I used to pride myself on work ethic, but you know what? After seeing what most of these companies are up to, and how little they actually care about their employees, F em. It's that simple. The country needs a big ass change in mentality. You don't become a billionaire by being the nice person who is fair. People don't care about quality, only how fast they can make cash. There's making a profit and there's unbridled greed. People are tired of being taken advantage of.

I know there's a lot of small business owners that post here that take statements like this personally, but the reality is, you are probably not who it is directed to. I commend hard work, and admire anyone willing to do what it takes to build up a company. However, there's a limit, and most of the young people have seen what their parents went through, we saw what our parents went through and I'm sorry, but it is NOT the best way. Something has to change. There are a few mega rich people on the backs of millions, and most of them aren't philanthropists. Regulations are put in place because of the decades of abuse of workers. Workers rights are going back to being eroded, and now people want to complain because the poor people get a few measly handouts? If you are business owner complaining, take your own advice, work harder.

Even as is the SS will be bankrupt within ten years.

The last job I had was working for a Fortune 500 company that is the 800 pound gorilla in their field. Their culture was horrible. It was also sales driven by shameless smiling faces to the point of the inmates were running the asylum. It’s always a bad sign when the people that you work with refer to the company that pays their bills as “a big family”. I don’t care if it’s a mom or a pop shop or amazon.com. Not sane.

I did everything I could to make my managers happy, nothing worked. The last straw was an “emergency call” to a larger chain client that this company sells a lot of kit to. The call came in at 2:30 in the afternoon. The equipment hub was two hours away since I didn’t have the equipment needed for the fix in the truck. The office closed at five. I wouldn’t have been able to get to the hub, pick up the equipment, and fix the gear before the office closed. The response from this to dispatch and the response was “Gasp! You’re turning down this call?!?” My reply was “I can’t physically make this call. You are going to have to find another tech.” I got a call from my manager at the end of the day to come in the next day for a meeting. I knew it was going on, so I took care of my first scheduled call went into the meeting and was let go by the company.

This really bummed me out and the next day at home I was talking with my lady in the home office and I got a call. It was from one of the officers that worked with a few weeks before. They wanted me to come on up and work on their equipment at their office. I don’t know how they got my personal number, but they didn’t they rang me up. I politely told him that I don’t work for that company anymore and I heard the two most wonderful words I’ve heard from the moment I started working for that big, ugly, rotten on the inside corporation.

“We know.”

This client didn’t want to work with that crummy company either. This office had been given promises that were broken over and over and over again because they weren’t a large enough of a financial entity to be paid real attention to. I’ve been working with this particular owner for over a year now, and all of my business contacts are referrals from them and other referral clients. I don’t have a website, I hardly do anything to promote my company other than I come with solid references from satisfied customers. I’m going to keep doing that.

The other hard thing for me was to ask what I thought would’ve been a good rate for my work. I dropped some information and put a decimal point behind the rate that I was getting paid from the company that I worked at before. It was a little intimidating. I ended up practicing in front of the mirror for a day or two to make sure that I could ask for what I was going to be compensated with a confident, and straight face. It wasn’t a problem. In fact, they’re paying me a heck of a lot less than they paid the company that I used to work for. Funny how that works. All I had to do was get past a lifetime of thinking like an employee. The weight was lifted and the clouds parted. I could feel my shoulders drop and my voice deepen as I relaxed and let the confidence of the moment flow through me.

I still have a few phone numbers from the people that were on my crew that I used to work with. I plan to stay in touch with them after another year or two when I start having more work than I can handle myself. While it won’t be a large corporate entity and the resources that a company like that will provide, I will make sure that whoever is working for me does not have the experience that I had when I worked with that company. I know their quality. I know the quality of their employer. I know better. And I can feel it. They will be the people I will hire.

