Why do people say Kids/young people don’t want to work/expect free money???

[teachermom2834]

I think it is interesting that McDs has come up several times on this thread as a decent place to work. Just interesting as it would have the reputation of being the worst ever. 
 

The worst my kids have had was a small local family owned place that seemed to use the small local family owned thing to apply a lot of pressure to work long hours, never get off when requested, etc. 

Edited November 3, 2022 by teachermom2834

[Matryoshka]

4 hours ago, SKL said:

Seems like it would make sense to go in and talk to a human, make the connection, and then apply online, and then follow up with the human.

If I were hiring, I'd hire the person who came in, for several reasons.  It shows more proactivity/energy, I get to see the real person vs. a potentially fake online persona, and this person has exhibited some level of interpersonal skills.

This is what all my kids did for their retail/food service jobs, and it worked.  They told me when I suggested this that others had told them you 'weren't supposed to' talk to someone in person anymore, but they tried it, and it worked.  They were not, on fact, blackmailed against ever working there if the had the audacity to attempt to speak to a manager in person, as they'd told me they'd heard might happen. 

Honestly, if any hiring manager discriminated against someone who took the time to show personal interest over randos filling out radom online job listings, then I don't think that would be a manager you'd want to work for, one who sees employees as cogs or numbers or automotons rather than people. 

[Scarlett]

5 hours ago, bolt. said:

I know that's workplace behaviour, but it's also classic anger-as-deflection.

This is how anger-as-deflection works:

Your son feels some sort of undefined bad feeling when faced with a situation where he can't deliver what is being asked/expected. Is it personal shame? Is it frustration with a bad system? Is it fear of blame? Is it fear of being mistreated? Something else? -- He probably doesn't even know. It just feels bad inside of him, and it's fairly intense, and he doesn't want it to be there.

The young-human naturally occurring juvenile response to this scenario is that his cognitive mind scrambles to help him out of his inner distress. It selects any scenario (whether reasonable or not) in which the actions of some other person (any other person) would have prevented 'things' from 'coming to this'. It then identifies that person as an 'aggressor' who has inflicted his inner distress upon him by whatever actions (or lack of actions) have been assigned to be the 'cause' of 'this'.

The faster his brain has to scramble, the more irrational the blame-story tends to be. But that doesn't matter in the moment. The person becomes able to get angry, which has the effect of minimizing the original discomfort. Which is the whole point of the process: his brain is trying to help him by easing the inner turmoil through storytelling.

This is super common between parents and teens, and especially preteens (specifically 11yos) where it is really transparent that a kid just 'picks a nearby person to blame' so that they can shove their uncomfortable feelings as far away from themselves as possible. It's less transparent when grown adults do it... but it's actually not that uncommon.

The trick is to teach the person to identify whatever flash of feeling came just before the anger-as-help for that feeling. And then build up a tolerance for that particular feeling so it doesn't have to be 'shoved away' so urgently using this 'emergency response' that the brain defaults to.

That makes a lot of sense and he did actually sort of talk it out with me.  When I took up for the customer (I don’t necessarily count all the items out that I need in a home improvement store….especially stuff I am going to need help loading…mulch comes to mind) he went on to be angry at the manager…..who apparently had failed to adjust the inventory.  I said, ‘oh yes, it is crazy making to be expected to solve problems with no authority’.  

[Scarlett]

4 hours ago, Heartstrings said:

That would make me angry!  The manager isn’t doing his job.  The computer system isn’t accurate.  The customer didn’t check to see if what he needed was there, who does that at someplace like Lowes?  I would of course act professionally but just reading that makes me angry.  Add in the high likelihood of getting yelled at by the customer and the manager both, and being asked to solve a problem without being given the authority to do so, of course he’s mad.  Really the only person who could solve that is the manager, I’m guessing your son can’t make the decision to sell a more expensive product for the lower price, so why waste time by not just going to the manager to begin with.  

 

4 hours ago, vonfirmath said:

See. I would not automatically get mad. I'd try to solve and save actually getting mad until one of these things happened -- the customer yelled at me or the manager blamed me. Etc.

Often "the system was not updated" because it may have been out of the hands of the person it was reported to as well.

I would not have gotten angry either.  But I have done cs for so long it feels second nature to me…..just solve the problem.  

[Melissa Louise]

21 hours ago, Clarita said:

My kids are too young to hold a real job. Although they do toy testing so they kind of do work sometimes. I don't want my kids working fast food or retail, ever. I'm sorry I knew too many teenagers who back in my day worked for places like Abercrombie. I'm not OK with having my kids be exploited or think that "that's what work is" to be working in such toxic environments.

Work is pretty toxic, not just for teens.

The toxicity just varies.

Very few people are working in ethical jobs, for a start.

And those that are often have to deal with terrible management, pay or conditions.

Plenty of people can hit one or more positives, such as high status/pay or great conditions, but it's nearly always exploitative of others somewhere along the line.

Helping a teen navigate the various toxicities the workplace throws at you is a great learning experience, imo. Ds has learned a lot of self-advocacy skills through his lowly retail job. It's absolutely going to stand him in good stead in his adult life, and the toxicity (such as it is) has caused way less harm than the toxicity I see every single day in the compulsory education system. Teens can leave jobs; children and teens are stuck in institutional settings no matter how toxic.

 

 

 

[wintermom]

35 minutes ago, Soror said:

I hope it is a good experience for both of them. Ds' girlfriend just got on at his McDonald's so he's training her now. I'm hoping it works out for her too. 

Yes, it was a good experience for them both. My ds 18 quit when he started officer cadet training for the military, and my ds 16 only left because his school program is too demanding right now. His employer asked him to stay, even if he could only do one shift a week. I think they'll take him back in a flash when the time is right for him. He was dependable, never missed a shift, filled in extra time on a shift when asked, etc. His managers were excellent to him as well. They respected ds's requests for days off (which another ds had issues with at a different employer), provided him food at the end of a closing shift (he loved this perk!), and provided him with a wide variety of work stations to try. 

Let us know how your ds'  girlfriend's experience goes. I hope it's positive!

[wintermom]

54 minutes ago, teachermom2834 said:

I think it is interesting that McDs has come up several times on this thread as a decent place to work. Just interesting as it would have the reputation of being the worst ever. 
 

The worst my kids have had was a small local family owned place that seemed to use the small local family owned thing to apply a lot of pressure to work long hours, never get off when requested, etc. 

