I am concerned about the new 21-23 year olds entering the workforce

Is anyone else concerned about the new 21-23 year old college grads who are entering the work force?

I work at a major retailer. Upper store level management (now by corporate policy) consists entirely of new college graduates, many of them while having graduated college have never actually held down a job before.

A great number of long time upper level management (many of whom did a damn good job and worked up from the bottom) who were older in age - usually near retirement age - were all pushed out of their jobs in the last 2-3 years to make way for these new 23 year old college grads.

I have to say as an older person in middle management who started at the bottom as well I find them very very hard to work with. Many of them still come across to me like irresponsible teenagers. They show up late for work, they treat everyone below them like shit, they actually make comments to our cart pushers like "Hey guys no reason to get a college degree when you can push carts!", I am talking real ass hole "I am better than all because of my degree" attitudes. And because they are in upper management no one holds them accountable. Well, our DM is theory should be but he only visits once a month for 30 minutes and it's easy to put on a show.

Many of them have also never had a job before - certainly never a job making low wages. They have literally next to no work ethic. They will be happy to sit in the office talking about american idol or some other BS, or order lunch every day and take 2-3 hour lunch breaks. They are so out of touch I have even heard some of them ask "Why are they so unhappy getting paid 7/hr? They don't have to pay taxes like we do". I even recently talked to one of our 23 year old "college grads" about what was going on with the economy. I told her the fed dropped the rate again and she looked at me like she was confused and said "What rate?". That's 4 years in college talking right there.

Most employees now come to us in middle management with all problems telling us they don't trust anyone above us because they are constantly working to screw them over. (and it's true)

I have noticed a serious drop in both morale and in the success of our store since the older vets were kicked out. It really makes me sad that people with 30+ years of experience and dedication are being given the shaft to make way for 23 year olds with an ego problem and no work ethic.

I know this is just retail, but is anyone else noticing this happening in other fields as well? I think giving older people the boot and replacing them with 23 year olds who have never proven themselves before, but have a degree in hand is a serious mistake. Some of them are actually competent, but a large amount of them are not in my experience thus far.

I remember 40 yrs ago people said the same 'bout me.

Nobody in a supervised position takes 3-hour lunch breaks and keeps their job.

You said you were like that. "THAT" included the 3-hour lunch statement. So now you're saying you're NOT like that?

Did I miss the qualifier "except for those ridiculous and unbelievable lunch breaks"?

..we were lucky to have Great Depression/ WW II parents, so we know how bad things can get.

These foolish kids don't have a clue how it really works in the real world......but they will soon enough.

Many of them will never make it to 50, the poor, self-centered ego-maniacs.

all of the problems that they will inherit from your generation, they will.

My generation, gen. x, figured out a long time ago that our quality of life was going to be significantly lower than that of our parents. We know that our jobs are incredibly insecure, we will never get a pension (or social security), we will work until we die to pay off our education, housing and health care debt. Give these young workers some time, and they too will realize that the policies of boomer political and business leaders have left them with even less of a future.

clue on how to survive it. Many will commit suicide or turn to crime as a way to "live".

I think many of us in the "Boomer generation" are very glad that we won't have to live in the
ugly mess this world is becoming.

They frequently are already complaining about having zero dollars in the bank from what I overhear. There is also one who constantly complains about her credit card bills, but just the other day came in to charge a 42" TV on her card. Idiot. This is the first time many of them have actually made "real" money and they have no clue how to manage it.

ummm...the "boomer generation" set the stage for & created this fucking mess- nice of you all to leave your shit world for the rest to clean up.

Real smart! You must be one of the guys the OP is talking about.

:crazy:

in spite of it and others bitch and moan like you.


When I was born, they just dropped two nuclear bombs 9 months before. My dad had just gotten out of the Army after fighting in WWII. He was pretty fucked up. He was never real close to us.

We were in a cold war. Always afraid of being nuked ourselves. African Americans and women did not have the same rights as white men. John Kennedy was assassinated as were Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy. It was as if anyone who could fix things was taken away from us. The civil rights movement and the race riots. The hatred and bigotry. The 60's and the battle of the cultures. The Democratic convention in Chicago and the police riot there. The I was sent to Vietnam. Came back fucked up myself. Gene McCarthy and McGovern, liberals who ran but would not become president. Nixon and Watergate, Reagan. Bush 1 and Bush 2.

