Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
One word of warning, no matter how strongly you feel about her children's lazy lifestyle, DO NOT complain to her about it.
This was the advice given to me by my friend who married a single Mom. Do not come between her & her children. As a step Dad just dish out money and keep your mouth shut!
Besides, she's only your girlfriend.
A few years ago, my gardener had his high school age son come help with yard work. I tried to motivate this young man into study math and later go to college to become an Engineer. I tried to enlighten the young man how he can earn $70K - $80K a year fresh out of college with no experience, sitting in an air conditioning office drinking coffee all day long, while his father do the back breaking yard work all day under the hot sun and makes only HALF his son makes. I tried to tempt him by pointing out that, in a few years he could buy this 3,000 sq.ft., 5 bedroom, 3 bath house for him and his parents to live in.
But while the young man listened politely, his idea of making a living is just like his father, be a gardener or in construction, and perfectly happy making that $20/hr manual labor job. Several years later, I met up with him again and he's doing what his dad does.
You can show a young person a better way to live his/ her life but they don't listen. They're limited by what they see and repeat the same mistakes their parents make.
That's why the poor will continue to stay poor.
She knows the work ethic is pathetic.
The bottom line is while THEIR work ethic sucks, I have Gen-Z family members who've stepped up in times of trouble to do better for themselves things that maybe even I wouldn't have done, if pressed against the wall.
There are a lot of stereotypes out there, and while maybe somewhat true on a broad level, can't be specified down to the individual person.
Agreed. A forty hour work week isn't forty hours, for many of us it easily consumes 50-55+ hours of our time to be rewarded with forty hours worth of pay, once you factor in the time spent for mandatory breaks/lunches, commutes, preparing food for lunches, etc.
And I'm probably an anomaly, but it takes an emotional toll as well that can suck away time and energy. I once worked a full time job for two years that was so soul sucking and chaotic that I eventually needed a couple hours after work to decompress and 'do nothing'. I finally just stopped going after coming home in tears, it was that bad. Raw deal.
That's why I remain remote for a government, even at lesser pay than what I could otherwise command in office.
Technically, my day begins at 8 AM. Generally, I just flip my phone on for a green light on Teams and tell everyone "good morning." Sometimes I log into the laptop around 8. Sometimes I "green light" until my first meeting. By default, Teams won't AFK you if your status is set to online, your phone screen is set to not lock, and you just set the phone face down. I've fallen back to sleep many times, then my Apple Watch wakes me up if I get a Teams message or email, when the watch vibrates.
I have no desire to sit an office, browse C-D and similar fora even more, to fill the same amount of time that is free now. I don't have anymore wasted hours than I did in 2018. These days, I can fiddle around the house at least.
Well she's not wrong. As a young Boomer, I have the same thoughts, but I had those thoughts about 35 years ago when I got my first office job that also had a commute. Hell, 9-to-5 isn't even a true 8 hour workday, it's 7.5 with a 30 minute lunch. Most places I've worked have an 8.5 or 9 hour "day" to account for lunch--to be sure you've actually worked 8 hours. Then there's the many days you work longer for special projects, meetings, etc.
Yes, your hobbies, friends, eating habits, etc. take a back seat to the 10 hours (if you commute) that revolve around getting to and from and being at work.
I talk to a lot of businesses and employers around these parts. Seems no one can find anyone willing to work, and most places are begging for people. $10,000 starting bonus? Seriously? Work at Wal-Mart? OMG my friends wouldn't let me live that down! A few of my younger nieces decided they're going to be "Social Influencers" so they can stay home and "make a lot of money". Uh huh.
I started working at 13. 9-5? Try 6am-6pm or midnight to noon 6 days a week. You go home just long enough to shower, grab a bite and a nap, then back at it.
The movie Idiocracy comes to mind thinking about today.
Movie idiocracy? What is that? Is that where they think real life is like that in the movies?
If so, it reminds me watching Peta Wilson in La Femme Nikita and wondering, "How can Nikita look so great when her workout schedule is so often shattered by missions and bad eating?".......
......and one must remember they are watching an illusion that is Nikita. It is Peta Wilson whose job is being Nikita and she probably has life that is a little bit more regular.
To our new 9 to 5er, it reminds me of the difference between college and being an Ensign in the Navy. In college, you get up, you have ups and downs during the day, what I called hitting the afterburners and fighting at 100K feet for a time and then coming back down to a comfortable altitude for a while. In the Navy, you get up, hit the afterburners and stay up there all day.
Finally, about the social influencers, reminds me what my Father once said. "The self employed man wakes up unemployed each morning.".
