I could really use everyone's help!- Page 5

[Jane2]

Posted: 12/2/12 at 8:43pm

In response to cupcake's experience with an employee she praised to the supervisor. I find myself doing the exact same thing whenever I get good service. BUT- how sad is it that we receive good service SO SELDOM that when we do, we practically kiss the ground the employee walked on.

It shouldn't be that way. It should be the other way around. It should be the norm that people do their jobs, and not the exception. But it isn't.

[SNAFU]

Posted: 12/2/12 at 8:53pm

Eric, I hear you. Yes there can be some similarities. However, I work in the craft/artisan field. In the past 20 years CGI has taken the forefront. Kids out of school don't want to get their hands dirty (making molds, actually scuplpting things out of earth clay). They have NO experience in mold making, casting materials or working to meeet a deadline yet they demand salaries often paid for seasoned professionals. Offered a paid apprentice position they turn thier nose up because "They are too educated", then complain about being unemployed.
I swept floors in the first shop I worked at after graduating Pratt Institute!

[Jay Lerner-Z]

Posted: 12/2/12 at 8:54pm

In response to something, I'm not sure what, and I'm quite sure it's probably irrelevant - but I worked for a time behind a deli counter earlier this year, alongside a guy in his mid-fifties. This guy was the laziest, most jerk-offest person you could ever hope to encounter...yet it amazed me how so many customers would dismiss me saying "I want that guy" imagining that he would somehow give them better service. He picked his ass and never wore gloves, so they got what was coming to them. Ageism sucks.

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 12/2/12 at 9:02pm

SNAFU I do think in general more apprenticeship positions should be made available, and they should be more clearly seen as a valid alternative (or combination) to post secondary schooling. I think that's a problem with the way people have been thinking for a while now, and your experience doesn't surprise me, sadly. I don't think that's quite the same thing as saying that the young generation are entitled, lazy SOBs, though, and don't think you're saying that.

[best12bars]

Posted: 12/2/12 at 9:04pm

Just to be clear about my earlier posts, it has NOTHING to do with age.

I absolutely agree with those who have seen some of the rants here as the "young folks" aren't pulling their weight these days. I take issue with that imperception as well..

This is a national disease, and it knows no age restrictions. It has to do with social trends, not generational attitudes.

And it's pretty deplorable.

Updated On: 12/2/12 at 09:04 PM

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 12/2/12 at 9:06pm

I'm sure there's something to that, and I'm not part of the generation that's getting maligned in that article, but I think the problems are more complex and varied than just a simple blanket "kids these days don't want to work." Some? Sure. All, even most? I'm not so sure.

One thing as an adult that I have come to question is the real usefulness of a college degree. When I was growing up (I'm Generation X) we were told time and again by the generation that taught us, as well as our parents, that we HAD to go to college. That that getting that college degree was going to prevent us from having to work in fast food or retail jobs. Unfortunately, for myriad reasons, including the fact that many of those of the generation that taught us that told us college was a priority, a necessity even, are holding on to their jobs well past what used to be considered a normal retirement age, there is a shortage of the more "desirable" jobs. Many boomers have a death grip on their jobs, leaving the following generations to now be expected to gratefully take the kinds of jobs they were told for 12 to 16 years that getting a college degree would exempt them from.

I'm not saying that someone with a college degree should think they are above service or other non-white collar work, but as someone who has been struggling with finding full time employment for the past few years, I can tell you that in my experience having a college degree seems to make ME look like a less desirable candidate for many of the "less desirable" jobs I've tried to get (again I'm putting "desirable" reference to the jobs in quotes to stress that I'm not saying that's how I view them), because I'm considered over-qualified because I have a BA (in theatre!). I've held some decent jobs since college, and my last was the best paying job I'd ever had, but not a one required a college degree. And to make sure someone does come in here and parse out how this job and that job requires a degree, I'm not saying a college degree is completely useless for everyone, but I think the hardline my generation was sold about how necessary it was has turned out to not ring quite so true.

And yes, I get that college is supposed be about more that preparing you to be a worker bee, but again, that's not how it was sold to me or most people I know of my generation.

I also think that article is really misrepresenting how unemployment actually works. You're not going to work a job for a few months, get fired and then collect unemployment for 99 weeks. And I don't think anyone is collecting unemployment that long anymore, since all the extended benefit programs have expired. Again, there are certainly people who might be able to game the system, but not to the extent that this article suggests (50%? Really?).

In a way I kind of think that article was a bad one to use to make the point. That's not a slam against our tiny cupcake, but one of his other entries is titled, "Susan Rice, Coonery Buffoonery?" for Christ's sake!

So I guess my point is that even if this IS a wildly entitled generation we're talking about, it didn't happen in a vacuum and often times the people "tsk tsking" about the problem of the younger generations had a hand in creating the problem.







Updated On: 12/2/12 at 09:06 PM

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 12/2/12 at 9:17pm

Really good post, Phyllis--particularly your points about college education. I'm not meaning to pick on cupcake, either, but I admit the article, and the comments posted under it (decrying "Generation Duh" etc), really rubbed me the wrong way. It's too simplistic to say "I have trouble even finding young people who want to work for me! But when I was 15 I already was working as much as possible and every boy I knew who wanted to be a man was doing the same! Now they all want to work for a few weeks, and then live off of unemployment while jerking off all day to their fancy iPads." That just doesn't ring true IMHO as a way of defining the younger generations, and makes him just sound, again IMHO, out of touch.

