Believe me Wolfie,. Your work ethic will be recognized. When I find a young guy willing to work ,the training and raises are right behind.

Thanks and honestly it's already started lol. Been here less than three weeks and I have three different depeaments asking if I want to move lol.

Exactly ! My fist real job was working under my uncle on his crew building houses in the summer Monday though Friday 4a.m to 6pm many days sweating ,and getting cussed out buy older guys for $200 a week if I was lucky. Now I'm I. The a.c. getting 12.36 and hour don't have to get to work till 4p.m and I get two days a week off CAKE !

It's hard to be a role model, but it, definitely, pays off when you are ready to retire. Keep up the good work young man!

Hey wolf, I worked with my uncle framing houses too.... that's rough, and I've been a lineman at the same place for almost 15 years... nov.16th, but I've seen more punks than I can count loose their job over a cell phone. And I survived the crash in 2008 with the same company. I seen um come and go. If you give them enough rope, they'll hang their onselves, or the boss will do it for them. I'm 38 and I'll be honest, most guys my age or younger ain't worth a penny. I thank the lord everyday that my ole man put boot to butt when it counted.

Yup....do your job...don’t get into any bad mouthing anyone.....cus you don’t know ,who is who,and who knows who. Your Boss should be Able to see ...who are the workers and who’s not. ....it may take time. But if you start complaining...that won’t get yah far. You will be noticed for your dedication to your job.

You will find in life that this is common. You have some that work their butts off and you have slugs that only want a paycheck and could care less about their work ethic. It's nothing new. I have seen it my entire life and still see it today. If anything it's gotten worse. Most that I have worked with under 35yo are not worth a crap and the numbers don't get a lot better over 35. When I find a person that is good, I make sure I get them on every job possible. Luckily, I am in the position to be able to do that most of the time. I'm a senior in my field and I submit reports on how people do. They get the report they deserve. Either way, they earn it. The dullards and the lazy people don't last long and usually they don't return. I'm fair about it. I won't ask anyone to do anything I wouldn't or haven't done and more often than not, I'm right beside them.

A guy like you will make it fine in this world, Wolfie.

x2

Solid advice.

Welcome to Lowe's wolfdog, and don't forget, "Have a Lowe's safe day".... LOL

It's all big bales now round or square and a man can't lift them.
Not like it was in Green county 35 years ago.
My eyes watered worse cleaning the calf pens. Ammonia don't ya know.

I've got the same problem.

They are always griping about some heart attack, or back problem. I say let them work until we see some actual stroke symptoms. Heck, sometimes I think they aren't even reporting their income to Social Security.

Like Finster said, laziness is not new, but its certainly become more common. Unfortunately, in my opinion, the vast majority of these kids simply don't know any better. This generation has grown up in a world completely centered around their comfort and preference. Most kids today are never forced to do anything they don't feel like doing, or even incentivized to. The concept of earning is lost on them because they've been given everything. The concept of sacrificing comfort and preference to help others, earn a better life and a sense of pride, is completely foreign to them because their world has always revolved around their immediate mood or feelings. The problem is that parents are raising their kids to be good kids instead of good adults, and as a result they turn into overgrown kids and never learn how to be adults.

In my opinion, they simply need to be taught. I know not everyone is good at that, or even knows how. And for many people the frustration is too much to handle. But these kids desperately need to be taught work ethic by anyone willing to teach them, and I'm grateful that the Lord has given me the opportunity and ability to teach some of them. As a crew lead, supervisor and business owner over the last couple decades, I've learned a few things about training up greenhorns that I'll share here.

For one, it doesn't work to be non-confrontational. You have to be direct. Oftentimes we just work around the lazy guy, maybe drop a couple hints, and hope that they'll catch on or someone else will talk to them. It doesn't work. These kids are dense. If someone doesn't tell them in plain English that it's not OK to be on your phone during work, they'll never get it. And that someone doesn't have to be the manager, it just has to be someone that cares enough. And that's the second important part. Most of them have been yelled at before, and they're used to tuning it out. The fruitful balance is in communicating that you care about them, and that's why you want their behavior to change. (I know, it's hard to fake sometimes, especially with entitled snowflakes. But the result is worth it.)

