How we ended up with a generation of no-discipline, no-talent job seekers

The Washington Post's Capital Business ^ | February 2, 2014 | Marina Ein

[Bigg Red]

That’s gonna leave a mark!

[GOYAKLA]

Was his name Johnathan Martin?

[NoExpectations]

My first job was a school secretary at a catholic school. The principal was a terrifying nun who ran the school with an iron fist. I could not eat or drink at my desk. I had a half hour lunch down the hall but still had to run back to answer the phone if it rang!

[Vigilanteman]

Hot damn, did you ever nail it! To test your theory, one need only go to areas of the country where illegal aliens have not reached critical mass.

Our area is one of them. High school and college kids still do all the jobs you describe. Our plant actually employs a number of high school graduates in production capacity who, once they get good at it, actually earn salaries comparable to the professional staff.

Still, they are hard to find even in this area, as opposed to impossible elsewhere.

[Dubh_Ghlase]

Been an interviewer in a fortune 100 company. Seems the only (even somewhat) qualified people are H1B visa holders with green cards. The few “Americans” that come in tailor their (poor) resumes with keywords from the posted job description and try to bluff through the interviews. Employers who are smart do whatever they can to hold qualified employees, and the rest are wanderers. Go from job to job, no skills or desires to learn any. Many have a “You owe me” attitude that really sucks. I could write a book...

[SunTzuWu]

Bookmark.

[servo1969]

Wow. Look at all the butt-hurt thin-skinned millennials commenting on how the author is just old and stupid and probably isn’t willing to pay enough for real talent. I mean, is that a better illustration of highly they regard themselves or what?

[Flick Lives]

LOL!

[EinNYC]

What you describe is pretty much what NYC teachers are going through now. The veteran teachers have given 200 percent for decades and are now treated like garbage. They are being tossed out of their positions on frivolous claims of verbal abuse by students who can't handle the words "No, you can't do that in here." They find their subject being eliminated while there's a senior ($$) teacher teaching it, then the senior teacher and all the other less senior teachers teaching that subject are tossed into the traveling teacher pool (Absentee Teacher Reserve), where they are are treated like subs and worse by administrators, students and even the mocking young teachers on staff. Suddenly their old school is offering that subject again, taught by half-the-price new teachers quickly hired. Another little thing they do is to deliberately sabotage larger schools by denying them resources and/or sending some of the worst kids in the system there, stacking the decks. Of course, no school can be successful lacking books, xerox paper, the meanest of other necessities. So then the city declares that school "failed", closes it, turns out all the veteran teachers into the Absentee Teacher Reserve pool, and reopens the building divvied into 4 new small schools all staffed by infant staff right out of school. BTW, the noobies are now not being given tenure, so they can be jettisoned at will. Not quite an incentive to enter teaching for the best and brightest, is it?

Now they've added a new twist, sending around administrators (most of them failed administrators who had to scramble for a new job) to observe veteran displaced teachers teaching a lesson to kids they've never met before, have no relationship to, and have no idea of any foibles or handicaps they may have. They are operating under an agenda of giving "Unsatisfactory" ratings to these lessons, no matter how good they are, and poof! They have done their bit to get rid of the displaced veteran teachers pool. This is actually happening and has turned the lives of these dedicated veteran teachers into a living hell of a nightmare.

[R. Scott]

Nothing new. Back in the early 60s my father ─ a self taught production engineer ─ complained about the latest crop of new engineers, calling them “college educated idiots”. He had worked his way up from a tool and die maker. Years later I thought of his comment. These young engineers had the book learning but little actual experience and internships were rare and they were given little responsibility. I saw the same thing with most second lieutenants. I met two that were the exception, they knew they were lost and in over their heads. Unlike many NCOs I took them under my wing and taught them what they needed. Both turned into great officers.

[goodnesswins]

Ooh boy...you hit a nerve with me on THAT one...”special”...I am dealing with a grandson issue right now that i think comes from that...and my son was NOT brought up that way...but his wife is an enabler of self centeredness”...which is what “special” really is about

[Shery]

This generation was raised to think they were “special”, everybody had to have an award, nobody could be left behind, everybody is a winner. What do you expect? No effort was rewarded just as much as the best effort. This is the communist way. What is produces is a society that doesn’t want to work, but expects that somehow the money to live on will just flow in. Hello, America! Just what was so glamorous about the USSR, North VietNam, China, Albania,etc.?