I'm not sure whether the bolded is aimed at McD's reputation for food quality/type or work environment. They are clearly two very different things, IME. I never really expected McD's to be a terrific workplace, but I think this simply because I didn't know anyone who worked at McD in my youth. I only learned about the positive work environment later in life.

In addition to my sons' very recent positive experiences working, I know two ladies my age (in their 40s/50s) who worked at McDs back in their youth and reached management levels. They both praised the work environment, capacity to grow and move upword, flexibility to work part-time as a student, training opportunties. The really interesting thing is that one lady was in Canada and one was in Oslo, Norway. It was pretty interesting to hear that McD has developed excellent training procedures world-wide. 

Edited November 3, 2022 by wintermom

[rebcoola]

Also at least locally less places are hiring under 18 yr Olds. Everyone I knew growing up worked at DQ or the movie theater. Now neither will hire you if you're under 18. Idk about mcdonalds but I haven't seen any teens and they are mostly middle aged.  A friends wife works evenings at our local one.

[Rosie_0801]

Hiring practices can be so weird and HR departments so often don't seem to understand the jobs they are hiring for. (Why are people getting paid allowed to be so incompetant? As a teen, my sister couldn't get promoted to supervisor because she did her job properly, unlike most who did get promoted.)

It took my brother, with a bachelor's degree and who had worked several years for the company, four hours to put together the application for a mate of mine, for a job digging ditches. People who want to dig ditches for a living are generally very dyslexic and have stamina for ditch digging, not for long and complicated packets of paperwork. He would have been an ideal employee, exactly what the company needed, but they preferred to hire people who quit for something better in less than two years. My mate was getting married and wanted a nice, straightforward job close to home. He'd have stayed for decades.

[JennyD]

5 hours ago, teachermom2834 said:

said she hired him because she thought he was handsome and looked Christian so there is that)

Whoa.  I mean, kudos to her for honesty, but there's a walking HR nightmare right there.

[Shoeless]

6 hours ago, Heartstrings said:

I walked into McDs at 16, filled out an application, interviewed on the spot and started 2 days later. The day I quit McDs I walked next door to Wendy’s and did the same.  

 I wasn’t expected to drive there to chat, go home, apply online, drive back to chat more and then never hear back, from places that are crying about being desperate.  

This was my experience with McD's, too. Interview on the spot, started the next Monday. Similar story for the grocery store, ice cream shop, and the local bakery.

If I wanted to work at the grocery store in town today, I have to fill out an online application, upload a resume, complete a recorded video interview, (and you must supply the computer with microphone and camera. There's no opting out of the recorded video interview), and THEN go for an in person interview. Just to bag groceries and round up carts.

But yeah, nobody wants to work. 🙄

[Momto6inIN]

8 hours ago, bolt. said:

it's a management duty to stop 'expecting' what they aren't 'inspecting'. Good oversight solves a lot of 'lazy worker' problems, both in the short term (they know someone will check) and the long term (they get into good habits and become reliable).

So what leads to this problem: Is it lazy working? Or is it inactive supervision? Or both. "Good work ethic" enables lazy supervision. Good supervision leads to jobs getting done correctly and satisfactorily regardless of work-ethics. It's a joint responsibility that doesn't fall solely to a worker working solo. (I know this from my homeschooling journey! But maybe more business owners need to face the reality that direct employee management is an important role: and it's been slack for a long time.)

Thanks for this reminder - very timely for me right now in hs'ing my current high schooler! 🙂

 

As far as the discussion goes, I would like to add that while it's certainly difficult, it is possible to get a quality college education and pay for it by working summers and part time. My oldest did it and just graduated in May. He went to Purdue, which is an inexpensive state school, and he lived at home 1 year and commuted a half hour each way every day and then got an inexpensive apartment after that. He worked full time during the summer and ~20 hrs a week during the school year doing computer programming making $15/hr. Later on in his school years he became a TA and financed himself that way. Was this easy? No, not at all. But he made choices that made it possible. Choices that many people his age aren't/weren't willing to make, like working instead of partying and socializing.

I realize that not all people have the options my son did. Although most do live near a community college at least and most could get a job for $15/hr, that doesn't mean it's a universal option by any means. But I do think that many, many people aren't willing to make the choices that make it possible, and that kind of attitude ("I shouldn't have to make choices that I don't like in order to get where I want to go") is probably what most people who complain about "kids these days" are getting at.

[TechWife]

I think this is largely a perception issue. Kids in our area are working hard, they just don’t get paid.  High school is crazy making. Kids take multiple AP classes & tests, participate in school based extra curricular activities, outside extra curricular activities, watch out after younger siblings after school, do volunteer work, pet sit or babysit for neighbors,  and are looking out for siblings after school. They are expected to do all of this for the sake of college applications. They are working - hard.

No wonder there’s a huge mental health crisis among children & teens. We no longer let them grow up. Gone are the days when kids went to school, did an hour or two of homework, a few did sports (now it seems like everyone does), babysat siblings & neighbors and then, around d the age of 15-16, would get a part time job. That’s history. Our culture at large doesn’t support that lifestyle any longer for a lot of different reasons. 

It’s no longer high school calculus - it’s AP Calculus with more homework and a high stake exam that could save them several thousand dollars in college tuition. At the same time they’re taking AP Spanish and AP Biology instead of the Spanish III and Honors Biology. It’s not just playing soccer - it’s playing soccer on the school team and the private travel team and then volunteering as a referee for the city rec league. They are in drama club, where it used to be a production of Our Town but is now a production of Les Miserables in addition to community theater productions and then volunteering to do sets or lights or makeup for the younger kids productions. 

I’m  not at all surprised that young adults are having trouble being consistent in the workplace. They are burned out. 

As adults, we need to recognize that people can only do so much. We don’t need fast food available for 3 meals a day, 6am - 11pm. We don’t need WalMart 24/7. The world doesn’t need to be arranged for my convenience. It’s a cascade - changes in available services will impact work culture for people who use those services. People may do things like “quiet quitting” so they can have control over their off hours. Work culture is changing. 

 

[KungFuPanda]

3 hours ago, JennyD said:

Whoa.  I mean, kudos to her for honesty, but there's a walking HR nightmare right there.

You said this better than me. All I could think was “Ewww. She didn’t!” so I skipped over that one. 🤣

[Clarita]

4 hours ago, Melissa Louise said:

And those that are often have to deal with terrible management, pay or conditions.

