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I think most management just suck at motivating workers. If you go to any random company in America you'll find a ton of disengaged workers. People who are just going through the motions and collecting their paycheck.
I used to work really hard, then I had to work overtime because someone above me went to a conference in SF and got all excited about some stupid fad and mis-allocated resources. So in order to ship on time we all had to pull overtime. The executive that screwed up didn't even get fired. There was no apology, no thank you for working your ass off. After that I stopped caring and just did as little as I could get away with.
I think at the end of the day, most executives don't really care or appreciate the people who are actually doing the work. This completely demotivates people. I think if you want people to work hard, first and foremost they have to be led by people that they respect. Workers need to feel appreciated and that their contribution is important.
OP when you say why are so many Americans lazy where are you getting this from and what proof do you have? there are lazy people worldwide. I know more more famous Americans then i do non americans who are very successful.
ps. not sure where you are located but just because students at your school and people at your job are lazy does not mean ALL Americans are. Maybe its a isolated lazy-ness issue in your area.
EXCELLENT point. Sure we see a lot of lazy Americans on TV and even in our own lives. But there are lazy people all over the world. In my own workplaces- all of them I have ever worked in- we have also had many, many extremely hard working people. This nation still has some of the most hard working and ingenious people in the world, that is why amazing innovation still comes from here more than other places.
That doesn't mean we don't have lots of lazy workers- there always have been and always will be many lazy workers. My wife is from China, all of her family are still back there. We hear talk that they are such extremely hard working people- but the fact is they have plenty of lazy people as well. Her sister talks about how everyone in her office is extremely lazy.
A farmer wakes early before sun rise to plow, plant, harvest, sell, and do it again every season.
Technology advances happen, and efficiency reduces the time to the job and even increase production.
So instead of 1 farmer needed to feed 10 people, 1 farmer can now feed 100 people.
Less time, more production creates extra time for rest and relaxation.
So there's room in the society for the lazy people.
Too bad, there's too many volunteers for the finite spot.
The media and politicians are always pandering and telling us that Americans are the hardest working people in the world. Yes, some Americans are very hard working and there are lots of impressive people in our country. But in general I find most people I meet to be very lazy. In fact I come in contact with more lazy people all the time.
Do you believe that Americans of all ages are becoming lazy and are Americans still the hardest working people in the world?
Ill quote Office Space, " its not that I'm lazy, its just that I don't care". I consider myself lazy when it comes to doing mindless work to make the rich richer. I don't care about the job and I don't wanna be there, I'm there for a check, but I'm always nice to customers, its management and co workers that make most jobs suck. When I do my side projects to make extra cash I turn into super worker. I'd much rather be playing my guitar and watching movies than work 50 hours a week and become a slave to materials and all that junk. I'll be lazy and free vs hard working and having a bunch of.stupid toys.
A farmer wakes early before sun rise to plow, plant, harvest, sell, and do it again every season.
One of the interesting things about American farmers in the 18th and 19th centuries is that they actually had a lot of free time, depending on the season. Things were, of course, busy during certain periods, like the harvest.
But there was also a lot of slack time between growing seasons. When Tocqueville visited in the 1830's, he noted that farmers used their free time to form a lot of associations, church groups, and social clubs.
Frontiersman-farmers faced a different situation while they were initially clearing out the land that would become their farms, and their experiences formed some of our later ideas about farmwork, but a lot of that work was simply making the ground suitable for crops. Once the ground had been tamed, the workload decreased.
When you think about it, it wouldn't even be possible for most people to sustain a year-round work schedule like the one old-time farmers had at the peak of the harvest. People who do that tend to be in labor camps or other involuntary setups, and they tend to die quickly. A small percentage of people can work in that fashion, but most people need rest and recovery time to stave off heart attacks or other forms of physical shutdown.
I worked for 37 years for the same employer. I retired at 60 and I'm now reaping the rewards of sticking with the job long enough (actually 5 years more than needed) to retire.
I do what I want, when I want. I read, take naps, go out with friends and life is really great.
I think lazy is everywhere but I think because we are a much "better off" nation and most of us live well, eat well and sleep well and everything is at our convenience, we don't think we have to do much to achieve something.
I also think that people are not lazy to begin with but get so discouraged from too much perseverance. I learned from Economics about a percentage of Americans who are unemployed are so discouraged from not being able to finding a job, they give up entirely and are hopeless.
And also, it does have to do with your surroundings. it might be my own little theory but I have always thought that drive-thrus have a part in people's overall lifestyles because they won't make the extra effort to do something when they can/should and instead, choose the easy way out.
I have been all over the USA in my life. There most definitely is laziness in the USA. It can vary from place to place, but definitely some areas it seems much more noticeable. I live in one right now Portland, Oregon. It is part of the reason I decided against retiring here. There are some nice hard working people here. However the percentage of lazy types is very high as well as needy people, that depend on others and the many welfare programs Oregon has to support them. I refuse to spend retirement years paying the 10% Oregon Income tax, even on pensions to support all this in this state. I'm so sick of lazy panhandling people on every corner, fwy ramp and store front in this hideous city. I leave Friday and I couldn't be happier its coming to an end now.
The media and politicians are always pandering and telling us that Americans are the hardest working people in the world... in general I find most people I meet to be very lazy.
The truth is that Americans are some of the hardest working and most productive workers in the world but some of the laziest students.
The current education system from ages 0-18 is absolutely terrible and rewards people who put in the minimum of effort required. Your position at a college gives you great access to the products of the system and that might warp your view a bit. Once people get out of our schools and into the real world, however, they learn fast. I believe the schools should put them in a position where they don't have to "learn fast" but those who run the system apparently believe school is about grades and academics and other useless things as opposed to real life skills that will be demanded in the real world. I hope you teach a class that students get something very concrete out of - if not, I can understand why your students are lazy and don't care.
I know many people who cruised through middle/high school with minimal effort only to land in the work force and work their butts off once they figured out what they wanted to do. One of my best friends went to a liberal arts college for exactly two semesters before realizing how pointless the liberal arts are and dropped out. Less than a year later he makes $80K a year doing what he loves and nobody ever asks him what his education is. Tell me, why exactly should he have cared about school? It didn't do him any good, just wasted his time for 19 years. That said, I'm staying at my (very expensive) university until I get my degree... Then I'm outta here!
Last edited by Jester2138; 03-05-2012 at 02:59 PM..
I don’t think American are lazy. With well social welfare,they just need not work so hard. The pay more attention on life, amusement. And this maybe the same case in most developed countries. In developing countries, people must work hard to get more money for basic finacial needs. If have no economic pressure, I dare they can be lazy too. Of course except some workholic or strong career-minded.
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I don’t think American are lazy. With well social welfare,they just need not work so hard. The pay more attention on life, amusement. And this maybe the same case in most developed countries. In developing countries, people must work hard to get more money for basic finacial needs. If have no economic pressure, I dare they can be lazy too. Of course except some workholic or strong career-minded.
