I can't believe we made it!

[NRA]

Most you "old timers" should understand this one.

[url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=zyAGE8Y7ojc"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=zyAGE8Y7ojc[/url]

[Chucktshoes]

Yep! It is a miracle I survived childhood.

[R_Bert]

Anyone remember the "Most Doctors Recommend" ads ? Edited December 11, 2012 by R_Bert

[vontar]

Yes, I made it.

(I see the generation after mine as the entitled and not my fault generation.)


BTW, the no child left behind, well they are entering the work force and it is clear they don't put in much effort.

[strickj]

We drank out of a water hose that was attached to the oldest and rustiest well ever made.
That probably explains a lot of stuff, like my borderline mysophobia, but I did survive drinking from it though.

Being home by the time the street lights came on was spot on. I would wake up early and GTFO of there, not seeing or talking to Mom again until after dark sometime.
Closest friend was about a mile down the road. Would have to cross one of the busiest roads in Chattanooga to get there. Had one friend die trying to cross that road and another friend nearly die. Both were on bikes and were struck by cars. Never stopped our Moms from letting us cross that road though. And I'm tellen' ya, that was like a game of Frogster.
We would always find ourselves playing in the woods that surrounded the Army TNT plant, which was being subleased as a fertilizer plant.
That probably explains my love for the smell of gun powder and that strange twitch I have today.

Lawn darts, wood burning kits and sling shots were just good ideas.

Edited December 9, 2012 by strickj

[mav]

One thing the video didn't mention - I got my butt busted when I got in trouble, smacked in mouth when I back talked, and often had to pick out a switch to be used on the back of my bare legs. I survived and learned a valuable lesson too.

[vontar]

[quote name='mav' timestamp='1355083002' post='857321']
One thing the video didn't mention - I got my butt busted when I got in trouble, smacked in mouth when I back talked, and often had to pick out a switch to be used on the back of my bare legs. I survived and learned a valuable lesson too.
[/quote]

Let me guess, if you didn't bring back a good switch they got the best one right?

[Guest cardcutter]

All I can say is Amen! He is right on the money.

[Guest Lester Weevils]

Yup, the world was a dangerous place back then.

Reminds of this SNL Classic--

[url="http://www.hulu.com/watch/115713"]http://www.hulu.com/watch/115713[/url]

[TMF]

I gotta be honest, my childhood was just like that, but it scares the bejesus outa me the thought of letting my kids run around the way we did.

[Motasyco]

By the time I was 12, I was on the river alone in a boat I built with my own two hands. I was camping in the woods with my friends and no adult supervision. And most shocking of all, I had my own .22 rifle and never even shot myself or anyone else.

[Djay3]

Ha! Thanks for this, it triggered a flood of 1950's memories both safe and dangerous ones:

settling up with fights behind the store next to school ... leaning against the floor standing radio listening to the Lone Ranger ... all the neighborhood kids piling into Mr. Alsup's house to watch Gabby Hayes and Howdy Doody (only T.V. on the street) ... "duck and cover" under the school desk (for Atomic Bomb drills ... getting Garand thumb during 9th grade R.O.T.C., "son hold that rifle like you've got something the squirrels want" ... tackle football in street clothes at the Water Works ... running through the drainage ditch system and getting attacked by neighbors' dogs ... exchanging blows on each other with the coach's paddle ... getting slapped upside the head by the coach for talking in Civics Class ... sheesh! We made it! Edited December 9, 2012 by Djay3

[NRA]

"duck and cover" LOL ......... I had almost forgot about those drills

[Guest Lester Weevils]

Lawn Darts!

[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p99RjlbgUtw[/media]

[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ImFlCNYrEA[/media]

[Raoul]

Makes me sad.

[NRA]

lawn darts were GREAT!

[Murgatroy]

Hell, I remember being told on many occasions that my mother brought me into this world, she would take me out of it.

I don't know how any of us made it if you believe what they tell us today.

[jtmaze]

My mom didn't use switches. She made you go get a belt and if you didn't get a good one you got dads 2" wide 1/4 inch thick leather "good" belt.