Bad conditions meaning literal sexual harassment with a management too incompetent to actually protect the worker against it. Or well management encouraging employee to put up with sexual harassment to sell more stuff, get more tips, or just enjoyment of management. (I've heard awful things for both male and female staff. It's worse I think for males because teen males often don't recognize they are being sexually harassed since they are conditioned to think they should want this type of attention.)

On this front, I think fast food is actually one of the better employment options. I only referenced McD's not in the treatment of workers, but in terms of how hard we are thinking people should work to get a job flipping burgers there.

Yes my children will likely encounter poor treatment of the same elsewhere in their lives. I'd like to keep those to one offs and not something they "have to" tolerate in exchange for money. I don't think teens are mature enough to truly handle that. They'll survive it, but I don't think it makes for a stronger person.  

 

[katilac]

9 hours ago, SKL said:

Well it's not like getting a job was any easier when we were young.  Yep, we had to go in and darken every doorstep until we landed somewhere that was interested in someone like us.  For that matter, afaik that's how it is for mature adults too.

There's a wide range of ages on the board, so the number of jobs available would vary by the economy. But I definitely think the overall process was easier. 

9 hours ago, Condessa said:

Well, there has been a major political push in the U.S. from a lot of young people to have taxpayers pay off their personal education loans for them.  So I don’t think it’s surprising that there’s a general perception that many young people want free money without having to work, at least in this country, since that’s exactly what has been sought and is being given.

Just to add context, the average forgiven PPP loan was $72,500. 

The proposed loan forgiveness program offers $10,000 to some borrowers. Those who received Pell grants can possibly get up to $20,000. Pell grant recipients are about 34% of college students, and obviously they didn't all borrow $20k. 

The estimated amounts are $742 billion for PPP loan forgiveness over a couple of years; $500 billion for student loan forgiveness spread over ten years. 

Where is the general perception that business owners want free money without having to work? 

[TechWife]

2 hours ago, Clarita said:

 

Yes my children will likely encounter poor treatment of the same elsewhere in their lives. I'd like to keep those to one offs and not something they "have to" tolerate in exchange for money. I don't think teens are mature enough to truly handle that. They'll survive it, but I don't think it makes for a stronger person.  

 

Thank you for saying this. We don’t need to normalize bad management and  allowing people to ignore the fact that they are treating people so poorly and setting them up for misery. Teens are people above all else - not employees, workers, laborers, students- people. 

[TechWife]

On 11/2/2022 at 2:39 PM, cintinative said:

Tagging onto @Clemsondana's post, my kids have definitely seen kids who don't want to work when they are at work. They are supposed to be doing carts, but they are out in the parking lot, on their phone, scrolling.  Or they just disappear and no one can find them when they are needed to do something. It drives my oldest nuts--he is often the one who has to go out and do carts to "catch up" because some kid barely moved any carts over his shift.  That said, I don't think that my son would say the majority are this way. 

As the mom of one of the kids who did carts for over a year - working on your feet in an asphalt parking lot when it’s 95 degrees w/ 80% humidity for six hours is a lot. He walked around five miles every time he worked. Carts have to be cleaned out - did you know people leave dirty diapers in them? That happened regularly. He also had to load heavy items onto peoples cars & trucks - things like washing machines and refrigerators and cartons of tile. When he had an afternoon shift he’d often go in to find the morning person didn’t come in or like you said - scrolled on their phone hidden away somewhere. It’s a hard job. No more than 25 hours meant he didn’t qualify for benefits - not insurance or paid vacation. Pay went up to $11.50 per hour. He had no opportunity for promotion or even transfer after a year. Hard work is not always rewarded, in fact, doing a low level job well may mean you’re stuck on place because management is too lazy to work to retain someone by offering other opportunities. 

[TechWife]

On 11/2/2022 at 3:17 PM, Heartstrings said:

I can see this being an issue.  If I'm in charge of scheduling I don't want to keep up with ever changing teen schedules.  Which is where kids benefit from the tight labor market, more employers are willing to deal with more inconvenience.

The thing is - the schedules aren’t really “ever changing.” Sports and extra curricular activities run on a schedule. During football season, the football player is available Mon - Wed after 6pm and all day Saturday and Sunday with the exception of that one weird Saturday game. The cheerleader is available Tuesday - Thursday after 5 pm and all day Saturday and Sunday except for that weird Saturday game. They would both like to go to the homecoming dance - so that’s one Saturday night in a three month period. 
if they had a dependable work schedule, they could plan study & social time around that. Providing, of course, they carry a normal course load, which is pretty rare among college bound teens. 
 

[Brittany1116]

I didn't read all responses. I am in my 30s, first in the family to college, worked 3 part-time jobs and lived alone in a bad apartment while carrying a full course load and graduating with nearly a 4.0. My husband is a few years older, lived at home, and worked on a farm while at Uni. We know what it's like to work, to be broke, to balance all the plates. It has only been the last few years we have been shocked at the decline in readiness to work, reliability, and customer service, even as wages increase. We are "elder millenials" who know people our age who just say 'screw it' and walk off jobs because they had an irate boss or customer. They live large and have debt and no safety net. Those younger than us are generally worse off.

We have a few church friends whose 20 somethings have a new job every 5-6 weeks, or who have no desire to work and live off mom and pops. A handful of them could go to college but chose not to, and a few dropped out. My husband's company can't get applicants to a few positions well over $20/hr plus benefits. My brother, early 20s, has cut ties with friends because he has stuck his neck out and referred people to jobs that pay upwards of $30/hr, and they can't be bothered to show up the interview, or they work for 1 week then disappear. My nephew is 19 and working at a restaurant chain here and says they hire an entire crew every 7-10 days, and he makes over $18/hr plus tips to make assembly line meals. The local pizza place is hiring a new slew of HS kids every month for $15/hr. A friend owns a niche business that requires specific schooling and licensure and cannot find a full team because guys out of HS are going to the classes for 6 months and told they should get $60k and full benefits starting, while he is starting people at $22-23/hr with opportunity for benefits after a brief trial period. When they hear his rate, they just choose not to work at all. He has canvassed the country and young, single guys say it's not worth their time. These aren't highly educated professionals with families to feed.

I know there are kids who work and those who don't. I know there are businesses that are fair and those that aren't. I think there is a false dichotomy in capitalism is evil VS young people are lazy. It's a bit of both. But the trending attitude is that if a job isn't perfect, it isn't worth doing. If it isn't emotionally fulfilling or mentally stimulating, leave it. If it isn't paying what your college professor said you'd get doing it, skip it. I'm not advocating for every college student to shut up and flip burgers. However, I do think there has been an ideological shift in the last generation that work has to be meaningful but also high-paying, and we aren't seeing that fleshed out in application for a multitude of reasons. I don't know what happened between my cohort of "I'll take care of myself" to my brother's group of "someone else can do it". I am only a decade removed. 