While I have time now to do my work, I’m also able to put aside time for family and other projects and invest in my own education. I buy books every week. Almost every interview I’ve heard from high-powered executives has some part of the conversation relating to books they read, information and people that they search out. Mentors and trusted sources of information. Whether human or not, makes the difference. Living in an echo chamber is certain intellectual and emotional death. The information age also has other benefits. Namely that a real education is in the palm of your hand at all times. I still enjoy buying and reading books, but in many ways, podcasts and audiobooks serve me better. I don’t care how I’m able to make the knowledge stick, I just work with what works best for me. I believe that a good way to say this is that I don’t like school. But I love education.

I will never work for another company again. When someone tells me that they can’t find good help, ask them what is good help. They tell me and I asked them what they’re paying their good help. It’s easy to say that someone expects something and not be willing to pay for it. I don’t think that’s necessarily the case. I think it’s a rock and a hard place. How many employers based their entire economic plan on older, more outdated systems and ideas. They’re stuck in it.
It’s easy to say that someone expects something and not be willing to pay for it. I don’t think that’s necessarily the case. I think it’s a rock and a hard place. Many employers based their entire economic plan on older, more outdated systems and ideas. They’re stuck in it. They could educate themselves and learn more about lots of different things, but in many cases they’re too busy running their own business in their own lives to see the benefits of continuing and continuing education. Here’s what they do now. Prices keep going up. Homes in many places are downright and affordable even with both parents working full-time. Large corporations seem to pay less and less in taxes and yet keep reporting record profits and stockholder dividends every quarter. We are distracted with news, which isn’t. It’s an emotional triggering. Pandering to an audience that they sell advertising to 24/7/365. We don’t care what we’re telling you, we just want to incite you over and over and over again so that you feel something in your lives. And now, a word from our sponsor...

Can you see and feel what I am talking about? Walter Kronkite is rolling in his grave.

The power of technology and information is not tempered by Usefulness of wisdom and sanity. Marcus Aurelius ruled the western world 200 years ago. We have his diary. There’s more information at our fingertips which makes most universities obsolete and all you have to do is ask for it. Access to materials and supplies Of any kind, shape and form are easily searchable. You can even use your watch to press a button by your hand talk into your watch and wouldn’t you know, a picture showing the person that you’re talking to shows up and you can talk to them in real time. It’s amazing. Dick Tracy was a prophet.

Sorting through the chaff is not easy. It is an education unto itself. People are thrown information at them all day long and they don’t know what the hell to do with it. We walked around with these tiny boxes in our pockets that had more computing power than NASA had in the 60s when they sent a man to the moon. And what do most people do? They send each other pictures of their meals, their pets and their genitalia. Technology isn’t the limitation, we are. Technology keeps moving and will always keep moving forward. The world keeps spinning and we’re limited by our own tiny little inconsequential emotionally retarded lizard brains. Our needs are met with this incredible world that we live in the resources at hand and access to them has never been greater than before. They’re happy people living in the dirt in Afghanistan and we have living in America, The greatest country history has ever known. The most powerful global entity that has ever come to be and what do people do, they feel small, insecure, powerless. Their feelings of insignificance express themselves in rage and a general air of an asshole’s self entitled soapbox.

People express many variants of the same emotional platform which comes down to listen to me! Listen to me! Listen to me! Why is nobody listening to me!? and it’s not without merit. There are a lot of people out there in pain. For many different reasons. Mental health is a soft science that most people either don’t understand or dismiss as something that other people need because they’re weak. Not strong like me!

A wise man once told me that people have two eyes, two years, and one mouth. Most people don’t use them proportionately. This particular character was also well known for wearing shorts and different colored socks. When people would ask him about it, he would tell them “I’ve got better things to do with my time than match my socks.” The manager at my last company scoffed at the idea and told me it was unprofessional. In a moment of clarity I decided not to inquire about the tattoo just above her ankle.

