1st Gen. Lunch Table - General Discussion

The influx of immigrants will make up for that, although not in a positive way that will make up for the brain drain. Idiocracy approacheth.

 

I saw this at work, a lot of 'fuck you I got mine and I'm not teaching you so they can't replace me'. They spent so much time kissing ass being the savior then complaining that no one else wants to work.

Like no y'all crossed the bridge then burned it behind you. Not only at work but way of life in general.

 

Teaching is a joy for me if the recipient finds learning a joy. It’s pretty much my primary role at this stage of my career.

 

Ive enjoyed the teaching and leadership parts of my career. Especially when it leads to their success.

 

Interesting predictions.
I think a lot of it, if you keep following it back, leads to the destruction of the family unit/stability in the home/and good teaching-parenting.
The wage vs inflation is pretty bad too, but there are some who push through that. Some fully engage/learn/work hard... but not many that I see.
I myself (nearing the end of my career) feel like I'm on the fringe of that, and I won't lie there are some days when I don't feel like giving them more than the bare minimum. But that is the result of treatment, as much as stagnant wages.
That dip in birth rates could create an interesting shortage of people entering the workforce too, like 20+ years down the road. On a small scale I've seen it happen at my work with a hiring bubble. I was mid/late in the hiring rampage almost 30 years ago. Now I look around and hordes of those people are gone, and have been replaced with folks who just don't know shit (we have no real TTT). It's had some pretty costly results too.
I don't think we fix that "give a shit" barring some world changing event (of the right kind... Covid made it 10x worse). I mean I have basically lost hope in it, and am going rural/country ASAP just to get away from the craziness of higher populated areas.
Just my unsolicited opinions take it or leave it

 

Early in this career, I busted my ass and did anything that I was asked to do because I felt that working hard would lead to giving me a good future in this world financially. Within the past few years I have changed my mindset to this pretty drastically. Seeing how places now will hold on to bad workers because they just want bodies in seats and the workers never see consequences to poor work habits because the places don't want them to quit. The poor workers have less responsibility and equal to or more money for doing the job. They receive raises when threatening to quit and this reinforces their bad work habits because they see it as a pat on the back.

All of this has unintended consequences for the hard workers that do follow the rules and bust ass. Why should we have to work twice as hard for the same pay as the people next to me that do next to nothing? What motivation do I have to continue to work hard when there are no extra benefits? Pride? I come to work to make money and that's the only reason that I wake up every day and do this work. Now everything is expensive and the wages are pretty stagnant. So, I do more work than most to make the same/less money as the slackers, while also not being able to put back and afford the same things as I used to not even 5 years ago. That's not a fair trade off. My director is nothing more than a highly paid paperweight that delegates all of his work to the people that work hard, without extra incentives.

I stepped down as manager due to this and now only focus on my work and then I go home on time. I work on commission so I do not receive overtime. The "manager" role was really just doing the work that the director didn't want to without any power to make any difference in the work performance of the employees or make the place run smoother.

This leads back to @shifty` s point of lack of care. No one seems to care anymore other than the workers who bust ass to pick up the slack of others. I have been burnt out on this and now I don't step in to assist anyone else. I was doing their jobs for free.

 

It starts earlier than that. Work ethic and personal responsibility are not taught in public schools and certainly not on teevee. Instead they teach ideas like "society's responsibility" and "victimhood". In Hollywood the hero is someone who gets something for nothing, not someone who strives to be the best at producing products and services that people buy voluntarily.

 

This is pretty much where I was too, and when they tried to force me to move my family to Phoenix AZ to keep my job and I said, “Nah, I’m good, can’t do my job any better over there than over here”, and they told me to find another internal role that wasn’t in mgmt, I took it. Then waited to be shitcanned, paid to leave. Fitting end to giving 25 years of my life to the place, I guess? And a picture for every single person I mentored into awesome roles, built them up, then encouraged them to jump from the nest and fly somewhere that will respect them. I spent the last 15 years of my career essentially finding ppl with potential and building them up, to be absolute beasts. People I knew wouldn’t just cash-in, but would most likely pay it forward. All while doing the bare minimum of what was expected of me, because the role I chose to close out my expected “end days” was something pretty pedestrian (but crucial) and easy for me to knock out “average” level work with only 10-15 hours of real input (automation, process cut the work to a quarter of what “normal” people can knock out).