Who the hell fucked up my world? The Greatest Generation?

the generations that abused the one-time "gift" of petroleum to enrich themselves and despoil the planet are mostly to blame, as are those that allowed it to happen. but can they all be blamed for having the human trait of self-centered short-sightedness? and the other irony is that if those generations hadn't taken advantage of the black gooey stuff- society wouldn't have flourished and a big share of the resulting generations wouldn't have even existed.

but it's pretty disingenuous to pass along a dying world that is irreparably polluted and drained of oil, and insist that it's the responsibility of the whiny recipients to figure it out and fix it all- that goes WAY beyond any problems inherited by past generations.

i for one plan to at least have a good seat to watch the end times unfold...figuratively- i don't plan on sitting around on my ass- i'm going to enjoy what's left of life, keeping things as comfortable, yet simple and sustainable as possible for my family for as long as possible.

the next few decades should prove to be marvelously entertaining- those boomers always did know how to put on a show...what could be better than watching society eat itself?

I know the conventional wisdom is that as we got older we sold out and got greedy. Some did but a lot of us are still fighting the same old fight that we did 40 years ago.

With their bongs and their clueless, youthful liberalism, and none of them work for a living! :eyes:

Maybe what you had to say just came off badly... but it comes off really badly. One thing your age and wisdom should have taught you is not to broad-brush entire groups of people.

Welcome to DU. Enjoy your stay.

You would notice where I said I realize not everyone is like this, but it's BS to get rid of older workers under the assumption that an unproven 23 year old will be better.

And if you don't think people in management who walk around and make degrading comments to the people they supervise about their economic status are not elitist it says a lot about your character.

Your OP clearly underlines the tone that you regard anybody who doesn't meet your criteria of acceptable age as being undeserving, ignorant, or otherwise unacceptable.

Now, you can go ahead and keep justifying your bias based on anecdotes about some people you work with, who we only have your word on. But that's really no different than a freeper going on about the "lazy" black people at their job: a bullshit attitude towards an entire group of people "justified," if you want to call it that, based on one person's subjective opinions of a handful of people.

Nevermind, too, the fact that the exact same things were said about YOUR generation, way back when. How do I know? Because the same nonsense has been spewed at EVERY new generation, about how they're clueless, lazy, and incompetant. And it's always been proven wrong.

Or do they know as much about that as they do about feminism?

as long as I get mine" ignorant crowd, or the "Why can't these people making minimum wage that belong to a poor family be as successful as I am. After all, my parents paid my bills until I was 23" young republican group.

Your last post talked about how YOU interview and hire them

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x3150514

...............

I can tell you I would much rather share a drink with one of our cart pushers than our young entitled college grads. By and large the people at the bottom are some of the nicest people you will meet. If you think they are losers because they make a low wage that's your socially disfunctional problem.

older workers getting pushed out by younger ones....they work to prevent the problem.

To be honest, complaining about young people and how they "don't understand" your particular issues sounds a lot like sour grapes over the fact that they don't agree with you on issues. One of the smarter people I know is a 23-year old lady who, while I doubt she'd describe herself with the word "feminist," leaves no doubt that she's a dedicated Democrat and considers herself an equal member of society. There are also completely clueless people in that age range, as is true of all demographics.

And WTF do you mean, "JUST RETAIL"??????

Good management would fire their asses and hire back the people who DO know how to work. The only way retail can compete is on the service level. Otherwise, the Salvation Army has cashmere for seven dollars or less.

How dare those millennials demand more creative work environments and flexible hours from their corporate overlords? What are they thinking wanting to choose meaningful work? And what's with all of the cooperation? What do they think this is, France or Norway? :sarcasm:

a few days ago.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x3150514

I pickup a lot on people who think they are better than those who are at a lower economic level which are by and large republicans, or people who have always had family provide them money and never had to actually work for a living. They are a huge problem with this country right now. They serve to do nothing but keep people in low wages and debt.

What's wrong w/ that?

What kind of person thinks to write shit like that? I've never heard anybody talk like that in my life, let alone somebody looking for a job. Somebody sure has some screwy ideas.

You'd be surprised how many people you get coming in who all of a sudden have lost their higfh income job, will take anything, and reality is setting in to them about how the lower classes live.

I know people who hire retail - nobody talks like that in a job interview. Sorry I don't know what your game is - but I don't believe a word you say.

did they start at 7/hr?

From management to janitors to farm workers. Nobody acts like that in a job interview and nobody keeps jobs when they're late all the time or taking long lunches.

and as someone who lost a good job and had to train at Home Depot and interview at all sorts of jobs.... I don't buy it.

Yes, some of the kids out there suck. So do some of the older people. I don't really see the point of this or that other post.

thanks for the link

that their parents bestowed upon them when they were growing up. Why do they order lunch... they don't know how to make their own. And I'm not exactly sure why they all talk like Paris Hilton? They will be the first, unfortunately, to be the most harmed from an economic fall out... They don't know how to do anything.. and they don't understand a thing..