JTM
Sent from my iPhone

[Motasyco]

A couple years ago a guy in his 20s was accompanied by his mother when he came to a job interview with the company I work for. And this was for a physical, outdoor type job. He didn't get the job. It made me wonder, at what age does one become an adult in today's world. I think some don't make it.

[vontar]

[quote name='Motasyco' timestamp='1355190637' post='858197']
A couple years ago a guy in his 20s was accompanied by his mother when he came to a job interview with the company I work for. And this was for a physical, outdoor type job. He didn't get the job. It made me wonder, at what age does one become an adult in today's world. I think some don't make it.
[/quote]

That is how it should be, you go to an interview alone. You don't even take a GF or wife with you. An interview is when a person had better dam well be able to stand alone, even if the job is team work.

I have heard of cases where a mom has complained to a boss because their kid didn't get good of a raise.

[Murgatroy]

My favorite one is when the wife/mother/sister/girlfriend/roommate comes in with them to fill the application out.

[Guest Lester Weevils]

Mom or wife coming in to "help" on a job app is shocking. That would be embarrassing to all parties involved one would think.

Maybe in some cases it isn't mom or wife being too "motherly"? Maybe that just shows how desperate the women have become, to do anything that might get the dude away from the video game and out of the basement for a few hours every day?

[Murgatroy]

It is embarrassing.

Most of the time they walk in and ask for an application, in a group of three or more. You will have Mommy, wife and applicant. We do everything on computer now, most places do. I feel kinda bad about it, cause 90% of the time, they just turn and walk out. Sometimes they sit and it takes them an hour to complete it.

When I was the one doing interviews I would call them back because I had too, but I never hired them. Even after Mommy or Wifey filled it out, you still couldn't understand half of it, and the interview always bombed.

We had one mother that called me, asked if we were hiring, came down and got the application (this was five or more years ago when we still had paper) filled it out, turned it in and then called on a daily basis to ask why we hadn't hired her son.

[Guest Lester Weevils]

It is embarrassing.

Most of the time they walk in and ask for an application, in a group of three or more. You will have Mommy, wife and applicant. We do everything on computer now, most places do. I feel kinda bad about it, cause 90% of the time, they just turn and walk out. Sometimes they sit and it takes them an hour to complete it.

When I was the one doing interviews I would call them back because I had too, but I never hired them. Even after Mommy or Wifey filled it out, you still couldn't understand half of it, and the interview always bombed.

We had one mother that called me, asked if we were hiring, came down and got the application (this was five or more years ago when we still had paper) filled it out, turned it in and then called on a daily basis to ask why we hadn't hired her son.

 

Thanks Murgatroy

 

Having not seen this phenomenon, made a possibly erroneous assumption that these are young men who, for whatever reason, are "strangely lacking in normal motivation". Have seen such young fellas among neighbors. Harmless enough guys, the supposedly new situation of kids working as little as possible, living in the basement and never growing up.

 

Now I've yet to figure out what I want to do when I grow up, but at least was sufficiently motivated to hit a lick. :)

 

What you describe sounds accompanied by severe lack of basic skills of reeding, riting and rithmatick? That would be the natural result of a kid who never much hit a lick even in elementary school, but there are (or were) plenty of folk who didn't get along well with skool larnin who are nontheless bright enough motivated hard workers? Some folk march to a different drum and must find their own way, while nontheless at least traversing the approximate path of the parade route? :)

 

Disfunctionality is often blamed on loose or nonexistant family ties, but the "help" these fellas get from family in the job application, may show at least some kind of family structure. Possibly matriarchal family structure?

 

In middle class growing up, often kids get the first introduction to the work world with the help of parents and the neighborhood net. I wasn't much a self-starter in high school, but old dad got me the first couple of part time gigs with friends of his, glorious high-pay high-status positions for the young'n'dumb such as digging post holes and toting heavy loads from point A to point B. Which was practical training on how to discriminate sheets from shinola and how to "do it myself" later on.

 

Was similar with daughter though she was a quicker learner. In high school she wasn't much motivated to get a part time job but we "set her up" with a neighbor who managed a retail store. After working awhile she discovered that she liked working and getting a pay check, and took it from there on her own. That was 15 years ago, but even then the neighbor and daughter reported that many teens and twenty-somethings would hire on at the store (hardly back-breaking labor), work a half day, leave for lunch break and never come back! So in that job environment, a person who would just show up on time and stay all day seemed a prize employee even if they were dumb and lazy!

