Now Boomers are to blame for lack of Fast Food workers

a reply to: JAGStorm

The person in question was probably not properly articulating the fact that the number of retirees is increasing which leaves many positions open. There is an all around labor shortage and part of it has to do with the shutdowns and how many people chose to retire earlier than return to the labor force coupled with the normal annually increasing retirement figures.

Huge problem in skilled trades is the older generation not retiring leaving no skilled jobs for the younger generation. Why am I competing for jobs with 60, 70, sometimes 80 year olds when they should be retired or taking their dirt nap. Got redneck talking about how great boomers work ethic is when the first thing they do when the work bell rings is go to the bathroom and take a dump for a half hour on company time. So maybe these old timers can #1 retire at appropriate age 55-60, #2 train next generation better, boomers did not train me or my boomer dad like boomer egos claim. a reply to: dawnstar

a reply to: TheRedneck

Yes reality. Maybe you should realize its not going to be the way you see it anymore? Cell phones and internet have drastically changed the world. My company doesn't even use physical technical blueprints anymore its all on iPads and we have access to every drawing in the company's files. Did you ever think something line that would ever happen? Scrapping paper blue prints?

a reply to: strongfp

All great, but you can only recycle the same old, same old so much. Someone, somewhere has to know how to make more and new blueprints at some stage of the game.

I work with a younger gal. She's one of my minions. She certainly isn't disdaining a job that isn't high wage. She works two, in fact with one being mine.

She and her partner are not disdaining hard work at entry levels, and they are busy converting an Amish-built shed into a tiny house for the two of them using their money. That's more hard work of the handsy variety that most younger folks think is beneath them these days.

a reply to: ketsuko

They have that mentality still. It's just expressed and funneled in different ways.
You can't force young people to be like you were as a kid or teen. It's like when new parents have their parents trying to tell them how to raise their kids, it doesnt work like that. Sure a tip here and there works, but grandma isn't the one living and growing with that kid day in and out.

Again, times are changing. And they are changing fast. A little too fast to be honest.

a reply to: TheRedneck

Your idea of a tiny home sounds a bit bigger than mine.... is it an actual tiny home, built on a trailer? Or just a smaller house? Either way, your doll house sounds nice.
Are the tiny homes legal where you are at? Aren't you kind of in hurricane country? That is what gets me. They seem to be legal in areas where it would be more likely to be blown away in a tornado or hurricane but illegal in what would seem to be safer areas.
You might want to think about at least finishing the book. There does seem to be more interest in downsizing. The mc mansions ended up being overly expensive pieces of crap really.

a reply to: Jdubious
Retirement age is what?? 62? Or is it older than that? And, it's not like they all have a pension to fall back on. I doubt if they can retire at 50 or 60!!

As far as training... we should have more apprenticeship opportunities. But.. well, you also have to consider that the boomers learned the trade in a different world. A world without computers. My husband would come home from the machine shop and spend hours on the computer learning cad, or how to run a cnc machine. He was still playing catchup to the technology till the day he passed on!
It isn't the employees job to train as much as it is the employers.

a reply to: ketsuko

Not all younger people hate hard work. But the hard work is being selectively and carefully chosen.
I worked at a place that had people who basically just walked in and got a job on the spot and never stopped working until they retire.
The options today are much more refined. Automation and ai has really changed the labor force. It's made people more technical and focus on the aspects that make automation and ai work in more streamlined ways.
As for your comment about teaching people to create technical drawings, hate to say it but engineers barely do anything beyond sign off on drawings nowadays, and the detailers just run it through a computer program. Most of the screw ups are fixed or refined by the guys in the shop.
But over all its almost made junior engineers a redundant position. All you need is a team of detailers and a lead engineer, all because drafting by hand and crunching numbers is done by a computer.

we could fix this if we required elders to work in order to collect their social security checks

a reply to: Jdubious

So maybe these old timers can #1 retire at appropriate age 55-60, #2 train next generation better

#1: Retirement age is normally 62-65 (I retired early on disability). The longer someone works, the more they draw after retirement. So if you don't like that, how about addressing the real issue there? Social Security Retirement. Might work better than expecting old folks to either go quietly into poverty or die sooner so you can catch a break.

#2: The job is not to train people; the job is to do the work. If you want to learn what we know, you have to actually ask and listen. We don't owe you a damn thing. To be honest, with your attitude, I wouldn't help you improve either. Maybe that's the problem?