My daughters are 24 and 21. They owe huge college loans -- and neither can afford to finish college. They both worked hard since age 14,when they were old enough to be pool aides. They worked their way up to lifeguard and swim instructor, and one coached swim teams for two summers. They also babysat, and later worked as waitresses.

Unfortunately the older one had more or less a nervous breakdown and dropped out of college due to serious personal problems. She went back to another college, but struggled, and eventually quit. Since then she has worked as a political fundraiser for the Grassroots Campaign, as a full-time nanny, and as a junior social worker for a foster care agency. She did well at every job. At the moment she is living out of state and recovering from a two-month bout with flu and a secondary infection. I think she's about to start a full time job with ARC. I'm not sure if she still hopes to become a Unitarian minister some day, but there is no way she can afford to attend seminary school.

The other couldn't figure out what to study and was having a hard time in college. She's very bright, but her grades were not good. Last summer she was diagnosed with anxiety/panic disorder. It turned out she was having anxiety attacks about going to class, assignments, etc. Now she's on medication and has improved a lot. She's working part time in a day care center earning next to nothing, but it's all she could find in the rural area where she attends college. She's going to classes part time at a community college, and has decided she wants to be a sixth grade math teacher.

Neither of my kids expects to ever own a home. They don't know what kind of future they will have, since the economy is such a mess. We're paying their combined $760 a month in student loans at the moment, since they earn so little. As a result we can't save a penny for retirement, should that ever be possible.

Yeah, I know, they should have majored in business and gone on to corporate careers. But both of them are very tenderhearted and want to work with kids and help people.

I have a BS in Business and only qualified for retail management and ended up earning $14K my first year as a flight attendant. The teachers and nurses all had tons of offers with bonuses. It sounds like your daughters are pulling themselves up. I'm from Montana - one of the lowest pay for teachers in the US - but all the teachers I know in Great Falls OWN houses. I'm talking combined double income of around 60K. See, it just depends on where they live. No teachers are not rich, but it's a good middle class income in lots of nice places. Good luck to them!!

I am really depressed about their situations, because I worry that they will never be in a position to pay off their loans. And we'll be stuck with them, just when we should be trying to save for retirement.

gold in your life.

in the country.. I know how change my own oil, make my own clothes, garden, build things, cook.. in general do things for myself. There are many children who have been raised responsibly.. I'm doing it with my own son. But there are a huge number of children who have been raised on the NCLB, and have been left behind.. add to that this major marketing and MTV and you have 16yr olds who want BMW's and a sweet 16 like a movie star... I work with a younger girl in her early 20's (and have seen many like her).. she does not know how to cook, wash her clothing, pay her bills, iron her clothes.. when making a decision that involves critical thinking skills.. she cannot.. she only knows black and white.. she cannot think outside the box. I know its not easy these days.. I hated having my mother at work all the time.. I missed out on that... now I work 56hrs and try to make a schedule that works to create the most time with my child.. That means working overnights, in the afternoons and mornings.. so that he can be around myself or husband.. It often means forgoing sleep for more than 24hrs. In the time he's not in school or I'm not at work, we garden, play outside, read books and other learning activities, cook together (he stirs and stands on a chair).. The child is 3. I think he'll do ok. I think he will have the skills to be a productive and kind member of society. I know others who do similar things with their children.. I think they will be ok.. But there is a huge number of children who didn't and won't get an upbringing that will make them well-rounded people. I look at the girl I work with; and hope she uses b.c. the rest of her life or ends up with a partner that has a better clue.

but they will go no further. Don't worry, in due time, they will be exposed for the lazy frauds they are and their careers will flatline soon enough.

In 1992, the 'outsiders' started coming into management. Then the 'lifetime' employment policy disappeared. When Lou Gerstner took over as CEO, every policy IBM ever had was changed. Suddenly the executives' compensation packages went up 100-200 times and IBM had to 'dump' their older employees who were just making too darn much money. I was forced out in an 'employee action' with 29 years and 2 months. Luckily for me, I could 'bridge' to my retirement.

From 1996-1999, I was an instructor and taught mainframe internals to both 'new-hire' IBMers and client personnel. I noted that the worst performing classes were those internal new hires, who seemed more interested in their cell phones than in learning the basics for their new jobs.

Nobody keeps a job taking 3 hour lunches - NOBODY, NOWHERE. The young people I know are the best group of people I have ever had the pleasure of knowing.

