Archangel

Not headless but might as well be…The hood obscures any discernible appearance. Still a shitty profile…

There are some here who obsess about weight.

Some like it.

@Vegas_Millennial – You are diplomatic 😜

@CuriousByNature, and others – And how would you generally characterize Gen X? Boomers? The Silent Generation? The Greatest Generation? It does seem to me that the closer one gets to one’s own generation, the more favorable the characteristics listed become. What positive attributes can we find in Gen Z?

@DrownedBoy – Strauss-Howe isn’t science. It’s pseudo-science.

Generalizations > stereotypes > prejudice That’s why you’re seeing people in this very thread talk about considering not even considering someone to hire who’s Gen Z. Such generalizations lead to outliers getting likewise characterized. Tangential, have you ever noticed that a few negative examples is enough to make a generalization worth guiding behavior but a few positive ones are written off as anonymous and not representative of the whole? It’s almost as if we’re looking for an excuse to negatively portray something that fits into our narrative!

Precisely. That’s because the whole thing is rooted in pseudo-science that seeks to legitimate the long-standing gripe every older generation has against every younger generation. You can slice and dice however you want; groups will form and share feelings about other groups based off shared narratives. It doesn’t have to be Gen Z v. Boomers. It can liberals v. conservatives or providers v. clients. It just so happens the Strauss-Howe model is very developed but it just describes intergroup dynamics based on categories of age. Just like it would be unfair to categorize all providers based off one aspect in a blanket statement, so it’s unfair to categorize all kids born in 2010 off one aspect in a blanket statement

That’s a decent functional definition. But it’s too fuzzy for the kind of gross generalizations to be sweeping that are being made here and by others that like to kvetch about “youngins.” Strauss-Howe proponents go with 1998/97-2012/13 as Generation Z. It’s the hard-and-fast category, and fits with the theory as the theory functions best by assigning hard-and-fast characterizations to broad swaths of people in arbitrary boxes boundaries by time. What some here are bitching about is probably in part the millennial generation which is supposed to arbitrarily begin in 1982 and run to 1998/97. Millennials have for the past decade or more been the butt-end of everyone’s social aspersions, and now Gen Z is used as a synonym for them – largely, I’d surmise, because people don’t realize that Millenials are also sometimes, albeit less often, called Gen Y. The evils of the millennials have now become the evils of Gen Z, but many conflate the two groups. Mind you, I believe the distinctions are overly simplistic and much prefer the notion of putting people into societal cohorts – if we must – based off shared experiences (like 9/11, although I wouldn’t limit it to a single event but perhaps several circumstances), as you do. Someone who was an acutely aware 8-yo in 2001 in remember 9/11 while an oblivious 16-yo might not. All sorts of things could contribute to why it’s the case that someone remembers certain collective experiences and others don’t. That sort of distinction among people, experientially based, is much more compelling for me than some pseudo-scientific theory like the Strauss-Howe generational theory that is based on some arbitrary metric like birth year prima facie.

I’d be curious to know how many here would be able to make the accurate distinction between millennial and Gen Z without looking it up.

Well, I had my AOM group consultation today. The room was packed. I found it realistic. We’ll see if it works. They said they’ll call everyone within 4-5 business days to set up a personal doctor consultation. Such a process…

I fail to understand what you’re trying to say. Because you went to a good school and had a job, kids today who have more demands placed on them in worse schools than you did in a good school should still work an after-school job? I don’t understand how that follows? Even if they are getting an inferior education than you received but are still expected to do more than you, they still have to perform in today’s world – not according to the standards you went to school under – in order to succeed at school, their present reality, not some future they may or may not be well prepared for. Expecting them to have an after-school job on top of more academic demands is frankly ignorant, contemptuous, and unrealistic. It’s like you want to set the kids up to fail and then want to blame them for doing precisely that.

I will check out Ft. Lauderdale. At present, given the national Zeitgeist, I’m not really chomping at the bit to be in Florida. But I have heard that Ft. Lauderdale is a bit of an oasis in the midst of a dystopia…

The trade-off is an opportunity cost. More challenging school means less time for other things, like after-school jobs. Don’t even get me started on extracurriculars…I feel about them almost the same way I do for after-school jobs. Children should be focused on their education. My opinion. Full stop.

