3.4.19
The Blue Collar Millennial
The Blue Collar Millennial
As you may know I have been a Diesel Mechanic since 1997, working in the blue collar world there is a lot of old school people who complain about the youth and their aversion to manual labor, especially the millennial generation. I personally believe that there are still young people that have a great work ethic, but many of them have not had a great example of what it means to be good man (or adult for that matter) but that is a topic that I may write about at a later time. A good friend of mine told me this story and I thought this was great example of what not to be. Here is the letter they wrote to me:
"I am in my mid-twenties and work for the Facilities department of a moderately large private company. We take care of over 30 buildings and the surrounding grounds on our complex. When snow or any emergency occurs, we in the Facilities department are the essential staff and are expected to show up by 6am (or earlier if specified) even if all other offices and departments are closed.
When the complex closed due to snow on Monday, almost everyone from the department (white and blue collars alike) reported for work by 6am. One blue collar lives 30 miles north and left his house at 2am to make it to work by 6am. Two blue collars live 40 miles south and left around the same time. One blue collar walked five miles from his home to the transit center to bus into work. My normal commute is 30-40 minutes by bus every morning, so I left my house at 5am to get to work on time. I am a white collar worker and waited 50 minutes for my bus, so I didn’t make it by 6am, but I still made it to work before 7am. Point is, I still made it to work.
One blue collar, only a year older than myself, lives a mere 2 miles away. TWO MILES, yet he did not show up for work. What were his excuses?
He claimed that his bus never came, but I wonder how long he waited. I live on the east side and he lives on the west, and the bus I ride shares the same route as his. Did he just give up when it was 10+ minutes late? Who knows.
When asked if he could have just walked, he said he did not know the way. I find that hard to believe, considering nearly everyone has GPS on their phones. Even if he didn’t, he could have walked his bus route.
Needless to say, most of us were quite annoyed at his failure to report to work as the newest and youngest of the blue collars.
Then Tuesday rolled around and rather than wait for him to call in, one of the upper management white collars drove in the snow the two miles to pick him up and bring him to work.
Don’t be that blue collar millennial. "
Wow....here is what I get from this, this person never learned how to solution seek, and probably thinks that all of his problems are someone else's fault and some else should fix them for him. That of course is just a guess, I don't know him personally; but the point is life will give you challenges to grow you are you looking at them as "how can I" or "I can't".
Until next time, keep the rubber side down,
TDC
The Diesel Cyclist
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