They actually do. I and everyone else was in disbelief as well when this started happening 2-3 years ago. Our company before that would never have tolerated it.

I work at a University, and by and large I'm impressed with and confident in today's young people. The OP? Not so much.

I'm glad someone on DU isn't willing to sell out all young people. Jesus Christ.

only putting recent grads in top management positions. That, IMHO, would be insane.

I did a stint as a production manager for Sony Studios a while back and was in charge of hiring talent for a feature film production unit. On average, about half the recent grads I hired had a lousy work ethic, while only about 20% of those hires over the age of 35 shared the same attitude. I must admit, my most difficult employee was 44, so age alone doesn't ensure a good attitude. But overall I did see a lot of what you've described. I think that those who are new to the workforce usually have a disrespectful "the world owes me" attitude, and maybe it's been much the same for every generation. It usually takes a few "hard knocks" to give a young employee a bit of perspective. Without them, I can imagine that they would be holy terrors as managers. I don't know what would have possessed your corporate HQ to come up with such a risky plan for upper level management. Sounds like a prescription for chapter 11 to me.

complains about the work ethic of her age peers in her workplace. But finding good employees has always been an issue. I too think it's a shame that the older workers are being pushed out, but I remember my father making a similar complaint 40 years ago. :shrug:

And this isn't HullBoss, it's Blue_in_AK whose motherboard fried. :grr:

Sorry, that's what it sounds like to me. This generation is as good as any other I've seen.

especially business majors. At my school, the business management majors always had the most cut throat personalities. They're taught to think the streets are going to be paved with gold just for them. The main goal of most of these schools is to make their millions while turning out a bumper crop of sociopathic assholes every year. Glad I was a bio major.

A lot of them have been "promised" higher level management positions in corporate where they will eventually be making 250K easy. Usually it's a recruitment tactic. MANY of them are naive enough to believe those promises. One of them was telling me about how that's where she would be in another 2-3 years (bear in mind she just started her job at the store level) and I told her NO ONE is guranteed a move up to that level in 2-3 years especially from the store level. She dismissed me as not knowing what I was talking about, even though I've been with the company for years and seen time after time those "promises" turn out to be the BS they are.

When I was teaching, I knew a FEW fine students who were business majors, but most of them were spoiled upper-middle-class kids with a sense of entitlement who had no intellectual interests and devoted most of their energies to their fraternities and sororities.

If that wasn't bad enough, their business classes indoctrinated them with that whole Republican voodoo economics and social Darwinism.

I bet they'd be obnoxious in the workplace.

At one point, I was considering teaching English overseas and I frequented websites for people who were doing that. Yikes. The attitude some of those people had--"My supervisor yelled at me because I was fifteen minutes late." "There's nothing to do in this town but drink." This was in addition to their own inability to write a coherent English sentence. I wondered if these "teachers" ever had their students correct their grammar or spelling.

Because from what I've heard about business school, it's nothing like regular university.

Bus School is about as dissimilar as the education school. They study totally different things and have different courses such as "Statistics for Business Majors" etc. Yeah it's quite different.

As a lazy 28 year old who indebted himself to the hilt paying for an education to enter a workforce where no one seemed to care that I have an education here's the other side of the coin:

I am finally making headway in the professional world, but it has been extremely difficult to even get a job that requires a degree. In my previous jobs over the last few years I have had a couple of good managers both with and without degrees. Now many of the older folks didn't know how to write a professional letter, treated younger customers with nearly the level of disdain that you're writing here, and couldn't manage their way out of a shoebox.

Stupidity doesn't care what age you are. Ignorance doesn't care what age you are. And while there is something to be said for loyalty to the company, if someone is more qualified than you are then upgrade your qualifications or get out of the way. I am sick and tired of people who don't have degrees acting like there is no value in a degree. Believe it or not with four years of diligent study you do learn things. Furthermore ALOT of people don't ever graduate. It's not easy to graduate from college. You can't just show up and breeze through. College is about as similar to highschool as highschool is to elementary school. sorry if that sounds offensive but it's true.

Now I'm not trying to say that just because someone has a degree they are suddenly smarter and wiser than anyone who doesn't have one. But age unfortunately does not equal wisdom/virtue/work ethic/etc. At my last job they hired some jackass who had 30 years of experience as a consultant, for the last 10 years helping offices to refine their work processes, job roles, and use of technology.