[Tanaqui]

So four pages in, and I just want to make sure we all agree on this point:

Nobody wants to work a minimum wage job if they can, you know, coast by without doing that.

I mean, be honest, all of you. If you got to choose *right now* between working at the minimum wage job of your choice for the rest of your life, or winning the Powerball and never working again, would any of you choose the former?

No?

Nobody?

Yeah, I didn't think so.

And they really don't want to have to do it if there is no viable option to move to a better-paying job with better hours, or more flexibility, or benefits. And they *especially* don't want to do it if they're not going to be treated well during the job.

So, yeah, you end up hiring the people who can't get better jobs and, well, you get what you pay for.

As for why people think "kids don't want to work/the expect free money" - well, people say a lot of ridiculous things.

[Carrie12345]

Thinking back to my own experiences between about 15-21ish (so let’s say the late 90s), we didn’t really recognize “toxic workplaces “ and I’m thinking that has a lot to do with things.

As a child and young adult, I was expected to cover up adult’s affairs, use equipment I wasn’t of age to, put up with advances from creepy coworkers and customers, cover managers’ shifts, train people to work above me for more pay, and I even lost a promotion when I got pregnant.    
Even at 23, my boss demanded over the phone that I keep a tiny (empty) fitness center open on 9/11 while our whole city shut down, my son’s daycare was emptying out, and I was trying to locate my husband, who sometimes worked in the towers. As military jets flew over my head.
Plus customers weren’t nearly as terrible as they are now  I see more/worse as one who rarely shops in person than I did working full time hours.

Some might consider my kids job hoppers, though one more than the other two. I don’t want my kids to put up with unreasonable conditions.  Yes, I expect them to tough out certain degrees of displeasure with a job, but not all of the things we used to pretend were “normal”.

I was considered to have a good work ethic. I don’t think being taken advantage of = work ethic.

[teachermom2834]

My big kids are super hard workers. They have needed the cash and dh worked too many hours at his main job and had a side gig the whole time they were growing up. They have been raised to work work work. They are now 24, 22, and 19. They have held hard jobs (Amazon warehouse, server, fast food, etc) on their way to their careers. One was the frozen manager at the local grocery store while still in high school. 

I always prided myself on being a great worker (stay late, never call in, etc). I have had to step back sometimes and realize that my kids really could call in if they were sick (though I can’t remember them ever doing that I was aware of). I have had to catch myself not telling them they had to be ridiculously loyal sacrificial employees to crappy employers. Not sure how that got so ingrained in me? There is a balance for sure. My level of service to my low level jobs was above and beyond. Really unnecessary to be qualified as a good worker. People don’t need to do that and someone like me measuring employees by that stick could say “kids today”.

But I do remember 30 years ago low level workers not showing up for their first day of work, not lasting a week, walking off the job, sleeping in the back room, etc. The high turnover was always a thing at those jobs. Sure it could be worse now but it isn’t as if minimum wage jobs used to not struggle to hire a reliable crew. I remember all these things from 30 years ago. 

[regentrude]

6 hours ago, Brittany1116 said:

 But the trending attitude is that if a job isn't perfect, it isn't worth doing. If it isn't emotionally fulfilling or mentally stimulating, leave it....However, I do think there has been an ideological shift in the last generation that work has to be meaningful but also high-paying, 

I do think there is a generational shift in attitude about work, and I see  positive aspects in young people rejecting the protestant work ethic and the glorification of work as the justification for being. 

Society has swung too far in the direction of workaholism. We have an epidemic of sleep deprivation and have elevated busyness into a moral virtue. We have been indoctrinated to feel guilty about resting and being "unproductive ".

I think it is a good thing that young people question the role of work. That doesn't mean I condone people not showing up or doing a crummy job. But opting out of defining your self-worth through paid labor - that's healthy. It doesn't make a person an unreliable slob.

[cintinative]

7 hours ago, TechWife said:

As the mom of one of the kids who did carts for over a year - working on your feet in an asphalt parking lot when it’s 95 degrees w/ 80% humidity for six hours is a lot. He walked around five miles every time he worked. Carts have to be cleaned out - did you know people leave dirty diapers in them? That happened regularly. He also had to load heavy items onto peoples cars & trucks - things like washing machines and refrigerators and cartons of tile. When he had an afternoon shift he’d often go in to find the morning person didn’t come in or like you said - scrolled on their phone hidden away somewhere. It’s a hard job. No more than 25 hours meant he didn’t qualify for benefits - not insurance or paid vacation. Pay went up to $11.50 per hour. He had no opportunity for promotion or even transfer after a year. Hard work is not always rewarded, in fact, doing a low level job well may mean you’re stuck on place because management is too lazy to work to retain someone by offering other opportunities. 

Ugh. That sounds awful. My kids never have a cart shift of over 2 hours and it is rare that they have more than one cart shift per work day.  They also do bagging though.  My oldest trained for cashier and now does that sometimes (it has a pay increase with it, so now he is paid more regardless of what he does). They also both have paid vacation every year, even at less than 25 hours.  The cleaning up after things is gross--my son has had to clean bathrooms and there have been a few incidents where people smeared poop everywhere.  The managers give them extra rewards when they do stinky jobs like this--it is in the form of bonus bucks they can spend in the store (grocery). I'm so sorry about your son's experience. My sons' hasn't been fantastic, but your dc's sounds really defeating.

[cintinative]

11 hours ago, TechWife said:

I think this is largely a perception issue. Kids in our area are working hard, they just don’t get paid.  High school is crazy making. Kids take multiple AP classes & tests, participate in school based extra curricular activities, outside extra curricular activities, watch out after younger siblings after school, do volunteer work, pet sit or babysit for neighbors,  and are looking out for siblings after school. They are expected to do all of this for the sake of college applications. They are working - hard.

No wonder there’s a huge mental health crisis among children & teens. We no longer let them grow up. Gone are the days when kids went to school, did an hour or two of homework, a few did sports (now it seems like everyone does), babysat siblings & neighbors and then, around d the age of 15-16, would get a part time job. That’s history. Our culture at large doesn’t support that lifestyle any longer for a lot of different reasons. 

