Things today's kids missed out on

[Monocrom]

I dont believe at all that todays youth are total slackers, or any less ambitious than any kids before. I do think however, that they just lack the tact of how to go about being successful. I work in a high security facility and part of my job is briefing all new hires on our security protocols. This is the first thing they do when they start here and I am the first person they see to walk them into the facility. Most kids younger than me (I just turned 26) are late, poorly dressed, and have a "slack" attitude (and this is there first day of work). Most of them wash out in a month or so. I almost think some of them think a job should not be hard. I started out at the bottom and busted my but to get where I am, being assertive with my work and looking people in the eye and giving a nice firm handshake. I see this less and less lately. I dont know what the cause of it is, todays society, maybe its their parents, or maybe our HR department just needs better recruiters.

Hate to say it, but if those new hires you're talking about are security guards; there's a good chance that some of them completely understand the nature of the job . . . and thus act accordingly. Some of them don't put in the effort, they don't care about the job, they don't care about upper management. Then you have the ones who are intelligent enough to grasp what the job is truly all about.

Thus, they don't put in the effort, they don't care about the job, they don't care about upper management.

Still, I worked security for the past several years. The vast majority of young security guards are exactly the way you describe them. They're just in it for some extra spending money. Turn-over rate in the industry is high as Hell anyway. I hated finding out that the new guy who was my new relief was a young guy. Hated it! Young women were a different story, for the most part. They seem to care more.

It's no secret that many client's of security companies will demand older guards. They want someone who won't be gone in a few months, or even a few days. The young ones have no responsibilites. The older ones have bills. Rent, car payments, just putting food on the table. The older ones are likely to be married, with children. Those guards aren't going to screw around on the job.

But yeah, the security industry in America is complete B.S.

Some of the younger guards are intelligent enough to figure out that upper management really doesn't care about the job, or them. So why should they care?

 

[jtr1962]

I almost think some of them think a job should not be hard. I started out at the bottom and busted my but to get where I am, being assertive with my work and looking people in the eye and giving a nice firm handshake. I see this less and less lately. I dont know what the cause of it is, todays society, maybe its their parents, or maybe our HR department just needs better recruiters.

I really think it's because of today's society. Some of these kids might be smarter and more ambitious than you think. However, they see what happened to people my age ( 47 ) or older who did everything they were told, and in the end were unceremoniously outsourced by management which placed no value on education, experience, attitude, hard work, etc. They figure ( rightly so IMO ) why should they devote an ounce more effort than the minimum needed to keep the job.

And for what it's worth, I learned the same thing after working a couple of years. I started out eager to learn, improve myself, etc. with the idea the higher ups would take notice and I would go as high as my ability let me. In the end I found out nobody up there cares, so I stopped caring. I even sometimes stretched my work out a bit to get a few hours OT whenever the main office was in the mood to approve OT. When I got laid off from my last full-time job in 1990 that was it. I decided to work for myself after seeing the help wanted ads filled with jobs where it was plainly obvious advancement opportunites were limited. I'll be the first to admit I don't make much, but it's relatively steady. More importantly, per hour I make more than I ever could have dreamed of working for someone else. And my work is actually appreciated by my clients.

In the end I wouldn't be so quick to knock today's youth. To me it seems they'll gladly put in the effort should a real opportunity arise. Real opportunity isn't a $5 an hour to start service job where if you're lucky you'll be making a whopping $7 an hour after 5 years. A lot of what's out there is exactly that. Just for kicks last week I called the numbers on a few help wanted ads where starting pay wasn't mentioned. About half didn't want to tell me. As for the rest, it ranged from $2 (!) per hour up to I think $8. And they wonder why they can't get qualified people. :shakehead The problem is businesses have gotten so accustomed for so long to paying people awful wages that they don't even know how to fairly compensate people who would make great employees. The standard line I hear is most of what walks in the door isn't even worth a quarter per hour, so we pay as little as we can get away with ( including less than minimum wage ).

 

[jtr1962]

In this modern age, it would be expected that progress had at least led us to the point where workers weren't regarded as serfs. Normal tends to vary as well. In other developed nations, it's normal for workers to take months off a year for vacation.

And we were making progress for a while. Until the 1970s, real wages were up, hours worked annually were steadily dropping, benefits were increasing. It's been all down hill since. Real wages have dropped, hard won benefits are continually being gutted, work hours are up, especially for salaried workers. So much for the 3 day, 20 hour work weeks envisioned when I was a kid. Now we're closer to the kinds of hours my grandfather put in ( 6 10-hour days ).

Thankfully, some things have indeed changed. Folks are no longer stuck in one social class, forced to work the earth just to eck out a living based on surviving day-to-day.

