Why do I get the feeling some of this is not so much “The damn kids won’t work” and it’s actually more “The damn young people refuse to be sheep and minimum wage slaves and are demanding to be treated like human beings”
As a Gen X business owner with some college, the Gen Z workforce is utterly consumed by social media and gaming. There are very few good ones and you know they’ll do well for themselves. The others, depending on government and their parents.
With the way that things are going, that's not a bad thing. Especially if we will get replaced by AI.
The kids aren’t mission oriented and focused on completing the mission and adapting to and overcoming challenges and setbacks met on the way until they get it done?
In related trends the infusion of AI into everything these days is quite the impetus for employers to not even bother hiring people right out of college. The AI technology could be a lot cheaper, works 24 hours a day, never complains, and needs no benefits.
I frequently comment about my sympathy for Gen Z. Obama said he would “fundamentally transform” the country, and he did. I’m glad I’m not growing up in what Obama created. And I’m glad I wasn’t young during COVID. I think Gen Z has been handed a very bad deal on multiple levels.
Now, having said that, I will also say that I am not surprised that Gen Z is not performing well in the workplace. And I’m not surprised that managers are firing young people. They are damaged and they don’t fit in, and managers of workplaces don’t want to deal with the constant headaches.
But I will point out a further piece of the puzzle. If I were 22-30, or whatever — and it could be you instead of me — if I were different from the others, if I worked hard, if I showed up on time (or early!), if I were diligent, and prepared, pleasant and enthusiastic — in short, if I were starting out, and if I were an absolute Super Star ... I bet my boss would give me a 4% raise when everyone got a 3% raise. After I busted my ass and was 10x better than the Gen Z losers who got fired after 2 months. 1% more for me. Oh boy!
Because the working world has largely changed these days, and it’s a terrible place to be. Workers are not valued, and they know it.
I see the kids come in with that "attitude" like they're God's gift to employers.
A few have a great work ethic, but not many. Companies would have to be out of their minds to let workers my age go.
I’m retired but I have a part-time job. 90% of the staff is Gen Z. Out of all of them only a few do any work. The rest always come in late, don’t follow the dress code, stand around and gossip or are glued to their phones. They do as little as possible. They are only there to collect a pay check.
Wonder what percentage of those getting fired were DEI hires...
On a positive note, my eight-year-old grandson is already making a decent amount of money buying and selling baseball cards at card shows and on the internet.
But they know all about intersectionality, the oppressive legacy of slavery, capitalist imperialism, the gender spectrum, and their rights!
A lot of the problem is due to general cultural issues but a lot of it is due to our education system itself.
Obama pretty much destroyed our educational system at the K-12 system and the politically correct, identity politics DEI movement has really destroyed our university system.
I can't overstate that enough.
At most all of our “Elite” universities that jumped on the abolish standardized testing DEI admit policies the level of quality of students dropped off so dramatically that the Profs in all of the serious classes and even some in the DEI identity politics study areas were appalled at the number of low functioning yet stunningly entitled morons who were in their classes They are moving swiftly to reinstate hard quantitative test results as part of the admit process but it's going to take a while to clear out the dead wood.
my guess is that they also lie through their teeth whenever they don’t know something instead of admitting their ignorance and learning what they don’t know ... you’re only supposed to fake it ‘til you make it, not fake it forever ...
The kids saw their Mamas and Papas “work” from home and then complain about having to go back to work in the office. That’s the kids’ dream job. But the companies have moved on. They have AI.
Rough Post...
I went semi retired a couple years ago, and I started getting tons of calls lately trying to replace such people
1.) No jobs for kids now: paper boy, grass cutter, caddie, baby sitting, McD or other FF place. These are more adult jobs or illegals' jobs nowadays, or they just don't exist.
2.) Adults used to take young kids on more for the training than the value the kids had as employees. It was a sort of responsibility adults felt they had to prepare the next generation for life. That's gone.
3.) Kids going to and from work and being alone in the workplace like sweeping a parking lot is too dangerous. Pervs, child abductors, murderers, now are not really punished. So they abound. No one wants to worry about his kid going to and from.
4.) Morality teaching of today (such as it is) doesn't emphasize the value of work, especially really hard work, at developing character.
Schools now want the kids totally devoted time-wise to indoctrination/school: Taking forever to teach much less; stupid activities involving travel and late after school hours; interminable sports practices and games involving travel teams; silly service requirements that are useless and dangerous for kids.
Summary: Kids never learn to focus on a task, get it done fast, don't take forever to do homework; to hustle, to learn a task quickly, to struggle at something hard and see how the adult masters the task. How to figure out the flow of work.
Now the morons they have in public schools teaching just slog through boring day after boring day, and since they have mastered nothing, except how to resent the successful, they pass this on to the kids.
Some possible solutions: Do away with minimum wage. Get young kids doing chores then early in life, jobs with progressive responsibility. For criminal kids, stocks or jail or corporal punishment for crimes, including petty crimes -- not community service or probation.
Long or capital sentences for serious crimes for anyone harming a child.
Shorten the school year and bring back entry level jobs and especially summer jobs.
Bring back the draft, which Pres. Trump mentioned the other day.
If you think about it, it's all a part of the Communist plan to make people scared to work, scared to marry and have a family, scared of the workplace, scared and too lazy to do anything except gripe about other people who HAVE achieved something.
Then, have a class of criminals prey upon everyone to block any kind of orderly nurturing of the young to adopt good, adult habits, and instead remain perpetual children, dependent on the gubmint.
It's working.
Articles like this are just Boomer propaganda, to make Boomers not feel as bad on how they are screwing over their kids and grandkids.
I would take one Gen-Z over five Boomers.
The problem with Gen-Z is finding things for them to do, give them a task and they do it too fast,
meanwhile dumb Boomers take days to write a word document typing away with their one finger. They day I never hear the words, “Can someone help me format my word document?” or “How do you put a watermark on a PDF? or “I think my Whiff fee isn’t working” can’t come soon enough.