The Work Ethic

[poliphilo]

 The lead story in the Mail (I don't read the horrid thing- good God No!- but clock the headlines as I go round the Co-op) is about young people dropping out of the work force. I imagine it's a story it's been fed by government sources to justify Keir Starmer's welfare cuts. Being the Mail, it spins it as "The Death of the Work Ethic".

(I understand Elon Musk is big on the work ethic, needs very little sleep and expects the same of his underlings. I wonder if his relentless schedule allows him any time for reflection.....)

As it happens, Ailz finds herself interviewing candidates for a part time job with the Quakers. The applicants are all hugely over-qualified and boast CVs that show they've done all sorts of interesting things but none of them for very long. Most of them aren't actually unemployed but are doing little bits of this and that and looking to supplement their income. The days of the desk jockey who jockeys the same desk for fifty years are over.

But our politicIans don't seem to understand this- or are pretending they don't to their friends in the media.  Jay at Project Unity calls them "dusty". I like that. It's nicely mild. And we don't want to build up bad karma through being unkind.

Comments

[kulturschnepfe]

Elon Musk is also said to be an avid consumer of Ketamin - if drugs are the reason for his work ethic, I'd say thanks but no thanks as a young person of today. With this and his really destructive personality, he is less than an ideal role model - abysmally less.

Also, as a boomer, getting a desk jockey job was a real boon because there were so many of us and so few jobs. Nowadays, with no guarantees of a stable income and many jobs on offer, why not try different things before settling down, if ever. So I'm with you on the current politician's misunderstanding of the younger generations ambitions or lack thereof where work is concerned.

I'm glad I am retired now.

[poliphilo]

Musk is such a very strange man....

[paserbyp]

The work ethic? Who cares? Motivation? No way…

In this case I don’t see any future or another words, something should happens to change it and it will be very soon?

[poliphilo]

I think we're on the very brink of change. I expect all sorts of remarkable things to happen in the next few years.

[paserbyp]

Including World War III?

[poliphilo]

I really don't know.....

[paserbyp]

Topic for discussion: https://paserbyp.dreamwidth.org/775302.html

[mtbc]

My eldest's been looking for work since graduating in maths last summer, still no luck, he's a personable, polite, conscientious chap. At least in some places, there just aren't the jobs, it's hard to get even an interview and I worry how this long gap on his CV will look, he can't even get a job as a postman or putting trolleys away at the supermarket. I remember his mother trying to find work here in Scotland years before, she has an MBA and couldn't even get an interview to run the checkout at Lidl.

[poliphilo]

It seems to me that with rise of new technologies the jobs are going to get fewer and fewer....