Forget that I ever existed

ushjr

Forget that I ever existed

74jax

Are you linking this to a survey or something in the news - I haven't seen anything recently on this?  Could you maybe post a link to the report, a we don't know what you are referring too?  My daughter is a millennial and loves her job, as do her friends, I don't think any are unhappy (that I know of).  But if you post a link to what you are debating about we can all chip in.  

Mickey666

Speaking as a baby boomer, I don’t agree with the starting premise that jobs were once not supposed to be fun (depending on your definition of ‘fun’ of course).
There have always been boring drudgery jobs and there have always been interesting and intellectually challenging jobs.  I don’t think much has changed in that respect.  What has changed since I went to uni is the percentage of people going to uni.  This means many more millennials start their working lives with a degree than when I started work, which has devalued degrees.  So perhaps graduate millennials think they are more elite (not really the right word) than they actually are and therefore somehow deserve more?
I guess we need some views from Millennials.

Brynsam

ushjr said:

74jax said:

Are you linking this to a survey or something in the news - I haven't seen anything recently on this?  Could you maybe post a link to the report, a we don't know what you are referring too?  My daughter is a millennial and loves her job, as do her friends, I don't think any are unhappy (that I know of).  But if you post a link to what you are debating about we can all chip in.  

There's lots of articles about it, just google millennials unhappy at work and you'll find loads.

I think lots of people pretend to love their job. I too have talked about what excites me about work at interviews but the only thing that really excites me is money going into my bank.

There's always 'lots of articles' on anything you google. Just don't believe all you read.

Plenty of millennials are very happy at work! 

davelewis

I went to university and ended up in a very average Civil Service job at the end of it. It was an entry level Civil Service job that I could have got at the age of 16 with 3 GCSE's. It did however give me a start on the career ladder and I ended up as a junior manager grade in another department. Eventually I started my own business and have been self employed for 10 years and love it. 

I'm not a millennial but a 70's baby - most of my school year went to Uni and it was almost expected. I always joke with my friends that our school mates who become brickies, plumbers and carpenters are the ones who did well and now have the big houses! Good for them - academia is certainly not everything. I think school provides a disservice to those who are not academic. It's really unfair on them.

[Deleted User]

The problem is that employment has become polarised. There were once jobs in industry for skilled workers, but many of those have gone now, so the opportunities left are divided between professional work like doctors lawyers, engineers etc, and menial work like burger flipping and shelf stacking.
Then along comes Tony Blair who notices that the former earn more than the latter, and so he decides to give everyone a degree, a bit like giving everyone a pair of football boots because you've noticed that footballers earn lots of money. It hasn't increased the number of professionals (or footballers) we need, so we end up with lots of graduates flipping burgers. The question is who's going to be most frustrated, the burger flipper with a degree, or the one without.

74jax

Brynsam said:

ushjr said:

74jax said:

Are you linking this to a survey or something in the news - I haven't seen anything recently on this?  Could you maybe post a link to the report, a we don't know what you are referring too?  My daughter is a millennial and loves her job, as do her friends, I don't think any are unhappy (that I know of).  But if you post a link to what you are debating about we can all chip in.  

There's lots of articles about it, just google millennials unhappy at work and you'll find loads.

I think lots of people pretend to love their job. I too have talked about what excites me about work at interviews but the only thing that really excites me is money going into my bank.

There's always 'lots of articles' on anything you google. Just don't believe all you read.

Plenty of millennials are very happy at work! 

That's what I'm thinking, I googled both for and against and plenty for either side. 
Now from the ops replies I think it is more the ops view than an article which I originally thought. In which case I can't comment as I don't really know any....., 😂 

TELLIT01

Now retired, I enjoyed aspects of every job I ever had.  There were also elements which were less enjoyably, generally the mundane repetitive, boring bits.  To suggest that older people never expected their jobs to be 'fun' is totally incorrect.

getmore4less

There used to be middle tier where the technical skilled jobs lived, go back before they messed up education there were technical colleges where skill and educations were combined.

Nearly every one did an apprenticeship of one kind or another even the top professional jobs are a type of apprenticeship. 

We ended up with shortages of skills in a lot of sectors, wages went up and importing labour became the cheaper option. 

The transition to education first then on the job results in a lot a attrition where the jobs are quite hard. 

Pick the right subject at the right further education establishment for the right jobs and you can do very well. 

Things to watch are can the job be exported or cheap labour imported. 

If the job can be automated then that opens up opportunities for new skill sets. 

Thrugelmir

getmore4less said:

There used to be middle tier where the technical skilled jobs lived, 

As a result of both work and industry knowledge and experience. Now automated. People are clones reading and responding to scripts. No longer empowered to make decisions. Instead completing service requests for others to action. Squeeezed like sardines into overcrowded offices where cost comes before environment. No longer fun to go to work, to be challenged, to progress, to feel self satisfaction at ones own achievements. Nor to be rewarded. As someone from Eastern Europe is more than happy to work for less than a native to perform the same role. Economic migrants are nothing new I should add. In the past majority moved permanently. Now it's out of short term convenience,  

Mickey666

TELLIT01 said:

Now retired, I enjoyed aspects of every job I ever had.  There were also elements which were less enjoyably, generally the mundane repetitive, boring bits.  To suggest that older people never expected their jobs to be 'fun' is totally incorrect.

Exactly.  All jobs have elements that are boring, heck even some parts of retirement can be tedious, but you have to consider things in the round.  Perhaps I’ve been lucky in that my jobs were always creative and I had lots of scope to define how to achieve the objectives.  Also, each project was very different so there was plenty of variety.  It was also fun travelling all over the world on expenses and getting ‘behind the scenes’ in many diverse industries and environments such as airport control towers, financial trading rooms, undersea robots, space centres, railways etc.