This is what I call "the talk." For me it goes something like this:

"Dude, I'm glad you're working here, you're a good guy, but we need to talk about work. I want to see you succeed. I don't want to see you be in your 30s and 40s and still be living in your mom's house trying to make ends meet. $10/hr might be decent money now, at your age, but it's not great when you're 35 and doing the same job. There are a lot of good jobs out there, and you can make really good money and live comfortably and be a blessing to your family. But good jobs don't just happen, they go to the people who earn them. And I'm going to tell you the secret to getting good jobs: do good at crappy jobs. If you want a good job, you have to show that you're a good worker even in a crappy job. And here's what that looks like:

1) You show up on time or early and leave on time or late, every single day. Not most of the time. All the time. It's not just about time, it's about showing that you're reliable and a man of your word. If you accept a 9-5 shift, then you show you're a man of your word by being there for every minute of that shift, and then some.

2) Be a maximalist, not a minimalist. If you want a better job than you've got now, then prove you can do more than you're required to now. Be the guy that goes the extra mile, volunteers, stays late and helps out whether or not you're getting paid for it. Don't just work for the paycheck, work for the career.

3) Understand that if you're on the clock getting paid for your time, then you owe that time to the company. You're not getting paid to be on your phone, stand around or hang out. If you put 8 hours on your time sheet, then I expect you to have physically worked 480 minutes. That's just being an honest person, a man of integrity. If we get caught up and have some down time on the clock, then so be it, but it's a gift, not a right. If you can't last 10 minutes without looking at something on your phone, then it's time to grow up. The rest of us only check our phones on breaks. It's not because we have less to look at; it's because our work and our integrity is a higher priority. I'm not going to take your phone away because you're not a child, but I'm going to expect you to keep it put away because you're an adult.

4) Don't just try to please the boss. Work in a way that impresses everyone around you. Customers, coworkers, vendors, everyone. Most of the "promotions" in my career haven't come from my manager, but from other contacts I made along the way. Impress with your work, not your words. Some people are impressed by personality and talk, but the important people are impressed with character and work ethic.
Work for your future bud, not just for your boss or your check. If you don't start now the future will come and you'll wish you had."

That's a starting point. It takes a lot to teach work ethic to an adult who's never learned it. But it can be done.
Anyway, I'm proud to say I've had the privilege of mentoring a lot of snot-nosed kids over the years, and the majority of them turned into great hands and are currently working well-paying careers in the construction trades.

By the way, I'm only 32 and the only thing that made me different than others my age is the mentors I had as a youngster, teaching me work ethic.

Sorry for the long post. I'm going to work another 12 hr day tomorrow, like I've been doing for the last 2 months. Have a good night gentlemen.

All these folks on the phone need a job picking truck crops. One hand picking and one swatting flies will train them real quick to leave the phone in the truck. lol

Wolfie, you got a good head and work ethic just keep doing and you will be rewarded. Don't let the slackers drag you down. I can't get anyone to work with me because first order of business is cell phone stay in the truck!

I see this all of the time too. I work with teenagers and if you can find three or four hard workers out of a hundred you are doing good.

Wolfi - you and I would work well together. I've worked farm jobs all my life and working construction showed me how lazy people are. I had bosses that would call me every name in the book because because I had started working 2 minutes before the clock said to. It's a crap shoot these days working with others. You never know if the guy next to you has ''issues'' with work.I put an add for help on Craigslist 7 weeks ago. Not one answer till three weeks ago and that person only wanted part time ''easy' stuff. just had two guys answer the add Friday and hired then both Monday. The had a pulse, legs, arms, and could speak. One can even numbers on a tape measure. The other one says he's a bust a** work horse and gave his two week notice at his other job. That work horse art remains to be seen.... What a mess.

I've had guys take an early lunch at 11 and never return! I quit being a baby sitter and I work alone.

I have always been lucky to have the pleasure of working with the older generation i can tell by all your post you are like alot of guy on here a rare breed .