With that stellar resume I had to teach this putz how to use instant messenger, how to send an e-fax, how to update his drivers to get a printer to work, and OMG how to fill out a sales report that I had never even seen before. The guy couldn't problem solve and he had worked as a "problem solver". He also tried making us have a "sing off" in the middle of the day to "boost morale" I had to rescue the guy by convincing the staff to finally sing "happy birthday" so that we actually sang something and could move on with our day. Furthermore he didn't know how to close a sale. He had all this sales experience and couldn't close a freaking deal. He was also not able to properly speak to our client base which was primarily people with graduate degrees. When you are selling someone something/anything they have to respect your intellect in order to value your opinion... he couldn't pull that off. Anyways, loyalty to the company and years of experience are great. But there is a reason why jobs often come with degree requirements... it's not a failsafe way to judge applicants but it can help if you're trying to fit a certain peg into a certain hole.

The workplace is competitive. Constantly update your skills and qualifications, do the best job you can, and hope that the other guy doesn't out politic you with your boss. Cause I'll be damned if I'm more qualified and a harder worker than someone else and I don't get the job because of my age. That's bullshit. I spent a lot of money and worked my ass off to be as qualified as possible.

When i started in offices doing secretarial and bookkeeping type stuff in my early 20's back then you worked hard and had to tote the line and totally respect your bosses. Over the years I watched it change little by little until you walk in an office and people are chatting and friendly and joking about off work stuff.

Part of it I like as the old system was too stuffy. but its easy to see that things have got too lax, coming in late, calling in sick when your not, etc.

Its just harder for us to watch that because we weren't raised that way. But not all kids are like that. My oldest daughter who is 29 is manager of a office and she works her ass off and didn't go to college because she had accident and got pregnant at 18, instead like you she worked from the ground up, people still do that. Hard work and being organized got her to where she is. She does notice though with hiring she has a hard time getting employees that aren't the other way.

Its not just money, i have seen people no matter what they make act a certain way. Its all how they were raised. Unfortunately there are alot of helicopter kids out there being taken care of by mom and dad who just want to be their best friend.

As far as management goes, that happens in many places. For instance top managers of Bart (SF subway system) get away with all kinds of shit. my husband used to be a train driver before he retired. Long lunches, crap some of them even went on vacations on company money. and they have never been audited even though the union has tried, they have friends in high places.

everytime a union contract would come around the management would come around and say look what we pay the employees and look how Bart fees go up, never mentioning the huge salaries management gets, nor how they abuse funds. some of their top managers got there by sleeping their way up...lots of stories i could tell...oh and by the way they would slip themselves a huge huge raise right before fees went up everytime.

"Get off my lawn".

It's terrible what's going on with booting out older people who have worked for years and years, but the fact is there are slackers and hard workers in every age group. Some of the worst lazy entitlement whores I've seen in my adult working life have been the 40+ set who feel they should get respect simply because they've stayed alive that long, and automatically treat anyone younger than them like shit, like they're stupid. My first day working a commission sales job at Sears when I was 20, the guy who was supposed to do first shift with me, an older guy in his 50s, was three hours late. No phone calls, no nothing. I didn't have keys to the display cabinets nor could I work the register because I was still a trainee without a cashier ID number. I would have been up shit's creek had it not been for the--gasp--20-something people in the audio department next door, who helped me out and showed me what to do until Old Boy decided to stroll into work. No apologies or anything (I was some dumb girl, what did I know?).

I work in financial aid for a technical school and have worked with students aged 17 on up to damn near 60. The lazy entitlement whore attitude crosses the age spectrum. I've had 17 year olds get all their paperwork in well before the deadline and I've had 40-somethings blow off my phone calls and miss repeated appointments. You cannot generalize the way you are.

The reason you're seeing so many 23 year olds with work ethic and ego problems is not because young people are inherently disrespectful slackers, it's because 23 year olds with work ethics are not going into retail. Retail is basically McDonald's now, and it's the job of last resort. The ones you WANT working at your store have scored far better employment. I got the hell out of retail when I was 20 and never looked back. It's a shithole from the bottom up.

was well said!! When I was interviewed by Target at my university - they wore red polo shirts. WTF? I felt weird in my suit and heels.

You believed that if you worked hard and were loyal that you would be rewarded. They believe if you pay piss ant wages you deserve piss ant work. It's a show me the money or make it worth my time, you(management) need me more than I need you.

And you know what, management loves that, because they no longer need to pretend they are for the community and love their employees. they are now dealing with real people and it is about making a buck, nothing more and nothing less. They will pay and expect profits or else you hit the road.

I'll tell you what I've noticed - plenty of older workers where I work tend to view anyone less than five years out of college as some kind of lazy prick who can't find their ass with both hands, they tend to be combative and confrontational, DEMANDING that things be done their way. They fight, yell and argue constantly and treat you like dogshit if you don't agree with them.