It’s no longer high school calculus - it’s AP Calculus with more homework and a high stake exam that could save them several thousand dollars in college tuition. At the same time they’re taking AP Spanish and AP Biology instead of the Spanish III and Honors Biology. It’s not just playing soccer - it’s playing soccer on the school team and the private travel team and then volunteering as a referee for the city rec league. They are in drama club, where it used to be a production of Our Town but is now a production of Les Miserables in addition to community theater productions and then volunteering to do sets or lights or makeup for the younger kids productions. 

I’m  not at all surprised that young adults are having trouble being consistent in the workplace. They are burned out. 

As adults, we need to recognize that people can only do so much. We don’t need fast food available for 3 meals a day, 6am - 11pm. We don’t need WalMart 24/7. The world doesn’t need to be arranged for my convenience. It’s a cascade - changes in available services will impact work culture for people who use those services. People may do things like “quiet quitting” so they can have control over their off hours. Work culture is changing. 

 

I see SO much of this in my niece and nephew. The "rat race" started young for them, and they have been drinking from a fire hose ever since.  Work? How could you work when you are doing homework every night until 10?

[marbel]

56 minutes ago, teachermom2834 said:

My big kids are super hard workers. They have needed the cash and dh worked too many hours at his main job and had a side gig the whole time they were growing up. They have been raised to work work work. They are now 24, 22, and 19. They have held hard jobs (Amazon warehouse, server, fast food, etc) on their way to their careers. One was the frozen manager at the local grocery store while still in high school. 

I always prided myself on being a great worker (stay late, never call in, etc). I have had to step back sometimes and realize that my kids really could call in if they were sick (though I can’t remember them ever doing that I was aware of). I have had to catch myself not telling them they had to be ridiculously loyal sacrificial employees to crappy employers. Not sure how that got so ingrained in me? There is a balance for sure. My level of service to my low level jobs was above and beyond. Really unnecessary to be qualified as a good worker. People don’t need to do that and someone like me measuring employees by that stick could say “kids today”.

But I do remember 30 years ago low level workers not showing up for their first day of work, not lasting a week, walking off the job, sleeping in the back room, etc. The high turnover was always a thing at those jobs. Sure it could be worse now but it isn’t as if minimum wage jobs used to not struggle to hire a reliable crew. I remember all these things from 30 years ago. 

My father had the attitude of "work till you die" and was very loyal to his employer - he worked at the same company for 50 years. He worked so much that when he got sick with the flu when I was a kid, and stayed home for a few days, I thought he was surely dying because I'd never seen him stay home before. But he worked at a time when employers had some loyalty to their workers. He was treated well. He had opportunities to move up in the company. He also had a very nice company-paid pension plan that served him well during his (very short) retirement and my mother's subsequent widowhood. 

He was ranting about "these kids today" not wanting to work in the '60s, when he was a plant manager and had to deal with flaky employees. 

I respect a good work ethic but he was one of those people who just took it too far. He left his kids with a skewed view of the importance of work in our lives. Although one thing he did tell me was 'as long as someone is paying you to do a job, you do it the best you can. And if you can't do it, then you have to quit' and I still agree with that. (Though he also didn't believe in quitting a job because that was risky too.  Did I mention he was a teen when the Great Depression hit?)

[Wheres Toto]

I've had a lot of jobs over the years.   Even with homeschooling, I've only not worked for 7 years before going back for a couple years.  Running my own business for the past 6  years is the longest I've held any one job.   So, almost 40 years of working with at most 5 years at any one job most being 2-3 years.  Some I quit, some the company closed.   Mostly not minimum wage jobs, although I've done retail quite a bit.  Most were high level support staff (executive assistant, marketing coordinator).   

By far, the worst jobs I've ever had were with small companies.   So many business owners seem to run their business like their own little kingdoms where they can treat employees like peasants and do whatever they want.  

In contrast, large companies/chains have written policies that when not followed there's someone to report it to, there are set guidelines for pay raises, time off, etc.  

I can definitely see McDonalds being a better job than a local pizza place.

[JennyD]

2 hours ago, Carrie12345 said:

Even at 23, my boss demanded over the phone that I keep a tiny (empty) fitness center open on 9/11 while our whole city shut down, my son’s daycare was emptying out, and I was trying to locate my husband, who sometimes worked in the towers. As military jets flew over my head.

My husband was clerking for a federal judge in D.C. on 9/11.  The judge wouldn't let anyone go home, insisted on just continuing on with their regular schedule that day.  I was beside myself, begging DH on the phone to just walk out and try to get home (the Metro had shut down and DH lived in the suburbs) but he wouldn't do it.  I will never ever forget that.  

I will also never forget that when one of my husband's colleagues became very ill with breast cancer and her work performance declined -- after many many years of excellence - his employer at the time suggested firing her.  (She was not fired and died a few months later.)  I remind my husband about that episode whenever I think his decisionmaking might be colored by loyalty to an employer.  

 

 

[regentrude]

11 hours ago, TechWife said:

I think this is largely a perception issue. Kids in our area are working hard, they just don’t get paid.  High school is crazy making. Kids take multiple AP classes & tests, participate in school based extra curricular activities, outside extra curricular activities, watch out after younger siblings after school, do volunteer work, pet sit or babysit for neighbors,  and are looking out for siblings after school. They are expected to do all of this for the sake of college applications. They are working - hard.

No wonder there’s a huge mental health crisis among children & teens. We no longer let them grow up. Gone are the days when kids went to school, did an hour or two of homework, a few did sports (now it seems like everyone does), babysat siblings & neighbors and then, around d the age of 15-16, would get a part time job. That’s history. Our culture at large doesn’t support that lifestyle any longer for a lot of different reasons. 

It’s no longer high school calculus - it’s AP Calculus with more homework and a high stake exam that could save them several thousand dollars in college tuition. At the same time they’re taking AP Spanish and AP Biology instead of the Spanish III and Honors Biology. It’s not just playing soccer - it’s playing soccer on the school team and the private travel team and then volunteering as a referee for the city rec league. They are in drama club, where it used to be a production of Our Town but is now a production of Les Miserables in addition to community theater productions and then volunteering to do sets or lights or makeup for the younger kids productions. 

All of this.

I very much disagree with the notion that working a paid job as a teen is necessary for *character building* ( there can be financial necessity of course). Character can be built in other ways. Back home in Germany, it's much less common for teens to work... yet somehow I don't see that translate into Germans as unreliable unproductive lazy people. 

[madteaparty]

2 hours ago, regentrude said:

All of this.