@sniper – Also a good observation. It used to be that employers cared about their employees. Now the employer wants employees to be cheerleaders (positive attitude) with less real benefit. Why should I invest emotionally, relationally, and psychologically in an enterprise that only sees me as impersonal capital and an expendable, replaceable liability at that? It used to be you could graduate high school, get a job, and earn enough in 40 hours a week to be comfortable and for all intents and purposes be content. Compare that to a report I heard on NPR before the pandemic about a salary (not entire benefits package) required to afford a studio in Boston: $70k. A studio. I’m sure it’s more since the pandemic. For comparison, $70k in 2019 had the same buying power as $11k in 1970.

What exactly is the allure? I was there for the first time in my life three weeks ago. I didn’t like it at all. Maybe I missed something. It was simply a stop on my way to a cruise, but seriously – no desire whatsoever to vacation there. It reminded me of a sprawling, tropical and humid Philadelphia. At least in Philly things are close enough to navigate to without going through interstate jungle gyms. It was not an attractive city to me at all.

Sometimes I wonder where in the hell you come up with ideas. I do not care to know, but the blundering assurance with which you make your claims is astounding at times…

@Rudynate – My nephew (He’s in first grade) is do 2-digit multiplication and learning about the solar system, complete with the moons of Saturn and Jupiter. (He likes it, but that’s a separate point altogether.) On top of that, he is taught all about navigating the internet to find information. In first grade…I had computer lab time in NINTH grade, if I remember correctly, for the first time. He had worksheets for homework in kindergarten and now multi-day projects. In first grade. I don’t remember multi-day projects til high school. What were you doing in first grade? The demands of school today are much higher (more neutrally, different) than when you were younger, I’m going to guess. These kids have high expectations placed on them as much as they have things handed to them. When do they have the time to do well in school and have an after-school job that might pay for a pair of shoes if they work all week… Further, I personally just don’t like the idea of kids working. School is their job. Adults work all day. Come home. Do housework. Rub errands. Relax. Why should kids go to school all day and then work afterwards? And before we get too judgmental about young people expecting the world on a platter for nothing – this is a forum where we pay guys simply for looking nice and fucking us. Many here have applauded the likes of Reno Gold for his success. I’m betting if he didn’t do what he does, he’d be just like any of these run-of-the-mill young people you’re disparaging.

I have a woman in her 70s who works for me who is always phishing for praise. If you don’t constantly reassure her she’s done an outstanding job, she will float the word “resign.” She knows her position is hard to fill, so she is the squeaky wheel but damn – talk about insecure! And God forbid she’d acknowledge someone else works hard.

Regarding cooking an omelette… I have a friend whose husband called her from FL because he couldn’t figure out how to work the washing machine at their home in Ft. Lauderdale. She told him the directions were on the lid. Yet he still needed her to walk him through making load of laundry. When she had knee replacement surgery and he brought her home from the hospital, he offered to make her dinner. What did she want? A can of tomato soup. After a while, she realized he didn’t know how to do it. She didn’t get the soup. He meant well, but just couldn’t figure it out. She does say he makes himself “tuna salad” by opening a package of tuna and mixing it together with mayo…but he can’t cook an egg. Both of them are 75. Ineptitude isn’t singular to a certain generation. I honestly doubt my father would have the foggiest how to make an omelette…

Some things never change. Older generations discount younger generations as incapable and look down at them with dismissive patronizing disdain all the time.

Strange. That’s how I perceive many between 55-70. The children of the WWII generation were handed a fantastic rebuilt world and they come along and are handing off a world where social scientists say their kids can expect to do worse off than them. It is also hard to be motivated when septigenerians and octogenarians are holding positions that should have long opened up for younger people to fill. There is little-to-nothing a young person today can do to move upward in a professional world like there used to be because the retirement-age generation refuses to retire. Why bother if you’re set up to fail from the outset? Be positive? Positive that the deck is stacked against you. Easy for Richard Branson to say… Gen Z might have its issues but all the rest do too – and it wasn’t just to make Gen Z entitled, socially anxious, and individualistic. I used to be young and poor. Now after years of hard work, I’m no longer young. In case you haven’t noticed, I despise this kind of pseudo-scientific social classification based off the Strauss-Howe Generation Theory.

I disagree. My overnights have been much less about the minutes and hours, but actual time together. I’m actually hesitant to hire for anything less than an overnight precisely because the clock seems to be ticking in the background. Shorter “engagements” seem much easier to nickel and dime than overnights…Once you’ve committed to a couple hours, provider and client, ten minutes more or less don’t matter as much anymore.

I have asked. I’ve had guys do it happily. I’ve had guys refuse. I have bought different kinds of clothing for guys too. As has been said, ask. Depending how that goes may determine if you want to meet. You can’t read minds. And so you won’t know unless you ask.