Old School Way

I have thought about all of that too PG, and there is no doubt that you are correct. And there is not doubt that I can get caught up in 'the way it was.'

There are, however, some things that just are not 'better' just because they are new ideas. As you mentioned, the 'drug culture' that was introduced by a previous generation...not better. The 'old school' was right on that one...now we have teenagers who tell me, 'Whats the big deal old man?' Nope, that is not better.

This comment caught my eye...

quote:

One other thing has never changed over the past thousand years. Those who work the hardest seem to be rewarded the most.

So true, so very true. Yet we do see in the workforce now with the under-30 crowd...a sense that they're all equally entitled to the rewards. A result of them all getting trophies in youth s-o-c-c-e-r? Don't know, but the most common 'complaint' I hear from the under-30 crowd is, 'If Joe down the hall got a raise and I've been here the same amount of time, why didn't I get one too?'

Well, Joe just worked harder. Yet that answer doesn't seem satisfactory to too many. To me, this is not 'better' either.

quote:

Originally posted by justbaseball:

So true, so very true. Yet we do see in the workforce now with the under-30 crowd...a sense that they're all equally entitled to the rewards. A result of them all getting trophies in youth s-o-c-c-e-r? Don't know, but the most common 'complaint' I hear from the under-30 crowd is, 'If Joe down the hall got a raise and I've been here the same amount of time, why didn't I get one too?'

Well, Joe just worked harder. Yet that answer doesn't seem satisfactory to too many. To me, this is not 'better' either.

But is this really a problem with todays younger employees? I remember back in 1991 getting a job with two other guys with a start up company. Boss told us we would make $5 an hour. He walked off and one of the other guys said "Thats BS. I guess I will give him $5 an hour worth of work." I responded "Then you will always get paid $5 an hour. You have to prove you are worth more money before you make more money."

I hate to step on a hornets nest, but arent unions set up on time put in, not merit? I remember about the same time frame, a guy I knew worked at a grocery store and got a raise after working a set number of hours. Him and a co worker could work the same number of hours and both get the same raise, no matter how hard they both worked.

I dont know if this is really "entitlement" or not, but we have had these type of things going on for a while.

I think complaining about participation trophies, or equal playing time are what us old people like to use as an excuse as to why the youth of today are soft. Yeah, they seem softer then us, but I think they will be fine. The hard working youth will lead the way.

Our workplace is full of 'professional' engineers, making good money who graduated with 3.5's or above, most with graduate degrees. So they know how to work hard, yet they complain when the other guy works harder. The 35 crowd does not. The 50 crowd does not. Maturity? Maybe.

Just seems odd and 'different' to me. But maybe in fact, I am showing my age?

PGStaff,

I agree with your assesment 100%. There are entire industry's in this country that are based on convincing people times have never been worse and can only go downhill from here. For example, it is noteworthy today as the Dow crosses about 13,000, if you have listened to most of the financial pundits the last couple of years, you have missed a great investment opportunity. And on, and on, ....

We should always be prudent in our actions and not foolhardy in deed. However, every once in a while, let's acknowledge that we live in a great time and a great place (United States).

Not meaning to be preachy, but the writings below kinda put things in perspective. From the wisest man to ever live and in the King's Enlish for effect.

Ecclesiastes 1

1 The words of the Preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem.2 Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity.3 What profit hath a man of all his labour which he taketh under the sun?

4 One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh: but the earth abideth for ever.5 The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and hasteth to his place where he arose.s6 The wind goeth toward the south, and turneth about unto the north; it whirleth about continually, and the wind returneth again according to his circuits.7 All the rivers run into the sea; yet the sea is not full; unto the place from whence the rivers come, thither they return again.s8 All things are full of labour; man cannot utter it: the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing.

9 The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.10 Is there any thing whereof it may be said, See, this is new? it hath been already of old time, which was before us.11 There is no remembrance of former things; neither shall there be any remembrance of things that are to come with those that shall come after.

12 I the Preacher was king over Israel in Jerusalem.13 And I gave my heart to seek and search out by wisdom concerning all things that are done under heaven: this sore travail hath God given to the sons of man to be exercised therewith.s14 I have seen all the works that are done under the sun; and, behold, all is vanity and vexation of spirit.15 That which is crooked cannot be made straight: and that which is wanting cannot be numbered.s16 I communed with mine own heart, saying, Lo, I am come to great estate, and have gotten more wisdom than all they that have been before me in Jerusalem: yea, my heart had great experience of wisdom and knowledge.s17 And I gave my heart to know wisdom, and to know madness and folly: I perceived that this also is vexation of spirit.18 For in much wisdom is much grief: and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow.

quote:

Yet we do see in the workforce now with the under-30 crowd...a sense that they're all equally entitled to the rewards.

There is a sense of entitlement. It used to be work hard and you will be rewarded. Now it is work hard and when you get your reward you have to apologize to those who demonize you for being successful.