I very much disagree with the notion that working a paid job as a teen is necessary for *character building* ( there can be financial necessity of course). Character can be built in other ways. Back home in Germany, it's much less common for teens to work... yet somehow I don't see that translate into Germans as unreliable unproductive lazy people. 

I think it also can harm in that they get used to making $ and why bother going to college or get some further skills in whatever field anyway.

Edited November 4, 2022 by madteaparty

[Scarlett]

As someone mentioned up thread it is more than kids not wanting to work.  It is people in general.  And it is people in general that are jerks as bosses and jerks as customers.  Emotional and mental stability has declined and drug and alcohol addiction is rampant in this small town.  
 

I was taught that you work hard and do your best. That has served me well,  but when I was dealing with psycho manager I absolutely was very close to just walking out. I only stayed because of my loyalty to the owner who had been and continues to be very very good to me. And if the business had not sold I have no doubt he would have fired psycho manager. 
 

Even though I was taught to work hard my work history as a teen and young adult was kind of sporadic.  In high school I worked at a fast food place where I was slapped on the rear by the owner.  But this was in 1982 when that kind of thing was just…..tolerated.  Then as a senior I got a job in the court house half days.  At the same time I worked 2 looooong  nights  (2-10) at the nursing home in the laundry room. Those were both program jobs for seniors which ended when I graduated. 
 

I moved to the city a few days after graduation. I was still 17. I the next 4 years I had 6 jobs.  Then I got a good job in the general off of a furniture manufacturer where I stayed for 12 years until my son was born. I was 22 when I got that job and I remember deciding to get serious about work.  That doesn’t mean I did not work at the other jobs……but I wanted this job more and it paid off.  I did well there, learned a lot, traveled a lot.  But the point is, kids are not necessarily stable in late teens and they do figure it out often.  

[Faith-manor]

12 hours ago, Momto6inIN said:

Thanks for this reminder - very timely for me right now in hs'ing my current high schooler! 🙂

 

As far as the discussion goes, I would like to add that while it's certainly difficult, it is possible to get a quality college education and pay for it by working summers and part time. My oldest did it and just graduated in May. He went to Purdue, which is an inexpensive state school, and he lived at home 1 year and commuted a half hour each way every day and then got an inexpensive apartment after that. He worked full time during the summer and ~20 hrs a week during the school year doing computer programming making $15/hr. Later on in his school years he became a TA and financed himself that way. Was this easy? No, not at all. But he made choices that made it possible. Choices that many people his age aren't/weren't willing to make, like working instead of partying and socializing.

I realize that not all people have the options my son did. Although most do live near a community college at least and most could get a job for $15/hr, that doesn't mean it's a universal option by any means. But I do think that many, many people aren't willing to make the choices that make it possible, and that kind of attitude ("I shouldn't have to make choices that I don't like in order to get where I want to go") is probably what most people who complain about "kids these days" are getting at.

I think that it can work in states that more heavily subsidize their state schools. Michigan does not. Tuition for an equivalent school to the education/reputation of Purdue is $16,900 and an average of $750 per semester for books, $100 or more per semester for parking pass. Rents anywhere within 30 miles of campus are averaging $1000 for a studio and go up from there. While U of MI does not require freshmen to live on campus, other colleges require anyone under 21 to live on campus if they are full time students unless they live with the named parent on FAFSA. 

But, I know kids in Huntsville, Al who are commuting to UAH, getting a fantastic education, living at home and saving a lot of money at $11,400 for in-state students with parents providing housing, if they have some scholarships, they are able to work in summers and have a few hours per week job and make a big dent especially since car insurance in AL is reasonably priced unlike Michigan which had the highest car insurance rates in the nation.

For our two commuters, they had the opportunity to stay with an aunt in Ann Arbor when they didn't want to make the 90 minute (one way, so 3 hrs round trip) commute. We provided their cars and car insurance (actually grandparents had used cars they didn't need anymore and sold to us dirt cheap as a way to help the kids) plus a gas stipend and gas was roughly $2 a gallon or even less during their years in college. Our dd worked as a paramedic on weekends and holidays so she worked her way through without student loans, but it was so hard that for the most part we really regret and feel guilty that at the time, we were not in a position to give her a lot more money for school. Our next youngest who chose to commute was 6 years younger, and we were better shape financially to help. Despite scholarships and our major financial assistance, all of our sons have about $25,000 in federal student loans. Our EFC never went down, even when when dh took pay cuts at work. They just doubled it, then tripled it. At one point with all three boys in at once, our EFC was 50% of our gross income. I guess the Fed thinks parents should not eat while their kids are in school.

I will say this, my niece gamed the system. She waited until she was 20 to go to college and in that time, a male friend of hers from high school agreed they would get married, in name only, so they could be independent of their parents for FAFSA. It worked. They got all kinds of non- loan financial aid. They file taxes married filing separately, and have a duplex they rent. He lives on one side, she lives on the other, and they use her address for taxes. They will divorce as soon as their degrees are done or they reach 24 when they would age off their parents income for FAFSA. I do not have a problem with that. We have the most egregiously stupid system of funding college education and everything is stacked against this generation financially, and in many other ways as well. So if a marriage of convenience makes it reasonable for them, so be it. 

[Farrar]

I don't think that there's an attitude that work has to be meaningful for it to be worthwhile. That's one attitude that does exist. But I see a lot more people just interested in the conditions of the work. Young people who work places where they're treated well - whether that's Chick-fil-a behind the register or a 5 star restaurant busing tables - tend to be relatively happy with their jobs in my experience. It may not be a lifelong pursuit, but that's okay. One thing I've heard from a lot of parents recently is that their teen's good job has boosted their mental health a lot. Teens don't expect to be able to have a job changing the world or following a calling yet for the most part. They just want to be treated decently. As others are pointing out, some low-pay jobs are not just low pay, they're borderline abusive.

[Condessa]

10 hours ago, katilac said:

Just to add context, the average forgiven PPP loan was $72,500. 

The proposed loan forgiveness program offers $10,000 to some borrowers. Those who received Pell grants can possibly get up to $20,000. Pell grant recipients are about 34% of college students, and obviously they didn't all borrow $20k. 

The estimated amounts are $742 billion for PPP loan forgiveness over a couple of years; $500 billion for student loan forgiveness spread over ten years. 

Where is the general perception that business owners want free money without having to work? 

Definitely true.

 I think possibly the difference in public perception of these loan forgiveness programs is because the PPP loans were a) a stopgap to survive the expected collateral damage of government policies, not business owners’ personal decisions, and b) designed to be forgivable loans from the beginning, vs. the education loan forgiveness which alleviates the financial obligation students willingly took on for personal benefit.