 

If these job applicants you describe are "fairly young" then perhaps the family unfortunately doesn't know any neighbors in a position to "take the kid under his wing" for the first baptism into the waters of employment? OTOH if these fellas are much past the age of 25 (max), just don't know what to say.

 

The most cynical interpretation might be that some of the fellas are intent to collect the max duration of unemployment and therefore need to apply for gigs, but don't want to be hired?

 

Long ago when I worked social work, many clients were not just totally shiftless, but didn't have the slightest clue about how to go get a gig and hang onto it thereafter. With a huge caseload, there wasn't much I could do to educate them, because it can be time-intensive. At the time I daydreamed that something that might work a whole lot better, if there was some way to get lots of volunteers to "take under the wing" one each of these people and help introduce them to the skill set, then it would maybe work similar to parents first introducing their kids to the work world with the aid of their "neighborhood connections." IOW, maybe it would actually be effective.

 

So maybe in some cases when the whole family shows up for a job app, they are trying the same thing, but they don't happen to have any friends in the position to help, and they know little or nothing how to go about it themselves?

[Murgatroy]

I work for a large company that has many positions, from white collar no sweat, to blue collar nothing but sweat. Anywhere in between.

 

I have worked since I was old enough to understand the world revolved around money. I delivered newspapers, mowed lawns, got older, carried lumber and picked up nails. Got a little older and swung a hammer or run a saw. When I was old enough to work 'on paper,' I bagged groceries and flipped burgers. As soon as I was old enough I went to work in the sewing mills in the cut-room.

 

I worked my way out of a dead end town and into college. I never cared about school, I didn't do poorly, but I was always interested in other things. I stayed in more than my fair share of trouble.

 

A lot more.

 

I have been with my company for almost a decade now. I hired in dead dick bottom of the totem pole and worked my way up to a nice corner office where I get to tell a whole lot of folks what to do. Part of that comes from the fact that if it needs done, and I can't find someone to do it, I get up off of my ass and do it myself. I haven't missed a day, and I have worked more than my fair share of twenty-four hour shifts.

 

I used to supervise the night shift. It was the most menial labor position in the company. Anyone that has worked in the beverage industry knows how hard pulling orders and loading trucks can be. I used to ask my interviewees "Can you lift fifty pounds? Can you lift it over your head? Can you lift it over your head non stop for fourteen hours?" I wasn't kidding.

 

I tried it all. I would hire kids with stamina. They quit after their first night. I hire adults with a family to feed, they quit after their first night.

 

Even with the recession going on, we have bloomed. Americans are fat and lazy, and they will be damned if they give up their soft drinks. Thank God for it. We are nearly always hiring. Why? Because everyone is afraid to work. 

 

"What do you mean my hours aren't set, can you explain to me 'work until the job is done?"

 

"You said a plenty of overtime, not a sixty hour work week!"

 

"I'm tired!"

 

"I worked my eight and I want out."

 

"Hey, how come I am working hard than him?"

 

I grew up poor. Welfare holes in shoes Appalachia poor. Momma never worked a lick in her life, I ain't seen my daddy since I was five poor. I am the oldest of six. Anyone that has followed my posts knows what has come of those lazy good for nothing handout hunting bastards.

 

I have a family now. My wife drives a pretty truck she ain't ashamed of and my daughter wears the fancy shoes to school. That is why I work. I never had the fancy shoes.

 

 

 

 

Every time I hire or interview a lazy, dimwitted, unable to enunciate, dirty freeloader I am reminded of my family. How much easier it is to draw a check from someone else than to work for it yourself. And every time they prove me right and leave halfway through a shift before they have even gotten their first check, I am glad that I moved out that little bitty dead end town in the middle of nowhere.

 

 

 

 

However, I am opinionated and stubborn. I got to where I am by the sweat of my brow and my own broken bones. I am comfortable with who I am, and what I have done to get here.

 

I ain't claiming I am right.