Had the chance to catch up with an old friend on the weekend, Tony and I go way way back.
Some how it came up that the younger generation is not as switched on as the conditions they are growing up in should allow.
Tony mentioned that they had a guest speaker come in and talk about “Generation Y” (Broadly speaking, those under 30).
He was able to shed some light on my ‘thinking out of the box’ concerns, it would seem that my read and repair experiences are not isolated. Tony gave some over views from the guest speaker, Gen Y’ers are hard to get into the job interview unless there is something in it for them (ie free lunch). Once in the interview room, the bulk of the questions from them are about what the wage is, what the perks are, what the car is they will be given and so on. Once in the job, they want lots of flexibility and freedom to change the job to suit their lifestyle. According to the guest speaker, a lot of comanys are waking up to this, and looking for older people to employ, ie, people they can rely on to get the job done.
This web site here, has a great summery with what we are seeing.
This pretty much is the same angle I am seeing in the technical world. Those following behind us don’t feel the need to fix anything, just throw it out and buy another is their mantra. They feel they are so computer savvy, if the computer is broken, and they cant fix it in 5 minutes, then its clearly so broken as to be useless, again, toss it out and get another. Technology has laid the world at their feet, they feel its unnecessary to work at too much for long, things come easy to them, why should they have to think too long on any one subject.
Speaking with my school teacher friend about things on the same line, she was saying how she has to break her classes into 20 minute chunks, any longer on one task and she has lost the class. They simply can not sit still and think for longer than 20 minutes, they would rather brag about how they can do three things at one. The trouble is, the three things are shallow and of little lasting value.
Anyway, I think I have made my concerns pretty clear. It was just interesting to hear from a different angle the things that I have only just resonantly started to see in my very small world………..
I suspect I will come back to this topic from a “where is the world going to end up when these people come to power” angle. Time, as usual, will tell.