Why are young people so lazy?

[Thetruth1400]

You say so yourself. You want people with experience because you think it "Weeds out the lazy" then complain when no one with no experience applies. You can' have both. In addition to that, people can't lie on their applications because intelligent employers actually check on that info. A single lie can not only cost you that job, but can get you in serious trouble with the law. Information is so easy to obtain now as well thanks to modern communications, that a lie just isn't worth it. If you're truly willing to employ young people with no experience, then put that in your ads and take out the minimum requirements. During interviews, tell them that if you see they aren't trying to learn or show initiative, they won't last more then a few weeks.

As for the people, society itself is crafting a generation of entitlement. That's what's causing part of the problem. Instead of parents telling their children to go out and get jobs for the things they want, they just buy them for them.

[Badpaladin]

As I said, good excuse.

How is that an excuse? Having been in that situation before, after applying to over 100 places before finally finding a place that would take me with no experience, I found that it's a complete waste of my time to run around chasing an employer around like a dog if they required prior experience, even if it was clear the position was something a simpleton could learn in a week.

The audacity of expecting people with no prior experience to apply for a position that requires prior experience, and then making it clear you don't respect them is astounding. It's your own fault if you don't attract good enough workers.

[Deleted]

As I said, good excuse.

How is that an excuse?

Could you tell us what their tasks is? would help us understand the issue.

[Ashnazg]

I worked that job for about a year and got a Job working on a service desk and started to work on my Bachelors, working and going to school full time. I have now finished my bachelors degree and have a job sitting in an air conditioned office making almost 100k a year.

I am a lazy person.

Can be both a blessing or a curse. I work in an IT-related field, and I get to sit in a dark, cold room for 10-14 hours a day with nothing but the hum of the computers around me. Pays in lower 6 digits and I can play games at work practically all day, if I want to, since there is absolutely 0 supervision and the work I do is so fucking obscure that the HR department has no idea whether I am actually earning my money, or over-billing the shit out of them, but there is also absolutely 0 career growth. Its also driving me fucking insane - like working on an assembly line, watching your life drain away one mouse click at a time.

[Derpleton]

Because we're spoon-fed everything nowadays look at it from a gaming perspective. Before video games people had to set up board games AND read and know the rules to them. Now its just I press the on button and sit there for hours and so when that's all you've grown up knowing you learn that as a normal.

[Deleted]

Maybe want to start out actually telling us what positions you're actually trying to get filled instead of just going on a pointless rant about "'Dem Whippershnappers".

[Garehn Vi-Brittania]

and you need to understand that if you require prior exp. there are many who wouldn't apply. My personal view is if there are thousands of people with exp. that are applying, i'd be better off applying for another position because the chances of me landing an interview are very slim. my suggestion is to change the required to preferred but not needed. then you can judge for yourself at the interview.

[Deleted]

If your advertising for a job and say you need previous experience, don't complain when people without experience don't apply.

[Deleted]

I feel you. My brother is 25 years and he still haven't had a single job, never, not even one. He spends all his day now at home scratching his balls literally. He hasn't finished University yet too, which is stupid. I don't know what he's doing with his life but right now he's wasting it.

I am 18 and I have been looking for a job for quite sometime, I don't care which job it is, I just want it because I really want to get experience, I don't want to be like my brother doing nothing all day.

And by the way, most young people are lazy because of the lifestyle they take, meaning that this might happen because of their parents(not around for a long time), bad influences from friends or some other people and also because since they were teens they probably did what they wanted, but most of the cases people aren't lazy just because they are lazy, it's always because of something else, like the reasons I stated above.

It is unfortunate really, we are young. The "real" world compared to the school "world" is nothing alike, at all, there's a huge gap between them, and there's not better time to enter the "real" world then at a young age, otherwise you will be totally screwed and with a boring life.

[Deleted]

This is TOTALLY a modern problem. Check this modern dude talking about it:

"The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for
authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place
of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their
households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They
contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties
at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.

ATTRIBUTION: Attributed to SOCRATES by Plato, according to William L.
Patty and Louise S. Johnson, Personality and Adjustment, p. 277
(1953)."

[Lothaeryn]

As a member of this generation of lazy young people, I think there are two large reasons.

The first is the abject failure of our public school system. The current school system teaches that doing the absolute minimum will get you exactly the same as doing the best work you possibly can. Child gets passed even though their work deserves failure either because the policy of the school system is that failing a student discourages them and should never be done or simply because the teacher of the class does not want to deal with more students next year. This combined with many (if not most) teachers not giving a rip about students performance (I could go into all the reasons the teachers unions are at fault for this, but I won't just know they are) just reinforces the students natural tendency to not give a rip about their own performance. The lack of participation of many parents (which falls under the second reason) in their children’s schoolwork also further allows the child to not give a rip about their education or work ethic.

The second and larger reason is bad parenting or the lack of parenting. The two causes of this are the increasing trend toward having neither parent being at home or simply bad parenting overall results in a great many children not getting a decent upbringing. Many parents are content to think that the school system will instill a work ethic and values into their children (it doesn’t, the school system instills the opposite of a good work ethic in children). When children get nothing good upbringing wise from the school system and learn more from the internet and television than they do from their parents, that’s simply asking to create a lazy apathetic entitled slob. Parents need to be the prime influence on children as they develop (not what they get at school, off the web, or on TV) and so many aren’t.

These two reasons are what I think are the major causes of the laziness of my generation. Not all of us of this generation are lazy, but I know it’s getting harder and harder to find young people that aren’t.

This entirely, but to add onto this, it is also a derivative problem of the capitalist system as well. Our current economic system has made it so raising children is nigh impossible when your constantly at your workplace trying to make ends meet.

