Modern Work Ethic

There is one simple truth in my life. If I don't go to work then I don't get paid. There are no sick days or vacations. I also am expected to work, and work hard, every minute I am on the clock. There is no relaxing by the water cooler or discussing the events of the day. Get going and get the job done is the mantra of my employer.

What I have been noticing as of late are the young kids coming into the business. They tend to stand around until given explicit instructions as to what to do. They complain when given the duties of an entry level employee, as if such work is below them? They whine about their commute and continuously complain about their expectations of working close to home. It is as though things no longer being handed to them is a shock? "This sucks" is a common theme.

The same trend is occuring in the corporate world. Company managers cannot keep young employees happy. The kids think they deserve a middle management job straight out of school. Managers continually give these kids fewer and fewer duties and when this isn't enough the kids just go down the street to the competition and work there, or better still just quit and move back in with mom and dad. The parents readily take them in since they have already been coddling them all of their lives anyway.

I write this now because of an experience I had yesterday. An acquaintance of mine recently got a job working for the maintenance department of my city. He is the low man on the totem pole but speaks of his job as though he is a veteran. When telling a story of a woman complaing about dangerous potholes in her street, this kid's response was that "we'll get to it as soon as we have the time." He said this as he was mockingly pretending to deal around the table from a deck of cards. "The nerve," I though to myself.

This is symptomatic of the work ethic held by most of our youth. Instead of being happy to even have a decent paying job and working hard to excel, they fall right into the trap of doing as little as they can get away with. This does not bode well for the competitiveness of our nation and it's future. The sense of entitlement is so pervasive that there seems to be no cure. I guess only after our economy crashes and these kids go hungry for the first time will their survival instincts actually kick in.