Mr_Asa said:Pete. (l33t FS) said:I am also all but certain that the restaurant industry requires it to function
That or coke.
I was a line cook for a summer in college. I definitely saw more nose beers than I saw left handed cigarettes.
Mr_Asa said:Pete. (l33t FS) said:I am also all but certain that the restaurant industry requires it to function
That or coke.
I was a line cook for a summer in college. I definitely saw more nose beers than I saw left handed cigarettes.
Does a kid with really good math or physics or multiple languages or some other delta have an advantage in the trades?
Does a small or skinny kid get hazed and E36 M3 upon?
Personally I can understand reduced ambition as it relates to work/life balance. I have worked for thirty years at increasingly high pressure job roles with slowly increased pay. Jumped and left for more money a couple times and have opportunities knocking again. I'm paid well enough but I also feel like I'm being ridden like a mule. I would take a 4x10 role in a heartbeat because three day weekends are 100% better. But also because I have worked 5x10 for most of thirty years and I'm just tired. I have emphasized in every single "survey" at work (about what would improve quality of life) the massive ability to attract talent that a four day work week would bring. It's depressing that it won't happen.
OHSCrifle said:Does a kid with really good math or physics or multiple languages or some other delta have an advantage in the trades?
Does a small or skinny kid get hazed and E36 M3 upon?
Personally I can understand reduced ambition as it relates to work/life balance. I have worked for thirty years at increasingly high pressure job roles with slowly increased pay. Jumped and left for more money a couple times and have opportunities knocking again. I'm paid well enough but I also feel like I'm being ridden like a mule. I would take a 4x10 role in a heartbeat because three day weekends are 100% better. But also because I have worked 5x10 for most of thirty years and I'm just tired. I have emphasized in every single "survey" at work (about what would improve quality of life) the massive ability to attract talent that a four day work week would bring. It's depressing that it won't happen.
From what I see in the various trades, the level of jabs back and forth vary by trade and by company/crew, but no one seems to take any extra ridicule based on physical stuff. They will weed out the shiny happy people, though. Bilingual (Spanish/English) is hugely helpful, though that person sometimes might become the defacto translator for a crew, whether they signed up for that or not.
We've pushed for (4) 10's a handful of times. Speaking purely from the perspective of a field superintendent on $50-$120 million dollar jobs, it never happens because you have to have buy-in from ALL the trades. If half want to work (4) 10's, and half want (5) 8's, then you have to defer to the 5 day week. Then, you get to start arguing with the groups who want to work (4) 10's about how they have to have someone on-site on Friday to coordinate with the 5 day a week trades. Unless and until it becomes more of an accepted thing within the industry, I'll always be a 5 (or often 6) day a week guy. Which stinks. My wife works 4 days a week. And gets more time off. And makes more money.
I should have studied harder in college.
I wasn't trying to start a debate about the merits or shortcomings of construction work.
I was really just surprised at the average age on my job.
In reply to SV reX :
The engineering department at the local hospital is having the same issue. The average age in their department, not counting my 24-year-old son is 62. They will retire within 10 years and the hospitals don't have anyone to replace them.
Toyman! said:I've told this before. This was several years ago.
I talked to a kid working at a Goodwill. He was in the back sorting clothes. I was doing a door repair. He was well-spoken. I asked him what they were paying. ($7.25)
I asked him if he would like to double his income and offered to hire him as a helper at $14 to start and another $1 in 90 days. With training, I could get him up over $20 in a year or two, and long term he would have a skill that could earn him $70k plus per year.
He asked about what the job required and declined because he didn't want to work that hard.
I hear that a fair amount. They want AC/heat at all times and easy. They don't seem to care about the future. Many of them also seem to have an inflated opinion as to what their labor is worth.
If you don't know anything and don't have any gumption to learn anything, you aren't worth $20/hr to start.
This reply touches on what I see as the bigger social problem. With everyone living in an endless doom-loop, the result has become a "Why bother?" generation.
Humans ONLY do things that are perceived as a net short term benefit to themselves.
In today's society, this starts with dating and then marriage and then childrearing and carries on to employment mentality. "Why bother?" "Nothing short-term in any of that for me." "If I work REALLY hard, my boss can buy another Ferrari or a bigger house", so "Why bother?" Keith nailed it when he wrote that people have learned to live cheap so that they don't have to work hard. The gig-economy has created a generation of visionless people who are self trained to get by one-day-at-a-time and they got good at at. So wy bother with YOUR hiring problems?
That kid working for min wage must be getting-by somehow. What he does not have is a vision where he will ever own a car or a house or raise kids, so why bother to do anything else?
Not having enough kids in the trades is the least of societies issues, these drop-outs are not having kids and that is a much bigger problem for the long term. But not their problem, cause "long-term" no longer exist; as long as they can get past the next Amazon drop or Uber pick-up in their schedule.
Mr_Asa said:Indy - Guy said:Datsun240ZGuy said:I was talking to a freelance photographer younger guy that told me he does just enough to get by. He moves his hand across the air in a horizontal fashion telling me that's it. No more.
