I think that's probably right. Maybe a better way of phrasing it is that the Boomers had it easier than any other generation in human history. It was harder before, and harder afterwards.
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[News] Is Britain work shy ?
- Thread starter Leekbrookgull
- Start date
But radio/TV often follow or respond to an agenda set by the rabble-rousing, tub-thumping, tabloids!
Thanks for that sheery thought. My worry is that the contagion is one of politics, like a Trump "contagion", but hopefully we are more progressive than that ....
Frankly we need to get back in the EU to give our children and their children, the right to work and roam the EU, since we are so miserably failing them here...
Re; comments on posting here in work hours.
These aren’t my work hours. Those are between 8pm and 4am.
So I hope it’s okay with the guardians of NSC if I am allowed to post in daylight hours.
You’d be very naive if you thought everyone works Monday to Friday, 9-5.
These aren’t my work hours. Those are between 8pm and 4am.
So I hope it’s okay with the guardians of NSC if I am allowed to post in daylight hours.
You’d be very naive if you thought everyone works Monday to Friday, 9-5.
Fair point.
Maybe the OP was triggered to resonate to a Mail-originating trope due to his preconditioning
(I am increasingly of the opinion that we humans' go-to reasoning rubric is to start with our opinion then backfill a logical narrative by cherry picking from their personal experience. That would explain the heated exchanges of 'opinions'. For example on the assisted suicide thread, which is no longer available to me, perhaps because it was locked or perhaps because I have been excluded - probably for the best either way).
I teach uni students at one of the 'top 5' and can report they are a cheery polite and attentive bunch. When I started 35 years ago they seemed a much less socially equipped and hard working motley crew, often grunty and often unwilling to engage, so my experience is that the yoof of today are not workshy. But I admit that mine is not a random sample of the population, and my opinion is therefore valueless. As it is probably most of the time. Just a stream of repurposed anecdotes
Nothing. I don't own one.
I owned five businesses Employed over 20 people. I set up two new businesses and unfortunately my wife was involved in a serious incident which left her in hospital for a year. I had 5 children, with three different schools to drop off and pick up each day, my wife was 45 miles away in hospital. The two businesses failed taking my home with them. I ended up caring for my wife until my daughter was able to do it. I was basically skint though never went bankrupt. Indeed I paid off all the debts as I was able to return to work. Been in private rented ever since. My wife died three years ago. I have since had four operations which led my company to "paying me off" having had 2/3 pay in that time. I'm now self employed just about putting food on the table. I work f***ing hard, I used my pension fund to start my business so will likely be working until I drop.
Could say I've been unfortunate and looking for sympathy, I'm not. If my current business doesn't work out I'll find a job. Never claimed a penny apart from caring for my wife.
are you a vampire hunter?
You'll not surprised are you?
Historically speaking, almost everyone works if there is work for everyone. If there isn't work for everyone, imbalances are created and both unemployment and lack of work force rise.
In Sweden, the last time we had more jobs than people was back in the late 1960s - when almost the entire population were working.
Once the business organisations figured out that "if we have employees fighting for jobs rather than us fighting for workers, we can lower wages", industry went very keen on automatisation. Once there wasn't jobs for 2-3% of the population, social welfare costs, alcoholism, drug abuse and so forth spiked very quickly.
Very similar development could be seen in the transition from industry to service society, which was very workforce heavy in the early days. Once job opportunities diminished, things fell apart again.
I'd like to say "its going to better again, look at history!". But its a bit different since people exist in the same world as industries and services and don't exist in the same world as binary digital numbers and artifical intelligenses. So the future is a bit difficult to envision.
People want to work if there's work and if you get something from working.
People who think that other people want to live on benefits and social welfare most often haven't tried living on it. Dunno what the standards are there but here we social welfare people live on "existence minimum" that can not feed a grown male for a month. Its really not as fun or pleasant as the middle and upper classes seem to think. Its really not something you want if there's tangible options.
I was being a tad tongue in cheek.
