While I’ve never been a big Craig Ferguson fan, I think he’s on to something here. We were just talking about how today, so many young, fresh outta college kids have that aura of entitlement about them. They don’t wanna work TOO hard. (Note I said many, not ALL, so don’t be sending me a bunch of email telling me YOU work hard and you’re 22…I know there are some of you out there. My intern is one.) They can’t understand why I would work more than 40 hours a week. My own daughter said “I see how hard you work at owning your own business…I don’t want that.” “Like, you work on Saturday?” one bright young man asked me recently. One young lady said…”I work because I have to, not because I want to.” Love the honesty. But it amazes me. How attitudes change in a single generation.
Anyway, I thought this was funny. I AM getting old. 🙂
Tags: advertising, Craig Ferguson, work ethic, Youth
adchick 
July 26, 2009 at 2:58 pm
I’m so glad it’s not just me and it’s not just a UK phenomenon. I never thought it was possible to work in a media agency from 9.30 to 5.45ish as they do. I look across our open plan office after 7pm and I see senior staff and maybe one or two of the young ones. They simply aren’t getting the work done, aren’t gaining the experience they’ll need to progress. It makes for interesting appraisals. Yet they want bigger and bigger salaries because they hang on to the coat tails of the bright and hard working ones.
It’s not even a generation thing. It seemed to start with the graduates of 2002 and 2003 if I remember correctly. I’ve no idea why.
I recently suggested building an element into our internal training programs that dealt with grammer and spelling too. They’re not so good at this either; it doesn’t seem to be important anymore.
The answer may be hiding in this fantastic post:
http://ad-nauseam-original.blogspot.com/2009/05/what-social-marketing-can-learn-from.html
July 27, 2009 at 8:30 am
Lordy… what a magnificent diatribe.
Thank you!
July 27, 2009 at 10:16 pm
Good point about spelling, Scott. If I hear one more person say it’s not as important as the idea, I’ll bonk them on the head with my Oxford Canadian. It’s BIG!
July 28, 2009 at 1:07 am
Scott and Teenie: You have no idea. Who will protect the English language if we don’t. If I hear: “I seen” or “Where you at?” one more time, I may explode. I admit to my share of spelling errors, but am mortified when I do. For example, I have added you to my blogroll, Teenie and just realized I spelled it Tennie. Ah well.
And, SRP: I thought you had forgotten all about me! Thanks for the visit! 🙂
July 28, 2009 at 2:07 am
Pfft! I spell my blog name “Teenie Thouhgts” half the time. I’m a typo queen–but there’s a huge difference between a typo and ignorance. People don’t seem to care anymore. Lynn Truss wrote that bad writing puts the onus on the reader to figure out what’s trying to be said. Brilliant!
July 28, 2009 at 2:07 am
Oh, and thanks for the blog nod, adchick!