It was dark at 7:30 pm, garbage day, and they still hadn’t picked up the recycling although the garbage had been taken. Deducing that something had gone amiss, clever boy that I am, I went out to bring the bin back in. However, I espied a truck up yonder, which I soon confirmed to be the garbage truck.
A neighbour had discovered that it was so late because there was only one guy to empty the bins instead of the usual two. I contemplated what a heck of a day that must have been for the lone person — 12 hours or more at that point. The only way I could help was to move the bin as close as I could to the road.
When I commented on his ordeal, he explained that it wasn't even his job, for he was the owner's son. But three workers had booked-off that day, so he was forced into service. He despaired how bad things might get when these kinds of employees would be the main workforce in 20 years time.
I mentioned the garbage situation to Shauna, and she just about had a fit. You see, she manages a retirement home and has huge problems staffing and keeping staff. I didn't even tell her what the garbage guy had said, but she had plenty to say all on her own.
Geez. I honestly am stumped. People have no work ethic.
I think we’re in real trouble until the kids of my gen get there. My work ethic has been passed to Danica. She’s doing it right. The 20-30 [age] crew? Holy crap! I don’t even know how they’re going to survive. It’s insane.
You should see some of the crap we see. You would be gobsmacked.
My toe hurts I don’t think I can work.
I just got my period.
Someone said something mean to me.
I feel faint
I had a server who had great potential. 21-22 I think. Gap in resume for the last year. No car and depending on parents etc to drive them to work. “I have a deal with my parents that if I can commit to, and succeed at, a new job for a month - they’ll help me buy a car.
Great worker. For a week. Second, third, fourth week - worked 1/5 shifts. Anxiety, couldn’t work with coworkers, stomach ache.
We had to let them go. Kept coming to work but would walk into town so that parents wouldn’t know we had to let them go.
It’s rampant. It’s nuts I tell you. You wouldn’t believe the stuff we see. I spend my days stupefied
That is the experience of two people, but I seem to hear echoes of that refrain around and about, and many businesses are most certainly enduring labour shortages.
What do you hear or perceive in your corner of the world?
My son the reliable is finding his manager is keeping him on evening hours indefinitely, deli worker, because he's so short of people he can trust to work the entire shift, do the legally required cleanup of food cutting equipment and close securely. People keep flouncing away mid shift, or failing to show at all. The pay has been going up steadily, the hours predictable, but it's still hard to recruit and retain staff.
ReplyDeleteWe don't have garbage service out here.
ReplyDeleteCoffee is on and stay safe
I don't get out enough to have any useful observations. I think, however, that our rural county has a pretty strong work ethic--jobs were hard to come by for many years and people tended to try to hold on to them. The younger generation may be different.
ReplyDeleteIn a way, I've heard this same narrative a long time ago, when I was in my 20's, 50 years ago. "These kids today, they don't know how hard we had it..."
ReplyDeleteI'm not saying it doesn't mean there might be a lack of motivation, and the youngers might feel they are at a disadvantage, compared to their parent's.
It just seems there isn't much new under the sun, that, as the song goes "...and the circle, goes round and round..."
I find it curious that so many young people don't seem to have much of a work ethic. Odd, when hours and salary are quite acceptable.
ReplyDeleteI sometimes think that with all the jobs out there someone takes one then sees a better one at more pay. Jumping from job to job.
ReplyDelete"I am not a regular staff here..." or "I am here on agency ..." are what I saw in my line of work. Most would quickly retreat to their corners browsing on their phones. This is the work ethics these days.
ReplyDeleteI see help wanted signs up and down every manufacturing street, and jaw dropping pay rates.
ReplyDeleteI don't see that a lot but I also don't go out much. I've heard stories though too; they concern me greatly. Both my girls are hard workers (in their 30s) but lack any kind of job security which makes even the best worker unmotivated.
ReplyDeleteA friend working in security tells a story of a guard who left his post ten minutes into a shift saying it was too cold.
ReplyDeleteIt was mid teens.
I'll have to admit that I'm out of the loop.
ReplyDeleteI have a good friend in a retirement home and yes, that is her experience. So very scary, really. Are these the helicopter kids, maybe?
ReplyDeleteJust to mention the other side - my 17 yr old grandkid worked a vegetable stand all one summer and never missed an unplanned day. (She did ask for one weekend off to go and compete in a track meet.) She never missed track practice either.
Being retired, I'm kind of out of the loop too. I know my kids work very hard. I also know a lot of businesses are having a terrible time getting people to hire. I don't know what the solution is.
ReplyDeleteI have a forty year old daughter who is on 'light duty' for the third time this summer. I tried to tell her that this is going to cost her a job. They won't fire her, but they will give her less and less hours until she finally takes another job. I can't talk to her. She gets so very angry. "What am I supposed to do?" I don't bother to tell her that when your glasses get broken at work, you don't leave for the day to make an appointment to get new glasses. You call. You make the appointment, and then request the day off in advance. You don't request light duty because you get migraines when you don't wear your glasses. When your thumb gets hyperextended, you might want to report it in case it turns out to be a big deal later, but you don't need to leave work to go to the emergency room immediately, and go on light duty for two weeks until you have a second x-ray done to verify that the first x-ray (which showed nothing) is correct.
ReplyDeleteI can't fix this. I wait for the inevitable, and she will be hysterical, because it was not her fault.