Our generation's lack of work ethic and money skills.

[Mixolydian]

Sorry, but it's not a generational thing. I see the same kind of behavior from baby boomers all the time. No work ethic and no money skills.

Young or old, people don't want to work. And don't want to save.

 

[cbrunny]

primary premise: diesel jeans are the secret to happiness

secondary premise: millenials are lazy (but this thread was started before the word millenial had been invented)

i'm pretty sure there have been people that have worked harder than others for no less than 200,000 years.

 

[Mai72]

"The poor and middle class work for money.
The rich have money work for them."
~Rich Dad, Poor Dad

I know many peoples here dislike that book but I think that quote is spot on. I didn't agree fully with the book, but there were some gems that I pulled and continue to use today. One is financial literacy.

Why do many lottery winners go broke? There are many reasons, but one is financial literacy. So, instead of making investments for the long term what do many lottery winners do? Spend baby! Many buy items that don't increase income, but in fact deplete it. It's ignorance and a lack of financial literacy.

It's why the rich keep getting richer, and the poor and middle class keep losing ground. I make it a point to read 2-3 financial books a year. I don't agree with society's view on wealth. That it's not important. That you shouldn't talk about money in public. Bull. It's also why many people have difficulty with money. They refuse to even talk about it. It doesn't make sense to ignore money. Why do we all go to work? TO MAKE MONEY! Would you work for free! Of course not. So why act like it's not important.

I once heard that money follows attention. It's like a jealous lover. The more attention you give it the more likely it's going to show up in your life. Ignore it and it's going to leave you. That's how I view money now. I wish someone would had mentored me on finances. I had to learn it all on my own. It's better late than never though.

In regard to work ethic we are seeing a decline because we have it easy today. Hungry? Have mom fix you dinner, or go to the local store. Need money? Ask Dad, or live at home and work some $10 an hour job. Why not? No rent, you make $300 a week for doing virtually nothing. Life is great.

We are spoiled. It was inevitable. You don't have to work really hard anymore. The consequences aren't as harsh as they were in the past. In my city I know many young men who work in the summer and take off for 7 months. They all collect unemployment. Many avoid work for long periods of time. There are many who do work hard. But, we have a large population of young men who avoid work.

Check out this article.

https://www.intheblack.com/articles/2017/04/01/why-young-men-arent-working

 

[brianmanahan]

i'm pretty sure there have been people that have worked harder than others for no less than 200,000 years.

yes, but according to everything i read, millenials work less hard than anyone in the past 200000 years

 

[Kaido]

"The poor and middle class work for money.
The rich have money work for them."
~Rich Dad, Poor Dad

I know many peoples here dislike that book but I think that quote is spot on. I didn't agree fully with the book, but there were some gems that I pulled and continue to use today. One is financial literacy.

I agree. Good book with a lot of great points. I think my key takeaway from that book was how he defines income, assets, expenses, and liabilities, and especially defining a house as a liability (which is a huge point of contention, but as it sucks money away for utilities, maintenance, property taxes, etc., it does fit his his definition). If more people revolved their budgets around that core matrix, it would help them understand their finances a lot more clearly.

 

[urvile]

I don't know. The company I used to work for rewarded results. Delivering projects regardless. (I started working there as a grad a while ago ;-P) This meant working a crapton of overtime. I worked from home. I worked weekends. The night before a release it wasn't uncommon for the entire team to still be online at midnight.

This work was interesting and that's what kept me going but we were under an immense amount of pressure to hit deadlines. Being worked like that burns a lot of people out. In fact I know there is at least one software (now defunct) company where I live that used a strategy of hiring grads paying them grad wages, burning them out and hiring more.

So if you are working until you burn out. It's fair to say you have a strong work ethic. To a fault.

 

[brianmanahan]

In fact I know there is at least one software (now defunct) company where I live that used a strategy of hiring grads paying them grad wages, burning them out and hiring more.

oh yeah, my first job after graduation was getting paid 50$k salary as a software developer to work 60-80 hours per week. i worked like that that for a good year, basically making 12$ an hour. and they were charging the client 120$ an hour for my work.

i realized i was burned out when i was driving to work and honestly thinking that i wouldn't mind if i crashed, because if i was in the hospital or dead i wouldn't have to work anymore.

 

[Kaido]

In regard to work ethic we are seeing a decline because we have it easy today. Hungry? Have mom fix you dinner, or go to the local store. Need money? Ask Dad, or live at home and work some $10 an hour job. Why not? No rent, you make $300 a week for doing virtually nothing. Life is great.

