Aldeer.com Forums Alabama Deer Talk Aldeer General Forum What happened to

The work ethic in this country? I’m 25 years old. Machinist by trade. When I graduated high school and went to trade school I got a job working in a shop 3:30-midnight and classes at 8am with an hour commute. It was brutal but I gained the experience I needed to further myself in the trade. I kept my grades up therefor keeping my scholarship for classes. Now I have a good job where my boss treats me like family and I’m pretty happy with my life. Yesterday my buddy (also a machinist) calls me up and says “well ya want me to tell you about the young people?” (He’s also 25) I said “sure” he proceeds to tell me that him and his brother hired a kid fresh out of trade school to run some parts on their CNC mill. Easy job!! Press the button and swap parts that’s it. Kid does 7 parts walks in the office and tells the boss “man this ain’t my cup of tea” and leaves. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Now I see what all the older guys are saying about the young bucks. Indeed they suck.

A lot of them do Suck, but I haven’t lost faith. In the last year we’ve hired 4 19 to 20 yr olds. They are all jam up hard workers that wanna learn the trade ( welding, fabricating, machining ).

I'm 50 and my generation couldn't hold a candle to my fathers generation. Him and most of his buddies / family literally worked themselves to death. But you're right , the work ethic in this country ( except for the Mexicans ) is in the toilet.

I dont think it's ever been a generational thing, it's how you are raised.

The #1 problem in America: men not stepping up and leading their families the way God intended them to. That's where everything begins...

Then a lot of people are not raising their kids right. And that's a real possibility. Talk to anyone in the trades who are trying to fill jobs and they will tell you the same thing I'm seeing - hardly anyone under the age of 30 wants to work. There has been a BIG problem there for the last decade and it's gotten progressively worse.

25- 30 years ago you could take out an ad in the paper for a job and have several skilled guys looking at that job 2-3 days later. Now, you can use every social media platform, employment agency... or whatever and not get a hit.

Spot on phil

Truth.

Yep

Bingo. Usually, someone was too busy working (if present in the family) to teach his kid to work. "Train up a child in the way he should go.............................................".

BPI is right--the WWII generation (AKA "The Greatest Generation") were the peak. Worked their asses off, sacrificed, didn't talk much about the hell they endured during WWII. They had it hard, and for the most part, got after it.
IMO, baby boomers is where major entitlement started. Many boomers will disagree, but that's where the largest change was. Downhill since then. There are needles in hay stacks, even with the young folks now. But fewer now than in years past.

It all ties back to participation trophies and social promotion. If there is no reward for outperforming others then nobody learns the rewards of extra effort and success. Nor do they learn where they stand in the mix of people they find themselves in. Letting the mamby pamby crowd remove the incentives for success just gave the lazy losers unjustified hope they would get by with minimal effort.

Now the same crowd is calling for a “living wage” for moron/beginner work so they can propagate their uselessness. Tools requiring more effort and intellect than a video game might cause a callous or two neurons to fire is out pacing their abilities. So they can’t handle it. The only consolation is these people are cannon fodder if we need human shields later down the line. They are not contributing anything beyond population count.

Nothing more than leaches.

But I think the leaching started with programs like Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. The government should not provide these services IMO. If you want to retire from work, you should have to provide for yourself over decades of working to cover those final living expenses and health insurance. Abolish all those programs, and give a refund to all of us that have paid in for years. People will figure it out -- only when they have to figure it out. If an easy path is provided, most will take it.

Maybe the kid didn't want to stand around and push a button all day 😄 I worked a survey job (about 20 years ago) and after 2 days of walking in a moccasin infested swap (in the middle of August) i told 'em they could have that chit, and i went back to digging holes for swimming pools 👍

Women these days don’t want a man that leads..... they want a yes man. One that does whatever they ask. They will leave a hard working godly man for a jobless dope head. The kids are paying the price.

The American economy has changed and the worker changed with it. Social Security, Food Stamps, Free Lunches, Pell Grants... all that is nothing new. What happened is the middle-class son realized there are easier ways to make a living.

My brother-in-law is 34 and the hardest working man I know. He is a welder and travels all over the South on projects. He makes shucks... I think $35 an hour. That's $72K a year. Try to raise a family on $72k a year... if your wife ain't working you are broke.

On the flip side, a project I was on a couple years ago.. they were paying graduates from Alabama and Auburn $65 an hour if they had computer programming degrees.

Too many young folks were/are not even made to do chores at home and were/are raised in an instant gratification society. Most school age kids now absolutely do not know how to wait or be bored AT ALL. I am sure that as a young child I would likely started whining after awhile and asking when we were going to be done or when we were going to leave when I got bored, but now electronics, iPhones and iPads are the things stuck in kids' hands to keep them quiet and chilled out when they need to be quiet and still.

Of the high school kids I have heard about, the 14- and 15-year olds want to work the most. Once they are actually mobile with drivers' licenses and parent provided vehicles, they have too many other things they want to do. I am sure there is, also, some sense of being defeated when that age group cannot find a job. Even those who do get one at 16, 17, 18 and are still in school are limited in the hours they can work, not by parents, but by the govt, which I think is wrong. Each person is different. There are those who can keep their grades up and still work way more than three or four hours a day.