I’m not saying that I’m the best that I can be, because I am not. And because I am not the best I can be... that’s something I strive for every day. A huge part of this is that I try to do my best to really listen to people and let them finish what they’re saying and think about what they’ve said before I respond to them. Most people are just waiting for their turn to talk when speaking with someone else. Eye contact and observational skills Will tell you more about what the person is actually thinking than the words coming out of their own mouth’s. You don’t have to study neurolinguistic programming to understand it. You can look at the way somebody holds her hands their posture, how they relate to other people in the tone of their voice. The soft skills that make the difference when effectively communicating with other people. This WILL tell you more about what the person is actually thinking than the words coming out of their own mouths. You don’t have to study neurolinguistic programming to understand it. You can look at the way somebody holds her hands, their posture, how they relate to other people in the tone of their voice. These soft skills (and many more) make the difference when effectively communicating with other people.

And then... some people are just shit Midas’ personified. You know who they are, you’ve met them before. People, who have the horrible skills of turning everything they touch to shit. How do you get to that recognizing point as quickly as possible? Practice. I am not particularly talented at it (or many other abilities), but I can be persistent, observant, and dedicated. I also study people. My favorite part of being in an airport is watching people walk on by. I may never see that person again in my life, but I did for a moment. I saw a bit of their life walk on by.

How do you look in the mirror and see it in yourself? Even in the smallest ways? Education is a strange thing, I have a quote that I like to tell people and it makes a lot of sense to me. It’s part of everyone’s journey, and I’ve embraced it wholeheartedly but it also makes me realize how much valuable information is available to me from the people that I surround myself with. And if I can’t change the people around me, I change the people around me. Those people are the ones that influence and guide your life more than you’ll ever know. Just ask someone who recently got divorced.

Now, I’m going to look for some more pinball games to play. Maybe I’ll tell you what my opinion is of them. I do this because I love to play pinball. I also really enjoy writing. Believe it or not, my opinion is just that. it’s not about you. It’s not even about me. It’s about being honest and a little irreverent and having a lot of fun with pinball. It’s a habit that I’ve cultivated over the years and I think I’ve gotten good at it. So I share it. I give it. Pinball has given me so much. And in a small and indirect way this is my way to give back. That’s where I’m coming from. And that’s what I’m trying to do with my business and all other aspects of my life. Form, repeat, practice, introspectively review, listen to people who aren’t so full of themselves that they can’t see past their own nose. Ignore the negativity and flex the power of my mind, self and that little kid who LOVED to play pinball.

And if you can’t understand how that has to do with employment issues, talk to someone who is working in the pinball industry who knows that they could be making a heck of a lot more money somewhere else but would rather make pinball games every day because it’s not work when you love what you do. I’m doing what I can to love what I do and make sure that the business is taken care of as well. Getting that balance right has taken me a long time and I’m still learning new things every day.

Thank you for giving me a space to let loose the mental vomit.

Y’all have a super fuckin’ awesome day! Much love.

- Caucasian2Step

C'mon now, really?

Yes! No one ever talks about this!
When my wife returned to work after having our daughter we had her in child care, after paying for it she was taking home about $100 a week. She had been with this company for 5 years, and worked her way up from accounts receivables to inside sales. put in extra hours, went above an beyond. She reluctantly returned to work... people kept telling her not to "jeopardize her career" and "Stay at home mom looks bad on a resume". A few weeks after returning to work she gets a call from the day care, your daughter is sick and we need you to pick her up. Tells her boss and leaves to get her. The next day her boss sits her down and starts giving her a lecture on being a good employee.... finally he says "you really need to decide, family or career." My wife stood up, said "family" and walked out and started packing her things. We never looked back. My wife got to hear my daughter's fist words, see her fist steps, and bond with her. Was it hard? yeah, especially when my daughter needed surgery and we were so broke I couldn't find enough money to get our car out of the hospital parking garage. But we made it work, and if I had to do it all over again we wouldn't even think twice about it.

And that was 16 year ago.... the cost of child care certainly hasn't gone down, and the attitudes of a lot of employers like that haven't changed.

