Aspiration & ambition

Wookster

Watched this on iPlayer this morning:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b016ltd7/Young_Foreign_and_Over_Here/

Thought it was quite interesting and even though I felt some of the people being shadowed didn't really help themselves I thought all of them had some gumption and drive, particularly the Polish rickshaw rider. Good luck to him!

Is it just me or is that I'll just do what needs to be done to get through while I seek to better myself attitude missing in the UK today?

Ilya_Ilyich

Thanks for the link, looks like an interesting program.

ruggedtoast

Wookster wrote: »

Watched this on iPlayer this morning:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b016ltd7/Young_Foreign_and_Over_Here/

Thought it was quite interesting and even though I felt some of the people being shadowed didn't really help themselves I thought all of them had some gumption and drive, particularly the Polish rickshaw rider. Good luck to him!

Is it just me or is that I'll just do what needs to be done to get through while I seek to better myself attitude missing in the UK today?

Not this again.

Look. The average monthly salary in Poland is EURO 870. Thats the average not the median. Many people are on far less than that.

If you are an enterprising young person who isnt scared of travel and hard work, and you come to the UK, live 6 people to a room and work your backside off while spending next to nothing on yourself, you will still be doing well enough to save a decent wedge and set yourself up back home.

I can assure you if you go to Poland there are plenty of people who cant be bothered to do anything like this, and sit around on their nellies sponging off others; just like there are here, and in every other country I've been to.

The reason people arent motivated to do minimun wage jobs here is because you cant live off a minimum wage job. If people were offered a fair days pay they would do a fair days work. But they arent. They are offered the crumbs from the tables of the elite and entitled and watch as their very existences are outsourced away from them in their own country.

TruckerT

I haven't followed the link because I think I can guess it's gist from the replies

If I were young now, I would be on my way to Brazil

I went there very briefly a few years ago, and WOW. what a place that is...

I cannot speak their language, but neither can many people who are brave enough to come to England from another place

Go now! - be there first...

TruckerT

crash123

ruggedtoast wrote: »

Not this again.

Look. The average monthly salary in Poland is EURO 870. Thats the average not the median. Many people are on far less than that.

If you are an enterprising young person who isnt scared of travel and hard work, and you come to the UK, live 6 people to a room and work your backside off while spending next to nothing on yourself, you will still be doing well enough to save a decent wedge and set yourself up back home.

I can assure you if you go to Poland there are plenty of people who cant be bothered to do anything like this, and sit around on their nellies sponging off others; just like there are here, and in every other country I've been to.

The reason people arent motivated to do minimun wage jobs here is because you cant live off a minimum wage job. If people were offered a fair days pay they would do a fair days work. But they arent. They are offered the crumbs from the tables of the elite and entitled and watch as their very existences are outsourced away from them in their own country.

Me and my partner earn a lot more but we can live off the minimum wage, it just takes a bit of skill. Making meals from scratch etc. shopping around for good quality at a reasonable price. You don`t have to have the latest i-phone etc.

PolishBigSpender

ruggedtoast wrote: »

Not this again.

Look. The average monthly salary in Poland is EURO 870. Thats the average not the median. Many people are on far less than that.

Many people are on much more than that too. Means nothing.

There's also a large black economy here - while the official figures might be 870 euro, the reality is that it will be much higher. Do you honestly think the planning clerk in a village backwater in Eastern Poland is only earning 2000zl a month? Get real.

If you are an enterprising young person who isnt scared of travel and hard work, and you come to the UK, live 6 people to a room and work your backside off while spending next to nothing on yourself, you will still be doing well enough to save a decent wedge and set yourself up back home.

Not anymore you won't - the cost of a reasonable 2 bedroom flat, even in a small town, is now going to cost the same as a 2 bedroom house "up north". In the cities, a decent flat will cost you more than in Berlin for instance.

The UK simply isn't the "land of milk and honey" that it was once - now, Poles are going there to stay permanently, not to go for a couple of years. Young people are also generally not going there - the exchange rate simply doesn't make it worthwhile, especially as Polish employers don't think much of dish-washers and truck drivers.

I can assure you if you go to Poland there are plenty of people who cant be bothered to do anything like this, and sit around on their nellies sponging off others; just like there are here, and in every other country I've been to.

There are? Where? This country simply doesn't allow them to live in that way. There are plenty of moaning people, sure - but they work. The concept of "sponging" simply doesn't exist here because there's nothing to sponge.

The reason people arent motivated to do minimun wage jobs here is because you cant live off a minimum wage job. If people were offered a fair days pay they would do a fair days work. But they arent. They are offered the crumbs from the tables of the elite and entitled and watch as their very existences are outsourced away from them in their own country.

Excuses, excuses.

They aren't motivated because the UK benefit system allows them to stay at home, do a few hours odd-jobs here and there and they're on the same level as someone who works full time. Why bother?

If the UK had similar rules as Poland concerning benefits, you'd soon see a hell of a lot of people suddenly "in work".

reweird

You are correct to question the aspiration and ambition of today's yoof, which I prefer to call man-babies. Far to often are they seen to be relying on the good charity and support of others, taking everything they can, instead of standing on their own 2 feet, knuckling down and getting on with it.

RenovationMan

Wookster wrote: »

Is it just me or is that I'll just do what needs to be done to get through while I seek to better myself attitude missing in the UK today?

As evidenced by the howls of derision that you receive on this board if you dare to mention that you took a risk to better yourself and it worked out. It seems that people in the UK (and on this board) generally like to hear about people doing worse not better than themselves, whereas in the US it's generally the opposite.

shortchanged_2

RenovationMan wrote: »

As evidenced by the howls of derision that you receive on this board if you dare to mention that you took a risk to better yourself and it worked out. It seems that people in the UK (and on this board) generally like to hear about people doing worse not better than themselves, whereas in the US it's generally the opposite.

I think the problem with that philosophy RenoMan is who picks up the tab when the risk goes pear shaped?

For example who helped out the banks when they got a little (cough, cough) carried away. Yes the taxpayers.

What would have happened if your gamble went the wrong way?

Would you have had mortgage interest support for example? Who pays for that?

kabayiri

I suspect for many of us on here work has a greater justification beyond just bringing home the pennies (status, sense of worth etc).

For many though work is just a way of getting the money they need to buy the things they want. The person who claims benefits and works a bit cash in hand is solely motivated by earning money to acquire the things they value - be it iphone or nikes or whatever. They may be dishonest but they are not stupid if they are working the system are they ?

Getting one over on 'the system' may be an aspiration in itself.

leveller2911

shortchanged wrote: »

I think the problem with that philosophy RenoMan is who picks up the tab when the risk goes pear shaped?

For example who helped out the banks when they got a little (cough, cough) carried away. Yes the taxpayers.

What would have happened if your gamble went the wrong way?

Would you have had mortgage interest support for example? Who pays for that?

Agree totally,
Taking a financial gamble is fine as long as those who decide not to take that gamble don't have to bail out the "!!!!less".

@Reno man, over in the States when things go t*ts up theres no help from the tax paying public so its worlds apart from here so people wouldn't be so eager to encourage gambling if their own money was paying for others mistakes.

Personally I think the Banks should have been allowed to fail, how can you have a Capitalist system where a Government bails out Banks.