This Gen's Work Ethic

I'm actually in the process of trying to restructure how our company runs. Honestly, I think the millenials are easier to transition than the older folks. I'm with a 80 year old company that still runs off of the same hours (8-4:30) and many of the same policies for the last 40+ years. Business has changed. There is no reason our salaried workers should be adhering to an 8-4:30 schedule when we have a demand outside those business hours. Structure the schedule around the demands. Improvise each week.

My youngest employee (25 years old) is pretty ambitious when it comes to adapting and finding ways to do things. She'll work on the weekend for a client, but then come in late other days to stay near 40 hours. To me, it works great, but the older people think it's too confusing. She's also ambitious on creating better ways to do things, going paperless, etc. The biggest issue here is the archaic mindset of the older, "hard working" generation. They have a blue collar mindset in a white collar industry. No, you don't just get points for being here during set hours and working hard. Create better ways to do things, come up with new ideas, etc.
Is she hot and if she is why haven’t you fucked her?
 
I saw an interview with the founder of linkedin on Charie Rose a couple months ago, and he basically set out the modern career environment, driven largely by Silicon Valley and tech culture entrepeneurism, as a series of shorter tenures at multiple companies. Basically you don't have any real understanding of lifelong employment, so the employment arrangement needs to be mutually beneficial in the short term. It was a little deeper than that, but I've certainly seen a move in that direction in the pharmaceutical industry as well. Layoffs are coming, business changes direction suddenly and you often need to start fresh at a company better suited to your previous focus and experience.

It sounds like you've got an old school business owner, with a very limited growth opportunity business who wishes he could keep people around longer. He should hire older people nearing retirement or who have diminished ambition.

This.

Times have definitely changed. While I would agree that future generations are generally lazier than previous ones (I don't necessarily blame them, either) working dynamics have changed dramatically. Perhaps its because I live in the Bay Area, but there is no doubt in my mind that "short-term mutually beneficial agreements" is how most employees think about things.

Particularly now where, no kidding, if you stay at a job for 2 years people refer to that as a "long time."
 
What is pretty ironic about this particular thread is how many of us are likely posting from our places of employment...

::slowly backs out of thread::
 
They get rid of you after 3 months anyway.

Companies leasing out their hiring to 3rd party companies who cycle new people every 3 to 9 months to give the illusion of high enployment.

We aren't lazy, our hard work just isnt noticed and we have no guarantee to keep our jobs even if we work hard.

You old heads sold us out to staffing companies.
 
Tbh, the idea that I dont want to work for the rest of my life didnt come to me until way later than it should. These kids have the right idea, way earlier than me.

Why the fuck should I be a slave to some rich people for the rest of my life, doing backbreaking bullshit?

let's go off the grid bud
 
I'll tell you one lofty statement about the next generation, coming from my field of work
He construction industry is gonna be FUCKED

Don't get me wrong it's not a nice place to be and it's hard work, I don't need anyone to tell me it's shitty work, but the pays good and the demands high
But these kids coming in... fuck
They literally don't want to do fuck all, and don't care about the end product
They just wanna live off their parents, smoke weed and play video games
...which in all fairness sounds pretty good
Construction work is fine at the journeymen level, but typically apprentices get shafted. When it takes 5+ years of busting ass to make decent wages it's a tough sell.

I did HVAC/sheet metal apprenticeship at 19 years old and making a couple bucks above minimum wage always felt like a joke considering the amount of hours/stress/hard work involved. Climbing under/on houses in 100+ degree heat or working in a 95 degree shop for 10 hours to make $1600/mo in hindsight makes me sick that I stayed for even a year.

Employers need to pay more and make less. Only way this works is employees demanding more respect business leaders giving more respect.
 
Construction work is fine at the journeymen level, but typically apprentices get shafted. When it takes 5+ years of busting ass to make decent wages it's a tough sell.

I did HVAC/sheet metal apprenticeship at 19 years old and making a couple bucks above minimum wage always felt like a joke considering the amount of hours/stress/hard work involved. Climbing under/on houses in 100+ degree heat or working in a 95 degree shop for 10 hours to make $1600/mo in hindsight makes me sick that I stayed for even a year.

Employers need to pay more and make less. Only way this works is employees demanding more respect business leaders giving more respect.

The problem with apprentices over here is the courses are 3 years long, and typically they never get left to actually learn
They get given the shitty jobs no one wants to do, so at the end of the term they demand a good wage but aren't actually worth it
Vicious circle
 
This.

Times have definitely changed. While I would agree that future generations are generally lazier than previous ones (I don't necessarily blame them, either) working dynamics have changed dramatically. Perhaps its because I live in the Bay Area, but there is no doubt in my mind that "short-term mutually beneficial agreements" is how most employees think about things.

Particularly now where, no kidding, if you stay at a job for 2 years people refer to that as a "long time."

How are they "lazier?" Young people today work longer hours for less pay. A factory worker in the 1960's could make the same living as a tech worker today on 2 hours less a day and retire with a pension in his mid 50's... AND he didn't have to pay for expensive college just to get his job. Oh and he was probably given his house for nearly free due to government handouts.
 
How are they "lazier?" Young people today work longer hours for less pay. A factory worker in the 1960's could make the same living as a tech worker today on 2 hours less a day and retire with a pension in his mid 50's... AND he didn't have to pay for expensive college just to get his job. Oh and he was probably given his house for nearly free due to government handouts.

Excluding stock options, which is a very significant portion of a "tech" worker's comp today, a factory worker would have had to have made approximately $32k in 1968 to have an equivalent wage to tech worker today accounting for inflation. Median household income back then was $7,700 so you're not even remotely close.

You're argument here seems to be that "tech" has replaced "factory" and that tech has it harder than factory did which is ridiculous. Our generation (I am an old millenial), like every other generation before it, stood on the shoulders of the previous to have more opportunities than they did. We also benefited directly from the digital revolution.

My observation of laziness is anecdotal, I'll admit, as I view it through the lens of young people not willing to do things that do not give them immediate gratification. But your narrative above just sounds like someone who might be very unhappy with their current standing and is lashing out at a previous generation that definitely had it worse off than we do.
 
"What can this job offer me?"

Money.

Next!
 
Currently, we have a 17 year old intern in my office. Hardest working dude you'll ever meet. Everyone is an individual. You cant judge people based on their generation, however, every generation seems to do so.
 
Before I started my career I struggled to stay at a job for more than 6 months. I hated working shit jobs like that. Eventually it got to the point I didn't have a choice so I forced myself to do it.
 
Most people are unmotivated to work certain jobs due to long working hours and little pay with no benefits.
 
Currently, we have a 17 year old intern in my office. Hardest working dude you'll ever meet. Everyone is an individual. You cant judge people based on their generation, however, every generation seems to do so.
This. I know fellow college students who are super hard working and others who are lazy as shit. And I know kids who decided not to go to college who are super hard working and others who are lazy as shit. To add race and gender to it: I know people in each race and gender who are super hard working and lazy as shit. Everyone really is an individual.
 
I was born in 1990 and I'd never walk into an interview demanding things. It's a privilege to work. They don't owe you anything. And you better do what they tell you(job related things) if you want to get paid and keep your job.

The only time I had an issue was when I applied at Kent and they told me I needed my hair to look a certain way because they're "conservative", meanwhile the woman interviewing me had a ponytail longer than my hair that was barely down to my shoulders.

I thought it was pretty silly, sexist even, to tell a guy to cut his hair, meanwhile the women can have their hair whichever way they want.

That aside. No one should feel entitled.

Something my generation and everyone after it needs to understand, is that the world doesn't owe you anything.
 
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