My response to Hunt would be ‘yeah, thanks to you, you prick’
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Last week ‘they’ (the direction) dumped an 18 year old lass on me to train (yes they are complete fuckwits). We have a program we use and some computer work. She seemed completely horrified by it (though kept saying she knew how to use it). All she actually seemed competent at was what horrifies me, mobile phone social media. Every oportunity she was stuck to her phone.
Honestly I don’t know why we don’t all just give up?
I’ll now post in 101 about employing ‘very young’ persons for ‘night watch’! 
You have to feel for the poor lass 
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That as well, what do the direction think they are doing?
Suspect the problem is less their age than their eduction, socialisation and intelligence. Lets face it they send the dregs to you to train - probably really only suited to sit in Russian parliament or on the conservative backbenches. Young people are incredibly capable - this generation much more so that for instance the baby boomers who had everything handed to them, fucked everyhting up and they still need to be propped up into old age.
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That is a challenge for society in general. I know when I worked in the skills development department in Scotland, they had a classification called NEETs (Not in Education, Employment or Training) which were the difficult to place young people. A lot of these were actually young carers but there were quite a few that were basically emotionally disturbed for one reason or another.
One of the best placements we found was working with horses: stables, riding schools etc. I’m not sure why that should be. Possibly just that they didn’t, for the most part, have to deal with other people. But it did seem to give them some sort of work ethic.
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Amuses the fuck out of me to think of younger people fuming and seething because they’re getting it hard, thinking that older people than them always had it easy.
I’m neither generation, have an amazing life and so have no axe to grind. Doesn’t stop me seeing that those who are in their 20s now have it so much tougher than the boomers did.
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Define your interpretation of boomer
I honestly cannot understand how people do not see this as a mathematical fact.
It is not a loaded or political statement. It’s a numerical statement based on several inarguable economic metrics.
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People conveniently ignore inflation, mortgage and loan interest rates during the 70’s and 80’s, along with all the other shit going on in those decades, when the evil people who have ruined todays generation lives were trying to get their start in life.
Right to buy was probably the only thing working in their favour.
Inflation is actually a double edged sword where mortgages are concerned and largely depends on whether wages are increasing in line with inflation and what interest rates are doing. Increasing interest rates can be a killer but if wages are rising in line with inflation it tends to be covered. At the end of that inflation cycle you have a mortgage payment that is in line or smaller than you started with but much more income to actually pay it.
In the long run, if you had to pick between large capital loans or high interest ones, the high interest ones offer far more flexibility.
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I get that, but without doing a detailed research, the amount of strikes in the 70’s and 80’s would suggest that wages weren’t increasing in line with inflation?
I’m not saying younger people don’t have it tough these days, but it’s almost like it’s “fashionable” to instantly jump all over the previous generations when looking to blame someone.
I’d bet none of these 20 somethings had to sit with fucking candles lighting the room up on a regular basis during some point of their childhood, looking out the window at piles of household rubbish in the streets, and hoping the Army turn up in a timely fashion when their house was on fire from a knocked over candle
Mind you, I’d imagine a slow down of their wi-fi speed must’ve been more traumatic.
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There is a latency between inflation and wage demands. Employers tend to want to keep wages down because the root causes of inflation are often transitory (in the 1970s you could tie it to the oil crisis).
I think there is a tendency to idealise former periods - particularly amongst those that never lived then. This is partly why the Baby Boomer generation fantasise about the second world war and think that they should bring back conscription. They experienced neither. The one that really depresses me with the current generation is those fantasising about the Troubles. I saw a documentary that Patrick Kielty made (whose father was killed by paramilitaries) and seeing some 20-year-old kid regretting that he wasn’t able to participate is beyond belief.
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My annecdotes were somewhat toungue in cheek, although they did happen.
What gets me is the mindset of we’ve got it hard, and it’s all your fault coz you had it so easy.
I saw that documentary, and couldn’t even begin to imagine how tough it must’ve been growing up in the times of the troubles.
Troubles seems such a placid way of describing it too, it must’ve been beyond awful.
Was just about to comment that the Millenial/Gen Z v Boomer debate has a totally different context here. Yes, it’s far harder to get a house now. But all of our childhood and adolescence was surrounded by violence (witnessing directly, losing loved ones or daily news of murders). It was all normal to us in a way that anyone under 25 could never understand
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I’m not sure that’s the mindset so much as “you had it easy, but then you pulled the ladder up after you”.
EDIT: And I’m not even going to touch on the fairness of the comment, i.e. whether or not the sentiment is true.
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How old are you?
In the defined age group. But I also recognise that my own lived experiences and opinions may not generalise to others of my age. I offered that reply on the basis of what I’ve read of the opinions that mock boomers.
Let’s just say I’m sadly too young to have seen Dalglish play.