No, we're not stuck yet doing that, but from what I see, those days are coming. As it is, many people are living paycheck to paycheck because of stagnating wages and ever increasing housing/food/medical costs. They have little savings. In theory they could quit their jobs. In practice they can't. We're in essence back to indentured servitude. I'm not seeing much upward mobility, either, even by people willing to work hard. It might be relatively easy to get out of poverty now. Just having a job can do that. However, going up from lower middle class is getting to be impossible for a lot of people. I tell my mom that her generation likely had it as good as any past or future generation ever will. She sees no reason to disagree.

Also, it is no longer necessary to pick one profession and hope it works out for the rest of one's life. Nowadays, going back to school is an option for many. Trade schools, and institutes offer accelerated programs. Some of which don't require college credits.

Ironically, that's one positive thing today's kids will miss out on. (Not being able to make a decent living if they initially choose the wrong profession.)

That's the only positive I see. Nowadays with chronic unemployment large gaps on resumes or frequent job changes are no longer the red flags they once were.

 

[Empath]

Let's return to the topic of the thread.

Any further discussion of youth's work ethics, and the disappointment of working for the man, can be addressed in a new thread specifically for that topic. Additional posts of that off-topic nature will either be moved, or removed.

 

[Th232]

Assembly programming.

I remember doing that. One of our programming labs for the MC68HC11 was to write the code for an interrupt vector by specifying the hex values for each instruction at each location. Interesting way of teaching us lower level stuff at the same time.

Then reading out info from the TX and RX pins of a micro by hooking it up to a scope. That was interesting.

And I'm only 21.

 

[ElectronGuru]

Typewriters...

What a wonderful sound, the clickin, clacking symphony of one's thoughts being put on paper (and having to get it right the first time, too!)...

I just remember starring at the blank piece of paper, knowing that 1000 characters had to be laid down, with the correct letter/number AND in the correct sequence or there was going to be penance with the white out. And if its a 5 page paper and you need to add or remove lines on page 2? You get to retype pages 2, 3, 4, and 5.

Freedom was the Brother Word Processor. A built in 5x7 CRT you could see the words on, and a disk drive on which you could store documents. Write, edit, save, and print, all in the same box.

Nostalgia was watching the folks with the 8 digit adding machine every year at tax time. Mom reading out the the numbers, dad typing them in, and mom writing down the result. 10 pounds of mechanical (powered!) joy I had nothing to do with!

 

[guardpost3]

Freedom was the Brother Word Processor. A built in 5x7 CRT you could see the words on, and a disk drive on which you could store documents. Write, edit, save, and print, all in the same box.

I remember my mom had one of those for work, it was not what you would call easily portable, and if i remember correctly it didn't even have a black and white screen. It was black and green!

 

[flashfan]

Posted by John Galt: "Typewriters...

What a wonderful sound, the clickin, clacking symphony of one's thoughts being put on paper (and having to get it right the first time, too!)...

What an amazing thing, this tangled machine full of levers, screws, bolts, and ink tape, and its ability to teach proper typing. Such an amazing thing, that creates a uniform line of text."

Anyone remember those old, old black manual typewriters? They must be collectors' items now. It was not only about hitting the right keys, but striking them with consistent pressure so that you ended up with nice, even lines of type.

Then came the electric typewriters and the IBM Selectric was king for a good number of years.

Personally, I find the typewriter an invaluable tool to this day...if you have a decent one. If you have a single form to fill out, or an envelope or two to address, the typewriter beats out the computer for efficiency...at least it does for me.

 

[PhotonWrangler]

I distinctly remember the mechanical hum of those old IBM Selectrics. Turn on the power switch and it springs to life with a ka-chink and then the sound of the motor whirring. Those were workhorses and I used one for many years.

 

[LukeA]

Let's not romanticize the things too much, my optometrist's secretary still uses one.

 

[PhotonWrangler]

Let's not romanticize the things too much, my optometrist's secretary still uses one.

Hmm... my opthamologist still has a rotary phone on his wall... :thinking:

 

[Monocrom]

I'm glad kids will miss out on using an old-fashioned typewriter. My Brother brand word processor is a pain in the neck. I can't imagine what it must have been like using a typewriter with those heavy keys and no White-Out, way back when. Found out that the first successful commercial typewriter didn't even allow the person using it to see their progress. The paper was actually underneath a cover.

Can't help but think that if proper penmanship was emphasized more, typewriters would not have been nearly as popular as they were.

