Greenspan: Gen Xers pretty much suck at working

One other factor. With the rise of women in the workplace, there's more competition for jobs.

In the 1950s, there were primarily men working. They could get higher wages because women stayed at home.

http://www.bls.gov/mlr/1993/11/art1full.pdf

Nowadays, both parents are working, which ironically, is depressing wages. Instead of just men competing against just half the population, now there's twice the available pool of competiton.

Not saying it's wrong, by no means. Just one of the byproducts.

 

I believe the work ethic is supposed to come before the real money. You've got it backwards, my friend.

 

Don't forget gas lines and disco. The hell we didn't inherit a shitty situation.

 

And don't forget that flip-flops are acceptable office attire and free Starbucks in the company cafeteria.

 

Didn't George Jetson only work 9 hours a week?

 

These 15 young people disagree with Mr. Greenspan.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/small-business/start/talent/torontos-hottest-young-entrepreneurs/article2088515/

 

I'm a Gen Xer and I've never called in sick to work a day in my life. So your anecdotal evidence apparently isn't entirely representative.

 

Well, and to be fair, the last three places I've worked have operated on a system where all the PTO goes into one hat. And I'm damn sure using all of that -- although if they paid me for unused days, who knows what I'd do.

 

Vacation days are earned.

Sick days are for . . . when you are sick. There may not be nobility in it, but there's honesty in it. You are being paid to work (if you are physically able).

I do not even care for using sick days because a kid is sick. You're healthy. Use a vacation day. Other people have to do your job, and do it on short notice.

 

20 years ago and longer, sure. You worked hard, your bosses saw that, and they rewarded you. That's not happening now.

Problem is, especially in the newspaper industry, people have worked their asses off only to receive paycuts and/or layoff notices.

After a while, you tend to become very cynical about things. When I first started working at the paper where I stayed for a long time before being laid off, I wanted everything perfect. I was finding errors in the copy that no one else would find. I would get upset if an error made its way in the paper. I busted my hump. My bosses thought I was great.

Yet, I never got ahead. If I was lucky, I'd get a 3 percent raise that would get eaten up by health insurance premium increases. A couple of years, it was 2 percent, and in one memorable year of corporate's poverty crying, I, and everyone else, got a 1 percent raise. Whoop-de-damn do.

Meanwhile, work piled up because people weren't replaced. My duties increased. And after a while, I saw what corporate was doing. They didn't care about the quality. So, I figured, why should I?

Stuff that I used to catch, I didn't, mostly because I didn't have time. But when I did have a few spare minutes, I wasn't giving that extra effort that I used to do, and that I could have done. If it was late at night, and I was tired, I'd just scan over things, rather than give it an intense read.

Like I said, loyalty is a two-way street. I'll work hard. But I expect to be rewarded. That means, if you give me 50 hours of work, I expect to get paid for 50 hours, not 40. A pat on the back looks great, but it makes for a lousy meal.

 

You should feel guilty about it if they are in fact sick days. If they are PTO and it's all in the same pot, it's fair game, but if they are sick days you are really fucking over your fellow workers, for one thing, and you are violating the spirit of the privilege you're granted.

Obviously you don't give two shits about the person sitting next to you, but consider: Many companies have accrual policies, whereby unused sick days go into a bank that are rolled over in case a person gets really ill and has to miss weeks or months of work. But because people like you feel entitled to take "mental health" days or whatever you call them, companies are by and large taking away the accruals.

 

Not really. As I was telling my Dad about the latest chainsaw massacre to come at Tribune Company, he told me he sweated layoffs every time a new administration would come to power in Washington. And when I graduated college, unemployment was more than 10 percent. Obviously hard-working people were getting laid off 20 and 30 years ago, too.

If you only look at things from the early 1990s until the first part of this decade, you are getting a much rosier picture than the history of this country deserves.

If you tell him, "I'm taking a sick day because I need to take the dog to the vet" and he has no problem with it, that's fine.

If you tell him, "I'm taking a sick day because I don't feel well" or don't tell him anything beyond "I'm taking a sick day" and then you take your dog to the vet, you are not pulling your weight. And you are being dishonest because you knew he would have a problem with the real reason you are not there.