I could be wrong, but when younger I have had jobs other than baseball in my life. I saw people of all ages work hard and people of all ages that were lazy. I once had a job in a factory, grinding metal doors. I would work hard and grind as many doors as possible. Others who were older would just do their quota and take it easy. Those people would get mad at me for working so hard. I was on the low end of the pay scale. Ended up getting in trouble because I yanked someone's beard who was always giving me a hard time. I think they were going to fire me, so I quit!

Not so sure how good of an example that would be for the young kids of today.

In my 30 years as a businessman and part time university lecturer, I have seen no correlation between age and hard work. I have noticed that the people who don't work hard to do so at every age.

Someone must have studied that. Let me do a little research. My guess is that studies show that young people work slightly harder than older people because of economic mobility(the younger you are the greater the relative benefit of success). But, thats just a guess.

PG, I think that you are entirely correct with what you are saying. I get soooo tired of hearing about today’s “entitled youth” caused by “participation trophies” when they were small kids. What a bunch of hooey. I’m in my mid-forties and from what I’ve seen:

- Most kids today work much harder than we ever did when we were their age.

o My son is a freshman in high school. He (and most of his friends) takes advanced classes that will not only help him get into a better college – but that will actually defray the costs later on (AP courses, dual credit, etc.). He does the work and gets the grades.
o When he’s not in school, he’s either playing or practicing one of his two chosen sports. Oh yeah, part of the year he’s working out to get ready for one while he’s still playing the other. Basketball workouts start in late September and the season ends in February and baseball goes almost year round. He takes baseball off completely in August and November but is doing something the rest of the time. Why? Because making high school teams are hard these days. More kids and more kids who are pretty darn good. 46 freshmen tried out for 16 spots on the freshman basketball team. A lot of good kids didn’t make it. Baseball tryouts start next week. There are no telling how many will come out for the 14 open spots.
o In addition to sports, he’s also on the debate team. Seven times this school year he’s left school at noon on Friday for a tournament, arrived home at 11:30 PM, had to be back at the school by 6:15 a.m. and not arrived home again until 6 PM. When he does make it home he more tired than he ever is after a baseball tournament.
o And it’s not just my kid. Most of his friends have similar schedules. Sure there are some that don’t have the same academic or sports rigors, but they have other interests… and some even have jobs! It’s true that there are a few that aren’t really that motivated about anything. But you know what; I had a bunch of friends like that when I was young too.
o In my job I get a chance to see a bunch of interns as well as a number of kids that are starting their first “real” job. Yeah, they still go out and have fun, but they get to work on time, do their job, and take pride in what they are doing. They work as hard as or harder than many of their older “peers.”
o Most of these young whippersnappers are smarter than some of us older crowd too. They’ve recognized a new reality – (1) they probably won’t be employed by the same company throughout their career and (2) that company views them as a resource – nothing more, nothing less. They’ve seen their parents work their rear ends off for a company only to be shown the door as the company “right sizes.” So, they try and get everything out of that job they possibly can – whether it be more money, training, experience, etc. Because as soon as that company has an option for a different resource that’s either more productive or cheaper, they’re out the door without a Hi, bye, or KMA. Loyalty, like Elvis, has long since left the building.
o They work to live not live to work. That’s probably not a bad idea for everyone.
o I did a lot of stuff in college that I don’t do now. I’m pretty sure that many of those kids will be the same.

My son has at least 40 trophies/medals that he got playing pre-high school sports. Maybe 5 or 6 of those were “participation” trophies while the rest were the result of his team placing first or second in a tournament. He has no idea what the majority of the tournament medals were for (he kept them in a drawer in his room until his Mom bought something for us to hang them on) nor can he remember much about the games that led up to them being awarded.

But he still remembers the first trophy he got for playing with some of his friends on his first “real” baseball team back in the city where we used to live. His team played up a year and finished in the lower half of an 8 team league. But, they did give the eventual league champion their one and only loss for the season. He and his teammates got a participation trophy at the end of the season. He still has that trophy on display and we still talk about that game from time to time.

Yeah, kids are no doubt different than when I was young. But lazy or entitled? I don’t think so.

I think some of the things you're describing PG have been going on forever. When you're younger and less secure in yourself and your position on a job I think many of us look over our shoulders to see who is coming up and what they're doing and making. As most people mature and become more secure we do our jobs with less concern about others. More concerned with our families and it's future.

I don't think participation trophies have anything to do with entitlement or lack thereof. Obviously parents, and the household, have much more influence on a child's attitude than whether he/she got a trophy for participation in 8 yo rec socker.

IMO human nature is such that things always seemed simpler, better and a little tougher for the one looking back. So I definitely agree with your last paragraph PG.

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In my 30 years as a businessman and part time university lecturer, I have seen no correlation between age and hard work. I have noticed that the people who don't work hard to do so at every age.

Let me be clear...neither have I. I just see a higher number of the younger folks not being able to correlate work ethic with rewards.

Maybe by the time you are older, you figure out how to assess that with yourself better? I don't know. We have a lot of management discussions on how to help some of these younger folks draw a solid line from work output to rewards. There was a whole conference on it here last week which suggests that it is real?

