I wasn't even an adult much before the year 2000(gen Y?), yet I pose the following question:
Why are so many American "millennials" entitled, bratty, shiftless, and just generally useless?
I know every generation seems to say similar things about the generation that comes after, but it honestly feels true this time. They seem to think that they deserve to be big deals simply by virtue of their own existence, without paying the dues.
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Too much parenting. I understand that there is the same problem in China, with single-kid "Little emperors." What's counter-intuitive to me is that they are afraid and anti-creative.
Oh, it's true. Colleges are being destroyed as centers of intellectual debate. The kids show up assuming they know everything already.
-- John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc picosecond timing precision measurement jlarkin att highlandtechnology dott com http://www.highlandtechnology.com
I had one parent tell me: "I have to basically do my teenager's homework, so they can get into a good college. I do it because I know the costs of not succeeding are too great."
Sadly, I almost understand the logic. What are you supposed to do, when that's what everyone else is doing?
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Not enough boredom. (That's my answer.) I find the same problem in myself... Why should I go clean up the shop, when I can have more fun trolling the internet?
Doing homework for your kids is not doing anyone any favors. Fail early and often, that seems to be the road my son is taking as a freshman in high school.
George H.
Doesn't surprise me. The common disease is called "affluenza". Nowadays they can buy everything they possibly want. Smart phones, TV sets, video games, computers, cars. Even if the parents aren't rich they still buy all that and they or their parents rack up a mountain of debt in the wake. When I was their age it was different. Parents generally did not buy their kids a car the millisecond they reached driving age. $500 smart phones did not exist. Computers? Forget it, financially totally out of reach. TV? Find a broken one for free and fix it. Credit card? Wots that? We had to build, modify or repair stuff if we wanted to have it.
What you are supposed to do? Start a consulting business. Seriously. There will be an ever increasing pile of projects that need to get done while there is a decreasing number of people who can truly tackle them.
This already began when I was studying for my degree back in the early
80's. At our university we had plenty of folks who never attained the level of competency to perform a substantial circuit design from scratch. Yeah, they were good at math and theory but they could not even repair a TV set let alone understand how it works if their life depended on it. The majority of those came from affluent households even back then.-- Regards, Joerg http://www.analogconsultants.com/
It's a nice thought! But I didn't do an engineering program in college - when it comes to electronics I'm essentially self-taught. I went to a small liberal arts college where most of my peers were working on writing, film, or fine art.
A little different than many liberal arts schools, however, in that most of the students were very creative and very driven, and many of the them now actually earn a living wage doing the disciplines above.
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Some of the really great engineers I've worked with do not have a formal degree. Mostly because they dropped out. All self-taught. And that's pretty much what I am. I have a master's degree but most of what I am using today I did not learn at the university but during ham radio projects and work gigs to make money.
Not matter whether you have a degree or not the key is to achieve a reputation. Got to have a web site and nowadays also a Linkedin profile. Most of my client relationships came about when people found me one way or another, then we had a chat of 1/2h or an hour, sometimes more. That initial chat was usually free and it is during this encounter that clients get the feel whether you are the right person.
Occasionally the initiation meet has funny consequences. Like in one case where I asked a lot of questions and the last one was "Of course I am all for analog solutions but did you guys ever try doing the beamforming in the PC?" ... some silence followed ... "Well, ahem ... Shazam!" ... now they didn't need me anymore :-)
-- Regards, Joerg http://www.analogconsultants.com/
Oops. If you tell people they don't need you at times, the result is you become the first to call. OK for small jobs, not so smart for bigger ones!
NT
That's OK; you make friends that way.
-- John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc picosecond timing precision measurement jlarkin att highlandtechnology dott com http://www.highlandtechnology.com
That's ok. I think it's best to be honest and tell them when there is a method that's way easier. Even if that puts me out of an assignment. Just like one would expect a lawyer to be honest and say when to fold'em. Or a car mechanic saying that the check engine light was just a loose tank lid instead of selling you a new $1200 ECU.