[Kad]

Posted: 12/2/12 at 9:19pm

The problem, I think, is that the promise of great things is tough to reconcile with the reality of just surviving. The generation before works hard so they can promise great things to the next. When those things don't always materialize, the young generation gets angry and the older gets defensive and nostalgic.

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 12/2/12 at 9:21pm

This seems to be a theme from that blogger's posts. He has one blaming the fact that Obama has won on the country's mature citicenz being controled and dominated by teenagers...

"I’m not saying that kids are currently running the country, per se. I mean that our kids got us into this mess by turning the act of voting from an act of good citizenship into a cultural craze. In the past, I’ve likened it to the Beatlemania of 1964, but at least Beatlemania had some basis in reality! I mean, come on! It was The Beatles, fer cryin’ out loud! Obama? Feh."

http://www.noquarterusa.net/blog/71006/taking-our-country-back-from-the-kids/ Yeah...

[SNAFU]

Posted: 12/2/12 at 9:25pm

Erik no, it doesn't ring true for most. I have have experiences (ones which cost me a great dea) which DO fit that model. No, not every college graduate is like that, I will agree.
Phyllis, I agree I too question a college degree and it's worth in the work place. We have been sold a bill of goods which doesn't really work. It is experience that counts. If I had known then, at 17 what I know now, going into the creative field, I would have entered an apprenticeship level rather then an expensive BA from Pratt.
To bring this back to the OP's plea: dude, I worked a full time job during my five years earning the degree with as many student's loans as I could take out. Paid them off at age 49. Grow a pair of balls and get your butt out there and F'ing do it. Stop begging from strangers! You're welcome!

Updated On: 12/2/12 at 09:25 PM

[cupcake3]

Posted: 12/2/12 at 9:30pm

Updated On: 12/2/12 at 09:30 PM

[Jay Lerner-Z]

Posted: 12/2/12 at 9:33pm

There's always Powerball.

[Jane2]

Posted: 12/2/12 at 9:34pm

I don't think this is about college or degrees. I think it's about a person's basic morality. I was taught that you get things because you earn them. I think this thread is about those who never learned that.

[Kad]

Posted: 12/2/12 at 9:35pm

Life ain't fair but that's not what's being taught. All I remember from grade schools is "go to college and you'll be successful!" My high school principal would compare the earning potential of college graduates with those without degrees over the announcement. All paths led to college, if you wanted to succeed.

Now I'm newly out of college, questioning what I want to do, and finding a degree doesn't compare to experience- experience you often can't get without already having experience.

[After Eight]

Posted: 12/2/12 at 9:45pm

Interesting, the complaints about the maligning of people in their 20's and 30's.

Interesting in light of the ageist slurs that are endemic to this board and which raise no objections.

I guess it's all about whose ox is being gored.

[cupcake3]

Posted: 12/2/12 at 9:54pm

Updated On: 12/2/12 at 09:54 PM

[Jane2]

Posted: 12/2/12 at 10:01pm

^the longer version of what I said. lol! so true. ethics

[SNAFU]

Posted: 12/2/12 at 10:20pm

After eight: Bull Sh*t. My complaint also reaches out to those in thier 60's whom I just hired and despite a college degree, had a sense of entitlement they did NOT desrerve!

[After Eight]

Posted: 12/3/12 at 5:17am

"After eight: Bull Sh*t. "

You think so, Snafu?

Here are three comments I just came upon in just ONE thread on the main board:

"My advice -- do not go see a matinee at Paper Mill. The audience will be filled with grumpy old senior citizens ("It's too cold", "It's too hot", "I can't see", "What did she say?")". (As opposed to "young" senior citizens, LOL).

"yes, Thursday matinees in particular can be a pill... but if you are okay with a crowd of blue-hairs harping about how smart they are for going to the Paper Mill instead of going into AWFUL New York for a Broadway show" ("blue-hairs:" A common derogatory expression bandied about on Broadway World.)

"As others have mentioned though, the overall age of the crowd puts the Wednesday Broadway matinee crowd to shame. Avoid matinees at all costs."

And fresh off the wire in the current Anarchist reviews thread:

"I know 70 minutes is a lot at your age"

So tell me what you think, Snafu.

[cupcake3]

Posted: 12/3/12 at 5:36am

oh, for chrissakes/you're still insulted at 5:17 am?

[After Eight]

Posted: 12/3/12 at 6:10am

^

What's the appropriate time to be insulted?

All the more since you seem to be awfully snappish at 5:36 am.

[TheatreDiva90016]

Posted: 12/3/12 at 9:05am

When is After Eight NOT insulted?


Anyhoo, I thought the article was spot on (when it was posted) and I didn't bother to see who wrote it, or the other articles the author wrote. I thought it stood on its own.

Why can't someone just agree with the point of the one article? What does it have to do with others articles the author has written. It doesn't.

Some people here read way too much into everything, just so you have something to complain about.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 12/3/12 at 9:16am

Some people excel at "Invented Outrage."

[After Eight]

Posted: 12/3/12 at 9:31am

^

Some people excel at "selective outrage."

Btw-I wasn't the slightest bit "insulted." Just pointing out the selectivity of the indignation here.

[Reginald Tresilian]

Posted: 12/3/12 at 9:56am

It's just my impression (I haven't counted actual instances or anything), but it seems to me that the most common insult that gets hurled on the boards is to imply that someone is a teenager.