[Brittany1116]

2 hours ago, regentrude said:

I do think there is a generational shift in attitude about work, and I see  positive aspects in young people rejecting the protestant work ethic and the glorification of work as the justification for being. 

Society has swung too far in the direction of workaholism. We have an epidemic of sleep deprivation and have elevated busyness into a moral virtue. We have been indoctrinated to feel guilty about resting and being "unproductive ".

I think it is a good thing that young people question the role of work. That doesn't mean I condone people not showing up or doing a crummy job. But opting out of defining your self-worth through paid labor - that's healthy. It doesn't make a person an unreliable slob.

Absolutely there is a cult of workaholics and hustle culture is unhealthy. But the swing away from it seems to be that work is something to choose or leave. The truth is, if you want to eat and have a place to sleep, someone has to choose to work. Seems like some are still defining their self-worth through paid labor, as long as it the pay or labor they like. There is something wrong with the mindset or motivation if you won't accept a job in your niche field for a year after graduation because starting pay as a novice is $5 less than you were sold in school. 

[Faith-manor]

22 minutes ago, Condessa said:

Definitely true.

 I think possibly the difference in public perception of these loan forgiveness programs is because the PPP loans were a) a stopgap to survive the expected collateral damage of government policies, not business owners’ personal decisions, and b) designed to be forgivable loans from the beginning, vs. the education loan forgiveness which alleviates the financial obligation students willingly took on for personal benefit.

But what about all the bank bailouts in 2008, our tax dollars bailing out wicked, deceitful, fraudulent banking practices? What about the scores of homeowners who got federal assistance, 4 million borrowers, to prevent foreclosure? How many of them made super bad loan choices and then ended up with safety net assistance? Why is it that all of that was okay, but young people - often lied to by college financial aid departments and at the mercy of a system entirely stacked against them - getting assistance is suddenly horrible? We let people discharge money owed in bankruptcy all the darn time in this nation. Why is it ONLY the student loan borrowers who are the villains? Government policies are very much involved in WHY students are in so much debt. But apparently, that is also NOT a consideration.

[TechWife]

22 hours ago, Condessa said:

Well, there has been a major political push in the U.S. from a lot of young people to have taxpayers pay off their personal education loans for them.  So I don’t think it’s surprising that there’s a general perception that many young people want free money without having to work, at least in this country, since that’s exactly what has been sought and is being given.

Except people who go to college are working. College is hard work. Taxpayers could decide to fund more public university education and lower up front tuition costs which would lower the need for student loans, but instead education funding is getting cut and prices continue to rise.  Either way, taxpayers are funding education (as we should) - with up front taxpayer investment or after the fact taxpayer investment through loan forgiveness programs.  Unless, of course, one doesn't want to fund education, then were into an entirely different conversation that is beyond the scope of this thread.

[marbel]

Deleted for privacy.

Edited November 4, 2022 by marbel

[Farrar]

The double standard is just so wild. That business owners and millionaires who find ways around paying for things - for labor through wage theft, taxes through various loopholes and loan forgiveness programs, etc. - are savvy and smart and what makes America great or whatever. But young people who get student loan forgiveness are lazy and just want free money and refuse to work and are ruining America.

[regentrude]

2 hours ago, Condessa said:

. the education loan forgiveness which alleviates the financial obligation students willingly took on for personal benefit.

...because the older generation who went to college for peanuts consistently voted for legislature to reduce funding for the public college system.

Sure, getting educated has personal benefits,  but an educated populace greatly benefits society as a whole. Which is why many other nations fund their universities from taxes.

Eta: of course it's more nuanced. Yes, some people make stupid choices. But with the outrageous cost of higher education, the current model isn't sustainable. 

Edited November 4, 2022 by regentrude

[SKL]

Yeah I agree that some work environments and some managers are sucky.

And I think it's good for young people to have a sucky job during their early adult years.

So many reasons.

• Having a job increases self-esteem vs. having never been employed.  Yes, even most sucky jobs do this.
• Learning to work with all kinds of people, because even the very best jobs will almost always involve dealing with challenging people in some way or other.
• Learning some skills and observing some things you wouldn't know outside of employment.
• Learning about money management for real (when it's your own blood, sweat, and tears that you're spending).
• Real-life time management lessons.
• Having something interesting to talk about beyond how much you hate your mom and your algebra teacher.
• Meeting interesting people who could become long-term friends, mentors, etc.
• An opportunity to make your own dumbass rookie mistakes in an environment where it won't matter in the long run.
• And because it's actually true that idle hands are the devil's workshop.

Maybe it's because I was brought up working-class.  I think the school of hard knocks is more valuable than soft landings.  Yes, we want our kids to have empathy, but this is often/usually gained by having been in the trenches oneself.

[Farrar]

Do the people who think teens should have a job where managers and customers treat them poorly for crappy pay because it builds character also the people who think kids should be bullied in school because it will toughen them up?

Having a job where you do hard, boring work for good pay or hard, boring work and you're well treated also builds character, you know.

[regentrude]

7 minutes ago, SKL said:

Yeah I agree that some work environments and some managers are sucky.

And I think it's good for young people to have a sucky job during their early adult years.

So many reasons.

• Having a job increases self-esteem vs. having never been employed.  Yes, even most sucky jobs do this.
• Learning to work with all kinds of people, because even the very best jobs will almost always involve dealing with challenging people in some way or other.
• Learning some skills and observing some things you wouldn't know outside of employment.
• Learning about money management for real (when it's your own blood, sweat, and tears that you're spending).
• Real-life time management lessons.
• Having something interesting to talk about beyond how much you hate your mom and your algebra teacher.
• Meeting interesting people who could become long-term friends, mentors, etc.
• An opportunity to make your own dumbass rookie mistakes in an environment where it won't matter in the long run.
• And because it's actually true that idle hands are the devil's workshop.

You are correct - but pretty much all of these benefits (except money) can be obtained in other ways, too - by participating in sport (in a mixed-age, mixed background  environment i.e not just your highschool classmates), community theater, volunteering...

All these lessons can be learned in a riding stable or a judo dojo or an orchestra pit.

Edited November 4, 2022 by regentrude

[marbel]

47 minutes ago, SKL said:

I think the school of hard knocks is more valuable than soft landings.  Yes, we want our kids to have empathy, but this is often/usually gained by having been in the trenches oneself.