We are spoiled. It was inevitable. You don't have to work really hard anymore. The consequences aren't as harsh as they were in the past. In my city I know many young men who work in the summer and take off for 7 months. They all collect unemployment. Many avoid work for long periods of time. There are many who do work hard. But, we have a large population of young men who avoid work.

Check out this article.

https://www.intheblack.com/articles/2017/04/01/why-young-men-arent-working

I have two friends in this situation. Both are married. First one, his wife works and he stays home; no kids. Basically a stay-at-home husband (not a stay-at-home dad). Second one, his mom takes care of him. Neither one is disabled in either way, but also...neither one works.

I don't believe video games are the root cause. I believe that the people who act as their enablers are the root cause. Well, a step above the real root cause, but more on that in a minute. Basically, if those enablers were to cut them off from support - support being financial, a place to live, food, a washer & dryer to use (or have their laundry done for them), etc. - the non-workers would be in pretty hot water. Because really, who can blame the non-workers? I'm not abdicating them of responsibility over their lives, but if your mom said hey, why don't you live at home rent-free, I'll make you dinner, you don't have to work, why would you say no to that? lol. A free pass to play video games and do whatever you want all day? That's living the dream! The movie "Failure to Launch" is a great example of that. Why put in the effort to be independent when you can be taken care of, especially if you're not a naturally ambitious person?

Everything boils down to personal choice. The real root cause is usually just laziness, but it's a complex mix of fear of having to find a job, competition, having to work, leaving the nest, finding out that jobs in the real world aren't what you expected them to be, etc. But it's also partly the fault of the caretakers. In nature, the momma bird sometimes has to drop the baby bird out of the nest in order to get the baby bird to fly. Or going back even further, if you help a baby bird crack an egg, that bird is going to die because it needs to go through the effort & hardship of cracking the egg to grow. If you never give your kids the opportunity to be independent, then how do you expect them to be independent? That last section of the article is great:

Mark's perfect world

Mark [not his real name], a 28-year-old from the central coast of New South Wales, has been unemployed for much of his 20s. He works a couple of days a week but considers himself underemployed, so is applying for other jobs.

He currently plays Perfect World, a MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role playing game), for 16 hours per day when not working, and puts in about five hours on a work day, before starting and after finishing his day job.

Mark says gaming gives him a chance to demonstrate his skills, while keeping him connected and informed.

“If something happens in the world I hear it first from other players on Perfect World. It also offers relief from the reality that there is so much job competition out there. You can have another life and you can have it whenever you want it,” he explains.

Would his love of online games affect his willingness to work more? “I wouldn’t turn down the perfect job for it, but when looking for work I do consider the hours, preferring part-time as it gives me more time to do … other things.”

For Mark, gaming is his work. “You’d be surprised how similar it [video gaming] is to a real job. As a guild leader, I have daily duties to attend to, disagreements to resolve and activities to organise for my team. If I don’t do a good job my guild could fall apart, so I feel a sense of duty to put in the hours to build and grow my team. This means you can’t be away from a keyboard for too long – so it does eat into your life.”

There is absolutely nothing wrong with using your free time however you want - assuming, of course, that you are taking care of your responsibilities. I work with guys who put in 40 hours a week and literally spend every other free waking moment on the Xbox. They are providing for themselves and staying out of trouble, so even though that wouldn't be the path I would choose, I can't fault them for using their discretionary time however they want to.

But if your mom is paying rent, making your meals, doing your laundry, cleaning your room, while you don't work or hardly work and are instead playing video games, yeah, that's nuts & shameful. I can understand it in some circumstances, sure...if you have really bad anxiety or something, that's one thing, but since the rate of unemployment in males in their 20's has apparently skyrocketed, that can't be the case for everyone out there.

To quote the guy in the article above, "“You’d be surprised how similar it [video gaming] is to a real job. As a guild leader, I have daily duties to attend to, disagreements to resolve and activities to organise for my team. If I don’t do a good job my guild could fall apart". That sounds stupid, but I totally understand getting sucked into projects...I've done my fair share of useless hobbies like VR, hackintosh, Counter-strike, etc. over the years. And like I said above, I can also understand why you would want to take advantage of that situation...if someone offers you a free pass to play all day, why wouldn't you jump all over that? I'd love to stay home and play video games for 16 hours a day instead of going to work.

