16-25 year olds

[Backstage With Slowdive]

From the comments on Collaterlie Sisters' latest blog:

40. At 4:32pm on 17 Feb 2010, Steve wrote:
I own a very hi-tech engineering company - we design scientific instruments, and we always engage new people knowing that we will have to train them up and onwards - a company policy from when my father started 30 years ago.

I am forced to say, the 16-25 year olds I have interviewed recently - , have completely failed to impress: No interests other than "socialising with friends" and "Watching football". No Hobbies. Magnificent Educational results: damn all knowledge about the subject of science or engineering.

That goes for the graduate mechanical engineers too. We work particularly in the properties of liquid flow. One graduate, I quote, "with extensive experience of fluid mechanics" was unable to even define key terms in the field.

Unemployed can mean unemployable. Our kids have been lied to for a long time about what they can do. Chickens are coming home to roost

So kids - not only do you watch shit TV, listen to shit bands, send each other shit txt msgs you also have an inflated idea of your understanding of fluid mechanics.

I blame the teachers, New Labour, and also Skinz.

[biggytitbo]

A lifetime of peonage awaits them, the thought of which makes their annoying hair and their pants around their knees more bearable for me.

[Hank_Kingsley]

Thank God I'm 26.

[Marty McFly]

Thank God I'm 26.

This I can agree with, also being 26. Just missed the cuntish cusp, it looks like.

[Still Not George]

Young people are all frankly useless. They should all be put on an island somewhere. With lots of lotion and bikinis and cameras.

[vrailaine]

Young people are all frankly useless. They should all be put on an island somewhere. With lots of lotion and bikinis and cameras.

Why d'you want me, specifically, to do that?

[AsparagusTrevor]

I hate those cunts. In March I'll be 27, two full years away from that demographic.

Actually my fiancee is 25. She can be a cunt sometimes though. The other day she told me to turn Bioshock 2 down while she watched Holby City. See what I'm up against? Bloody kids.

[Ronnie the Raincoat]

I've been thinking a lot about marriage lately but being married in my twenties always struck me as wrong.  I'm 24, and now the idea of being married is appealing to me very much, so much so I've had to practically chew my own fist to stop me proposing.  How long has your 25 year old fiancee been your fiance?

[AsparagusTrevor]

I proposed last March, so nearly a year. We're getting married in May.

When I say proposed, I mean, I was at my cousin's wedding, got really drunk, spent much of the night inhaling helium from the table balloons and stuck one of the rubber balloon rings on my girlfriend's finger for a laugh. That ended up being a proposal in her mind, and I didn't have the heart to tell her otherwise. I've warmed to the idea since, slightly, though it's gonna be nearly £10,000 I could've spent on a home cinema, car, etc.

I have a similar bugbear though, but not involving weddings. I think it's wrong to have children in my 20's. In fact I have no desire to have kids at all, but it seems it's an inevitability along the line.

[Artemis]

People who say things like "Chickens are coming home to roost" are rarely worth listening to, in my experience.

It's a bit daft to criticise would be engineering trainees for not knowing much about engineering - surely that's your job, to train them?! And the comment about hobbies or lack of them seems as snide as it does irrelevant. Name me one prominent engineer who has a really interesting side-hobbie.

[Still Not George]

People who say things like "Chickens are coming home to roost" are rarely worth listening to, in my experience.

It's a bit daft to criticise would be engineering trainees for not knowing much about engineering - surely that's your job, to train them?! And the comment about hobbies or lack of them seems as snide as it does irrelevant. Name me one prominent engineer who has a really interesting side-hobbie.

Besides anything else, interesting hobbies have a habit of being expensive.

Nah, the guy's just a twat. There's plenty of them in both the public and private sectors.

[23 Daves]

People who say things like "Chickens are coming home to roost" are rarely worth listening to, in my experience.

Claire Rayner uses that phrase, actually.  But then again...

It's a bit daft to criticise would be engineering trainees for not knowing much about engineering - surely that's your job, to train them?! And the comment about hobbies or lack of them seems as snide as it does irrelevant. Name me one prominent engineer who has a really interesting side-hobbie.

