Work ethic comparasions among generations: 8

[rhodie]

I am younger, but have the opporuntity to work with much older, well-seasoned coworkers.

I work in a management position above them, and I rely on them to daily work very hard and long to accomplish company goals and fill orders.

I would like to think that I have a good relationship with them, as good as managment can expect with his employees. I make it point to regularly "work in the trenches" with them. I do it to refresh my memory on what realistic expectations of work from them are.

I often hear comments about how people from my generation do not know hard work, that a life running computers and leisurely tasks is all we have known. I laugh it off most times, and just attribute that attitude to a bad case of "grump old men syndrome"... but it still grinds on me.
(Maybe I'm too closely correlating "hard work" with "physical work"...)

Recently, after pondering these comments more closely, I look to US history and life during industrial revolution, agrarian society, and the Great Depression, and I think maybe these guys hold an element of truth to what they are saying. Granted, these guys are all from an age post war, but they still remember hard living as a way of life.

I pose the question to the group: Do young people these day show the same hunger for hard work that people from your generation show? Do older people have an aversion to laziness that my generation lacks? I'm curious to see what posters in other countries observe as well.

Thanks in advance.

 

[IRstuff]

One other thing that has changed, somewhat alluded to in the previous post, is the attitude towards overtime and work in general. My father would slog his way into work, whatever the conditions were and whatever his health was. There is a realization, now, that you will not be rewarded in the long run for this type of loyalty.

Likewise, when I was younger, I put in massive amounts of overtime, missed portions of my older son's growing up. Now, I know better.

Perhaps, this is the major reason why younger generations are not so keen to put in the work, because, at the end of the day, on your deathbed, you will not be regretting not putting more hours into work, but you will regret not putting more hours into your life and family.

So, not laziness, but an understanding that balance MUST be achieved between work and home, otherwise, Jack will indeed be a dull boy.

TTFN

 

[quark]

IR says the right stuff as usual. It is like not doing hardwork when it is not required. If there were no users, technical development wouldn't have happened.

I don't know whether I am young or old(at 32), I have been annoyed by some older folks who insist about age old things that worked through out their active lives.

Now a days, colleagues are not as friendly as they used to be with my earlier generations. That way I am doing more mental hard work than older people.