My guess is that the bottom line in most of these situations is that they have parents or other caretakers who aren't pushing them to be independent. If you only work part-time at an hourly job and don't have school, how are you going to afford rent, food, dating, clothes, a car payment, gas, insurance, etc? Someone is being a maid to these kids. It's hard to blame the kids when you setup a comfortable trap for them. Stay home, we'll take care of you, you do you.

PS - on a tangent, is anyone looking to adopt an adult male to stay home & play video games all day? I can cook...

 

[Kaido]

i realized i was burned out when i was driving to work and honestly thinking that i wouldn't mind if i crashed, because if i was in the hospital or dead i wouldn't have to work anymore.

Haha - that feeling is one of the best motivations there is for finding a new job. I've had more than one job where I've felt exactly the same way...drive home late, tired, and depressed and don't give a crap one way or another.

The good news is, at least here in America, no one is holding a gun to your head, so you are free to change your career anytime you want simply by getting some training & doing some interviews. I have lots of friends who have moved themselves into far better jobs by taking night classes for years & getting out of jobs they hate. tbh that was what motivated me to finish college...I worked in fast food, construction, and retail, and decided that really wasn't what I personally wanted to be doing for the rest of my life.

That reminds me, I have a buddy from a crappy part of Thailand who was thrilled to move to America. He works every minute he can & thinks the rest of us are nuts for not taking advantage of the money. IT day job & then drives Uber in his spare time & is out-of-his-mind thrilled that he can make as much money as he wants simply by being willing to work. Apparently that was not the case in the area he was from...

 

[Kaido]

I don't know. The company I used to work for rewarded results. Delivering projects regardless. (I started working there as a grad a while ago ;-P) This meant working a crapton of overtime. I worked from home. I worked weekends. The night before a release it wasn't uncommon for the entire team to still be online at midnight.

This work was interesting and that's what kept me going but we were under an immense amount of pressure to hit deadlines. Being worked like that burns a lot of people out. In fact I know there is at least one software (now defunct) company where I live that used a strategy of hiring grads paying them grad wages, burning them out and hiring more.

So if you are working until you burn out. It's fair to say you have a strong work ethic. To a fault.

From what I've read, video game programmers have it among the worst. Endless overtime for years until they burn out, and there's always a new crop of kids out of school who are overjoyed to get paying jobs. Use, abuse, and dump.

 

[urvile]

oh yeah, my first job after graduation was getting paid 50$k salary as a software developer to work 60-80 hours per week. i worked like that that for a good year, basically making 12$ an hour. and they were charging the client 120$ an hour for my work.

i realized i was burned out when i was driving to work and honestly thinking that i wouldn't mind if i crashed, because if i was in the hospital or dead i wouldn't have to work anymore.

I was in a similar situation. Where what I was being paid wasn't even remotely close to what the company was pimping me out at. However given the size of the company and the industries that they operated in some of the work I did there was very interesting but yeah eventually I thought screw this and left. Now I work as a contractor and I get a much fairer share......

 

[urvile]

From what I've read, video game programmers have it among the worst. Endless overtime for years until they burn out, and there's always a new crop of kids out of school who are overjoyed to get paying jobs. Use, abuse, and dump.

Funnily enough it was relatively well known game company too. Because wouldn't it be awesome to work in gaming kids? Then they were intentionally worked until they burned out. Ah good times.

 

[brianmanahan]

Now I work as a contractor and I get a much fairer share......

i've considered doing contracting... maybe in a few more years.

 

[s0me0nesmind1]

I agree. Good book with a lot of great points. I think my key takeaway from that book was how he defines income, assets, expenses, and liabilities, and especially defining a house as a liability (which is a huge point of contention, but as it sucks money away for utilities, maintenance, property taxes, etc., it does fit his his definition). If more people revolved their budgets around that core matrix, it would help them understand their finances a lot more clearly.

Uhh a mortgage as a liability is basically Accounting 101. You needed a book to illustrate that? I mean the whole point is you are LIABLE for paying it off.

I do agree though, plenty go into a mortgage not realizing all the additional costs - which I believe is what forced escrow accounts was attempting to resolve.... Sadly, I don't think escrow accounts are going to save people when it comes to all the financial burdens that add up over time...

 

[s0me0nesmind1]

From what I've read, video game programmers have it among the worst. Endless overtime for years until they burn out, and there's always a new crop of kids out of school who are overjoyed to get paying jobs. Use, abuse, and dump.

Ehh - basically my job in a nutshell with Accounting/Consulting firms. They get kids out of school to do the grunt work. Majority burn out, few make it to senior. Much fewer make it to manager. Creame of the crop make it to senior management followed by partner if you're a god. Basically a pyramid scheme.

