[widebody911]

I may sound like a grumpy old man, but I think kids are spoiled. Cable TV, an Ipod and a cell phone appear to be a right in this day and age. They get an 'allowance' which, adjusted for inflation, was probably more than I earned in a month back then.

I was at a restaraunt a while back, and this girl who couldn't have been more than 10 had her own cell2phone, and was carrying on her own conversation in the middle of dinner! when I was her age, we didn't even dream of having our own land line, much less a cell phone

There's a bunch of teenage kids in my neighborhood that all hang out at one particular house. During the summer, they sit around, drink beer, smoke various substances, and generally b!tch about not having money. All day long. I tried employing a couple of them for various tasks when I was building my shop, ie painting, drywall work, moving stuff. None of them would last more than an hour before they were whining "I gotta go; I'm [tired|sore|hungry|have a 'thing']"

I got my first job when I was 12. My dad told me I wouldn't be sitting on my ass all summer, and that I could either go work for someone else for money, or work for him for free. After a couple weeks of splitting firewood, digging postholes, etc. I got a job in a packing shed doing similar stuff, but for $2/hr under the table. The next year I got a job driving tractors doing other random farming-related tasks. I got my first programming job when I was 15; $11/hr but I was da pimp next to my peers; those chumps were making $3.35 working at the truck stop or warehouse.

I was unemployed for a couple months last year, and I did some onesey-twosey welding jobs and learned how to do fiberglass fabrication as opposed to sitting on my ass whinging and collecting unemployment.

Long story short, there doesn't appear to be much of a work ethic in anyone under 25 (semi-random number), and the "only Mexicans will do it" has become a self-fulfilling prophecy.