by jdmartin » Wed 28 Mar 2007, 13:25:46
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I') would guess you're in your late forties, early fifties? If this is the case, go ahead and self flagellate. You were born into a time when the economy was actually expanding along with the middle class. I would say that you have noone to blame but yourself, as well...except for...
During your youth, though, you probably lived through the oil embargo years, double digit inflation, etc...They were short lived, and everything bounced back and seemed to actually improve. Same with the recession of the early nineties, a kind of bounce back, with the exception of the rust belt. And, of course, the dot com collapse was followed by a constructin boom.
There was a different sense of what was possible in the future, based on the past. We're all victims of our own past experiences. We draw conclusions, that are sometimes unnecessarily tough on ourselves, when we fail to take this into account. We can condemn others by projecting our own self admonishing conclusions onto them.
Kids today (and by kids, I mean anyone under 40) aren't as blessed as we were. On the other hand they don't harbour the same illusions we did about the ongoing nature of economic expansion. Give them a break, by giving yourself one.
Economic expansion or lack thereof has nothing to do with it. If one chooses to, today, there are any number of hundreds of organizations looking for people willing to volunteer of themselves in order to accomplish something. This can range from everything from a couple hours a week/month to something that you do full-time for a year or more. If you don't want to be part of the consumeristic society, there are a million ways out. No one is forcing anyone to be.
As I see it, the problem for today's youth is not that there are far more economic challenges (though there are); the problem is that the boomers have raised an "entitlement" generation that honestly believe that it is the job of someone else to provide for them. Working for something? Anything? That's someone else's job. Generation Waahh sees their role as playing Playstation 3 all day and bitching about the lack of opportunities out there.
10 years ago all the jobs in my field were drying up. Not wanting to geographically relocate, I decided that I better learn another field if I wanted to remain here. I went to college, on my own loans and money from working, while supporting a family. I earned a Bachelor and then a Masters degree. It took me 6 years to do this. Today I earn a reasonably good living as a municipal executive, a job I only could have got by getting up off my ass and doing something about it, rather than crying in my soup that all the jobs in my field had gone away and what was I to do.
Now I did this because I wanted to maintain what I considered a good standard of living. But my definition might be different than someone else's. For me, having a dependable car, electricity, and stability is important. But I'm older and I'm married. When I was younger, those things weren't as important to me, so I was able to do different things. I joined the Navy and saw the world.
The whole point is that the world owes no one a living. If we were back in caveman times, you'd either work your ass off or you would die, plain and simple. I don't deny that economic conditions generally suck, but "suck" is a relative term when you're comparing the US and the rest of the Western World to places like Chad.
Final thought: At my last job (city manager of a small town), I was on a county economic task force. We conducted a survey and interviews of most of the businesses, corporate and private owned, large and small, in the county. We wanted to find out what areas we might be able to help them in. Almost without exception, the number one problem listed by every business was the labor force's lack of basic skills. Not just reading and writing, either. The comments we got back and the managers we interviewed told us: candidates & employees don't know how to dress, speak properly, treat their co-workers with respect, act in an honest manner, etc. Basic life skills. We were also told that, overwhelmingly, younger employees that came in for a job, with no experience, expected to be in supervisory/managerial slots either immediately or within ridiculously short time periods. There were plenty of starter jobs at these businesses, but no one wanted them - they all wanted to be the manager.
Along those lines, for the past 2 years I have advertised a part-time job at my organization. Good pay for part-time work; no benefits, but completely flexible work schedule, no weekends, no evenings, outside work in good weather. Easy, non-supervised work. Both years I had a hell of a time filling the position. The first year, the guy I ended up hiring got the job by default because 2 other interviewee's were no-shows/no phones. The guy lasted a couple of months, then just quit showing up when the weather got a little colder (low 50's/upper 40's), and put in for unemployment claiming we laid him off. Last year, the guy I hired was a good worker. He was so good that I offered him a full-time slot that opened up, but he wasn't interested. It was going to be more working than he wanted to do. So be it; that's how he liked his life set up, and I have no problem with that. But the opportunities do exist if you want them.
After fueling up their cars, Twyman says they bowed their heads and asked God for cheaper gas.There was no immediate answer, but he says other motorists joined in and the service station owner didn't run them off.