We need to get back to the idea of what I call "starter" jobs that are the ones where it doesn't take a tremendous amount of skill to learn, but that, honestly, I hate to say, may need to start back in school in making sure the kids that actually learn basic math and are taught how to spell in elementary don't lose those skills by the time they get to high school (which I swear seems to happen). There needs to be an acceptance that someone with no prior skill set should not be making what those who do have skill sets do.

A cashier should not make the same wage an electrician does. Those who stock shelves should not be making what a paramedic makes (this is really a burr under my saddle as I dang sure think someone who has been trained to save a life should be making more than someone in a position who is starting to be phased out and replaced by a dang machine).

For those clamoring for higher minimum wage, congratulations - you are only making it harder for yourselves in the long run. Not all jobs are for those who have families to support! These starter jobs that I speak of are for those who are still young, living at home with parents and are just learning how to budget, set goals, save money toward that goal, hopefully start having to pay for something, even if it is as simple as the cost of a cell phone line on the family plan.

When you start becoming unsatisfied with what you are earning at your current job, then evaluate your situation. Is there some additional training you could get to put yourself in a better position with a pay increase? There are plenty of people willing to train and help someone move up the career ladder, but there has to be some initiative on the employee's part.

I don't say all this to knock those who have been blessed to not have to work and go right on to college, graduate and continue on to get a job with a decent income. I suspect that those who have been able to do that still had a good work ethic instilled in them in the beginning. But, there has been a large push for a number of years talking about how you are only going to make good money if you get a college degree and it is simply not always the case. There have been what I consider lots of misinformed kids follow this guidance and then are very disillusioned with the result. There are tons of college degrees out there that are simply just not going to provide a lucrative income.

Because of the college degree push there has been some misconception that those who just the blue collar work life don't earn as much. WRONG! Case in point, we have three kids. We have one who received a Bachelor in Science in Radiological Sciences from UAB. We have one who went through the welding program at LBWCC-MacArthur. We have one who received an Associate's Degree from LBWCC and is a licensed paramedic. Of those three, our radiology girl is currently at one of the imaging centers in Montgomery and primarily does "dexa scans" (bone density and fat composition) and generally works three days a week and helps raise three young boys with her husband, Our welder went to work for a pipeline company for about nine years and now works for Southeast Gas in Enterprise and helps raise a daughter and son with his wife. Our paramedic currently works for CSL Plasma at one of the Montgomery locations. Fresh out of their respective programs, our welder absolutely was making more money and I suspect still does, although I do not know how much any of them are currently earning.

Our daughter had a solid plan when she before she graduated high school and literally started summer college courses within a week of graduation and proceeded to graduate with honors from UAB. Both the boys were informed of the options available - they could just go to work, they could enlist in the military, they could get some training to be better positioned for a better job than what one can get without a specific skill set., but that they were not just going to sit at home and play video games all day. That paramedic we have started out working at a call center and he did that for over a year before deciding that it was not what he wanted to do for life.

I think there is a lot of money spent every year for college and other training that is just wasted because kids are pushed into it by well meaning parents even though they are not ready. I am totally in favor of them needing to do something besides keep your couch warm, but sometimes just going to work in the starter job sector is the best motivation to want something more and be willing to put in the effort to better themselves.

The other problem I see lots of employers facing currently, aside from stimulus packages, is finding people who can pass a drug test. If they were to legalize pot, the number of folks who could pass one would increase dramatically it seems. I am not saying that would be a good or bad idea - just a fact it seems. The other problem is people not being able to stay off their personal phones.

If it continues there will be a correction coming in the future. Supply / Demand will take over. On the flip side, I encouraged my son to go to school and get a degree. He graduates next month with a degree in nursing. He's a hard working young man and I' m proud of him. So yeah, there's hope.

I don’t feel any so called entitlement is an entitlement unless the recipients specifically paid into it . All other programs paid from the general ledger or from theft of programs specifically paid into are discretionary and can/should be retracted or reduced to balance the budget.

The leftists and RINOs are spending like drunken sailors on a Saturday night at the brothel. But Monday morning is gonna come around and the hangover is will last much longer than the few minutes of pleasure did. We have all been complaining about materials and commodities prices. Those numbers are moving up through the production pipeline and when toilet paper and food goes up 500% to 700% like some lumber has $15 an hour ain’t gonna buy gum balls out of a machine much less bread, beans and eggs.

We’ll be eating only one meat a week, if that often. It won’t be because Biden says so. But rather because nobody can afford meat. Might as well move to Venezuela in mass, take it over and kick the inhabitants up the trail to the Rio Grande.

I guess he wasn't getting any overtime, then. The welders I know all make bank! But, $35/hour is a dang good wage in our part of the state, too. I guess it depends on your perspective and how lavish a lifestyle one wants to live.