At the end of the day though, unlike all my previous employers they have made me say at the end of the year "Eh, that shit sucked - but damn that raise and bonus kinda make up for it... Maybe I can stick out for another year"

 

[IndyColtsFan]

So if you are working until you burn out. It's fair to say you have a strong work ethic. To a fault.

I'd say the real fault is lack of perspective. People have this silly notion of a "career" that has been pounded into their heads by the media, their companies, their families, etc. and they never really stop and think about it. I'll explain below.

I laugh when people say "ICF and his wife don't have kids because they're focused on their careers." Nothing could be further from the truth. Our jobs provide us with money to do the things we REALLY care about. Neither of us care about our jobs beyond that. We're not curing cancer. We're not solving world hunger. We don't believe our jobs (and yes, they are merely jobs) define us. We have high-paying white collar jobs and go to work every day, do our jobs well, and then come home after 8 hours. Though I will put in extra hours on rare occasions, my expectation from doing so is that I will be compensated with increased flexibility (come in later/leave earlier, work from home, etc). If I don't get that? Well, I came to an important realization over the past few years - companies need me and my skills more than I need them and I can easily move on.

With regards to millennials specifically - my current company has an older workforce and is trying to hire younger people due to succession planning concerns. While that's a smart move and there isn't anything wrong with it, the coddling and massive amounts of positive reinforcement/recognition for stupid things is unbearable. It is so fake and transparent too that I roll my eyes every time I see a department wide "Congrats" email for some meaningless deed. Whatever happened to the occasional "good job" from your manager? Why does everything need to be a silly production for these kids?

 

[urvile]

I'd say the real fault is lack of perspective. People have this silly notion of a "career" that has been pounded into their heads by the media, their companies, their families, etc. and they never really stop and think about it. I'll explain below.

Sure. I used to work for a multi national whose primary business is engineering and if you want to be promoted then you have to deliver. Which means completing projects on schedule and making the company money. They don't care how you do it either. Only that you do.

This invariably meant working a Crapton of overtime. Amongst other things. Including cutting corners. Such as not designing or testing software correctly. Another key thing was if the client doesn't want to pay for it then it doesn't happen. You could call it a career or the desire to make more money or maybe the two are intrinsic to each other. Maybe not though.

These days I take an almost mercenary approach. I don't have a career and I have no loyalties to my current employer. I am already at a senior technical level and I get paid accordingly. So there it is.....

 

[IndyColtsFan]

These days I take an almost mercenary approach. I don't have a career and I have no loyalties to my current employer. I am already at a senior technical level and I get paid accordingly. So there it is.....

HA - I said almost the same thing to my wife last night. I told her I was like Bronn from Game of Thrones in terms of career - a "sellsword" who goes to the highest bidder.

 

[urvile]

HA - I said almost the same thing to my wife last night. I told her I was like Bronn from Game of Thrones in terms of career - a "sellsword" who goes to the highest bidder.

I think it's the best way to approach being a contractor. If a recruiter contacts me with a better opportunity and I get it then I am going to leave my current contract. I don't burn my bridges but at the end of the day my employer. Be it government or private sector has no loyalty to me either. I am essentially a disposable resource. Which is cool but it goes both ways.

 

[brianmanahan]

While that's a smart move and there isn't anything wrong with it, the coddling and massive amounts of positive reinforcement/recognition for stupid things is unbearable. It is so fake and transparent too that I roll my eyes every time I see a department wide "Congrats" email for some meaningless deed. Whatever happened to the occasional "good job" from your manager? Why does everything need to be a silly production for these kids?

maybe it doesn't have to be like that. why are the older managers doing it - because they read that they should in some business magazine or heard it from some consultant? or because the millenials will quit if they don't get the constant positive reinforcement?

 

[brianmanahan]

I think it's the best way to approach being a contractor. If a recruiter contacts me with a better opportunity and I get it then I am going to leave my current contract. I don't burn my bridges but at the end of the day my employer. Be it government or private sector has no loyalty to me either. I am essentially a disposable resource. Which is cool but it goes both ways.

how much time do you have to spend finding new work?

i might do contracting when i get a mil or so saved up, just in case it doesnt work out

 

[Kaido]

At the end of the day though, unlike all my previous employers they have made me say at the end of the year "Eh, that stuff sucked - but man that raise and bonus kinda make up for it... Maybe I can stick out for another year"

My first job out of college turned into a very difficult situation that was really stressing me out, so I left. Then they offered me $5 more per hour to stay. That was like a $10k annual pay boost. I made the mistake of accepting it for another miserable 6 months. That's the problem with incentives, they work! Everyone has bills to pay and money is an easy carrot to retain people & improve productivity, and nearly every company out there pads things so that they always have a slush fund available to play with paychecks as needed.