Not trying to create controversy here.

I used to work at a well-known Fortune 500 technology company and we used to joke that six guys did all the work and everyone else was there for the ride...

You can't just look at hard work. You also have to look at efficiency. Some people can appear to bust their humps and at the end of the day, get almost nothing accomplished.

I've worked with people who were always raising objections on why something couldn't get done rather than rolling up their sleeves and finding a solution. Some in management found these "objectors" to be valuable to the organization but I saw them as merely looking for a way to get out of work.

It's easy to find reasons why something cannot get done. Valuable employees come up with solutions and they never come back to their bosses empty-handed. Some people talk a good game but in my experience, there are only a handful of producers. In my way of thinking, old-school guys produce and new-school guys find excuses.

quote:

Originally posted by leftyshortstop:
My guess is that studies show that young people work slightly harder than older people because of economic mobility(the younger you are the greater the relative benefit of success). But, thats just a guess.

I'm with KC Dawg.
It may not be true everywhere, but in my area kids graduating in the top 10% of their class today are working probably twice as hard as they did in my day. I also see it in the discipline they exhibit improving their baseball skills (we may have "played" a lot, but these kids "work.")

I think the biggest difference today is the fast pace of change - My grandmamas for example worked extremely hard for very little. They each lived in the same house for about 80 years. The TVs lasted 20 years, and the phones were rented from the phone company, and the interior was boring beige.... because it lasted. Today, there seems to be so much pressure to have the newest shinny thing - just think, in 20 years we have gone from from car phones with sketchy service to a "computer" phone with more power than NASA had in the 60s when they sent a man to the moon! We, including our generation, seem to measure so much by how much money we make - how much we accumulate, our grannies, living in the same houses for 80 plus years, don't appear successful by that standard.

I would make one minor change to the hard work theory - I think the hardest workers are those with a goal in mind. You can work hard and still toil in the same situation for years, but a series of goals gets you moving forward. Isn't there a saying about success breeding hard work?

"fast pace of change" - Mom! OMG! The pace of change is as fast or slow as it ever was. Probably slower now. You sound like Mark Twain. Which is fine except Mark Twain was born in 1835 and was a lot funnier than the rest of us..... I only say that because I am reading Twain's biography on my Kindle... which is actually just like a book... so is really no change at all... which is another thing Twain was saying with humor...which seems to be lost here...that human nature doesn't change...even if TV's get replaced every five years.

PG, great post.

I would add that boldness factors in with the hard work. Combine hard work with a willingness to try new challenges, learn new technologies, etc, and things will go well.

I mention this because I am at the point in my career where I can see that I passed some folks not just by working hard (they were hard workers) but by taking on new challenges and risking failure.

I was going to say fearlessness, not boldness, but then I recalled being scared silly, but still pushing forward.

One thing I love about baseball (or in my case, softball) is it teaches failure as a part of life, part of progress. HUGE lesson.

technology/medicine etc..... fast change of pace... people can't wait to buy the newest shinny thing, 'cause in a year it will be replaced with the newest shinny thing ... wow, a Kindle.... love mine too, just like a book - but should I buy the Fire now.... ? lol (think you missed my point)

Human nature is the same as it ever was....

love Mark Twain, great insightful witty.... can't help but think you are miss-reading a bit, esp if you compare me to him? :-) but thank you...

quote:

Originally posted by PGStaff:
I could be wrong, but when younger I have had jobs other than baseball in my life. I saw people of all ages work hard and people of all ages that were lazy. I once had a job in a factory, grinding metal doors. I would work hard and grind as many doors as possible. Others who were older would just do their quota and take it easy. Those people would get mad at me for working so hard. I was on the low end of the pay scale. Ended up getting in trouble because I yanked someone's beard who was always giving me a hard time. I think they were going to fire me, so I quit!

Not so sure how good of an example that would be for the young kids of today.

When I was 16 my Dad got me a job in a factory so I would learn the value of college. I was working in a Dept. that made electrical switches and my job was to strighten the metal parts in a row and tighten the screws holding it together. There was a shelf that had 10 boxes of 500 pieces each sitting on it. I whisteled through them in about a 2 1/2 days. You'll never believe how mad those old people (most were in their 40's) were at me for doing that becasue I had totally showed them up. I had done as much work in 20 hours as 3 people did in a week.

It was 1979 and that plant is overseas now.

Like any other generation - they face new challenges - are better at a bunch of things - and worse at a bunch of things.

I think the biggest challenge most will face is an economic future that is as daunting as this country has ever seen - short of the Great Depression.

That will be the younger generation's biggest challenge.

The problems created by our leadership - or lack thereof - are not just going to go away. In fact - like an earthquake (the last 4 years) the aftershocks are sometimes worse.

I am an optimistic realist. I always believe there are solutions for every problem - but you need to be honest about the problems first - before you solve them.

That doesnt exist currently. And that is what will prompt many a sleepless night for the younger generation in this country. They face immense economic challenges and I fear we havent even touched the surface yet.