All three of my kids, daughter 42 and twin boys 34, say the twenty somethings are the worst workers. Painting with a broad brush but the few good young workers are the exception.
My daughter works for a large local doctors outfit, complete with a surgery center. She tells me they go through the twenty somethings like grease through a goose. The youngsters want to talk to each other all day or spend half the day checking out Instagram and TikTok on their phones instead of taking care of their jobs. She has been there less than a year and gotten two promotions because she’s there to work.
And she works for a great outfit. Better than average pay and benefits and the work ain’t hard.
One son works for a local company building industrial conveyor systems. Again, a revolving door of twenty somethings that want a paycheck without the work. They go through a temporary agency so they don’t have to handle the paperwork for the employee turnover.
My other son is in construction, building houses. He says the kids showing up for work have all the muscle tone of jello. Most quit after two days. Very few can hang in there for a month.
The youngsters have no work ethic because they’ve never had to work for anything. Mommy and daddy gave them whatever they wanted. My kids grew up the old fashioned way. They knew what work was when they were 12.
It isn’t just that they’ve had it so easy; it is also because they see less reward for their work than when we were working at that age. I don’t deal with younger workers, so I can’t imagine how supervisors contend with cell phones and drug abuse that seems far more widespread than when I was younger.
Now in NJ they just legalized weed; this should have an interesting effect on the workforce...
I’m an HR attorney for a large entity. Our biggest problem with 20 somethings is they get offended by everything. If their supervisor tries to counsel them on job performance or some such issue…it’s harassment. One day recently, a 50 something male was on an elevator with one of the 20 something females right about noon. He engaged in chit chat with her. As the elevator doors opened he said ‘it’s noon, I guess we had better go to lunch’ and then he got off leaving her there. That resulted in a sex harassment complaint. It some new slight or grievance every few days by these employees. It’s crazy. Recently a couple of older males were discussing hunting season and what rifle each used. That resulted in a complaint from a young female coworker that she was frightened for her safety at work. We do have some great, hard working 20 somethings, but they re not the majority.
I’ll admit, I didn’t have much muscle as a kid. I was more of a nerd, but amongst my own peers, Gen X, I was more the exception, rather than the rule. I’ve actually developed more muscle tone as I have gotten older.
If most kids are really like that nowadays, we are in big trouble, considering the tough times that are likely to come. Let’s go, Brandon!
“. They go through a temporary agency so they don’t have to handle the paperwork for the employee turnover.”
And like most companies doing the same they will cherry pick the temps that show initiative and work ethic and hire them as full time employees.