What's Up With Today's Youth?

I wanted to write about so many other (better) things – like the short lil trips I made and the fun weekends I had BUT this bugged me to no end. I refuse to be a food blogger (half of them don’t have an opinion except that it’s tasty or it’s yucky anyway) so I shall be a general blogger. After all I started this blog to humour myself and to see how I’ve grown over the years.
And so, it brings me to a few things.
Today’s youth.
Man, do I sound like a gripey old lady. Someone who read this blog told me I sound like an American. Uh uh, I don’t know if that’s good or bad. And that person is a European who lives in the USA!
With the exception of a few youth I can count off my fingers, many whom I come across are those who either apply to become interns at our company or who want to join us as employees. In recent years, we have tried to be good and accept interns but sometimes an internship at Redbox Studio can be detrimental to their lives.
Oh I don’t mean we endanger them in anyway. No way.
It’s not the physical that’s endangering. It’s the mental input. Or maybe it could be physical.
After all, if you’re used to the kind of laidback work style in our office where there’s no telephone* (the Telekom kind) to be found and we totally bar people from barging into the office to the extent that we’ve set up a Tech Tuesday consultation session, it can be weird going back to regular offices with regular rules and regulations.
*we disconnected our telephone when we got one too many silly “Can I book a karaoke room?” requests each Friday evening. Without fail. Can you imagine that? Anyway our clients know our mobile numbers so taking off the landline was just a way to stop the phone ringing with mad requests. Being associated with Redbox Karaoke can be funny at times (and works as a mental hook to get people to remember us) but sometimes, it’s NOT that funny.
And we “feed” them with some ideas that won’t sit well later if they join the regular nine-to-five.
Like our beliefs that it’s your results that matter, not the number of hours you put in.
Or why we’re always improving our own systems and processes.
Or why if a piece of work doesn’t pass muster, it won’t get to the client.
Or why clients don’t bug us – unlike some agencies we know.
We don’t run around like headless chickens and a good day is a day where we are all happily doing what we need to do, instead of being dictated by the clients. Which to our good fortune, we don’t have those sort of clients. We used to but we pushed them all away so that they can annoy the pants off other people.
Yes. We do have some quirks, yes sir we do. But then again, a business should be doing what you like and creating success that you can live with.
Anyway.
We thought that getting interns could help THEM more than they could help us. These days, I can vouch that the quality of interns have dropped considerably. Many cannot speak English. Many have such limited worldviews I wonder what they really read, if they read at all.
(Did I tell you that we actually “fired” two interns from a local college last year? Of course their college lecturer called up to ask why. The two interns were never interested in their internship anyway and one even took time off during the middle of a work day to go fix his car! Best of all, they had the cheek to ask for an extended holiday after one entire week of Chinese New Year break.)
January’s the month for some local universities to send their students out to get internship placements. Last week I received one application via email.
The weirdest thing is, it came with 2 CVs and 2 resumes.
Can you guess what it was about? This girl not only sends in HER CV and resume, she sends it in on behalf of her friend!
So when she called up today to ask if I got her email, I asked if her friend had any problem that prevented her from emailing in her own internship application.
“Oh we think if we email it in together, we can get the internship together.”
What’s this with interning together-gether with your friend? What’s wrong with a little independence? Why must you intern with your friend? Are you that scared? What of?
Interning on your own gives you opportunities to explore and learn. And meet other people.
I’ve met some stupendously confident young people (and I know a couple of brilliant young girls whom I’d be proud to mentor) and I’ve been so proud of them. And then I get emails from university students who think internships are kindergarten all over again.
Damn, I am glad I am Gen X.
I wasn’t super confident as a 22 year old but I was confident enough to intern on my own at Hewlett-Packard (now Agilent) without needing a friend as a support. I was confident enough to make new friends on my first day of practical training (that’s what internship was known as!).
If anyone can tell me, is today’s youth a result of being mollycoddled? I am all ears!

3 thoughts on “What's Up With Today's Youth?”

    • Marsha – that’s why it’s sad. Parents don’t know that this mollycoddling will be detrimental to their kids in the future. Not now. Now everything is fine. They get the ipads, ipods and smartphones. It’s when they grow up and go out there and realize no one thinks “that” highly of them or their “magnificence” and they start having self doubt. My other major gripe is, they don’t know how to even do simple tasks like cleaning or wiping their own tables. Never mind. I think I am getting old. Bah.

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  1. LOL!!! I have a few kids like that in mind too. Only know how to complain complain complain. Sigh….like everything in life is not going their way and it sucks. Roll eyes. =)

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