It’s a generational thing rant.

[okgb]

Did I miss any updates on this Pucho? [ It's been a year or so? ]

It seems to start out innocently enough where kids are not. " held back " [ you can't say failed anymore ] in grade school so as not to damage their self esteem but then it seems like you can't even correct them because that would be criticising them. And where the exposure & demographic marketing of many things gets lower in age you have to start preparing elementary school kids for mental health issues so they can cope as adults. I worked as a T.A. in a high school for a few years, In classes of about 25, there would be one or two who " got it " and you knew they would do well in whatever they pursued, the rest ? just trying to get through it.

 

[pucho812]

Did I miss any updates on this Pucho? [ It's been a year or so? ]

It seems to start out innocently enough where kids are not. " held back " [ you can't say failed anymore ] in grade school so as not to damage their self esteem but then it seems like you can't even correct them because that would be criticising them. And where the exposure & demographic marketing of many things gets lower in age you have to start preparing elementary school kids for mental health issues so they can cope as adults. I worked as a T.A. in a high school for a few years, In classes of about 25, there would be one or two who " got it " and you knew they would do well in whatever they pursued, the rest ? just trying to get through it.

He got better. He got the right talking to and really started to catch what’s important.

 

[cyrano]

I can understand people who refuse 60+ hour workweeks perfectly. It's a modern form of slavery. You get paid for forty hours, the rest is free. Free for your boss, that is. And you may hope he will reward you some day. Believers believe. All too often, they end up disappointed. That's how you grow terrorists: with promises. Virgins in heaven, promotion next year. Or the year after, of course. If the company doesn't fail...

Mostly unseen in Europe, but very real for the rest of the world, of course, with the USA on top. Of course, we all are socialists and that's about as bad as satanists.

The same goes for no longer believing in the holy cow, the car.

We'll have to face that some things might change. I believe most of the change will be for the better.

At least, Pinky has fooled a lot of people by playing a dumb blonde. It seems that stereotype still works. I knew these, cause my son and some of his friends are big fans. The know very well it's not real. Apparently, some here will believe anything if it suits one of their stereotypes. I have to admit she's funny. You should try Uncle Roger next

 

[cyrano]

Scary.. Was telling my son that there are places in like Idaho or Nebraska that have towns of 1k people and such where home prices are where they were decades ago. Nice houses and towns too. But then there's the issue of it being such a small town, it makes you wonder how much money you can really make there....

Italy and Japan are on my radar for when I retire. In both countries, you get a wad of cash with a house in some areas. Japan faces a declining population. Italy in the south sees it's people moving for work. Now who's gonna up the bid and offer me an island? Australia had a job offer that came with an island. But that's work, hardly suited for retirement. My Italian is better than my japanese, but South Italy might be too hot by then.

I had a friend who moved to the USA, decades ago. He bought a fierce piece of land in one of the less populated states and lived on the money the state gave him for not keeping pigs. Haven't seen him in decades. Wonder how he's doing?

 

[cyrano]

Regardless of educational background, young people do not seem to have the drive, ambition and desire to work hard. I represented employment agencies and my wife has managed retail clothing stores for decades - and both sources tell me young people currently do not know how to make change and cannot figure basic fractions or percentages with or without a calculator. And they do not seem to understand they must work and earn the money they receive. It is a constant fight to keep cell phones off the work floor. It requires constant effort to motivate them to initiate action and be self-propelled. They seem to think they are entitled to a paycheck, just for being there. And this is reported throughout many industries and business types - it is not a myth or misunderstanding among generations. It is endemic to the species and it is not appear to be getting better over time. You would be amazed at how many young people (high school graduates and older) take their Moms with them to job interviews. I can go on, but I stopped hiring anyone under 50 years of age, and eventually spent the last several years of my career working entirely alone - making me more productive and greatly increasing my income beyond what I could make with any number of secretaries - retiring at 50 years of age, because I was willing to work hard when I was at the office. Nowadays, I cannot find anyone interested in working - for example, a small carpentry job goes unfilfilled because I cannot get anyone willing to do it. Certainly, nobody wants to work on weekends - whereas I recall all of my friends, and their Dads, all working on weekends to make a little more money to improve their situation. Now I cannot find anyone to do it at all, on any day of the week. If it is not a whole house, they would rather watch the game on Saturday PM. Point is - I do not think we are better off today than we were previously. And I do not feel folks are as willing to work as they were before. Just my take - your mileage may differ. James

I know the type. It's been a while since I hired anyone. But I've also seen competent engineers answering a question wrong because they figured the question was too simple. Math and writing are no longer common knowledge.