Anyway, all this to say, all my words above aren’t criticism so much as observation of what I’ve seen gone down, in a professional technical career, the last 15 years, which accounts for about half of my career in technology/security as an engineer.

We’re whiffing the ball pretty hard right now. And a lot of it is due to the senior staff who are using their core knowledge as insurance they make it to retirement, then leaving out and leaving us all boned. After they cashed in on all the social programs they benefitted from, cheap housing, the whole nine. It’s nuts. I’m just glad I “made the cut”, able to ride on the coat tails of all of it.

This is another beef of mine, and props to you.

I’d much rather spend the next 10 years of mine before retirement as a teacher, teaching and guiding high school/pre-college/post-grad kids and guiding thru the technology maze we have in front of us. Something that allows me to condense 30 years of fundamentals into something I can easily pour into their brains to get their engines primed for what lie ahead. Even with AI challenges looming, the fundamentals remain the same, and while it’ll kill certain industries/roles, it won’t replace everything. But literally, teachers, in all their critical importance, are expected to live on poverty wages, underfunded, under-respected, it’s an insult. I’d never subject myself to that. All the while, education is somehow 10x the cost today as when I was in college for my AA degree a few decades ago, it’s unobtainable, educational facilities are taking in cash, but teachers (unless you’re tied to sports programs, a lot of times) get peanuts. Teaching has been demonized by idiots. A lot of which are the same types of idiots I see bashing the “nobody wants to work” button.

Sucks I need to go back into the corporate world to some extent, in order to mentor/build people again.

This is actually common practice. Climb the ladder, then kick it over so nobody else can come up. I was watching an interesting segment that covered 1st gen immigrants and their children, and why ann overwhelming number are staunchly anti-immigration. Same concept. “I got mine… close the damn door now!”

 

Let’s be clear here: It’s the parents faults. If you can’t control what your kid does or thinks or sees or learns, nor be involved enough in their education to see that happening, then you’re a garbage parent, and a big part of the problem.

You can’t blame public schools for changing kids. Parenting starts at home. The first 6 years pre schooling have more sway over your kids than any school system can ever have.

Edit to say, I’d also add: It is ABSOLUTELY society’s responsibility. “It takes a village” is something we need to get back to. There is GREAT power in community, and we do not put nearly enough value in community anymore.

 

And even further, it’s apparently the grandparents fault also, for not raising their boomer children to bring up their kids right, and instill, enforce the same values the grandparents instilled in them.

Not only did the more recent generations get failed by their parents, but the fact the grandparents didn’t step in to fill that gap, where possible, also sucks. We’ve had crazy generational knowledge lost, parenting failures, and … what you’re seeing today is what happens after just TWO generations of parenting failures, combined, now combined with technology addiction, and uncontrolled social media to further redirect the kids.

This is nothing a public school did.

 

I work hard, cause I’m a hard worker. I can’t show up and not work. I’ve never been fired, or reprimanded, or not offered a job I applied for. I’ve told both of my children the key to their success is really simple.
1. Show up. You’ve got 65% of the workforce beat already.
2. Give a shit and Work hard. Now you’ve got 85-90% of them beat.
3. Pay attention and become really good at what you do. You’re top 5% now.
4. Don’t worry about what others do or don’t do. Worry about what you are doing and how you can contribute. Don’t let yourself be dragged down to the common denominator just so you aren’t working harder than someone else.

There is no excellence without mediocrity.

Be thankful for all the worthless clowns that try to do what you do. They’re just making you look good.

 

Now here’s something you don’t see every day…

 

This is A+ guidance right here.

