Random Thought Thread

10 more feet till cover in a snowstorm. leave work to take parcel in. return to work because it's a nice watch in box. many such cases

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I think we should drop the narrative I’ve been seeing in here a lot this week about “kids these days” and “nobody wants to work.”

Over the last few years I’ve hired a bunch of college students for co-ops who were incredibly motivated, talented, personable, hard-working and had resumes far beyond what I had as a junior in college. And there was stiff competition - it wasn’t just one interviewee, it was consistent that there are a bunch of smart talented twenty year olds.

I posted a position last year that got (I’m not kidding) almost 1100 applications. And it wasn’t some crazy desirable high-profile thing, it was an entry-level business intelligence analyst paying in the mid five figures with decent benefits.

As far as I can tell kids today are more motivated, smarter, and harder working than the parents who raised them. They don’t want crappy jobs with no benefits that don’t offer an opportunity for advancement and I don’t blame them for that.
 
And yet, there are sufficient facts before our eyes to tell us what we see is true.

The post office...locally...is begging for people to take the job with good pay and solid benefits...and hardly gets a response. This in a primarily rural area outside of a town of 7,000 where excellent salaries are not the easiest thing to come by.

Sure, I can point to my nephew who was making in the six figures before age 30, and there are plenty like him. But he is not the norm, imho.

There is something wrong...regardless of how many slackers there may have been in decades past. And I've lived long enough and in enough places to have seen the difference...in major urban as well as suburban and rural settings.
 
There's definitely a massive shortage of youth in my industry

Not just my shop every shop from here to Michigan

Local vocational school even dropped their long time auto body/ paint class because of the lack of students taking it
 
Burke said:
I think we should drop the narrative I’ve been seeing in here a lot this week about “kids these days” and “nobody wants to work.”

Over the last few years I’ve hired a bunch of college students for co-ops who were incredibly motivated, talented, personable, hard-working and had resumes far beyond what I had as a junior in college. And there was stiff competition - it wasn’t just one interviewee, it was consistent that there are a bunch of smart talented twenty year olds.

I posted a position last year that got (I’m not kidding) almost 1100 applications. And it wasn’t some crazy desirable high-profile thing, it was an entry-level business intelligence analyst paying in the mid five figures with decent benefits.

As far as I can tell kids today are more motivated, smarter, and harder working than the parents who raised them. They don’t want crappy jobs with no benefits that don’t offer an opportunity for advancement and I don’t blame them for that.
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This is all very good to hear and I hope it stays that way !

I'm not saying kids have to work the same job I do (although I have good benefits etc) but an auto body class getting dropped for a gaming class at a vocational school is sad to me
 
I just looked at what my beginning salary working for the gov't in 1977 is worth today, and it is approximately $48,000 in today's money.
(I was hired under the outstanding scholar provision which meant that you had to have a certain GPA or have graduated within the top 10% of your university class, plus have a very high score on the PACE test which has since been dropped as it was a difficult test given over a period of several hours. Can't have hard tests anymore.)

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From the GAO website regarding the PACE test,,,from way back in 1979:

Highlights
A study of PACE (Professional and Administrative Career Examination) showed that 99 percent of the black applicants and 84 percent of the white applicants who took the test were screened out of competition because they did not score 90 or better on the test.
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According to the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), the test has been validated and research shows a clear relationship between performance on the test and subsequent performance on the job. GAO attempted to determine whether PACE had an adverse impact on minorities and whether the test has been properly validated. GAO concluded that the OPM validation work generally conformed to professional standards, but there were some shortcomings. For example, OPM cannot determine whether adverse impact exists in PACE occupations because it has not maintained records to show the race or ethnic group membership of applicants.
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PACE is now used for 118 occupations, but detailed job analyses have been performed for only 17 occupations. A complete job analysis for the remaining 91 occupations covered by the test should be performed. It is recommended that OPM design a procedure to track the job performance of groups of people selected from civil service registers and those selected using alternative "ports of entry."
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And so, in due course, it went the way of the dodo.
 
Blues said:
From the GAO website regarding the PACE test,,,from way back in 1979:







And so, in due course, it went the way of the dodo.
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Reminds me of a similar experience i had. Prior to even being able to have an SF86 processed for clearance, I had to go in for a series of tests. There were about 60 of us in the room, all shapes, sizes, sexes, colors, creeds, pronouns were represented. The first test took about twenty minutes and we waited for it to be scored. It was impossible to complete in its entirety in the allotted time, I imagine no one in the room was able to finish, I know I certainly did not. We were told not to worry about what we did not complete; they were interested in how many we could answer correctly in the allotted time, it did not matter how many we got wrong or never got to. They then read off a list of names, which did not include mine. I figured, whelp, not this time, there's always McDonald's and I like French fries. They then said if your name was called, thank you, you can exit through one of the doors in the back. After everyone got up and left, only me and one other guy was left sitting there. We took four more tests after that, same format but different subject matter, and both of us made it through.
 
Grenock said:
Reminds me of a similar experience i had. Prior to even being able to have an SF86 processed for clearance, I had to go in for a series of tests. There were about 60 of us in the room, all shapes, sizes, sexes, colors, creeds, pronouns were represented. The first test took about twenty minutes and we waited for it to be scored. It was impossible to complete in its entirety in the allotted time, I imagine no one in the room was able to finish, I know I certainly did not. We were told not to worry about what we did not complete; they were interested in how many we could answer correctly in the allotted time, it did not matter how many we got wrong or never got to. They then read off a list of names, which did not include mine. I figured, whelp, not this time, there's always McDonald's and I like French fries. They then said if your name was called, thank you, you can exit through one of the doors in the back. After everyone got up and left, only me and one other guy was left sitting there. We took four more tests after that, same format but different subject matter, and both of us made it through.
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I remember taking the NYPD exam in the late 70's. It was very basic, a bit of practical knowledge, some reading comprehension, and if there was math, I don't even recall. The hardest part was remembering the salient points from a crime scene photograph that had to be looked at for a couple of minutes and memorized.

I got 100% and the department did its damndest to weed out candidates whose father or brother weren't on the force already, so that they could hire further down on the list.

Then, the test was challenged as being unfair to certain groups despite the fact that candidates who learned English as a second language scored significantly higher. I mean, it couldn't have been more basic.

It was then that my uncle, who was in the anti-crime unit in Brooklyn suggested that I pursue an LE career in the feds. (Which I did.)

I don't know about anyone else, but I'd like to think that the surgeon, machinist, pharmacist, engineer, detective or whomever, that works on any matter that concerns me...has more than a basic idea of what's needed and going on. Making things easier to pass doesn't seem the way to go.
 
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