Sure, it's good to experience challenges early on in life. As subsequent posters have said, there are ways to do that outside of paid employment.

Of course, working under terrible conditions can result in the opposite of empathy - cynicism toward others and thinking "well, I worked under crappy conditions, why shouldn't these kids today?" Why wouldn't we want to improve things for the generations coming up behind us?

I wonder... if enough people quit crappy jobs where they have no management support, terrible working conditions, poor pay, customers and coworkers who are abusive in all the ways people can be abusive.... maybe employers would wise up?  Maybe managers would confront customers who are being a little too friendly to an employee instead of looking the other way so as not to lose a sale? Maybe managers might start showing a little empathy toward a young worker who needs time off because their grandma died but they can't find a sub for their shift, and will get fired as a no-show if they skip work to attend the funeral, even though they told the boss they needed the time off? (BTW before anyone blasts me, I know the importance of shift coverage.)  Maybe employers might build a little margin into the schedules so they don't browbeat sick workers to come in?  Maybe telling customer service reps they can disconnect a call after the customer screams "f*$@ you" the first time, rather than having to give them THREE warnings that the language won't be tolerated and the call ended? (These are all true things I've experienced or witnessed.)

Of course in many cases that's going to raise prices, or cut into profits. And I empathize with small business owners who have very little margin in the first place. I know it's not simple.

Edited November 4, 2022 by marbel

[Corraleno]

22 minutes ago, SKL said:

Yeah I agree that some work environments and some managers are sucky.

And I think it's good for young people to have a sucky job during their early adult years.

So many reasons.

• Having a job increases self-esteem vs. having never been employed.  Yes, even most sucky jobs do this.
• Learning to work with all kinds of people, because even the very best jobs will almost always involve dealing with challenging people in some way or other.
• Learning some skills and observing some things you wouldn't know outside of employment.
• Learning about money management for real (when it's your own blood, sweat, and tears that you're spending).
• Real-life time management lessons.
• Having something interesting to talk about beyond how much you hate your mom and your algebra teacher.
• Meeting interesting people who could become long-term friends, mentors, etc.
• An opportunity to make your own dumbass rookie mistakes in an environment where it won't matter in the long run.
• And because it's actually true that idle hands are the devil's workshop.

Maybe it's because I was brought up working-class.  I think the school of hard knocks is more valuable than soft landings.  Yes, we want our kids to have empathy, but this is often/usually gained by having been in the trenches oneself.

On what planet does being treated like crap for low pay "increase self-esteem? If having a sucky job "builds character" by training people to accept being treated like crap, that's not really a lesson I want my kids to learn. 

Having a decent job where you're paid appropriately for the work you do and you're treated like a human being whose work is valuable, even when it's hard and boring and repetitive, are what build self-esteem. Since every item on your list can be better achieved by having a good job, with decent pay and decent management, why should people settle for a sucky one? 

I grew up dirt poor in an abusive home and graduated HS at 16. I put up with a lot of sucky jobs where I was treated badly (and often sexually harassed) because the only alternative was hunger and homelessness. It was not "character building," it was depressing and demoralizing and dehumanizing. I hope my kids never have to put up with what I did, and I hope their generation as a whole decides they're not going to put up with it either.

[Heartstrings]

I see a real connection between this idea that “only work done for pay counts” idea when it comes to kids and the disrespect SAHMs get. There is value in doing things that don’t bring a paycheck.  
 

 

 

[hshibley]

4 of my kids have worked at McDonald’s as teens. They’ve had drinks thrown at them, been cussed out by customers, etc. It’s not character building. It’s abusive, but that’s the reality of working service jobs in the U S today. It’s nothing like working a service job in the 80’s when I was a teen. 

[Corraleno]

I was thinking that one factor contributing to the current labor issue is that more young people than ever are living with parents due to insane housing costs. So I looked up the stats and roughly half of 18-30 year olds are living with parents — the highest rate since the Depression. Even 17% of 25-35 year olds are living with parents, and that group is heavily skewed towards those without college degrees — i.e. the demographic most likely to be working in the lower-paid, lower-skilled sectors that are struggling to find and keep workers. 

In 2010, the unemployment rate was nearly 10%, so businesses could pay terrible wages and treat employees like crap because workers had no other choice if they didn't want to end up homeless and hungry. If workers complained, well that's just supply and demand, baby, that's how the market works.

Now that so many workers have died, retired early, or become disabled due to covid, combined with anti-immigration policies, combined with more kids than ever in college, not only is there a labor shortage, but around half of the workers that usually fill the lower paid, lower skilled jobs are living at home and don't have the pressure of looming hunger or homelessness forcing them to put up with crappy jobs.

Employers who were perfectly happy to exploit a labor surplus to pad their profits in the past are now really pissed that the shoe is on the other foot and instead of workers having to compete against each other for low-skilled jobs, employers have to compete against each other for low-skilled workers. And rather than admit "that's how the market works," they're complaining about lazy kids who feel "entitled" to decent pay and decent treatment. But from the workers' perspective, it looks like lazy employers who feel "entitled" to cheap, disposable labor. 

Instead of whining about lazy kids, the CEO who couldn't find anyone to do backbreaking labor for $14/hr and no benefits could have recognized that that was not a competitive wage in a market where other places pay $20/hr or more with guaranteed hours and benefits for the same work, and he could have increased the pay and/or incentives until he found a taker. The clothing store DD worked for has incredibly high turnover and really struggles to keep workers even though the pay is decent ($17/hr). They could fire the abusive manager, hire a manager that would  defend the kids against nasty customers and give workers set schedules with the number of hours they want to work, etc. But it's so much easier to blame it on lazy, flaky, irresponsible kids.

 

[Jane in NC]

More thoughts on filling those lower wage jobs...

@Corraleno summed up the situation nicely but I will add that early retirees are not participating in the labor force as they once did.  For example, I know several retirees who worked as substitute teachers pre-Covid--more for the joy than the money.  Now they will not step foot in schools, namely to protect partners with other health concerns.

Many of those retirees also served the community as volunteers--that unpaid labor for which some are scornful.

One of my friends manages a retail chain store in a busy tourist town.  Back when there were mask mandates, customers who chose not to mask up were asked to leave.  One middle aged man spat at the high school student who pointed out the policy.  Now only the manager or assistant manager will deal with unruly customers.  My friend points out that most customers are great--they are usually on vacation after all and are happy.  But the rude ones seem to be getting ruder.

Edited November 4, 2022 by Jane in NC