No work ethic? Half of them in my office spend three hours a day talking about whatever random crap is on their minds while I'm sitting over on the other side trying to work.

I can buy not shitcanning people simply because of their age, but where are us under-30 people supposed to get experience? Go browse engineering jobs on Monster or anywhere else, and get back to me with the number that want anyone with less than five years experience. The job market is shit if you don't already know someone who can give your resume directly to someone in charge.

?

Nor give you experience that anyone will give two shits about.

Or go to cheap college if you want to major in something useless like Boggy Creek studies

I have a master's degree in chemical engineering, dipshit.

but for different reasons. I've been hiring more 20-something college grads (or students) recently, and so far, nearly every one of them has been intelligent, respectful, hard-working, and a "team player". Why, then, would I be concerned? Well, because I'm hiring for an entry-level job which requires no more than a high school level education, and to see these kick-ass, smart, educated young people coming to work with me, while it does make for a more pleasant work environment and it undeniably makes my job easier, also tells me something very bad about employment opportunities in general.

I'm saddened to see so many good people "stuck" so far down on the food chain, when they clearly have potential to do better for themselves, and for their communities.

Of course, in the company I work for, all openings are posted internally for two weeks before any outside applicants are considered, and we do promote from within. We do not "dump" older workers, either. In fact, because we promote from within wherever there are qualified applicants, older workers are more likely to be found in the management and "white collar" skilled job positions.

I think the problem you're seeing (and unlike others here, I do believe you're sincere and that these are your personal observations) is more to do with the decisions being made by your own upper management than with the overall quality of young workers entering the work force.

if anyone would speak to the entry level employees that way I would have written them up so fast the friction would have started the form on fire..

as a middle manager supervising fresh college grads, though not in retail.

My impression of most of them was that they had INCREDIBLE technical skills, but few practical ones. Most had never balanced a checkbook, paid their own bills or held a real job. I got the impression that before they came to work at our company they had held jobs at the local mall, where they would hang out in a crew of people their own age.

Yeah, I know we all had to learn these skills the hard way, but I also got the impression that their parents had done them no favors: it's tough to have learn everything all at once. Plus, they had no past experience in coping with misfortune: the least little setback made them fall apart. (Plus, they needed to be praised constantly, which was weird.)

I don't mean to bash the younger generation but there is a problem here, and one that goes far beyond bad attitudes and coping skills. One that wasn't discussed in the original post, btw. Even our college grads are coming out of school barely able to read and write. Colleges have offered remedial classes for years, the kind of stuff that should have been taught in high school.

At the other levels, i.e., kids who aren't college material, the situation is even worse. The dropout rate rises every year, and I have had employers tell me about the high school grads who can't even read well enough to fill out a job application.

Kids are getting screwed by the system, IMO.

not to be so tough on the students academically. "You're the academic success stories," he said, "You can't expect the students to perform to your standards."

They why bother teaching them anything?

What I hear is "Don't expect everybody in your class to be Constitutional Law scholars. Just teach them as much as you can and don't beat up on them if they're not perfect," which is good advice. Maybe it came off differently in person, but being overly harsh is rarely a good tactic trying to teach someone something.

The dean's remark was in response to faculty complaints like these: "My students turn in downright sloppy work and then get mad at me for not giving them a good grade." Or, "I correct my students' grammar and spelling when they turn in their lab reports, and they tell me that I have no right to do that because I'm a chemistry professor." Or, "I hold review sessions before finals, and the only students who show up are the ones who are already headed for an A or high B.""The fraternity and sorority types start whining if I schedule anything substantive during Rush Week."

I tried to give my college students a taste of this by including a "politics in the workplace" essay on every test. I would relate stories of my own or those of coworkers I had known, putting the students in the shoes of those who were dealing with difficult bosses, peers who were intent on sabotaging their work, rumor damage control, sexual harassment,under performing assistants, etc. A few of the students told me later that those scenarios made them think twice about ever working for a large corporation, but I assured them that when you put more than two people together to create a workforce, there WILL be workplace politics. You have to put a little Dale Carnegie to use to get through it.

I was also known as a real "hard ass" for demanding that work be completed on time. Why does this seem like such an unreasonable request anymore? At the college I attended we would get an "F" on any project that was turned in after the deadline unless we had made arrangements with the professor ahead of time. The world can't have changed that much in 20 years!

which has little to do with real life and the people in it.

It doesn't make much sense to put people with no experience in a position that requires so much experience. :shrug:

But I don't buy that today's college grads lack a work ethic, etc. Some of them, sure, but when I was back working a regular job I knew people of all ages who lacked work ethic and/or were egomaniacs ...

