Gen. Y: a rant 23

[HgTX]

I'm pretty sure this is not where engineering is going, but what do I know? Apparently it's where some workplaces are going.

I just heard another news program about the Gen Y'ers (those under 30, in the context of this particular story) and how spoiled they are--sorry, I mean how they need constant praise and reassurance.

Who the hell are these people? Where the hell are these people? Okay, one of them is my teenaged baby sister, who feels such a sense of entitlement that she thinks life is not worth living if she has to do anything she doesn't particularly enjoy. But for the most part, the group described is not deranged high-schoolers, in fact is not that much younger than I am, and none of the people in that age group who work in my office are like that, and neither of my siblings in that age group is like that.

And how do they get away with dictating terms when the economy, for most people, is still in the toilet and jobs are (as in an article cited in another thread in this very forum) disappearing left and right?

Makes me want to quit my job and go around the country smacking their little bottoms.

Hg

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[BrunoPuntzJones]

PSE,

I've got to say, your examples (okay, I know they aren't your examples) don't do much to convince it those were the good old days. The 2006 scenarios stray far into hyperbole and, frankly, the 1973 ones sound pretty bad to me as well.

 

[HgTX]

The problem isn't that Kids Today aren't taught responsibility, but that the decisionmakers have abdicated it. "Zero tolerance" rules in schools are everyone's favorite example, and they do exist, and they do have stupid consequences, like a kid suspended for having aspirin. I know a kid who was expelled because she borrowed her mom's sweater and there was a pair of sharp nail scissors in the pocket. My sister has "terroristic acts" on her record because she said she wanted to rip another kid's guts out.

It's crap. But it doesn't mean I want a return to 1973, when drunk driving was acceptable, physical abuse of spouse and offspring (and I don't mean just a spanking) was no one else's business, and soft contact lenses hadn't been invented yet.

Today's stupid laws may be stupid but they're intended to solve real problems. You got a better way to solve the problems, other than pretending they never were problems, you become an activist and get things changed.

Hg

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[dcasto]

Unless your name is Paris, then anything goes, no consequences either...

 

[UcfSE]

Seems like good intentions pave a road to somewhere...

Nice post PSE. Personal culpability doesn't seem to have much value with the majority of the people when it comes time to put their money where their mouth is. In the mean time it's easy to run your mouth and talk about having responsibility this and that, but what do they end up doing when they go home, or no one is watching? It's like complaining about rubberneckers. If you asked everyone stuck in the slow lane, not a single one would admit to being the one who slowed down just to look. If you could stand back and watch, you'd find a different story.

 

[PSE]

Over the weekend, I spent some time with the in-laws and have a nephew that was doing some of his first work in woodshop at school and had completed his project. He was then selected by the teacher to try out the lathe as the teacher was considering making it available if the students could be safe with it. My nephew wanted to make a baseball bat. He ended up either having to be escorted through the building with his project or picked up/dropped off at the shop door as according to school policy, it constituted a weapon.

Perhaps I was naive growing up but I do not think either I or any of my schoolmates would have even considered using a bat on someone. We were allowed to use the playground(s) unsupervised. Now they are considered unsafe places with potential stalkers everywhere and we keep our kids safe at home. Perhaps this isolation only makes things worse.

HgTX I agree that the "good old days" were not always better. Also that we have, through law, "abdicated" personal responsibility and accountability with subsequent loss of some freedoms. I remember the introduction of seatbelts and it was my parents, not the law that mandated their usage.

Regards,

 

[oldfieldguy]

PSE--
Hah! While I was in wood shop (1960's) I built the core mould for a friend who manufactured pyrotechnics and who wanted to make 1.5" skyrockets. I restocked an old rifle, bringing it to school for the work, and I did repairs to the wing spar of an airplane.

I doubt that any of these projects would get a chance in today's scholastic environment.

Our high school chemistry teacher routinely punctuated demonstrations with noxious gases and small amounts of energetic chemicals. Today he'd be led off in handcuffs. In 1965 he piqued the interests of several of his students into careers in engineering and technology.

I fear that today's educational environment does little to encourage the adventurism among students who we will expect to make the technologies work for us in the future.

old field guy

 

[csd72]

oldfieldguy,

And you came out alright, survived with most of your fingers and at least half you brain cells (we only use 10% of them anyhow).LOL

Maybe this is why young Americans dont seem to be any good at lateral thinking. e.g - if I ask for a return ticket at the station, they have no idea what I mean even though there is only one thing it could mean.

csd

 

[HgTX]

unsupervised playgrounds...let's not forget the demise of the Trick Or Treat tradition, even though there are no documented cases of kids being poisoned by candy their neighbors tampered with. That's not the decision of Irresponsible Kids Today, that's the decision of people y'all's age.

But back to the OR (original rant), now we have a couple of college kids working here for the summer, and they do seem to be exemplars of what those who complain about Kids Today are complaining about. They each had to be sat down and informed that yes, in fact, they do have to complete the tasks assigned to them, and no, it's not okay to hide so that no one can bring them tasks. Sigh.

Reminds me of these "life skills" classes where they teach people that yes, you do have to show up to your job every day that you are scheduled to do so. How on earth would it occur to someone that they would still be able to collect a full paycheck if they didn't? And yet we had to let a temp go for exactly this reason. And she was closer to baby boomer age than Gen. Y. Maybe there are idiots in every generation but we focus on the young ones to assign blame to their whole age group.

I seem not to have a cohesive point here. I apologize, but not too sincerely.

