a mixologist, one can do something completely different and one becomes a sommelier.

How does that work for the thousands of bar staff in the UK?

Yep. Some people seem to think that being of lower than average ability is a moral failing. Apparently all you have to do is work harder, that £100k job will magically appear, and if you don't achieve that then you are the architect of your own misfortune and have only yourself to blame.

I assume you know nothing about ADHD by the comments you make which do not correspond to any of the findings we know about the ADHD brain.

You missed the whole point of my post about the SPECTRUM.
do you understand ADHD has a spectrum?

if you do not tell a severely autistic person to speak, why you do tell a someone with severe ADHD to stay in school, follow the rules, study, get a job, maintain a household, don’t get into debt?

So if every young person who got a part time job in a bar did the sommelier or mixologist courses, coukd they all get better paid jobs? No, they couldn’t. Because there are more basic bar staff needed than experts. So they could all work really hard and get an education and some of them would still have to be staff on the basic pay rate.

You are making the common error of thinking unemployment amongst certain groups and in certain sectors equates to a large pool of ready labour where it is needed.
Jobs in social care, retail, construction and hospitality are not easy to fill, because just because they are within the capabilities of a large number of people, doesn't mean that lots of people are prepared to do them.
You are also missing the point. People are saying that no one needs to be on NMW for life. That with effort and hard work anybody and everybody can 'better themselves'.
The questions being asked are, if everyone did this, where would all the 'better jobs' come from so we could all have one, and who would do the NMW ones?
The idea that there's going to be a conveyer belt of young people doing them as a stepping stone doesn't work. We have an aging population, so even if we could depend on the flow of young people willing to serve their time in a care home en route to being a solicitor or whatever they've trained for, there still isn't going to be enough of them to fill all the jobs at that end of the market, meaning we will always rely on people not progressing.

There is no such thing as an ADHD brain in the way you imply. We know that certain traits are associated with certain characteristics in the brain. You can't though wrap them up in a neat package and call them an ADHD brain though. This is why you can't diagnose ADHD with a brain scan. There is too much overlap with so called NT brains. Lots of traits are linked to different brain structure such as being unusually kind or anxious. Even being rich or poor can change the size of wiring of your brain.

ADHD is a set of traits that can be expressed differently in different people. Someone that is supposedly NT can have a trait associated with Autism and ADHD that is expressed more severely than their diagnosed counterpart.

You have no idea if my relative or the poster has severe ADHD and how this presents yet you are desperate to assign all their undesirable behaviour to this. Why?

Im talking about ADHD in general, not a specific poster.
you need to invest some time reading up on key ADHD specialist before you post again. Dr Barkley would be the best starting point.

when we understand the ADHD brain, we have made progress. And then when we understand the difference between nature (ADHD executive functioning) and nurture (learned behaviours due to being brought up by undiagnosed parents, or poor coping mechanisms adopted because you don’t understand why you feel different and cant meet expectations) we make even more progress. This is the point at which nuerodiverse people are no longer labelled as weird, lazy, awkward, loud, etc and when some ND people can no longer hide behind an excuse or label.

Yes there are people who face many challenges and are stuck as you say.
But your comment stating test you don’t have the leadership skills, comes across as very defeatist. Many people don’t, but work at those to develop them. These days there are endless free resources available online to help from free webinars to full courses. There are a myriad of leadership books available for example. Yes that’s one tiny part of what you’re referring to, but I’ve worked with many individuals who have faced huge personal and life adversity to get where they are.

Of course we need worker bees but those bees can develop and be replaced by the next generation of worker bees.