My daughters are about to enter the workforce (not in retail, but one in
fashion design and retail-related matters. They have been lauded as reliable,
intelligent, always punctual, and respectful of their peers and superiors.
They aren't looking to replace anyone or be responsible for anyone being replaced,
and they are willing to learn and start from the bottom up. They both grew up
in Europe, and their mother (my wife) is European, but I can't imagine that they
are complete exceptions to the rule, or that the whole of American youth is as
bad as you portray.

At least, I sure as hell hope not!

Actually kinda grateful to the young Turks, whose attitude seemed to be anyone over 30 should go away and die. They made made it possible for me to consider early retirement, which turned out quite well.
It was either that or darker ideas that kept springing into my brain.
I have heard from friends all over the country about the problem, so it does not seem to be a West or East Coast issue.
Scary....

Unlike you or other older, already-established workers, I have NO workplace experience and few connections. None of my peers are making close to enough money to buy a home or a car - most of them can't even rent a very nice apartment. A lot of us still live with our parents, since it's damn near impossible to afford anything else on the "starter" salaries we're getting offered. If you aren't in a high tech field, the wages out there are crap.

But yeah, we're just being handed everything for free. Give me a fucking break.

After they suck all of the oil out of the ground, pillage social security, keep us from moving up the job ladder, make us pay too much for houses earning less than they did when they were our age, sending all of the jobs over seas, filling our drinking water with poison, driving the schools into the ground, allowing the entire business world to become one massive corporation, and just generally fucking everything up for us... we can take over in about 20 years or so and start saving money and hopefully fixing everything. Maybe by then if current trends continue our generation will work 3 times as many hours so that we can pay for their social security. Enjoy your 1 week of vacation a year until then. But don't fly anywhere.

But until then it's all our fault. Oh and stay off their lawns... they hate that.


This shit makes me crazy.

For such supposedly "open minded" people, some of them sure are quick to make pretty fucking ugly generalizations about our ENTIRE generation. If they'd had it this bad when they were young and trying to start their own lives, we'd never hear the END of it. What a self-centered bunch of asshats.

:thumbsup:

I'm looking at my first summer in grad school and I have no idea where I'm going to get a summer job. My department won't let me teach summer school until next year, so I'm going back to Colorado. I thought maybe I'd do some kind of tutoring, but nobody will hire me unless I can do math/Spanish and most places want certified teachers. Short of taking out an ad in the local paper I don't know what else to do. Even the online tutoring companies won't give me any work because I'm really only qualified in the humanities.

So at this point I'll do just about anything just so I'll have something to do. I guess a degree in history isn't going to get me a lot of summer jobs. I can't even find any online. I guess they don't put up ads for ditch digging on monster.com. I'd be happy to get some of that work because at least it will help me lose the last few pounds of college cafeteria weight.

I think our parents' generation doesn't understand that the days of being able to go out and get a good paying job in a factory (or the railroad, or any other such place) are long gone. I know two friends who are barely scraping by (one is living with her parents, another is renting some shit room in a shit apartment in LA) despite having gotten good degrees from *good* universities. If I weren't in grad school I have no idea what I'd do.

Is this a masters or PHd?

I've got plans, trust me. Unfortunately, they all require graduate degrees so, here I'll stay for now.

I went to one of the top 50 universities in America, and I have NO friggin' clue what to do other than go to grad school. There is NOTHING else out there for humanities majors, unless I wanted to teach K-12, which I don't. I am going to the UK on a work abroad program for a few months this summer, and then applying to graduate schools when I come back. I had above average but not stellar grades, so I am hoping I get into a good program - because if I don't, I honestly have no idea what I will do.

Ah, the leisurely, privileged life of us spoiled and arrogant 23 year olds :sarcasm:

Have you ever considered sales? You may have to start out selling cars or something like that to break into business to business sales but it's allowed me to start climbing the ladder. In sales you can get in there and through hard work and study you can outperform the other guys and start climbing the ladder.

Sales was never what I wanted to do, but I needed to pay the bills and at least now I'm getting "somewhere". Plus theres always a job selling something, and if you perform you get paid for your performance.

I don't know if you consider yourself a "people person"... I'm somewhat of a misanthrope myself, but you can train yourself to push the right buttons and pretend you like obnoxious people. Hell that's what a lot of people buy things for is that they just want to be on the "giving" end of the authority spectrum, and have someone stroke their egos a bit with compliments etc.