Hg

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[epoisses]

"They each had to be sat down and informed that yes, in fact, they do have to complete the tasks assigned to them, and no, it's not okay to hide so that no one can bring them tasks."

This is the kind of thing that Kids Today are supposed to be taught in Life Skills class at the age of, say, 2, by "people y'all's age".

Advanced Life Skills (at 3) teaches kids not to complain when tasks assigned to them (within reasonable limits).

Life Skills University (from 4 to 99) goes even further and teaches setting the table and doing the dishes spontaneously. Only few people get their degree.

 

[Sudburyboy]

Good points by PSE.

I would also say the smaller the town the later the transition period. Even in the late 70's, early 80's alot of the earlier dated points were true.

The question I've always wondered was why the transition?

The people that were kids in the early 70's are now the ones making alot of the rules that led to the situation we are in now.

 

[DaveVikingPE]

I was a kid in the early 70's. We're not making any rules! The folks who were just gaining power then and who have it now all came of age in the 1960's. The lawsuits against teachers were starting in the 1970's, and we had teachers who were hippies. They're all pushing 60 right now and, man, do they not want to give up a thing.

Thusly, as one of the "forgotten Gen" - mostly people born in 1963, I'm between the ex-hippies who run the country and all the big corporations and the super-fast hard chargers who can't recall when vinyl records were sold in stores.

"Makes me want to quit my job and go around the country smacking their little bottoms."

I'd take a job smacking little bottoms, too - but only if I get to pick the bottoms first.

 

[pipehead]

The newer generations have replaced common sense with rules or zero tolerance. I see where there is a new push to replace zero tolerance with more common sense or looking into the facts, circumstances, and intent......

 

[GregLocock]

I doubt that it is Gen Y pushing rules and ZT. I rather think that the older generations are pushing those in reaction to the challenge to their authority that the Gen Yers present.

After all, if you have no moral authority, how do you get kids to do what you want? You make it a rule and then blame 'them', the invisible hand of authority.

When I was a 24 year old engineer, once a month I had to sit down in front of some fearsome old bastard (hi Phil, Alan) and tell him what I'd been up to. The company I work for now has found no useful way of maintaining that tradition, and, to be completely honest, neither have I.



Cheers

Greg Locock

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[epoisses]

what, no fearsome old bastards available in your company? could you play the role yourself? :-D

 

[GregLocock]

Yeah that's what I meant. I am part of the problem.

Why would a pushy young graduate on the path to management waste an afternoon with me, trying to remember all the hard bits he left out at uni? As an example the company says scoring 81% in a multiguess test is all you need to prove that you 'understand' statistics... to the point where I've had two black belt six sigmas come and ask me why they can't answer a particular problem on that test.

Oh, I said, yes that one is a bit early in the test, you haven't actually got to the page in the cheat sheet that tells you how to answer it.

Sarcasm may be the lowest form of wit, but hey.





Cheers

Greg Locock

Please see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips.

 

[Dinosaur]

It is a rare thing for me to meet a fellow >10 years younger than I that really knows his fundamentals. Thank the Lord for a generous factor of safety.

 

[rtmote]

When I came into the profession, I was taught by bluddy scots and tuff yorkshiremen how to do calculations by hand, in the days of slide rules. It were 'ard. But I learned a lot about the difference between clever and smart.

Stuff grads learn today are clever but they are not smart. They come into the profession desperate for knowledge, experience and smartness. We have let them down badly. I spend a lot of my time with the Gen Y, find them enthusiastic, willing to listen, showing them examples, ( the good, the bad and the ugly)so they can judge the wisdom of the old boys.

My generation were caught with dropped pants when desktop computers arrived for good and we haven't learned to pull them up since. Pre-windows computers (mainframe, basic and Fortran)was the age of engineering, we put man on the moon, built nuclear power stations, military specs and the banking industry was built on this... but when Bill Gates sold his stuff to a couple of secretaries, we fossilised and froze in the headlights of the future.

I have worked worldwide and am amazed at the global indifferences to the needs of the younger generation. All great work begins with a blank piece of paper and a couple of simple engineering rules,
- draw it out
- keep it simple
- Build the concept
- Identify the problem
- identify the principle action
- define your solution
then use the computer to verify your judgment

Too many leap into the software, copy past examples (even if they are bad), work in isolation, don't ask questions and cannot justify what they are doing.

I believe we need to think about how to agree a common platform for engineering design regardless of experience or generation. We need to define the minimum standard of calculations (then drawings) to ensure we maintain the wisdom of the past masters and pass on the tools of our craft to the innovators of the future. We are strangling our profession with moans and depressing habits. I understand it but let's move on from the past, we are the seeds of the future.

It is a fantastic time to be in the profession, or at least it should be.

 

[csd72]

Good points rtmote,

In this fast track world we are used to instant gratification. In the same manner we often expect graduates to be instantly able to design a building.

A university can teach students engineering fundamentals but cannot teach them how to be engineers, no amount of education can do that. They need carefully supervised experience and on the job training in order to become good engineers.

They talk about teaching management to students at university when they probably should be teaching more fundamentals. In the last 10 years I have forgotten everything from university that I havent used, particularly the management bits.

csd

 

[UcfSE]

rtmote, nice post.

 

[Eleceng01]

I believe the best way to become a good engineer is to be enthusiasic, eager, and a good listener to the older generations of engineers.

I have been fortunate enough to work with some great ones and I only began to consider myself an engineer after years learing from them. I guess that is why you can only get a PE after 4-5 years.

Thanks to all of the great mentors out there teaching the trade!