Blame the recession. Blame congress for bumping the minimum wage making employers gun-shy about hiring part-time seasonal workers. But whoever you blame, feel compassion for teen job seekers this summer. They are feeling the effects as bad–or perhaps even worse–than other demographic sectors of our workforce as this recent CNBC report points out.
You know who really can ‘feel their pain’? Our grandparents and great grandparents; the pre-baby boom matures, traditionalists, or as Tom Brokaw dubbed them, “the Greatest Generation.” They may not know Lady Gaga from an iPad, but Lordy, they certainly know how to work and they never took any job they had for granted.
The tremendous infrastructure our nation was built on and we take for granted was a direct result of their unparalleled work ethic. Makes you wonder…
At what age did they learn to ‘keep their nose to the grindstone’ and ‘give an honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay?’
If they don’t recall living during the The Great Depression, they inherited the work ethic that was born as a result of it. A period when jobs were few and far between and Help Wanted signs were as rare as alien sightings. Young, unskilled job seekers had no choice but to suck it up and do whatever the man asked them to do to find a job and hang on to it. And if/when they found work, they had to pinch pennies and do without anything but the bare necessities as job security was unheard of.
And as painful of an experience as they had in their youth, the work ethic they developed during those times never left them. It made them stronger, it made business and industry stronger, and it made America the strongest nation in the free world.
As unpleasant and unwelcome as this current recession is, there could be a silver lining. Perhaps Generation Why is discovering that jobs don’t grow on trees, and work isn’t something to be avoided.
