Generation Y too "lazy & unfocused" to hire...

SingleSue

When I was training the graduate trainees, they had a real hard time getting their heads around it. I was 19 when I started doing their training, no A levels or degree yet I was one of the upper levels of the company and there was them, older than me with a degree....they (on the most part, some were ok) found it rather difficult to take instructions from me.

I'm generation X (going by the example above) and have a strong work ethic, I would be at the office for 7 in the morning (official start time 9am) and would rarely leave before 7 at night (official leave time 5 or 5.30), worked bank holidays, weekends and would come in at the drop of a hat if asked. If I ever had a slow day with work, I always helped other departments out (looks good plus helps with the knowledge), I always helped colleagues out and saw it as a team enterprise.

I was completely and utterly motivated by money...the more I worked, the more I earned and boy did I love those lovely figures on my payslip at the end of each month (tax was a bit of a downer though).

abaxas

So the children of the boomers who couldn't be bothered to work in the 70's, cant be bothered to work!

Isnt that a shocker!!! Lazy parents have lazy kids.

Sapphire

SingleSue wrote: »

When I was training the graduate trainees, they had a real hard time getting their heads around it. I was 19 when I started doing their training, no A levels or degree yet I was one of the upper levels of the company and there was them, older than me with a degree....they (on the most part, some were ok) found it rather difficult to take instructions from me.

I'm generation X (going by the example above) and have a strong work ethic, I would be at the office for 7 in the morning (official start time 9am) and would rarely leave before 7 at night (official leave time 5 or 5.30), worked bank holidays, weekends and would come in at the drop of a hat if asked. If I ever had a slow day with work, I always helped other departments out (looks good plus helps with the knowledge), I always helped colleagues out and saw it as a team enterprise.

I was completely and utterly motivated by money...the more I worked, the more I earned and boy did I love those lovely figures on my payslip at the end of each month (tax was a bit of a downer though).

Totally the opposite from me. I like money, but it was never my main motivation for working. Working hard and being interested in the work resulted in me being jumped up to higher positions (often less interesting than the more junior ones). I would have gone nuts in a job that paid £100,000 pa or more had I been bored.

You sound like one of my cousins. :eek:

SingleSue

Ah....I also loved my job, I should have mentioned that. I got (and still get) a buzz by a job well done.

I also got jumped up to higher positions very quickly but still retained the interest, it meant I could earn even more, have even more pressure, have even more of a buzz.

Yes, I thrive on pressure and work stress...and yes I am weird.

WhiteThierry

Cleaver wrote: »

Most people tend to use people born between around the early 60s and 1980/1 as Generation X. People born from 1981/2 onwards tend to be termed as Generation Y. Baby Boomers are people born pre-60s, but people tend to have a few years to define boomers.

I think these definition are too broad, i was born in 81 on the border of these 2, but i feel in a totally different world to people only 5 or 6 years younger than me. Partly to do with technology, partly to do with society/media as a whole.

For example, when i was young i played football on the street, now kids play x box and watch crap tv all night. I got toys and games for christmas, kids now get phones/ i pods etc. I had attentive parents, now some parents are happy to let the tv/ nintendo do the parenting. I walked to school, nowadays the kids get driven to school in the SUV because mummy read an article in the daily mail saying that 9 out of 10 people are !!!!!philes.

Sounds extreme i know but in the 5 or 6 years between me and a 22/23 year old this is true and unfortunately i think society will adapt to their needs as they get older. I can honestly see the day when everyone in the workplace is allowed 15 minute "text" breaks.

StevieJ

SingleSue wrote: »

Ah....I also loved my job, I should have mentioned that. I got (and still get) a buzz by a job well done.

I also got jumped up to higher positions very quickly but still retained the interest, it meant I could earn even more, have even more pressure, have even more of a buzz.

Yes, I thrive on pressure and work stress...and yes I am weird.

Didn't anyone ask why it took you so long to do your job

Sapphire

SingleSue wrote: »

Ah....I also loved my job, I should have mentioned that. I got (and still get) a buzz by a job well done.

I also got jumped up to higher positions very quickly but still retained the interest, it meant I could earn even more, have even more pressure, have even more of a buzz.

Yes, I thrive on pressure and work stress...and yes I am weird.

My profession encourages people to work very hard – just because of the nature of the work, and the best ones work very intensively because they feel responsible for their projects. They also tend to get burned out quite quickly.

As for being weird – you're surely not as weird as I am. :T

DaddyBear

What do they have to motivate them? Most of them will never be able to afford a house without a massive inheritence. The penny has probably dropped with most of them. Better off on benefits, and more time to play on the X-box and watch sky.

abaxas

DaddyBear wrote: »

What do they have to motivate them? Most of them will never be able to afford a house without a massive inheritence. The penny has probably dropped with most of them. Better off on benefits, and more time to play on the X-box and watch sky.

Great point, maybe no-one actually wants to work hard, just in previous generations that was the best way to work up the social ladder.

Now it's best not to work and get someone else to do it for you. So delegation is the new hard work. But isnt that actually the real world, and always has been?

carolt

DaddyBear wrote: »

What do they have to motivate them? Most of them will never be able to afford a house without a massive inheritence. The penny has probably dropped with most of them. Better off on benefits, and more time to play on the X-box and watch sky.

I think that's so true.

We struggle and have strugged terribly to afford the basics like a roof over our heads - and we're highy educated, from families with strong work ethics.

If I was young now, and poorly educated, little chance of a decent job and being able to afford the lifestyle I needed, I can see how incredibly tempting, nay even logical and sensible choosing to live a life on benefits would seem.

That's why we desperately need to reform the benefits system - whilst building loads more social housing - so that future generations of ordinary people can aspire to work AND get a secure roof over their heads, rather than 'breed' to live.