There's a shortage of nurses and caretakers over here. That's partly because schools stopped painting a rosy picture of the job. It's been hard, due to covid and that has taken its toll. But it's better because we get less people who leave the job after just a few years. Those we have, are generally motivated. When I look at the numbers, we'll have to make do anyway. There are more elderly and they live longer and longer. You can't beat the math.

And bars and restaurants can't get personnel. Nobody wants their 60+ hours workweek. Honestly, that sector needs a clean-up. They will be eaten by newer stuff. The first seven-eleven opened here too. Open 7/7 from 5 in the morning 'till 2 o'clock at night. Gas station with mini supermarket. Bake-off four times a day. That will change things too. Especially, for the many, many night shops. But that's another sector that needs to be weeded.

Fortunately, we can still order anything from China...

 

[JohnRoberts]

I know the type. It's been a while since I hired anyone. But I've also seen competent engineers answering a question wrong because they figured the question was too simple. Math and writing are no longer common knowledge.

Math is still required for engineering, or knowing how to operate a calculator.

Back in the 70s when I was operating a kit business, a lot of my customers were engineering students who were tasked with changing an existing design for course credit. I published design equations with my kit articles making them attractive to lazy (clever) students. As I recall their language skills seemed well below average in my judgement, and I was not an english major..

There's a shortage of nurses and caretakers over here. That's partly because schools stopped painting a rosy picture of the job. It's been hard, due to covid and that has taken its toll. But it's better because we get less people who leave the job after just a few years. Those we have, are generally motivated. When I look at the numbers, we'll have to make do anyway. There are more elderly and they live longer and longer. You can't beat the math.

And bars and restaurants can't get personnel. Nobody wants their 60+ hours workweek. Honestly, that sector needs a clean-up. They will be eaten by newer stuff. The first seven-eleven opened here too. Open 7/7 from 5 in the morning 'till 2 o'clock at night. Gas station with mini supermarket. Bake-off four times a day. That will change things too. Especially, for the many, many night shops. But that's another sector that needs to be weeded.

or allowed to let free markets decide

Fortunately, we can still order anything from China...

I just read an article about China the other day. The new crop of "educated" youths don't want to accept lowly manual labor jobs, like their parents worked. Some wealthy chinese parents are paying their kids to live at home and just be kids (not sure if this is real or fake news).

JR

 

[cyrano]

China is a big, crazy country, John. Anything goes, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's common...

Leaving education to free enterprise leads to differentiation. Not what education needs. It would mean the best schools are also the most expensive. The problem over here is there are very few alternatives for kids who really are school sick. Those that are available seem to work perfectly, even if they're all just temporary. But a lot of the school sick kids stay in school, because they're legally obliged to. Turns some schools into ummm... problem areas?

 

[sahib]

I can understand people who refuse 60+ hour workweeks perfectly. It's a modern form of slavery. You get paid for forty hours, the rest is free. Free for your boss, that is. And you may hope he will reward you some day. Believers believe. All too often, they end up disappointed. That's how you grow terrorists: with promises. Virgins in heaven, promotion next year. Or the year after, of course. If the company doesn't fail...

I'll pick you up on this.

You are right to a degree. When we hear the work conditions in places like Amazon Warehouses or self employed courier guys who get paid literally in pennies per delivery.

But this does not mean that small businesses are all cashing in at the back of their employees. The type of hours you mention is generally in catering and hospitality sector. I am not sure how it is in your country, but here I take my hat off to these restaurants and cafés. I would say, average rent and rates for a modest size of café is £30k per annum. That's £2.5k per month before the wages, electricity, gas and the rest. With a 4-5 staff you are looking into at least £15k -£20k outgoings per month. If your profit margin is 100% you have to take in £40k a month to break even. And you had invested at least another £20k-£30k in fittings and appliances that you have to recover.
But when the enterprise fails they walk into another job and you pick up the debts.

However, I would still understand if people do not want to work for 60+ hours a week, but calling it a modern day slavery is way too cliché. We have no idea what it is to be a slave. So, let's not cheapen that word.

And growing terrorists? Come on buddy, please!

 

[cyrano]

It's a cliché, for sure. But I couldn't find a better word for it and didn't want to spend hours contemplating...

