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

[shawthorne44]

On 11/3/2022 at 11:14 AM, SKL said:

Lucky you!  Where I lived, the nearest McD's was 12 miles away so ....

Most of us didn't and don't get jobs that easily, especially not without past experience and/or connections.  It's challenging, stressful, time-consuming, but not hopeless.

I had a similar experience to Heartstrings.   
But, then I grew up in Arlington, TX which had Six Flags and Ranger Stadium.   Those two places sucked up a lot of the teen labor particularly since they were largely summer jobs.   I remember being shocked that I had to actually Work to find a job when I got out of college.    Before that all I had to was to look the interviewer in the eye, shake hands and say I was ready for work.    That got a job at least a notch above the lowest.   

I live in an exurb in TX now and I don't see a huge need in either direction.   I don't see many Help Wanted signs but I know a couple of places with several openings so I wonder how those places treat people.  It has been a long time since there has been limited hours due staffing.  
 

[shawthorne44]

On 11/6/2022 at 3:21 PM, livetoread said:

The CEO of one of the non-profit hospital systems in my area has earned anywhere from 2 to over 6 million in compensation each year over the last five years.

I'd be shocked if there weren't many people at every hospital making that many digits.  

[TexasProud]

2 hours ago, shawthorne44 said:

I had a similar experience to Heartstrings.   
But, then I grew up in Arlington, TX which had Six Flags and Ranger Stadium.   Those two places sucked up a lot of the teen labor particularly since they were largely summer jobs.   I remember being shocked that I had to actually Work to find a job when I got out of college.    Before that all I had to was to look the interviewer in the eye, shake hands and say I was ready for work.    That got a job at least a notch above the lowest.   
 

Yes, so I went to my last two years of high school there. When I went to look for a job as a 16yo in 1983, my dad was shocked that I came home in under an hour with a job at a movie theater. Then I worked the next 3 summers in between college at Six Flags. So easy to find work there, and so busy that I didn't have time to spend the money either. I worked in food service and the costume character areas. 

[Corraleno]

RE managers and employers coming up with creative ways to attract employees, even without increasing pay:

There was an interesting article in the New Yorker a few days ago on the current work environment, which tried to draw comparisons between (1) the kind of work humans "evolved to do" (i.e. hunter-gatherers focused intensively on one task at a time, either self-directed or in close cooperation with others who shared the burden and reward, and not only were the rewards immediate but increasing competence led directly to increased rewards) and (2) the kind of work most employees as asked to do now (multi-tasking and juggling multiple projects, often with intense oversight and little autonomy, for a very delayed reward that often has no relation to competence or productivity).

The author used Apple as an example of how far the modern workplace has come from hunter-gatherer times, and he particularly focused on the reaction that Tim Cook got when he insisted that Apple employees who had been working from home through the pandemic should return to the office. There was a strong push back from workers who said that not only did they work much more efficiently at home, but skipping the long commute gave them more time with their families and a much better work/life balance. If they get the same amount of work done, to the same standards, why should it matter where they do it?

The author brought up a management philosophy called "ROWE" — Results Oriented Work Environment. The idea is that workers should have more flexibility and autonomy to do their work, as long as it's done well and to the employer's standards. So, in the case of Apple, if an employee needs to get a certain amount of work done that day, it shouldn't matter if it gets done while sitting in an office cubicle or sitting on the employee's back deck, or whether a particular employee prefers to work in one long uninterrupted stint or works better in short bursts with frequent breaks, etc. 

The author also mentioned a related philosophy, Self Determination Theory, which says that the three most important psychological needs are autonomy, competence, and relatedness. So applying those criteria to employment, the most satisfied workers would have jobs where they're given a certain amount of freedom and control over how/when they do their job (autonomy), where they can feel some pride in the skills they use, even if the job is pretty boring or repetitive (competence), and where their employer and coworkers care about their wellbeing (relatedness). That business owner on TikTok is a perfect example of how even a boring warehouse job can meet those criteria: he lets them work unusual hours that gives them the time they need with their families and seems to give them a fair amount of autonomy in doing the work (since he refers to them with some awe as "multitasking geniuses"), he obviously praises their competence and genuinely appreciates their contributions and says he is blessed to have them, so I'm sure they feel respected and valued. 

At the other end of the spectrum, the worst jobs would be ones where workers are constantly micromanaged on the job and given little to no choice in when they work or how many hours they work (anti-autonomy), the job is low-skilled and there is no incentive or reward for doing it well (anti-competence), in an environment where they're treated as barely human by both management and customers (anti-relatedness).

If employers expect people to put up with a job that's huge negative on all three of those criteria, and the only compensation for putting up with that is a paycheck, then why would they be surprised that the paycheck is the only thing the employee cares about, and they'll do the minimum necessary to get it? 

[fairfarmhand]

On 11/6/2022 at 11:30 PM, Heartstrings said:

I saw a tik tok of a business owner who said he started hiring moms to work only school hours.  It was a move out of desperation but he said they were so focused and productive that he was able to do more business than he had before with standard hiring practices.  The creativity can pay off in multiple ways.  

I’ve had managers approach me in fast food restaurants wanting to hire me. Said that mothers worker better than anyone else.