Just enough to get by - some folks have no ambitions I guess.
Weed has that effect on a lot of people.
My man, what?
This is badly wrong. I dont smoke, but some of the most ambitious people I know do.
Cheech and Chong are not the norm these days.
Cheech and Chong were ambitious and successful.
My youngest son is like that photographer. He makes $23/hr working in a small specialty machine shop as a labourer and works 30hrs/wk by choice. I offered to get him in where I work making 50% more but he wasn't interested. Why would I? I have it easy here, he said. His brother makes triple what he makes in a year.
He is like his mom, older brother is like me. Not everybody has ambition.
OHSCrifle said:
I'm paid well enough but I also feel like I'm being ridden like a mule. I would take a 4x10 role in a heartbeat because three day weekends are 100% better. But also because I have worked 5x10 for most of thirty years and I'm just tired.
Yeah, consistent 50-hour weeks shouldn't be normal in an office environment. That just means you're 20%-25% understaffed. Deadline crunch times are different, of course, but if the business model is to require 25% overtime all the time, then management or employer needs to change. I'm not surprised you're tired.
I'm not a fan of 4x10s, myself, but I know some people are. But the big point is sticking to a 40-hour week, no matter how you prefer to subdivide it.
Toyman! said:In reply to SV reX :
The engineering department at the local hospital is having the same issue. The average age in their department, not counting my 24-year-old son is 62. They will retire within 10 years and the hospitals don't have anyone to replace them.
Do you think what you and Sv reX see be a region issue? Maybe the population is aging out and there is not that many young people or the young people move elsewhere for different reasons?
Peabody said:Cheech and Chong were ambitious and successful.
My youngest son is like that photographer. He makes $23/hr working in a small specialty machine shop as a labourer and works 30hrs/wk by choice. I offered to get him in where I work making 50% more but he wasn't interested. Why would I? I have it easy here, he said. His brother makes triple what he makes in a year.
He is like his mom, older brother is like me. Not everybody has ambition.
I am more like you in that I put more effort in making money, so I correlate ambition with wanting to make as much money as possible.
But could it be that ambition has different meaning to different people? Maybe your son is ambitious about becoming the next Jeff Zwart. Jeff made a career of photographing Porsches and racing and as a byproduct of his ambition of being one of the best he has been very successful ... but I doubt money was his driver.
I ask this as the father of 3 boys that have been raised exactly the same by two very ambitious (in your and my definition) parents and these three boys are quite different. I am very happy that they are not the same, it means that my wife and I are doing a good job and not trying to impose our will in them ... that does not mean I will try to make sure they can succeed and guide them in what they decide to do moving fwd.
In reply to Slippery :
Perhaps.
But the construction industry is aging out, especially in construction leadership. The average age nationwide of construction superintendents is 52.
We REALLY need people who are not gray haired dinosaurs (like me)
In reply to SV reX :
On my current project, I'm just shy of 40 and am "lead" super over 4 projects for same client. The supers on those 4 individual projects are 26, 42, 55 and 57. So, we average out to 43-ish on my project. We've had two young guys start and quit, both did well, just didn't take to the job for whatever reason. Have had two others start in the field and quickly transition to the office. Estimating for one, PM side for the other. In our company specifically, I get it (going to "the office" side of things). I would too if I thought I could stand it.
SV reX said:In reply to Slippery :
Perhaps.
But the construction industry is aging out, especially in construction leadership. The average age nationwide of construction superintendents is 52.
We REALLY need people who are not gray haired dinosaurs (like me)
Whats the typical career path to superintendent? At what level are the younger people filtering out?
In reply to prodarwin :
I 2nd that question along with what Slippery pointed out, I've certainly seen area's where folks in their 50s are still trying to run things and there isn't room for growth for a younger 25-30 year old who's ambitions to take on a higher level role and they move on else where for more money. There are also more older people who are working now than ever. Our retirement managment prompt has 68-70 as the peak "target" age when you follow the suggested prompts and options up to 75-80.
NOHOME said:Toyman! said:I've told this before. This was several years ago.
I talked to a kid working at a Goodwill. He was in the back sorting clothes. I was doing a door repair. He was well-spoken. I asked him what they were paying. ($7.25)
I asked him if he would like to double his income and offered to hire him as a helper at $14 to start and another $1 in 90 days. With training, I could get him up over $20 in a year or two, and long term he would have a skill that could earn him $70k plus per year.
He asked about what the job required and declined because he didn't want to work that hard.
I hear that a fair amount. They want AC/heat at all times and easy. They don't seem to care about the future. Many of them also seem to have an inflated opinion as to what their labor is worth.
If you don't know anything and don't have any gumption to learn anything, you aren't worth $20/hr to start.
This reply touches on what I see as the bigger social problem. With everyone living in an endless doom-loop, the result has become a "Why bother?" generation.
Humans ONLY do things that are perceived as a net short term benefit to themselves.
In today's society, this starts with dating and then marriage and then childrearing and carries on to employment mentality. "Why bother?" "Nothing short-term in any of that for me." "If I work REALLY hard, my boss can buy another Ferrari or a bigger house", so "Why bother?" Keith nailed it when he wrote that people have learned to live cheap so that they don't have to work hard. The gig-economy has created a generation of visionless people who are self trained to get by one-day-at-a-time and they got good at at. So wy bother with YOUR hiring problems?
That kid working for min wage must be getting-by somehow. What he does not have is a vision where he will ever own a car or a house or raise kids, so why bother to do anything else?
Not having enough kids in the trades is the least of societies issues, these drop-outs are not having kids and that is a much bigger problem for the long term. But not their problem, cause "long-term" no longer exist; as long as they can get past the next Amazon drop or Uber pick-up in their schedule.
I think there's a lot of validity to that. About my only viewpoint into the youth mindset is from what I see in memes, and there's a lot of "everything sucks, I'm so depressed, I'm giving up" tone to them. If that's a common viewpoint, no wonder nobody's working hard for a future. Can't say I ever worked for my future either (I'd be in a different industry making a lot more money if I had) but I got lucky in a few ways.
A coworker's son just graduated from high school. He was thinking of college but decided to take an apprenticeship at an aircraft maintenance facility instead - he's a plane nut but not interested in the military. He's making more money than his mom is as an apprentice, and he's got the ability to do a lot better.
prodarwin said:SV reX said:In reply to Slippery :
Perhaps.
But the construction industry is aging out, especially in construction leadership. The average age nationwide of construction superintendents is 52.
We REALLY need people who are not gray haired dinosaurs (like me)
Whats the typical career path to superintendent? At what level are the younger people filtering out?
In my company, and region more broadly, it used to be that you were a carpenter and then a carpenter Foreman and then an assistant superintendent and then a superintendent, sometimes with some survey/ layout crew experience mixed in there somewhere. Now it's shifting to a degree in construction management or civil engineering, hire on as assistant super and then super.
I'm sure the size of the company and the market sectors that company works in, will change that path pretty significantly.
The0retical said:Economic nihilism is a real thing, especially for the under 40 crowd.
If you're:
A) Loaded with college debt, that you feel like you'll never get out from under.
B) Watching housing prices go into the stratosphere and not react to interest rate hikes (we can argue that cheap money for as long as we had it was a bad thing but that's a different conversation).
C) Watching food, rent, insurance, and healthcare go through the roof at the same time.
It's super easy just to check out, decide that puritanical work ethic is bullE36 M3, and figure you'll just enjoy what little luxury you can afford instead of feeling like you're being squeezed for more and more productivity by a system that would happily grind you into a Soylent if it meant the line went up.
1000% this. I find myself susceptible to this, and I'm right on the edge of the age range (40). I have worked pretty hard, my salary is several times what it was when I started as a fresh engineer out of school. I was willing to work long hours and make sacrifices, and I've watched the goal posts move at every step:
-2008 GFC "Oh we all have to make sacrifices, raises are suspended, pension is cancelled forever, but please keep working 60 hour weeks".
-Changed jobs, started getting ahead, Federal Reserve decided to YOLO quantitative easing and increase balance sheets 7x, inflating everything for decades to come and bailing out speculators, investors, and idiots at the expense of savers. Watched my purchasing power drop by about half. Buying a new car, house, etc. feels more out of reach than it did when I graduated, and that was the peak of the housing crisis.
-Watched multiple companies lie to their employees to bait and switch regarding site closures, company moves, bonuses, etc. One in particular will haunt me for the rest of my career. Watched a 35+ year employee make multiple sacrifices because he loved his job, and the company screwed him hard, for no reason other than a single manager's ego.
I'm just tired of it all, I don't have the authority to fix any of it (make me CEO, or head of the Federal Reserve, and I promise to rule with the iron fist of a benevolent dictator, to the detriment of everybody's quarterly earnings, and the great benefit of everybody's 10+ year earnings). I borderline have enough money to retire to a simple life (afford food, shelter, and basic healthcare). Checking out of the grind contributes very little productivity to society, but also very little evil. More and more, that seems a fair trade.
In reply to Flynlow :
I could have written that exactly as you put it. Same age. Engineer.
In reply to Flynlow :
Federal Reserve decided to YOLO quantitative easing and increase balance sheets 7x, inflating everything for decades to come and bailing out speculators, investors, and idiots at the expense of savers.
This is the point where I coined my signature. Realized we are ruled by morons and thiefs and decided not to participate.
So, are parents teaching their kids to just give up?
Because that sure isn't what I've taught my kids and all of my kids are out there doing things and enjoying life while being productive members of society.
In reply to Toyman! :
Who's having kids anymore?
In reply to NOHOME :
We are having a discussion about young people and how they are feeling disenfranchised, so someone is.
I have 4. My eldest son has 4. All of his friends have 2-4. My 3rd is getting married next year and they are planning on 2.
Toyman! said:In reply to NOHOME :
We are having a discussion about young people and how they are feeling disenfranchised, so someone is.
I have 4. My eldest son has 4. All of his friends have 2-4. My 3rd is getting married next year and they are planning on 2.
Possibly a better question for this thread would be: How many kids are your employees having?
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