Oh, and I'm really and truly sorry you can't compete with the old guys. Maybe if you were more like them, you could. Maybe if you had tried to learn from them instead of expecting them to stop and pamper your little hiney, you could. After all, they would seem to be pulling their weight just fine, even with long restroom breaks. Not to mention the aches and pains that start popping up after 50 and get really annoying after 60.

You'll find out about those later. No training required.

TheRedneck

a reply to: strongfp

Maybe you should realize its not going to be the way you see it anymore?

Maybe you should realize that the more things change the more they stay the same.

People are still people, despite the cell phones and Internet. Physics is still physics, despite cell phones and Internet. None of that is going to change. All this technology has done is make it easier for people to goof off and for things to go foul.

I was still a draftsman when the computer revolution took over the industry. I used to be Chief Draftsman in a medium size steel fabrication shop. We had one of the new million-dollar state-of-the-art CAD systems that the executives wanted to see working so bad it made their heads hurt. But, what really gave them a headache was when we got in a job with several small buildings, all different but basically the same size and complexity. I split the job up into two equal parts: one part I programmed into the system, and the other I drew by hand. I finished mine before the computer could, and that's with me taking time out to keep the computer updated!

Had a friend come to me after I started my own company. He was trying out a new CAD system the customer wanted. There was this big set of bracing that wouldn't close and he couldn't figure out why, so he brought it to me. Took a while, but I found the problem... it had one brace being cut to -5.5 inches long.

Yep, that's not a typo. Negative 5.5 inches. Now how exactly do you do that? Not gonna mention the required hole pattern in it was about 6" long...

Remember that moon landing 52 years ago? It was accomplished using slide rules! We landed men on the moon and brought them safely back to earth. Now we have supercomputers running a billions of cycles per second, crunching 64- and 128-bit numbers at speeds no one dreamed of back then, quantum computers starting to be realized that are even faster, and we can't seem to get out of orbit!

Oh, and before you start in with that tired old cliche about old folks not being able to work computers, I have CAD capability here and I use it pretty regularly. I have an AMD 1090T running 16 gigs RAM in my shop that does everything form circuit board design to CAD to 3D modeling to complex mathematical analysis to circuit simulation. I have a Ryzen 5 pushing 32 gigs RAM in my home office that does the same thing... only a little faster. I'm not your typical anti-computer old fogey... I know how they work and I use them regularly. I just also know what they can't do, something that's sorely missing from young-'uns today.

Remember: To err is human; to really screw things up takes a computer. Or don't... it'll slap you up side the head eventually.

TheRedneck

a reply to: dawnstar

The "doll house" is just a smaller house, not a "tiny house" like you see on some of the TV shows today. Those are actually a little inefficient because of the size, believe it or not. Now, combine 4 or more into one structure, and you fix that inefficiency.

Maybe someday I'll get back on it... too many things left to finish and at my age I don't feel like breaking my back trying to get to all of them. I do what I feel like now and if something remains undone after I'm done, it'll be up to my kids to finish or not. All of my work is safely tucked away in digital form, some backed up on paper, for them to run with as they see fit when I move on.

TheRedneck

a reply to: TheRedneck

Remember that moon landing 52 years ago? It was accomplished using slide rules! We landed men on the moon and brought them safely back to earth. Now we have supercomputers running a billions of cycles per second, crunching 64- and 128-bit numbers at speeds no one dreamed of back then, quantum computers starting to be realized that are even faster, and we can't seem to get out of orbit!

You just plain and simply put it all together right there...

I'm not saying that people themselves have not changed as in human psychology and how we think. It's the nature of society around us that changes, and the material world that changes. Humans create things to ease the burden of physical labor on our bodies and other things such as living longer, and pleasuring out minds.
That's what is changing, you even said it yourself, you know how run and build computers, you yourself hasn't changed, but the technology you use has.
I noted in another post here that where I work there is no hand drafting, and junior engineers are almost a redundant position. It's all automated and AI driven now. We have an entire shop that is on the verge of becoming almost humanless and can build an entire steel framework for a Walmart or something with maybe a workforce of five people, robots and machines do all the rest of the work. So, where do you think those workers who would have filled those positions before are going to work now?
They aren't going to take up a fast food job, they'll be forced to take on a job that the market is demanding, their focus will be on something else.