Oh.... and if you were wondering what might have happened if she chose career? A year later the company decided to close that division and move the company out of state with a significantly reduced staff. Her whole department was let go.

Please tell me this is just poorly worded and she chose to work for extra money or for something she wants to buy. She has 50 years to work for financial independence. She’s a child and definitely doesn’t need adulthood forced on her yet.

There are a lot of ambitious, excellent young workers too. I’m fortunate enough to have some exceptionally bright 20-somethings on my team with terrific work ethic. My goodness, some of these young guys and gals are smart.

I’ll now stop posting on that positive note.

LOL. Gotcha.

This is an excellent, balanced take on the situation. I agree 1000%. I’ve tried for the last 8 years to create an environment where everyone felt valued and could contribute their ideas, hard work, etc. This led to everyone on the team being super invested in the work we did, spending nights and sometimes weekends on their own dime to make a super polished product (and many products over the years). This June, the decision was made to slash costs to many areas across the board, despite the huge success of what we and others were delivering. Everybody on my team has been saying “F it, what’s the point.” Yeah.

Same. Have a few younger new team members that make me feel old and outdated with how quickly they pick things up. They are certainly out there...I think we are all just getting to that age where 'get off my lawn' is a reality.

Having a child work early and teaching them the value of a dollar is a critical life lesson and skill I would applaud. My 10 year old has jobs every week he does for extra money. Now, he's only earning enough to buy baseball cards and comics (what year is this?) and payments are kept purposefully low, but he is learning. My kids want for nothing, but there are things that I could easily buy for them that I don't so they can earn them themselves. I worked as a kid at my parents amusement park. I'm glad my parents put me to work and am doing the same with my kids.

In this thread its very hard to tell whats sarcasm and what is really old men yelling at clouds.

gdonovan we are in the same line of work, and I can tell you the staff for procedures they are STARVING for full time staff.

I meet new temps on a regular basis. They treat it like a gold rush or oil boom. They take 1 year contracts and live in their camper. I’ve had some great conversations with people from all over the country.

Maybe it’s cheaper for the organization to contract the work out who knows. I wouldn’t think so. Maybe if it keeps them from paying benefits etc but you’d hope that would be a small cost. Ironically the temps seem to be training those that are employed.

I’ve had several people try to hire me. I’m not making a move….yet.

I have no problem with kids earning money for frivolous, fun things. Having fun and being kids. But the way it was worded sounded far more serious.

My friend who works for SSA would agree with this and their department is short staffed as well.

Pick the worse problem over there…money or paperwork log. Doesn’t really matter.

Here’s a funny story, I was at an airport waiting for the plane and overhead this guy talking to a girl (not sure if they were together or they were just talking).

The guy said how he’s mad at his work because a few days ago he told his boss he was going to be late because he had to get gas in his car. The boss said why didn’t he get gas on his way home, but he said that was gas on the freeway which is too expensive so he had to get it in the morning apparently he drives a different route on the way to work. So the next morning he was indeed late (because he had to get gas) and they write him up or something which surprised him (for some reason).

——

Now me, I start work at 6:15-6:30 getting up at 4:55 am because it’s an hour drive. I’ve never been late even when there was traffic due to construction. If I need gas you know what I do? I get up at 4:44 so I’m not late or I get it the night before.

Man, I'm sorry but he's going to be pretty disappointed with that investment if he tries to sell them 25 year from now lol (speaking from experience).

When you're young you have your health, time and no money.
When you're middle aged you have health and money but no time.
When you get old you have time and money but no health.

O 100%. I've had this talk with him. I've shown him my Becket price guides from 1995 and shown him what my cards were supposedly worth and how many were supposedly made. Yeah... that Ken Griffith junior Rookie card I had? Most produced baseball card in History. You can to this day still buy a 1988 Donruss complete set... for under $10. They refer to the baseball cards of my youth as the "junk wax" era.

However, my kiddo isn't "gambling" with them. He got a box of packs as a gift a few months ago and has actually only been opening a pack a week. Self regulated. He's obsessed with baseball too. Actually taking him to his first baseball practice of the fall tonight.