Quote:
Originally Posted by Serious Conversation
That's why I remain remote for a government, even at lesser pay than what I could otherwise command in office.
Technically, my day begins at 8 AM. Generally, I just flip my phone on for a green light on Teams and tell everyone "good morning." Sometimes I log into the laptop around 8. Sometimes I "green light" until my first meeting. By default, Teams won't AFK you if your status is set to online, your phone screen is set to not lock, and you just set the phone face down. I've fallen back to sleep many times, then my Apple Watch wakes me up if I get a Teams message or email, when the watch vibrates.
I have no desire to sit an office, browse C-D and similar fora even more, to fill the same amount of time that is free now. I don't have anymore wasted hours than I did in 2018. These days, I can fiddle around the house at least.
Just remember, that all our abilities to work at home......won't work worth a darn if there are not boots on the ground keeping all those machine rooms across the country running and connected.
She laments that work takes so much time. "How can I make sure I'm eating well and seeing my friends and taking time for my hobbies? How am I supposed to fit my whole life into a 9-to-5 work schedule?"
***
Most of us on the retirement board are boomers who have worked hard most of our lives. With that as a backdrop, I find the first-person account by this Gen Z person to be illuminating. She graduated from college this past spring and just recently entered the permanent workforce. Thus, she is young enough not to have experienced 9/11 and is unlikely to remember The Great Recession.
From my perspective, she is exhibit A of why it is hard to find employees who want to work.
As retirees or near-retirees, what do you think??
I'm sure even a tiny few Boomers and Xers, and maybe even Silents, felt the same way.
Point being: You can't tell just by a sample of one, or even really what an article says about ten same-age people who share her view. The latter example is Exhibit A in cherry picking.
Movie idiocracy? What is that? Is that where they think real life is like that in the movies?
If you've never seen Idiocracy, you should, lol! I saw it a LONG time ago and it was a comedy. It is often brought up in conversations likes these because, oddly enough, so much of it has come true.
Who are these people who work 9:00 to 5:00, and can I get one of their jobs?
Since I started my first professional job in 1984, the work day has started at 8:00, except you need to be on hand a little before that because your first meeting would be at 8:00 and you want to get a cup of coffee and get to your desk before that; lunch is taken when there's a break in the work, whether at 12:00 or 1:00 or maybe never; quitting time is when the work's at a reasonable pausing point, which might be 5:00 or 7:00 or 9:00. When I was working in manufacturing, many were the days when I'd have to be on hand half an hour before the line started at 7:00, and then I'd be working on things after they stop the line at 3:00 and on into the evening. Or I'd go on third shift schedule for a two shift operation so I could work on installations or prove-outs of new equipment when the line was stopped - 11:00 pm to 7:00 am. Or any number of other possibilities.
Now, I've not been hourly since then, but the hourly guys typically work 8 hours with a 30 minute lunch, which sounds like 7.5 hours a day - not too bad, you might say - except we would have months on end where the line workers were working mandatory Saturdays and two or three Sundays a month, because when you've got a three shift operation and you have three and a half shifts' worth of orders, you can't realistically afford to add enough people to staff it - and there has to be some planned downtime for equipment and facilities maintenance. So their gig isn't this mythical 40 hour week, either. I remember people telling me they'd worked 30 and 40 days in a row without a day off. Sure, they were booking time and an half and double time, but the pace was still grueling.
When I was doing field service, I remember several times when guys booked 168 hours a week of work, between 14-18 hour shifts and travel times.
So as far as I'm concerned anyone who's on this supposed "9 to 5" schedule is ALREADY way ahead of the game. Or, the technical term is WHINY BRAT. Ask a first year attorney, or an emergency room nurse in a big city hospital, or the owner of a small bodega in the city, what they think about someone who's posting how AWFUL it is to work from 9:00 to 5:00 five days a week.
If you've never seen Idiocracy, you should, lol! I saw it a LONG time ago and it was a comedy. It is often brought up in conversations likes these because, oddly enough, so much of it has come true.
Mmmmm, okay. Sounds like WALL-E meets Morons from Outer Space, Hitchhiker's Guide, The Time Machine, and a few episodes of Sliders.......with a touch of The Night of Trolls.
Mmmmm, okay. Sounds like WALL-E meets Morons from Outer Space, Hitchhiker's Guide, The Time Machine, and a few episodes of Sliders.......with a touch of The Night of Trolls.
Well, what can we say but "Bread and Circuses".
Yep! This sentence in Wiki really captures it: Idiocracy serves as a social satire that touches on issues including anti-intellectualism, capitalism, commercialism, consumerism, corporatocracy, dysgenics, and overpopulation.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