I should also say that we haven't gone back to the moon because of some obvious reasons, there's no need. And once government stopped funding NASA that was it. The technology is still there, it just took billionaires to get it back up to speed and become profitable somehow. Now imagine if all those billionaires got together and collaborated with the will of a nation accepting that some of their taxes will aid such a venture again.
Can't have that tho, too socialist sounding.

a reply to: strongfp

Maybe we need to change how we think a tad.
Computers are supposed to be making our lives much easier, aren't they? The idea is that they work hard, so we don't have to, isnt it? Just like we tap into china or India's cheap labor force. They work hard so we don't have to and we get our products at a cheaper price to boot... supposedly.
So, we are working at getting our computers and robotics working hard, the overseas labor working hard, but still expecting our workforce to keep working just as hard as the generations before them. Sooner or later on of these two competing ideologies are gonna have to be laid aside or we are gonna be drowning in products the computers are spitting out at top speed that no one can afford to buy because there is no hard work to be found.

Best post I have read all week. That, unfortunately , is the truth..I see it every day at work. I am a whisker from turning 60, and find myself outworking most of the 30 year olds I work with. I don't really care who does what, but I was raised with a work ethic and don't shy away from doing what it takes to get the job done...That ethic seems to be lacking these days. Oh and by the way, if you don't like your job, find something else. If you are worth hiring, someone will hire you......

a reply to: dawnstar

Sooner or later on of these two competing ideologies are gonna have to be laid aside or we are gonna be drowning in products the computers are spitting out at top speed that no one can afford to buy because there is no hard work to be found.

And thus we enter the realm of 'the great reset'. And this coming 'fourth' industrial revolution.

a reply to: strongfp

I'm not saying that people themselves have not changed as in human psychology and how we think. It's the nature of society around us that changes, and the material world that changes. Humans create things to ease the burden of physical labor on our bodies and other things such as living longer, and pleasuring out minds.

The problem is that the change you speak of is not sustainable. Robots make errors; computers make errors. Humans have this ability to detect when something unexpected goes wrong and can take steps to minimize any consequences. A robot cannot; it an only respond as programmed to sensory input that is available.

A single sensor malfunction that goes undetected can completely ruin an entire job in your shop. The machinery will keep right on keeping on, happily doing its job (incorrectly), while a person can look at a stick of steel they're working on and often realize that something is amiss. That is the difference between thousands of dollars of material going to waste, the entire job being delayed, and who knows how much delay cost, and a minor glitch that wastes a few sticks of steel.

What you are seeing as some sort of "evolution" of society is in reality what it takes to try and function with all the errors being made due to lack of human oversight. Combine that with the expectation that everything will be easy and no one should have to spend a lifetime doing what every generation before spent a lifetime doing to get to the same place, and you have this great big glorious clusterf**k going on.

Sorry for the language; I know of nothing else that even comes close to describing it. And no, I will not accept it. I may be forced to watch everything crumble before enough people get enough gumption to actually do something about it, but I will never accept it.

As for the space program, we haven't been back to the moon because we have been too busy trying to "fix" society.

And fix what the last fix broke.

And fix what that fix broke.

And fix what that last fix broke.

...ad infinitum...

TheRedneck

a reply to: dawnstar

Computers are supposed to be making our lives much easier, aren't they? The idea is that they work hard, so we don't have to, isnt it?

The problem there is we intended to use robots/computers as our servants, having them do the things we didn't want to or couldn't do. They're great for that. Wonderful machines to make our lives easier.

But then people began to get lazy. Suddenly they were expecting computers to do everything. Need directions? Just punch the address in; GPS will guide you. Want to know something? We don't need no stinkin' books.. ask Google and Alexa! House needs vacuuming? Roomba will handle it. They even have a similar unit to tend a garden now! All the things we should have been doing for ourselves, we now demand computers do it, no matter how simple.

So of course, managers wanted to get in on the act. Workplaces set up computers to handle everything. You don't even have to read the buttons on a McDonald's cash register; they have pictures of the food! So now computers are no longer working for us; we are working for them. We do as they say, buy what they say is available, pay what they say something costs, go where they tell us to go, etc., etc., etc. I can't count the number of times I had a problem with an order or something and was told "the computer won't let me do that" to fix it.

I can tell you how many times I heard that and continued to deal with that company: zero!

So now we are no longer using computers for servants; we are using them for masters. And in a master role, computers suck!

TheRedneck

pretty sure the lockdowns turned Americans into introverts that just don't want to deal with bs from other people anymore now that they've been shown how unhappy they truly were previously.

a reply to: TheRedneck

Yes, humans do view errors at a much faster rate than AI.
But AI is learning at a much faster rate than anyone ever expected, so who knows what the future holds. Especially with quantum computing almost becoming a reality.