I am genuinely uncertain how things will pan out in the next year or so.
I doubt that EU membership is on the agenda though. I would love it but the UK is not yet ready.
It may take a lot of pain (unemployment, inflation), and social unrest (blaming immigrants, women, homosexuals, black people, woke people;, more 'rioting; more wankas in posh coats and flat caps protesting on their tractors; more knife crime; more channel crossings; more social media shitehousery) and another shot for the Tories in government (hollowed-out and punch-drunk as they are now, led by cretins, and likely forced to chummy up with frog-face, God help us) before we start thinking there must be a better way.
For the record I am content with Labour presently and expect them to manage things better than the hairy-arsed element of the right would ever admit (and I don't mean the majority of sensible Tories who are sadly a silent minority now the lunatics have taken over the party). There is hope. Even 'hopeless' has hope in it
Fair play to you mate. That all sounds absolutely brutal. Most people would not have had the balls to keep going at it like you have. In another world you’d be a multi-millionaire with that kind of attitude. Circumstance sometimes gets in the way.
I hope your business works out.
True, it is very easy as seen from your moaning about the kids today.
You just described the utopian dream to many young people today.
Imagine being able getting a job as a f***ing aircraft engineer at the age of 18. That is some comfort kids today will never have.
I was being a tad tongue in cheek.
I am genuinely uncertain how things will pan out in the next year or so.
I doubt that EU membership is on the agenda though. I would love it but the UK is not yet ready.
It may take a lot of pain (unemployment, inflation), and social unrest (blaming immigrants, women, homosexuals, black people, woke people;, more 'rioting; more wankas in posh coats and flat caps protesting on their tractors; more knife crime; more channel crossings; more social media shitehousery) and another shot for the Tories in government (hollowed-out and punch-drunk as they are now, led by cretins, and likely forced to chummy up with frog-face, God help us) before we start thinking there must be a better way.
For the record I am content with Labour presently and expect them to manage things better than the hairy-arsed element of the right would ever admit (and I don't mean the majority of sensible Tories who are sadly a silent minority now the lunatics have taken over the party). There is hope. Even 'hopeless' has hope in it
I know you were..
I think I'm much in the same place as you...we cannot go back to Tories....would be interested to see Lib Dems making a go of it...
anyhow as diabolical as it would be for some companies and small businesses, it would be interesting to see if a material rise in minimum wage to punt it above the benefits top up...would have an impact...
I started at 16 as an apprentice and worked f***ing hard for very little for years.
Do you think I just rocked up and got that apprenticeship?
Or perhaps I looked up all the businesses in the area and wrote to them, none of these jobs were advertised. I wasn't given an help, no one told what to do. All my letters were handwritten. My cold writing got me four offers of work.
Tom Hark Preston Park
Will Post For Cash
- Jul 6, 2003
- 72,358
Is Britain work shy?
Enough with the Graham Potter threads already
beorhthelm
A. Virgo, Football Genius
- Jul 21, 2003
- 36,023
as a gen x i always a chuckle at this blaming "boomers" almost as if the commentator dont have a clue. the boomer generation were born post war and faced actual difficulties, hard life the current or past generation know little to nothing about. like out door privy, no central heating, working in hard industrial jobs for average pay, private transport or holidays a luxury. they lucked out through the prosperity of 80's and 90's, hardly their fault, through hard work. ah, yes, there's the thing that has changed.
to an earlier comment about having a reason to work, that generation and those before didnt need a reason to work, they just assumed they had to work. buying a home would be a dream for most, often coming only after marriage and a lot of saving. not falling out of uni expecting a high salary and a house in your early 20's. my boomer parents built their own home in thier early 30's to make it doable.
Wonder if I'd stand a chance
I don't doubt it was hard work. I doubt people today get the same chances of doing that hard work though.
If some 16-year-old lad sends a letter to SAAB today and say "hi I wanna come and build some JAS Gripen", they will not get some sort of apprenticeship, they will be told to spend the next eight years or so studying how to build aircraft.