Oh, I remember now...as Hillary said...”we’ve just not seen it done right yet”. Oh, goodie! We are going to be the USSA and have our firsthand experience! Aren’t we the lucky ones?

[Western Phil]

“ALL of the above are now dominated by illegal aliens, and it’s getting”

This is not a new problem. In the early 60s while attending the University of Nebraska in Lincoln, I lived in an upstairs apartment on the edge of town a few miles from campus. I rode my bicycle to campus. Funds were really tight. I was not adverse to low wage physical labor. There was an asparagus farm along one of the routes. It was spring & I knew that soon they would need some help to harvest the crop. I stopped by to apply. They said, “You don’t want that job. We have Mexicans to do that.”

This problem, as many with which we are now blessed dates back to FDR. The big war slurped up all the male youth from the nations farms for cannon fodder and the government imported Mexicans to do the work that there were no Americans to do. Cheap labor from south of the border has more or less been with us since then, some with legal permits, most under the table. It is a way to side step the minimum wage. The welfare rolls will vastly increase when the illegals become legal & must be paid minimum wage. Their jobs will go away.

[LouAvul]

I'm sorry you're dealing with that. I used to live in california. I remember the friend of a friend was babysitting her ~9 year old grandson. He got out of line. The grandmother threatened to whip him. He informed her that if she laid a hand on him, he would call Child Protective Services and have her thrown in jail.

She promptly called her daughter and told her to come and get that brat, and never bring him back.

I'm sure they've worked it out by now, but still.

[redgolum]

They have been allowed to bring in water bottles since kindergarten.

My wife is a teacher, and when she said that I was blown away. I had to wait to get a drink of water till recess or lunch.

[BunE22]

“A real cost of illegal immigration is our young people are NOT getting exposed to early work experiences.”

“If there were no employers HIRING them, they wouldn’t be here. The illegals only come where they KNOW they can find work. Very simple:

no work for illegals here = no illegals working here.”

It’s a case of which came first, the chicken or the egg? Illegals can find work here because the jobs they take are the jobs the American youth of today are NOT willing to take. Picking vegetables and fruit in CA, cleaning houses, mowing lawns, working at fast food places, etc.

If there was no opening for the illegals they wouldn’t have come here. So why do the youth of today not want these jobs? Mommy and daddy probably have a lot to do with it. Government subsidies too.

[ansel12]

I watched the immigrants from Mexico push out the young workers and take over one new area of work after another, continuously for 45 years.

From restaurants and car washes and construction laborer, janitorial, motel maids, house maids to today construction, machine shops and more.

If one goes to areas of the US that still don’t have any Hispanics, all of the work still gets done, just like it was in 1968.

[enduserindy]

I was referring to owning one. As a student I lied about my age to take a job as a night mechanic. Made more than anyone else in high school and learned a decent skill that would support my family, then and for another 15 yrs. Btw I faked being a mechanic to get in the door all my knowledge came from fixing mom’s car. You get crap for crap wages, period. That part isn’t worth a debate, just the owning one is. Being smart for a mechanic got me into sales, management and beyond. I worked part time in construction for my uncle from age 10. I could get in attacks and crawls easy and he was a fat hvac dude so I worked a lot. Burnt out w the auto industry I’m back in construction, and doing quite well. No college, no night clerk job.

[Jonty30]

Meanwhile, my boss is 33 year old millionaire because she owns 13 convenience stores. :)

There is money in just about any occupation for those willing to work hard in them and have the aptitude.

[enduserindy]

Witch is it?

“..such businesses cannot generate the level of profits that other businesses can.”

Or

“Meanwhile, my boss is 33 year old millionaire because she owns 13 convenience stores. :)”

Please pick one.

“There is money in just about any occupation for those willing to work hard in them and have the aptitude.”
VS.
“Convenience stores are a low productivity business. You cannot pay well,”

Your definition of money to be had and my definition are very different. I helped put a brother through Purdue. Minimum wage times 2 isn’t enough. Rather than net worth the question is yearly return he might have been a millionaire anyway? I can own a million dollars worth of convenience stores and not make anything. I don’t want to go into numbers but I don’t complain about not paying enough to get good help, that isn’t even near an issue for me and yes, I have a college student that works part time for me. I also only hire those who are legal to work here, have ID, have insurance and either worker’s comp or a waiver.