You should see what this guy can do buying a used playfield off of someone walking it to his car at a pinball show! Put my plans for it to shame!

Honestly.... I've never really had my health.... I have Narcolepsy, in my youth it was undiagnosed and caused all sorts of problems with my employers thinking I was unreliable and lazy.... diagnosed in my middle age, but still struggle with employers (until my current employer).

Lol great! I'm glad your setting his expectations appropriately. I wanted to sell my two Nolan Ryan Rookie cards years ago (when they were valued at 2k each.... but everyone said don't they will only go up in value. Just sold them for $250 each a week ago.

This is an exellent thread. I appreciate OP making it after our brief talks in another thread. I don't blame this on the current generation. This stuff has been happening since the dawn of time. People change, times change, but the concepts always seem to stay the same. I really like the back and forth going on here and its surprisingly balanced. For now, I just wanted to leave this video in case anyone needs examples of how blaming the newest generations for how things are today or predicting the downfall of humanity due to them is a tale as old as time. Its easy to blame the new generations for the problems today, but what if I told you the previous generations are to blame? I don't know if everyone is ready for that blackpill just yet but theres certainly a healthy discussion to be had

Do you think anyone read this?

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That's why while I do see elements of it, I know that when we were growing up, it was the same story from our elders perspectives.

Shit, I been doin' that for 20 years. Didn't know I was a trendsetter.

Some of the problem with government assistance and welfare mentioned earlier is its too easy to go on to, but as soon as you make $1 more than the cut off all assistance stops and theres no program to help people stop being dependent. Its either all or nothing. The system is designed to keep people on it, whether thats intentional or not is another discussion.

Do you think your "funny story" was actually funny?

It wasn't.

I have nothing to say that won't get drown out in this trainwreck except that anyone who says they want to work or hustle or grind is lying to make themselves feel better.

Well I can agree that the generation has the mentality to not work AS HARD. When people can perform jobs working from home with a newly implemented job of being an online influencer, why would they go to a labor intensive job everyday? I am in my mod 30's with an old school mentality and can become jaded at times considering that I see peers fall into this generational shift. However the industries have changed. Your labor intensive jobs/Trade jobs are just as important as they were before, but the way people can make money from the social media industry. We have to remember, we all contribute to their success by watching tik tok, youtube, snap, instagram, ect. What would you rather do? Go into work busting your ass, missing your family, spending money for travel/food? Or wake up at your own leisure, make 7, 3 minute videos a day from your phone, travel to places to share experiences, to and make the same money? Unfortunately because of this, there becomes an unrealistic expectation of the classes between who is held accountable for our failing employment, quality of service, and just general day to day interactions with each other.

This issue isn't going anywhere.

My father worked for HP for over 30 years. At 25 years he got the Gold Watch.... band.
No.... not the whole watch, just the band. You think after 25 years at a company you just get a gold watch?

Also.... I saw my father work there for over 30 years.... he retired early in 2014, died in 2015.

I "Silently Quit" every and any job I'll ever have from that day forth.

I've brought this up in other threads. Something that was already starting to have an impact exploded during the pandemic. It is crazy the money some of these people make, but that being said, they can't ALL or even most of them be making that kind of money, just enough to survive..but at the same time, they aren't doing the 9-9 grind 7 days a week either so they aren't burnt out.

This pissed me off. Apparently doing your job is now called quitting, and doing all the extracurricular bullshit for free is now considered mandatory?
Nonsense.

We have a handful of people trolling this thread blaming “the boomers” (mind you boomers are actually in their 60s and 70s now) and everyone else is having real conversations.

It’s been said a few times: jobs have been demanding more and more, have lied about bonuses, raises and promotions, and strung people along. They eventually realize that they wasted 5-10 years of their life for a company that has forced them to do extra work for less pay.