The problem with cafés and restaurants over here is, that there are simply, mathematically, too many. Including high-end restaurants. If you have no idea what to do in life, people tend to open a bar, or sell used cars. That explains why there are too many.

To the uninitiated, running a bar sounds simple and cosy. The numbers you cite show me you know better. Still, you got to have another skill: know your punters. I know a couple of guys who take over bars that aren't doing well. They jack up the business in less than a year and sell the joint. Usually, six months later, it's an empty bar, again. I have no idea how exactly that happens, but they repeat it every time. Looks like their audience follows than faithfully wherever they go.

 

[Tubetec]

Growing terrorists , that doesnt sound all that far fetched to me ,
Is any society if you segregate and treat a group like second class citizens thats exactly what happens ,
they end up anti state .
We teach fledgeling states how to wage war and supply them with weapons , then they turn into despotic regimes for a finish , that fosters and seeds terrorism .
Whats so difficult to understand about it ?

 

[sahib]

Same here. Cafes everywhere and competition is stiff. But this is more reason for me to have huge respect to them. Isn't it good that they take on the risk and provide jobs? I hope you do not mind me saying this, but it is very easy to say that they should try other skills. Not everybody have the chops to be engineers or a musicians or whatever. People have to make a living and this is obviously the thing they feel they can do.

Normally, these types of minimum wage jobs are what I would call passing jobs. Generally young people come into these jobs, say, when they are studying. It is a temporary thing. They graduate and move onto better paid jobs. But the problem becomes when one can not make that leap. That's when the resentment kicks in.

Incidentally, the same thing applies to immigration. Generally, new coming immigrants take on these low level jobs and the indigenous moves up the socio economic ladder. When that can not happen, again the resentment from indigenous steps in. Worse, when the immigrant moves up the social ladder. When Rishi Sunak became the prime minister there were some idiots demonstrating outside the parliament with placards reading something like Britain needs a Christian prime minister.

However, the bottom line is that, it is only natural that we have these minimum wage jobs. It is simply not possible to pay £50k for security guards.

 

[user 37518]

Back in the 70s when I was operating a kit business, a lot of my customers were engineering students who were tasked with changing an existing design for course credit. I published design equations with my kit articles making them attractive to lazy (clever) students. As I recall their language skills seemed well below average in my judgement, and I was not an english major..

People like you are currently giving me a major headache. Let me elaborate: During the pandemic, a lot of "entrepreneurs" (grifters, actually) saw a niche during online classes to offer their services for a fee. Their services basically consist on making all the homework for students, also, since labs were closed, many teachers resorted to ask for simulated results; these companies also made the entire circuit and simulation files for them. In many cases, they even solved online tests for the students; even if you proctored the test it was extremely difficult to keep track of everyone and everything. Long story short, pandemic is over, and many of these companies are still around wreaking havoc.

 

[sahib]

People like you are currently giving me a major headache. Let me elaborate: During the pandemic, a lot of "entrepreneurs" (grifters, actually) saw a niche during online classes to offer their services for a fee. Their services basically consist on making all the homework for students, also, since labs were closed, many teachers resorted to ask for simulated results; these companies also made the entire circuit and simulation files for them. In many cases, they even solved online tests for the students; even if you proctored the test it was extremely difficult to keep track of everyone and everything. Long story short, pandemic is over, and many of these companies are still around wreaking havoc.

I have mentioned before that I got my degree lately (two years ago). During the pandemic, 4th year second semester was taken from home. Exams were naturally taken from home too. As one would expect people came out with unusually high marks, thanks to cheating. A couple of months ago I went back to the uni to drop off some books that I did not need, so that they could be given away to other students, and had a coffee with my (favourite) lecturer. He said that now the pandemic is over the students are dropping like flies in exams as there is no way to cheat.

I had exam phobia when I was at school and that continued to my college years (back in late '70s). When I went back to the university after almost 40 years, I thought it would go away but it all came back even worse. In all exams I got all nervous, my hand would contract and I literally could not write. It is a wonder that I passed them all. However, my own Covid exams experience is that I was taking the robotics exam from home and my broadband dropped out. When I logged back on the system locked me out. I emailed to the lecturer (my favourite guy), he tried for a while without any success. So, he e-mailed me the exam material as pdf in the last half hour and asked me to manually do it and e-mail him back, and signed off by saying ' I trust you'. First I could not understand what he meant by that. But when I opened the pdf and there was all the questions and with the answers below. That put another pressure on me and I got even worse. Not that I would do it, but I could not even cheat and barely passed with 45. If I cheated a few marks I could have got my 1st class. So, I missed out on it by only a few marks.

