Farmers becoming obsolete

[Loadstar]

I guess we are lucky that automation has kept ahead of the lack of initiative from the young ones. I don't think it is something new to say that the newer generation is lazy. I think Aristotle made something of the same statement about the youth in his day.

I think it's laughable to blame it on the youth. Who taught the "lazy" youth. I graduated high school in 2003. What was taught to kids was a setup for future failure. Everybody must go to college or you will amount to nothing. If you get a job you can't even operate a trash compactor until your 18. Companies want a minimum of years of experience because they do not want to pay to train. Take your kids to work day what is that? Thanks to frivolous lawsuits, laws, insurance set up by previous generations how is a kid suppose to ever see or hands on something to form an opinion on a direction of life to choose anyway. I'm in industrial hvac but I also work on my company's stationary machinery. I sneak my son and my daughter to work often to let them see what I even do. Most of what I hear in this thread is a bunch of blah blah blah. I take the time to teach and pass on lessons show people the way. I respect the open minded still willing to learn up to the day they retire type.

 

[Valveman]

I think it's laughable to blame it on the youth. Who taught the "lazy" youth.

I agree with that! Having been raised on a farm in the 60's, my brothers and cousins were all good farm help by 8-10 years old. I started driving a tractor at age 3, and had no problem running a tractor by myself at age 6. They watched me pretty close until I was about 8 years old, then I was expected to put in a full day like all the grown men, and I did. We drove tractors, hoed weeds, fed the cows, and anything else that needed doing. They even paid me 50 cents and hour, so 60 hours a week hoeing or driving a tractor would get me a 30 dollar check. Out of that I would buy my own school clothes and anything else I wanted or needed. I have had a steady pay check since I was 8 years old.

I taught my son how to work and drive a tractor at an early age. But I didn't make him put in 60 hours a week all summer long and work after school like I did. I wanted his life to be a little easier than mine was. I think that is the mistake we all make. It took him a few years of bouncing around to figure out a steady job is important. Now he puts his nose to the grind stone everyday like I do. But I can't help but think he would have come to that sooner if I hadn't been so easy on him when he was younger. Just glad he finally "grew up" as I see a lot of them never do.

And yes through the ages we have always thought the younger generation was worthless. The difference today is that WE are not educating our children, we are letting institutions teach our kids. And not just reading, writing, and arithmetic, we are letting these institutions teach our kids what to think and how to act. Parents should take their kids to work, and teach them HOW to work. "Anything that doesn't kill us makes us stronger." And anything that is given for free is not appreciated.

 

[TSO]

Maybe it's time that the US finally put college on the back burner, and promoted trade schools first. Create a ready & trained, viable work force... And promote college as "continuing education" for future advancement.

 

[JRobyn]

One of the things that I have always liked best about my alma mater (GaTech) is that it was originally founded with the charter to educate WORKERS for local industry, and got some of its original funding from those industries. As time went on, GT gradually became a bit more of a "theoretical" engineering school, which then prompted the creation of Southern Polytechnic in nearby Marietta for the same reasons - to educate WORKERS.

So there's a historically-accurate reason why some still refer to GT as the "North Avenue Trade School".

 

[vvanders]

Maybe it's time that the US finally put college on the back burner, and promoted trade schools first. Create a ready & trained, viable work force... And promote college as "continuing education" for future advancement.

I haven't experienced it first-hand however I've heard really good things about Germany's system. From what I've read it's basically two-track. You test into college around highschool and if you pass it's paid for similar to a scholarship. If you don't test in then(or you want to) you instead go into an apprenticeship in industry.

Seems to be working well for them, you don't end up with a glut of college degrees and people who don't go to college get practical experience instead of just dumped out into the workforce.

 

[check]

Amen to that, being in the hvac business for 45 years we worked 10-12 hour days 6-7 days a week in 100deg weather. You worked or got fired, kids now wouldn't last a week.

Why do that? What value is there in working for someone else 10 to 12 hours a day, 6 to 7 days a week? It is one thing if you love your work so much that you would do it even if you weren't paid, but that is not the case for most people. When I was a kid working on construction, the foremen were complete bozos, with no social skills, and with very exploitive attitudes. I worked hard, and was in excellent physical condition as a result, but I would never wish those people on anyone. I was resilient enough to get past all of the abuse, and was paid very, very well compared to my friends, due to the fact that my jobs were all union jobs. (We are talking three times what my friends at the A & W were paid.)

So what about your family, and the time you spend with them? Doesn't that count for something?

My experience nowadays is that kids have learned to work smarter, not harder. And good on them! Let them have a bit of a life, eh?

OK, rant is over.

 

[Valveman]

So what about your family, and the time you spend with them? Doesn't that count for something?

My experience nowadays is that kids have learned to work smarter, not harder. And good on them! Let them have a bit of a life, eh?

My experience has been that kids think if they are just smart enough to scam the system, they don't have to work at all. But I agree that the REALLY smart kids, especially if they were raised right, have no problem becoming Doctors, Engineers, or any of the white collar professions. It is the ones who didn't quite make the grade that think they are failures because they have blue collar jobs. We need to instill pride in blue collar workers as much as white collar workers. As a youngster I took pride in ditch digging, hoeing or plowing fields nice and clean, and even just sweeping a floor. I mean if you are a janitor, there should be pride in being the best janitor there is.

But we make kids think if they don't get a college degree and a white collar job they are failures. Then even the kids who have college degrees and end up with a blue collar job, because those are the jobs available, feel like they are failures as well. Everybody that works with me has an important job. From the girls in the office to the guy who sweeps the floor, all their jobs are important to me and I tell them so. I will even grab a broom and help out, as no job is beneath me, and they know it. I would never ask anyone to do a job I wouldn't do myself, but again, no job is beneath me.

People healthy enough to work should be embarrassed to take food stamps or welfare, instead of being embarrassed to sweep a floor. I don't know how that got reversed over the years, but we need to reverse it again.

 

[two_bit_score]

People healthy enough to work should be embarrassed to take food stamps or welfare, instead of being embarrassed to sweep a floor. I don't know how that got reversed over the years, but we need to reverse it again.

I think this is an important point. To be embarrassed or to feel ashamed don't you have to have a certain level of morality and self respect? A point of reference beyond which you feel you shouldn't go? So that when you cross that line you know you've done something that morally you shouldn't have done?

In a society where everything is relative and everything is ok if you want to do it is what we are getting into now. Nobody is embarrassed any more. That's a shame.



TBS

 

[MacLawn]

I mean if you are a janitor, there should be pride in being the best janitor there is."

Amen.

 

[airbiscuit]

“If it falls to your lot to be a street sweeper, sweep streets like Michelangelo painted pictures, sweep streets like Beethoven composed music ... Sweep streets like Shakespeare wrote poetry. Sweep streets so well that all the host of heaven and earth will have to pause and say: Here lived a great street sweeper who swept his job well.”

― Martin Luther King Jr.