Companies used to pay people to do specific jobs, but mega corps like Amazon have realized it’s more efficient to push you to your breaking point while paying you the same, then replacing you.

There are good companies who appreciate their workforce, but they are stained by their corporate peers who treat employees as disposable.

It’s a crapshoot you gamble with your time whether you’ll be promoted and treated fairly, or work for 20 years and get sacked with nothing. I have plenty of 50+ year old friends who did the whole career gig, and trained their replacements for less pay. Those guys are looking for jobs at the few good companies left.

Then you’re stuck with a candidate pool of:

• majority of Lazy, entitled kids who don’t care

• minority of Hard working young kids who know their worth and stand firm

• A handful of career bums who have done the bare minimum for 10-15 years jumping job to job.

• A decent pool extremely qualified older professionals who have been burned after the past 3 years of crisis. Their expertise is worth its weight in gold.

Modern companies how no clue how to strategically hire these people, so they’re chucking spears and hoping maybe they catch a good one.

Much of Corporate America has given up on valuing new recruits due to the burn rate. I heard from a higher up that the first 3 months is most important for retention. That’s all they care about, hitting the metric, but they don’t seem to qualify that data with the value of the new hires.

Yeah that makes for an odd conversation when you have a great employee that you want to give a raise but by doing so makes their life harder because that extra $20 a week from a 50 cent raise quadruples their cost of living. Its a catch 22.

Some of the other problem is society in general now tells everyone they can be whatever they want to be, so if you want to be CEO of a Fortune 500 company you can do that, because no one can hold you back. And theres this undertone that if you just go to college you can walk right into that position because you have a degree, no need to put in the time. Problem is there are only 500 fortune 500 company's and 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 people so........

Elevator mechanic, before gen-z was a whole new life attitude and we in The blue collar fields weren't expected to be robots like we are now, the young people were hit and miss. Now they are all let downs.

I feel like because their attitude, and quiet quitting and all the other trends, normal work ethic folks are being asked Todo do more and more, it sucks man.

Every year we get raises that are supposed to account for inflation/ cost of living, which is a whole other conversation….but…(and trust me it’s not enough but it’s more than most places)

I sometimes worry about getting paid to much.

We’re also having a hard time finding workers and have lowered the education standards. I know my role well but at the end of the day I worry if it would be cheaper to replace me with someone else for much less.

I'm a music producer, and I own and operate my own studio from my home. Been fortunate enough to be fairly successful at it.

I work with people mostly 10-20 years younger than me, who are extremely hard-working, driven, and passionate about their work. Work ethic, drive, and passion have absolutely nothing to do with this new generation. Hell, I met my friend's 10 year old daughter for the first time the other day, and she has more passion and drive than most people my own age. Not even being funny. I pray she doesn't have that passion driven out of her as she gets older.

The reality here, is that for far too long, human beings have been conditioned to be wage slaves, and the current generation is wising up to it. Just like the young people of the 60s in America who didn't want to be war fodder.

I wasn't born in the USA, but I moved here when I was 20. I'll die on the hill that this is the greatest country that's ever existed in the history of countries. But we have a lot of issues, and those of you who blame these issues on the youth are absolutely a part of the problem.

That makes sense. To be clear I’m not a nurse, I don’t work directly with nurses, but usually in the same procedure rooms.

Workers aside there are a lot of decision makers who look at spreadsheets with numbers and don’t consider the values you mentioned above which are important as I’m told.

My coworkers wife however IS a nurse and her work ethic is excellent but she’s closer to retirement than most of her coworkers right out of college who has some choice words about their work ethic.

Hard to believe this is already over 20 years old. But the new kids didn’t discover quiet quitting, it was even around long before this movie! Great clip to remind everyone how great this movie is. Enjoy.

So he worked 30 yrs and only got a gold watch???? Didn't he collect a paycheck the whole time he was there. Apparently that wasn't good enough.

Jinx!

This movie is timeless.

My SSA friend used to watch this every day for a month when he was going through a rough time at work.