When I was in high school, I could submit hand-written papers since my penmanship is excellent. Wasn't until I got to college that I HAD to use a word processor. Guess that's another thing kids will miss out on. Doubt there's a high school left in the nation where hand-written papers are even accepted nowadays. A fine example of dumbing down.

 

[PhotonWrangler]

IDoubt there's a high school left in the nation where hand-written papers are even accepted nowadays. A fine example of dumbing down.

I agree, however for me that's a good thing. My handwriting looks like that of a chicken having a seizure.

Funny thing, I had to take a semester of typing class in junior high school and I did miserably in it. Not because I couldn't find the keys, but because (1) that old mechanical typewriter took way too much force for my pinkies to hit the keys, and (2) I couldn't get the timing right and I'd constantly cause keys to crash into each other, causing a clump of metal that I'd have to reach in and manually untangle. Along those lines, one thing that kids won't mind missing is the ribbon stains on your fingers!

 

[Monocrom]

Long before many of us were even alive, teachers used to emphasize proper penmanship. Nowadays, they just teach script; and see if the students can form the letters. But at one time, teachers used to work with students to get their hand-writing to a point where it was perfect. Hasn't been that way for a LONG time.

 

[jtr1962]

I'm reasonably sure hand-writing 20-page papers in high school and college helped my carpal tunnel syndrome right along. That and writing "I must not talk in class" 1000 times in grade school ( no I didn't talk much but the teachers were advocates of "group" punishment, so when one kid talked, everyone got to "practice" their penmanship ). I actually never cared for cursive writing. Printing was faster for me plus more legible, so that's what I used. And don't get me started on typewriters. Sure, a bit easier on the hands than writing, but most of my teachers wouldn't accept a paper with white-out ( you would get an automatic failure ). So make one mistake, and you have to retype the entire page. Needless to say, I typed really slooooooooow as a result.

I seriously would have killed for a computer and a decent printer in school. It's too bad the technology came along about 20 years too late for me. So yes, typing and/or hand-writing papers are one thing today's kids will thankfully miss out on. As one who lived through that era, nothing positive to romanticize about it. You can turn out perfectly legible papers in your choice of fonts, complete with illustrations if needed, in far less time than back in my day. All positives if you ask me. The writer can now focus on the content instead of the mechanics of putting the words on paper. I won't even mourn the loss of penmanship. It's sort of like those who can't do arithmitic without a calculator. It's certainly a lost skill, but with the ubiquity of calculators it's also a pointless one. Same with penmanship and the ubiquity of computers.

 

[Monocrom]

. . . Same with penmanship and the ubiquity of computers.

Not quite.

I can just imagine the looks I'd get if I went to fill out a job application, and whipped out a laptop instead of a pen.

"Excuse me, have you got a printer I can borrow?"

Yes, some bigger companies will have their applications on computers. But many will still hand you a paper form.

 

[LukeA]

Not quite.

I can just imagine the looks I'd get if I went to fill out a job application, and whipped out a laptop instead of a pen.

"Excuse me, have you got a printer I can borrow?"

Yes, some bigger companies will have their applications on computers. But many will still hand you a paper form.

Clearly, the ubiquity jtr1962 is talking about is the nearly 100% penetration of computers, whether at home or in a computer lab, available to school students in the United States, and not the wholesale replacement of the pen and paper by the computer without the corresponding accoutrements and ideas necessary for such an endeavor.

 

[Fulgeo]

Cursive handwriting comes immediately to mind. I was appalled to discover that my 3 nephews only had a crash course in cursive and at best only learned enough to write their names. Most kids today can not read cursive mind write it. When trying to express (argue) the merits of cursive to my nephews, they asked what's the use of it in this heavy computerized, word processing and spell checking world. I said some very important works were written in cursive. They scornfully replied like what? I said the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights. That sort of ended the argument.

 

[LukeA]

Cursive handwriting comes immediately to mind. I was appalled to discover that my 3 nephews only had a crash course in cursive and at best only learned enough to write their names. Most kids today can not read cursive mind write it. When trying to express (argue) the merits of cursive to my nephews, they asked what's the use of it in this heavy computerized, word processing and spell checking world. I said some very important works were written in cursive. They scornfully replied like what? I said the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights. That sort of ended the argument.

Cursive is a vestige left over from when writing with quill pens or fountain pens was the norm. Beyond that, it's no different than printing.

 

[PhotonWrangler]

Here's one to be thankful for missing out on: boring filmstrip presentations in school. The teacher would load a roll of film into the projector, essentially a slide projector without the carousel, and an audiotape would be played alongside it, providing narration for the slides. There would be a BOOP sound on the recording to cue the instructor to advance the slide to the next one. It was like a Powerpoint presentation only without the excitement. :sleepy: