Why I have to be honest and disagree with some on this board

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She doesn't want sympathy, she wants people to stop telling her to get a f*****g job, she wants you to stop devaluing her as a person because she does not have a job.



As someone who's not working but has tried and failed due to mental problems and is endeavoring to enter the workforce again in hopefully not too much longer after ~2 years not working, I feel like I've keenly experienced both sides of this discussion. Leaning one way then the other, all the while not knowing what is best or what I should do.
Personally, doing something that has a meaningful impact on society, something that serves a purpose, is good. Working 40 hours a week and coming home and having to place all the burden of homelife onto my spouse who also worked full time, was not. Having no energy for any hobbies, despite obviously having some time to do them, also was not. (And I mean no energy...read a book? ya right!)
I have yet to work since my celiac diagnosis, so I'm hoping that I've improved enough mentally and physically that I will be able to, as it's so hard to judge for myself what I was like then versus what I am like now.

One thing that bothers me A LOT though, is that every, single job these days, no matter how menial, seems to require specific training for it. And because jobs aren't common, this means that the skills I have that match up pretty good won't be good enough for someone to even interview me for a job I apply for, because most of their other applicants probably fit the description to a T.

Oh yeah, and few to no references...who would hire me above someone else? I wouldn't hire me above someone else who has references.

Thanks... I missed one of those threads.

I pushed as hard as I could for as long as I could, brutally punishing myself for any mistake, social faux pas or aspie slip. I bullied myself into very good grades and then into some well-paying jobs (one of them lasted over 20 years). I even forced myself into learning how to socialize and for a while belonged to some social groups. I joined a singles club and actually went to some of the parties. I even had 2 very pleasant long term relationships (not at the same time). From the outside it looked like I had it all together. But I never felt like I fit in. The "me" that everyone knew was an act. Whenever I was with people it was like I was on stage acting out a part (but I was always guessing what the correct behavior should be). I could only relax and be me in total privacy. I was constantly frightened, depressed, exhausted, lonely and miserable.

And then I burned out. I lost all interest in protecting my façade. Most everything went to hell in a hand basket. I lost the job and ignored all of my friends. I spent several years as a total hermit.

It took about 10 years before things started getting better. I will still occasionally push (but very gently) and I still sometimes act (but very seldom); however, I've completely given up punishing myself. I am much happier now and much more relaxed.

I'm not saying pushing your self is a completely bad thing; but, it can certainly be overdone.

You completely misunderstood my point, then, because I was not telling you anything about what you said. Based on this post, my assessment of what you were saying about millennials is completely accurate, and I was was trying to explain the real world conditions that millennials live in, that can't be left out of any discussion



Yeah, nonsense. The blanked out post actually includes a fairly detailed description of what was different for baby boomers as compared to millennials, and why complaining about millennials having a different attitude toward working is complete BS. Working conditions are worse, wages are significantly lower, many of the most lucrative jobs don't even exist in the United States anymore, people are in significantly more debt. You can't compare these without taking these things into account. And if you insist these factors are irrelevant, you are either ignorant or lying.

In other words, your analysis lacks actual analysis. It's rubbish. Nonsense at best.

Here are some articles about millennials that may help you understand why you are wrong:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/gyro/2013/1 ... ue-mostly/
http://ivn.us/2013/11/21/millennials-re ... fographic/
http://www.policymic.com/articles/66675 ... illennials
http://www.bostonmagazine.com/news/blog ... illenials/

I can't speak for your own personal attitudes, they are what they are. But you cannot possibly deliver an intelligent, reasonable, logical analysis of differences between baby boomers and millennials if you insist on ignoring the differences in society.

Also, a video that sums up what's been going on in the US over the past three decades:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Npj2U1PdIhI[/youtube]

And tell us all again that it's easy to judge millennials on the basis of what baby boomers were like without taking present conditions into account because "that's not what you meant." Of course it wasn't what you meant. You completely neglected it. I pointed out what you neglected and explained why you shouldn't, making your response that I got your intention wrong irrelevant - my argument was a response to the actual intention you restated here.

But there were more jobs relative to people looking for jobs. Right now in the US there is one job for every three jobseeekers - this doesn't even count people who have given up on looking for work because the search was fruitless for them, or other people who are not counted in unemployment statistics despite not being employed. So, even if every job were filled today, that would only employ 1/3 of the people looking for work, leaving the other 2/3 unemployed.

The additional requirements (like background checks, credit checks, need for college education, etc) do make it much harder.



Yep.

I'm not devaluing her as a person because she doesn't have a job; I'm criticising the attitude of not wanting a job because it wouldn't be fulfilling enough. Some people don't have a choice; they can either talk about how they'd rather be fulfilled, or they can eat.

As for the other possible difficulties you mentioned, I understand and sympathise. I wasn't talking about situations like that at all.

I have problems in this area, but with help and support I'm trying to get work. For me I want to work because I feel like I should have a livelihood, and it would help get me out.

This is misleading. Older generations were significantly more likely to earn a living wage, even at minimum wage. People like to peg millennials as lazy or entitled, but that's BS. In the time that millennials have grown up:

* Tuition and thus student loan debt have spiked tremendously over what they were in the past

* Minimum wage has not increased to keep pace with increases in productivity, increases in cost of living, and inflation.

* The middle class has been shrinking because even middle class wages have not kept up with those things. This resulted in more people, more families, needing to rely on credit to purchase their necessities. People who in the 80s would be middle class are barely scraping by now.

* The above is also due to the upper/wealthy class essentially funneling money to themselves via every means available. This article lays out income inequality (link) and shows that the bottom 80% of US population has 7% of the US' wealth.

* There has been a dedicated and persistent movement toward austerity and gutting the social safety net. This started with Nixon establishing that private health care (HMOs) was the way to go, followed by Reagan with his nonsense about "welfare queens" that was never true. There was one woman who defrauded the welfare system to such an extreme, but otherwise, no, it wasn't a systemic thing. In the name of bipartisanship, Clinton participated in gutting the welfare system, meaning that single mothers had a time limit on how long they could receive TANF grants before they had to find another source of income. We've just seen another cut to SNAP/food stamps, also in the name of "bipartisanship"



I don't think it's true at all. The WWII generation and the generation that followed - the Baby Boomers - lived in a fairly prosperous time for the US (and not even all Americans were prosperous - just that the number of people in poverty was significantly lower and the safety net programs were much more comprehensive. Also, employment was generally easier to access because of things like Roosevelt's WPA (Works Progress Administration) which was aimed at getting people working and earning enough money to live on. This was part of his overall New Deal. In essence, Baby Boomers grew up in a time when the US had manufacturing jobs and employers reliably paid a living wage, when medical care was more affordable, and safety net programs were more accessible.

The important thing here to reiterate is that the current national minimum wage is not enough for anyone to live on. This article explains the discrepancy that has built over time because minimum wage has not kept pace with the economy (link):





On the contrary, this is completely divorced from the reality of being unemployed in the US. There is one job in the US for every three people seeking employment (link). This is not a market in which not working is a luxury. For many it is simply where they are stuck because there are not enough jobs. This happened over time because US corporations moved manufacturing and production "overseas" to countries where they could employ workers for a fraction what they paid in the US, thus both exploiting those workers and leaving people in the US without work in what was a big reason the Baby Boomers were so prosperous. Have you ever heard of the Rust Belt (link). This used is a geographic area in the US that used to be industrial heartland of America. It is now a "rust belt" because the manufacturing facilities are abandoned and left to rust. Today, Detroit is bankrupt (link) but it used to be a very prosperous city. It used to be the heart of America's automobile production, hence nicknames like Motown or Motor City (which these days are more related to music than anything else).

What has happened is that the US has shifted from manufacturing to service industries, and the latter typically pay significantly less than the former (link):




(cont'd)

(cont'd from previous)

Another factor that plays a role is unions. Unions were pretty big for a long time, and labor unions are intended to protect employee's rights, guarantee living wages, and so on (link). Unfortunately, the past few decades have seen a significant amount of effort dedicated to union busting (url) which means that without unions, workers lack protections. Wal-Mart is a particularly egregious example, since they train their managers in anti-union tactics to prevent workers from organizing in the first place (link).

It is completely false to compare the "greatest generation" with millennials. The opportunities don't exist, the affluence doesn't exist, the opportunities do not exist.

This has literally nothing to do with why people don't want to work minimum wage jobs.



But work is supposed to enable you to pay for necessities, and most available jobs simply will not do that.

Do you want to know who's freeloading off of taxpayers in the US? Who is ensuring that more and more people have to go on SNAP and other benefits to make ends meet? Employers. For example, McDonald's set up a toll free number to help employees with financial problems. The advice? Apply for food stamps (link). That is, instead of paying employees a living wage, McDonald's is telling their employers to make up the difference with SNAP, which means essentially that tax money is going to pay for people who work minimum wage jobs, who shouldn't need these services. If you want to talk about people who want to laze about and make money off the government, the biggest offenders are corporations (link).

Yes, there are people who could work but don't. It's not because they don't want to, it's because there aren't enough jobs. It's that if they do get a job, it won't pay for everything they need to survive. If they do get a job, their employers may even punish them for unionizing:

http://www.salon.com/2012/07/26/walmart ... rty_again/
http://www.baltimorebrew.com/2012/07/25 ... -to-union/

The economy is set up to benefit the wealthiest people and leave most of the population to survive on a pittance garnered from a combination of dangerously low wages and safety net programs. This has nothing to do with the millennial generation being lazy or entitled. It has to do with the fact that Reaganomics destroyed the economy (link).

Previous two posts are a repost of the blanked post on page 5 (I think). Problem was apparently BBCode errors on my part.

Who said the not wanting a job had anything to do with it being unfulfilling? Granted, I already explained my reasons.... What I meant by that line was that I'm not going to take a job when I seriously dont need the money, because it's not going to give me anything else. Some people have this idea that even if you really, honestly dont NEED a job, you should have one anyway, because "you have to contribute!! !!" or "It'll make you feel better about yourself!! !" or bloody stupid reasons like that.

For me though, it does none of that sort of thing. All it'd do is make me feel worse. And then I'd probably screw it up somehow, at that. On top of taking up an employment slot that someone else who needs the money could use.

You are welcome

There have been 2 cancellations for AutHaven. 2 people can take their place for free. It is Feb 22-25 about 30 miles west of Denver [small chance of seeing nude people because we have rented out a portion of a nudist club] Meals and lodging are provided and we will be discussing employment, particularly self-employment. Also, and it is connected, we will be discussing Occate Cliffs [which will be run entirely by autistics] and ways for autistics to work together to help each other to be our most awesome selves.

As a people, we have the INTEGRITY to act on the need to cooperate and work together for ourselves and our people. It is a MYTH that we are incapable of doing that. I mean, we are incapable because we are independent? No! Being independent should make us MORE capable of doing what is neccesary for our people. Thinking outside the box [most of us oblivious to what the darn box even looks like!] enables us to consider many more opportunities to do so. Having less of a need , in general, to be the Boss, the one in charge, the alpha is a GOOD thing for a successful social rights movement,not less. Why? Because when there is less decision making based on a ridiculous hiearchy ranking, ALL of our good ideas matter.

PM me if you want to come.

Just now read through this thread. I agree with all Verdandi's comments, outstanding posts as usual. Not much I can add really.

The way things are now, not everyone who WANTS to work can find a job. Not everyone who is fully ABLE to work can find a job. And not everyone who can find a job, gets to earn a viable, living wage. Self-employment is not the answer for everyone either.

It's not even a question of whether someone is lazy or self-entitled or genuinely disabled or just plain doesn't want to work. Corporate interests and government programs and the overall state of the world economy have destroyed the incentive to work for many people.

Fair enough.

Something that I don't understand and don't know how anyone can be so heartless and stupid are the people that will tell you that the minimum wage isn't supposed to be enough to live on. The people who in their imagination think that all the minimum wage workers are kids earning a bit of extra spending money to supplement their allowance or people just starting out in the work force before they work their way up.

As someone who has almost no hope of ever making more than minimum wage and little hope of even making that it hurts that to me these people are pretty much telling me that I don't deserve to have enough to live. These kinds of people are generally against welfare too and have huge imaginations where they like to imagine poor people like me somehow having many luxuries and living better than them. They also like to give unusable advice like to cut back on or sell things I don't have or do to save money as though my poorness is based on bad money management, not the fact that I have no money.

A lot of minimum wage workers are adults with children or otherwise heads of their household. Minimum wage can't even support a single adult.

My mother only has a few years left until her minimum retirement age and never even made $12 an hour in her life.