The point is, during the 1950's-60's parents still had some time to spend with their kids after they got off work, while the economic conditions of the time were much better off, there wasn't as much time required in the workplace back then either.

Nowadays someone starting out starts at minimum wage +2-10 dollars usually, and given that the current inflation of prices causes the cost of living to be so high, these conditions make it impossible for someone to live meagerly without doing overtime for extra cash.

What does this result in? Most workers barely even see their homes anymore, the only time they do is to sleep, leaving little to no time to even say hi to their own children. Which in turn leaves a lack of proper upbringing and work ethic instilled in the next generation.

Now, since the new kids aren't as productive as the older ones, companies now are looking for more older employee candidates, because they have the work ethic and experience that newer generations were unable to learn from their parents.

And there you have it, vicious cycle of the market slowly killing off its future workforce. Only a matter of time before the majority of the baby boomer generation hits retirement all at once.

[Deleted]

You know, I am owner of a company and I am often looking for a young people, however this has been almost impossible during last couple of years. The thing is, young people are so lazy, that I have to be officially looking for people with experience and good knowledge of stuff to separate the lazy trash. Lazy people will simply take my requirements as another excuse not to work and won't apply. Of course, I am willing to employ young person that doesnt know that much, but he has to be willing to learn and work, two extremly rare qualities these days. It isn't even that hard to lie a bit on interview and then work a bit extra during few months, but apparently it is for young people.

I can't even imagine how is this situation going to turn out in 5-10 years, This will be the time, when most of the parents will shut the support of their 30 year old "kid" and leave them to take care of themself alone. This huge mass of uneployable people will be problem that big, that it will be probably impossible to solve.

However I still don't understand why are these guys so lazy. Please someone explain this mystery to me.

Where are you from? Because if you're an american or brit, and english is your native language, and you make this make grammar mistakes, you are NOT an owner of any company.
First post is this? Yeah, real suspicious.

[Sam the Wiser]

I think old people are lazy. Well at least the ones I know.

[DisposableHero]

If you are having trouble finding quality workers to fill positions for you, than either the positions or compensation you are offering is not competitive enough with the market to attract motivated and hard working young people, or your interview process is not properly weeding out the ones with bad attitudes. In either case, the problem is you, not the workforce.

[Deleted]

This is TOTALLY a modern problem. Check this modern dude talking about it:

"The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for
authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place
of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their
households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They
contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties
at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.

ATTRIBUTION: Attributed to SOCRATES by Plato, according to William L.
Patty and Louise S. Johnson, Personality and Adjustment, p. 277
(1953)."

Socrates is my bro. He's totally with the times yo!

[Opiatesofsilicon]

and you need to understand that if you require prior exp. there are many who wouldn't apply. My personal view is if there are thousands of people with exp. that are applying, i'd be better off applying for another position because the chances of me landing an interview are very slim. my suggestion is to change the required to preferred but not needed. then you can judge for yourself at the interview.

1) False sense of entitlement that is instilled among most youth today (At least US)
2) Education system that rewards failure (Ex. "Participation Trophies", passing those with sub-par grades or those who make NO effort at all.)

Also pretty sure the garbage that is spewed out by the media, and the models of emulation that the pop culture provides also have a pretty large part of it.

[Artravus]

As a member of this generation of lazy young people, I think there are two large reasons.

The first is the abject failure of our public school system. The current school system teaches that doing the absolute minimum will get you exactly the same as doing the best work you possibly can. Child gets passed even though their work deserves failure either because the policy of the school system is that failing a student discourages them and should never be done or simply because the teacher of the class does not want to deal with more students next year. This combined with many (if not most) teachers not giving a rip about students performance (I could go into all the reasons the teachers unions are at fault for this, but I won't just know they are) just reinforces the students natural tendency to not give a rip about their own performance. The lack of participation of many parents (which falls under the second reason) in their children’s schoolwork also further allows the child to not give a rip about their education or work ethic.

The second and larger reason is bad parenting or the lack of parenting. The two causes of this are the increasing trend toward having neither parent being at home or simply bad parenting overall results in a great many children not getting a decent upbringing. Many parents are content to think that the school system will instill a work ethic and values into their children (it doesn’t, the school system instills the opposite of a good work ethic in children). When children get nothing good upbringing wise from the school system and learn more from the internet and television than they do from their parents, that’s simply asking to create a lazy apathetic entitled slob. Parents need to be the prime influence on children as they develop (not what they get at school, off the web, or on TV) and so many aren’t.

These two reasons are what I think are the major causes of the laziness of my generation. Not all of us of this generation are lazy, but I know it’s getting harder and harder to find young people that aren’t.

You're wrong in a lot of places but I agree with your main point. For example, parents DON'T need to be the prime influence on their children if their prime influences are still good ones. Another example is you generalizing the school system as bad. The school I went to (public) was in fact very good. People that didn't deserve to pass failed, and most (~90%) of the teachers enforced that.

[Zevinnus]

First off not all young people are lazy, some are some aren't. Those that are lazy got that way because their parents did a piss poor job at raising them.

So a better question would be, why did the parents of these lazy young people not properly prepare their kids for the responsibility of adulthood?

[Lothaeryn]

You're wrong in a lot of places but I agree with your main point. For example, parents DON'T need to be the prime influence on their children if their prime influences are still good ones. Another example is you generalizing the school system as bad. The school I went to (public) was in fact very good. People that didn't deserve to pass failed, and most (~90%) of the teachers enforced that.

The exception does not make the rule, while your personal experience may differ from most, that does not mean the majority are not passing with the bare minimum in the rest of the US.

NOTE: His post was for the American system, not Europe's.

[Kolo]

Old people saying young people are the worst ever. Shocker.
http://www.theawl.com/2010/07/the-bo...-to-be-jobless