 

[JohnRoberts]

People like you are currently giving me a major headache. Let me elaborate: During the pandemic, a lot of "entrepreneurs" (grifters, actually) saw a niche during online classes to offer their services for a fee. Their services basically consist on making all the homework for students, also, since labs were closed, many teachers resorted to ask for simulated results; these companies also made the entire circuit and simulation files for them. In many cases, they even solved online tests for the students; even if you proctored the test it was extremely difficult to keep track of everyone and everything. Long story short, pandemic is over, and many of these companies are still around wreaking havoc.

Sorry (but not really). My intention was not to help people cheat, it was always to inform and educate. By publishing my design equations I provided some better insight into how things worked.

Students are lazy and several figured out they could solve their course problems using my published design equations. They still had to do the work....(make and explain design modifications). I'd like to think my kits actually helped their education.

JR

 

[user 37518]

Sorry (but not really). My intention was not to help people cheat, it was always to inform and educate. By publishing my design equations I provided some better insight into how things worked.

Students are lazy and several figured out they could solve their course problems using my published design equations. They still had to do the work....(make and explain design modifications). I'd like to think my kits actually helped their education.

JR

I was trying to be a bit sarcastic, the mention of you was meant more as humor than a complaint. Yes, your case is much more different, these people are literally doing all the work for them.

 

[user 37518]

I have mentioned before that I got my degree lately (two years ago). During the pandemic, 4th year second semester was taken from home. Exams were naturally taken from home too. As one would expect people came out with unusually high marks, thanks to cheating. A couple of months ago I went back to the uni to drop off some books that I did not need, so that they could be given away to other students, and had a coffee with my (favourite) lecturer. He said that now the pandemic is over the students are dropping like flies in exams as there is no way to cheat.

I had exam phobia when I was at school and that continued to my college years (back in late '70s). When I went back to the university after almost 40 years, I thought it would go away but it all came back even worse. In all exams I got all nervous, my hand would contract and I literally could not write. It is a wonder that I passed them all. However, my own Covid exams experience is that I was taking the robotics exam from home and my broadband dropped out. When I logged back on the system locked me out. I emailed to the lecturer (my favourite guy), he tried for a while without any success. So, he e-mailed me the exam material as pdf in the last half hour and asked me to manually do it and e-mail him back, and signed off by saying ' I trust you'. First I could not understand what he meant by that. But when I opened the pdf and there was all the questions and with the answers below. That put another pressure on me and I got even worse. Not that I would do it, but I could not even cheat and barely passed with 45. If I cheated a few marks I could have got my 1st class. So, I missed out on it by only a few marks.

Yes, students are dropping like flies. But it is even worse, there are many who are close to graduating and they know absolutely nothing. A student once confessed to me that, during the pandemic, he cheated all his way through almost every semester, and now that we are back, he is stuck in the last semesters because all his teachers keep failing him. Others are forced to drop out.

But another phenomena is now happening, since students are dropping like flies, the GPA of the entire class is so low that professors are forced to grade on a curve, otherwise the entire class fails every subject; basically all the students of a major enrolled for a specific semester would fail. This applies to every level. And when I mean low (I guess it depends on the grading system of each country) I mean that the class average is between 1/10 and 2/10, where 6/10 is the minimum passing grade. So many of the students are not even trying since they know they will probably "get help". Still, even when grading on a curve, around 2/3 of the class fails the course. It is a disaster, really.

Moral of the story: In the future, watch out when you go to the doctor's office and make sure that your physician got his/her degree before 2019.

 

[JohnRoberts]

Moral of the story: In the future, watch out when you go to the doctor's office and make sure that your physician got his/her degree before 2019.

Do you want to be operated on by a diversity hire, or meritocracy?

JR

 

[user 37518]

Do you want to be operated on by a diversity hire, or meritocracy?

JR

The latter of course, not sure why you ask the question though....

 

[Tubetec]

Diversity or 'white' meritocracy,
Westernism is being replaced by people more hungry for the basics in life .
Houston ,we have a problem .
its called becoming a victim of our own success.

 

[crazydoc]

Moral of the story: In the future, watch out when you go to the doctor's office and make sure that your physician got his/her degree before 2019.

You are obviously ignorant of the nature of medical education in the USA. You might want to educate yourself before you make such embarassingly foolish statements.