And also reminds me the same percentages you toss out there, you can easily substitute the word “workforce” for “parents” and all 4 points are equally valid.

 

My wife is trying to convince me to get a Great Pyrenees. I was joking about getting one a few weeks ago and now we know someone giving away puppies. They have one female left.

How bad of an idea is this?

 

You’re already used to a dog that sheds hair like no other….. it shouldn’t be that different. My bro in law has one or had one I guess but it died recently and suddenly from some internal issue

 

Awesome breed but a biiig ass dog!

 

My God man, I'm living almost everything you just said... Unreal... I get it brother, holy shit I get it.

 

Just be ready for the hair. So. Much. Hair.

It gets in your vents, in your car, in your clothes, in your carpet, in your electronics, in everything. Absolutely fucking everywhere. My German Shepherd mix died more than 6 months ago, and I'm still cleaning his fur out of my stuff. Dogs are the best and I'm so lucky to have had him- but make sure you're ready to clean the floors in your house twice a week and get the dog professionally groomed every other month.

We actually had a clothes dryer fire once because there was so much dog hair on our clothes. I don't think that's common though.

 

I have a good friend who came aboard about a little over a year ago. He has been teamed up with me from day one and I am showing him the ropes.
I also love teaching and sharing what I know, it's where my heart is, like to do good and help.
But if it wasn't my good friend (who has over 10yrs left to work) working beside me, I wouldn't be passing along anything.
They burned me really really bad in the last few years and there is NO coming back from that. Ever.
Once they have no ability to touch me financially I'll elaborate on that if its ever relevant.

 

We have a husky so we're no stranger to dog hair. I'm just not sure I want a 120lb dog that drools. They are supposed to be awesome though.

 

Very very very thankful that not only was I in the laundry room when it happened, but the fire extinguisher on the wall hadn't lost it's charge. Dryer was toast but nothing else was damaged.

Kitchen, laundry room, garage, and every car got a fire extinguisher after that.

 

Speaking of laundry rooms- did I ever share the complete renovation I did on our laundry room last winter?

I came home for a weekend a while ago and I always forget how much nicer it is in there. Such a satisfying project.

Before: dirty, moldy, cramped, cluttered, messy, dimly lit, everything powered by extension cords, fire hazards


After: clean, tidy, safe, actually smells nice. Makes me so happy to be in and use this room.



Let me know if you guys wanna see more. I did the whole project in a week during my winter break last year. By far the most satisfying project I’ve done.

 

WOW, that's quite a transformation, nice job

 

Thank you!! It was a hell of a process. I was home for my winter break and my girlfriend had gotten covid so I couldn't see her for a week. Decided I needed a good project to keep me busy. Total cost was around $800. We had gotten quotes to do the same work for $5000+.

 

No drool was a huge factor for us. As well as smart, and not a spastic breed. And good with kids. And active but not obnoxiously so. Low maintenance. We found all the above in our Plotthound. Tennessee treeing hounds are equally awesome, and actually anything in the Cur family is great as well. And if you really want a slightly larger than 55-65lb dog that’s in that line, Catahoulas are a winner all day long. You’ll get to meet our Coco one day when we finally get schedules down and make it out camping eventually. Shits just been a bit crazy with the family the last 12-18 months and it’s been impossible to do anything beyond yaks and hikes.

 

PS, speaking of the devil, just got home 30min ago. Very warm welcome from her. Two of our friends fought over who got to watch her while we were gone. Awesome problem to have.

 

It's beyond frustrating. I'm just waiting for the time when I can make a move out of this place.

The grass isn't always greener, and it might even be dead on the other side, but sometimes it's worth the risk in the pursuit of happiness.

 

I was reading something within recent years about a study that was done which provdes the grass actually is greener on the other side...

 

My brother has a black mouth Cur I think. She's a great dog. I normally prefer to get a rescue rather than a pure breed dog because so many need good homes. Mutts can be awesome.