:shrug: Just a suggestion. The middle management jobs are drying up fast as companies outsource all of our factories etc. But someone will always have to sell the crap we import, and someone will always have to manage the salespeople and the people that support the salespeople.

A friend of mine who's getting his MA in history is doing (paid!) historical preservation work for the city where he's studying and if he wanted that could be a full time job. I imagine there are similar jobs available at higher levels of government as well. What's more, I heard from some of my profs that the Feds hire history majors for some jobs you might not expect because the discipline of history encourages critical thinking about source documents that others don't. Maybe you could look into the foreign service, for instance, since you can get in there just by competitive examination.

I feel that because of cultural lifestyles running amuck in the media and hip hop culture, it has turned a HUGE number of kids into egocentric assholes with hardly any common sense. And trust me, I am 21 and I hang out with many of them on my free time.

As they mature, they'll begin to realize that whether you are pushing a cart or top-level management, the key to success is to care a great deal about the quality of your work. This may not get you financial success, but until your measurement is about your pride in your own achievements and the knowledge that you're giving it your best, it's hard to be really satisfied.

I can remember working with exasperating young people ten years ago, and twenty. And at the same time, with terrific go-getters who cared about the job they did, because they simply would not let themselves down by doing shoddy work.

I don't think this is any new thing - I think it's probably more of a recurring generational thing. Kids need to learn, and most do.

I am under 30, and I look at alot of the stuff I did 3-5 years ago and wouldn't be doing it now. It takes time to learn to be responsible and productive. Expecting people to be perfect at age 23 shows more about your lack of maturity than it does theirs. The part of the brain that is responsible for long term planning (prefrontal cortex and frontal lobes) aren't even fully formed until you are 20-25, expecting people at 23 to have 'figured it all out' is idiotic.

The superciliousness doesn't help either. PS thanks for the $10 trillion national debt you angry codgers racked up, and allowing the religious right to take over america. In between that and working these amazing jobs that don't offer healthcare or pensions we will enjoy paying it back. Thats just a reference to those of you who are dicks though. Those who aren't are ok.

On another note, young people are the backbone of the push to help Darfur, we are far more global in our politics (we care about global poverty), we are far more involved in politics than any generation since the 1960s and we are more progressive and alot more agnostic than our parents. So to claim we are lazy and evil is just stupid. In between our progressive, global ideas which aren't tainted by religious fundamentalism and our use of information technology I think we will accomplish alot in the next 20-30 years.

I'll be a 23 year old college graduate in about a year and a half. I'd love a job that lets me take a 3 hour lunch break.

...and left my generation with the mess.

Thanks.

:7

http://rateyourstudents.blogspot.com

(Yes, I've posted this a million times before...)

I argue politics with my friends, my mom, and on here regularly. I don't watch American Idol, in fact I rarely watch TV aside from Daily Show/Colbert and House (well, there's the subbed anime, but you can't get that on TV in America). I support a higher minimum wage, and think that health care should be a right and not a privilege. I argued against teachers in high school, and stood on my own in what was supposed to be a three v. three debate because I opinions were unpopular.

I've worked in retail, had customers throw stuff at me because they didn't bother to read signs. I've turned down extra hours because I was just working for spending money, while others at the store really did need the hours.

Sometimes, assholes are assholes, no matter their age or education.

One of the OP's previous posts...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x3150514

Those dirty people.....

There are idiots, assholes, egomaniacs, and general lazy lamers in all types. I've hardly seen it confined to a specific age group.

Back in the early eighties, when Toys R Us was the new and upcoming thing is retai, they started off headhunting hotshot managers from K-Mart, when they were #1. Withn a short time they started these college cattle-calls, where they'd get all these kids straight out of school as manager trainees just before "season" and work them to a pulp, and the ones who survived would be made full managers.

The ones who made were actually pretty good. Of course, they were always looking for more $ so a lot of them were outa' there in a year or two. They had no loyalty to the company like the old-timers like me. Eventually, the company went from bringing in experienced managers from the top of retail to the bottom.

In particular, I remember the mass influx of managers from Ames, which had just gone belly up. That was a good one. None of those guys made it. When I left the company in 1991, they were literally bringing managers in from Arbys. By then, the company was a real piece of shit.

Age and expieernce does have something to do with it, though. When I worked at Borders we went from having older managers with book knowledge to MBA grads who didn't know a book from a hole in the wall. One GM I remember, was this guy who was a dead-ringer for Michael on the Office. He was more concerned with Florida State football and getting free stuff at company manager meetings than books.

Of course, by then Borders was more interested in selling booklights, batteries for booklights and Billy Bass than selling books, so it all dovetailed nicely.