Also, they tend to remember when a brief phone conversation resulted in avoiding the burning of hundreds or thousands of man-hours or solved some other major headache. It can result in other projects down the road.
-- Regards, Joerg http://www.analogconsultants.com/
Toss them into the pond, no water wings: swim or drown.
By that time, it's too late. They'll drown.
One of my favourite kids' books is "Swallows and Amazons". It's about two brothers and two sisters on holiday in the Lake District in 1929. They get permission from their parents to go camping on an island in the lake by themselves for the whole summer, and of course have various adventures.
The father is still at work in London, so the mum wires him to see if he agrees to the plan. His reply is one of the great maxims of intelligent childrearing:
BETTER DROWNED THAN DUFFERS STOP IF NOT DUFFERS WONT DROWN
The children give themselves the "duffer test" on just about every adventure, and you can see them getting wiser, stronger and more confident as they go along.
Cheers
Phil Hobbs
-- Dr Philip C D Hobbs Principal Consultant ElectroOptical Innovations LLC Optics, Electro-optics, Photonics, Analog Electronics 160 North State Road #203 Briarcliff Manor NY 10510 hobbs at electrooptical dot net http://electrooptical.net
Today that's more associated with credit cards, $99 club and fast shipments :-)
Brilliant!
Did you give the book to your children to read?
My parents were like that. They let us climb trees way up there and stuff. My sister was the best climber among us and some of her climbs scared me just looking up. My dare was more going onto motocross tracks with my little kid's bike. One of my school mates died when he missed the edge of a 100ft cliff which made the risk very obvious to us
Then there was the river crossing on top of a pipe, no rails, only a vertical suspension wire every 10ft. But the topper was that my parents and those of three other class mates let us four school kids travel from Germany to England all by ourselves, to see London. We arranged accommodations and everything ourselves and (almost) paid our own way. I don't think they'd even let minors on the ferry nowadays if all they had were passports.
-- Regards, Joerg http://www.analogconsultants.com/
Of course! I also quoted the "if not duffers won't drown" maxim often.
Three of the kids in my graduating class died in three separate car accidents. Cars and liquor are a lot more dangerous than tree climbing.
Cool.
Probably not. In Scotland, every child without exception is assigned a child welfare case worker.
Cheers
Phil Hobbs
-- Dr Philip C D Hobbs Principal Consultant ElectroOptical Innovations LLC Optics, Electro-optics, Photonics, Analog Electronics 160 North State Road #203 Briarcliff Manor NY 10510 hobbs at electrooptical dot net http://electrooptical.net
Ordered from ABE. There are a number of copies available, I picked the closest vendor.
Dan
If we went back to the concept where kids have to earn the money for their cars and also the liquor that risk would be greatly diminished. The parents of various class mates also allowed us to venture into Duesseldorf Old Town and they knew we'd always drink a lot of beer there. We came home on the last train way after midnight. If we didn't miss that one. They trusted us. So did barkeepers. They'd serve us as long as we weren't becoming unruly or obviously drunk which we never did.
[...]
Seriously? When do they start instituting thoughts control?
I was once tempted to settle down near Aberdeen but now I am sure glad I didn't. Such leftist concepts have never jibed with me and they never will.
-- Regards, Joerg http://www.analogconsultants.com/
I'll have to get it for my GD. It'll piss off the brat. He's been in VT too long and has gone to the dark side.
Adventure? Do they have that game on an iPhone?
That's my point. They aren't allowed to anymore. They don't even get the minor challenges of sports anymore (no one wins and everyone gets a "participation trophy"). If they're thrown in the deep end, they'll sink like a rock.
Sounds creepy. How do you know they're not using the kids to actually build up a picture of the parents' attitudes and behaviours? After all, why would *every* child need monitoring?
o
I read the whole series as a kid, and liked it a lot. There was a bit of ch emistry in there that set my teeth on edge - both my parents had chemistry degrees, and I couldn't imagine that a kid of my age could be as ignorant o f chemistry as one of the Swallows was depicted as being ...
-- Bill Sloman, Sydney
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