I remember my business teacher in school asked us to take a career we hated for $10 an hour. Then $20 an hour. Then $100 an hour. Then she called us all whores for money when everybody in the class raised their hands at $100 an hour & went on to explain how business really worked. The problem with that argument is that being principled about what you do when you're not making enough to live a decent lifestyle. When I was in that class, I was working at a pizza shop making $7.50 an hour. I would definitely have taken a $200k/yr job scrubbing toilets or picking up trash or whatever else it was that was being offered because that would have been a huge lifestyle improvement. I think as you get older and grow in skill and get out of that minimum wage cycle, you can be more selective about what you're willing to take, but sometimes it makes sense to take stupid jobs for money because it can make the rest of your life better.

That, and not everyone has the same set of job requirements. One of the things I learned from my first few jobs is that I am an emotionally sensitive person and need a good boss who isn't a huge jerk if my job isn't going to stress me out. Basically I found that if I worked for awful people, it bothered me a lot on a daily basis because I needed a good work environment. One of my buddies is a total bruiser & couldn't care less if his boss was a little Hitler, so long as the pay is good, so different strokes for different folks. Motivational psychology gets complex...everyone is different, but then again most companies know how to incentivize people along, and sometimes the really crummy jobs pay really well, so it gets complicated. And unless you have a highly marketable skill where you can get a replacement job right away, along with "screw-it" money, it can be hard to leave a stable, good-paying job.

 

[urvile]

how much time do you have to spend finding new work?

i might do contracting when i get a mil or so saved up, just in case it doesnt work out

Yeah a mil would be nice lol. The general rule of thumb is 1-3 months wages in the bank minimum and I won't get out of bed unless I am getting at least 90 bucks an hour which is the going rate for a senior. As for how long it takes to find work there are a lot of variables. I am Australian (so this may not be relevant to you) and currently live in the country's capital which means there is a lot of federal government work. I don't take contracts less than 12 months which typically run from the beginning of a financial year to the end of a financial year.

So a lot of it comes down to timing I was recently offered a contract that ended in March and I didn't take it due to the scarcity of other contracts around that time of the year. I will take contracts other than government but only if they finish somewhere around July. Typically contracts will come with extensions which aren't guaranteed but I have been on the same contract now for ~2 years.

There is always bucket loads of work for .NET. Especially if you can do full stack. I constantly get contacted by recruiters and I have started applying/interviewing for other contracts because I am over the one I have now. One of the problems is there is a lot of shite code out there and currently I find myself having to re-write core parts of a system which has been in production ~10 years. Which is tedious as hell. In short I have never been out of work.

EDIT: Contracting is a trade off in several ways. The positions are budgeted which means there is no over time. If I am not getting paid I don't work and if I am not at work I don't get paid and I have to take 4 weeks of holidays a year. Unpaid. As well as unpaid public holidays.

I can bail with no notice period if I want to but I don't like burning bridges. I have to handle my own payroll, taxation, superannuation and provide professional insurance. However I use a pay rolling company that does that for me for a nominal percentage of my hourly rate.

When I left my last job which was salaried full time to go contracting. I doubled my income but now have no job security. It's all trade offs.

 

[RockinZ28]

Have always disliked overtime. Especially the ~3 years I was salary, that was retarded, but did do comp time instead for a lot of it. Current project made damn sure it was paid overtime. Did 58 hours last week, such a waste of time, but the prime contractor has bungled this shit severely. The money is excellent, but live within my means so 40 hours is good enough for me. I'd prefer to do 4 days work, 3 days off. 2 day weekend is never long enough.

I'm very good at saving money tho.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

maybe it doesn't have to be like that. why are the older managers doing it - because they read that they should in some business magazine or heard it from some consultant? or because the millenials will quit if they don't get the constant positive reinforcement?

I just started working at this company 3 months ago, so I don't have all the history but I do believe that you're correct in that they hired HR "consultants" (I almost choked on laughter typing that) who told them to do things like this. The way management throws out "jeans days" as such a big deal also makes me laugh hard. I just roll my eyes and carry on - I couldn't possibly care less if the do things like this but I do enjoy pointing and laughing.