This cuts both ways, as well.  I was once advised by somebody not to make too much out of my other interests on my CV because "people will want to see that your main area of interest is the media - they won't want to hear about your side-projects and interests unless they're relevant to the job".  In other words, you need to work every hour you can and not be distracted by character-building passions and activities. 

Most people I've worked with - be they 18 years old or 60 - don't really have hobbies.  If you asked most people in the older age bracket what they were most interested in outside of work, they'd probably say their kids.  If you asked the younger lot, they'd probably say going clubbing, going to gigs or going down the pub.  In the 15 years I've been gainfully employed (on and off) I don't anything much has really changed there that I've noticed. 

The only thing I would criticise the 16-25 year old workers I know for (and I know I'm not alone in thinking this) is that they can be exceptionally cliquey in a workplace.  That was also probably always there, though, it's just that I've got to an age where I'm more likely to notice it now by being excluded from work conversations and social gatherings.  University graduates in particular do sometimes carry over a bit of the "us and them" mentality, which was also evident during study where the mature students were concerned.  I'd warrant this has also been going on since at least the sixties, though.

[HappyTree]

The first lesson I do with all my new classes is traditional "present yourself" schtick. So I get about 300 people between 18 and 23 all telling me their hobbies. I'm always amazed at the variety of activities they talk about. Quite a lot of the girls claim to do "jazz dancing" which is some kind of free-form version of more classical dancing. Enough horse-riders to be of note, not nearly as many soccer players as one might expect, a lot of handball in the girls and a fair splattering of video game playing.

They all seem so active. I should really do something myself.

[Suttonpubcrawl]

stuck one of the rubber balloon rings on my girlfriend's finger for a laugh. That ended up being a proposal in her mind, and I didn't have the heart to tell her otherwise.

Ahhhhhh, how romantic.

[23 Daves]

and a fair splattering of video game playing.

That's the one a lot of people hate, isn't it?  "All they do is play stupid computer games!"  That phrase used to piss me off when I was 15 years old, because I wasn't very sporty (nothing's changed there) and a lot of the games I played were actually quite tough and required a degree of planning and puzzle solving.  For some reason my mother hated the idea of me playing computer games more than she hated me just going into town and hanging around the shops for a bit with no particular purpose.  There again, my mother is tremendously suspicious of just about anything invented after 1970, she really should join some sort of special cult.

[Shaun]

How long has your 25 year old fiancee been your fiance?

Are you suggesting she's recently had a sex change?

[George Oscar Bluth II]

Criticising people aged 16-25 because they prefer 'socialising' to 'having a hobby'? Really? Since when have people that age had anything you could describe as 'a hobby'? And why does 'watching football' not count as an interest?

Fuck him, wouldn't want to work for him anyway.

[Backstage With Slowdive]

And there's more.

[Jemble Fred]

Since when have people that age had anything you could describe as 'a hobby'?

This is odd. What does it mean?

[Lyndon]

And there's more.

Quite heartening really, I'm better than those twats.

[Treguard of Dunshelm]

The three who had greeted him proved the strongest candidates and he hired them. Within a year they were out because of their "lackadaisical" attitude. They did not turn up on time; for the first six months a manager had to check all their emails for spelling and grammar; they did not know how to learn. It was the first time they had ever been asked to learn on their own. Their ability to "engage in business" was "incredibly" disappointing and "at 5.30 on the dot they left the office".

Sounds familiar but can you blame them? Young people (I feel old using that phrase, I'm only 26) are often massively feckless, but they're being brought up to think all you have to succeed is show up. I always hated that my parents brought me up in a way I perceived as old fashioned, but recently I've become thankful for it!

I blame all this on decreased consumption of Class A drugs. You used to be able to go into the local indie night here and get a big bag of Es from almost anyone. Nowadays if you even mention drugs they back away slowly like you're Pete Doherty or something.

[Backstage With Slowdive]

You try talking to kids at the bus stop about the new biography of Arthur Koestler. Like spitting at a brick wall.