Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Millenials quitting jobs

So, I don't know if I am in the minority or what but I'm 33 and not at all subsidized by my now single mother who raised me. I work a $hit ton of hours some weeks, travel away from my family of two kids and a wife who I support on just my income M-F, and still somehow find the spare change to enjoy the hobby that has me on this forum. Though I've got the $ time is now a large constraint. I like to think that I work pretty hard though it is white collar work, I'm not out sweating my butt off in some machine shop or outdoors. I've come across people who think white collar work is not hard work and could never be...OK. I help FDA regulated companies improve their efficiency and product safety/quality.

I do have lots of acquaintances who I used to call friends. We used to be closer but being away from home so much I am not able to "hang out" as often and it would also seem that as the success gap between myself and them grows they don't want to associate with me any longer. Fine I guess. One of my highschool buddies started his own business and is doing well, he's pretty much the only one that I still talk to. Neither of us have terribly a lot of free time, product of working hard. Others are working in pretty menial jobs and seem to change jobs like they are changing their underwear. In my opinion it is the culture we've all been accustomed to now where everything is instant. Amazon stuff in two days or less, food delivered to your door with no effort put into cooking it, media on demand (Netflix) without ever leaving your couch. Think about it, people really don't have to work for damn near anything at all anymore, let alone work hard.

So when someone at work puts a difficult task in front of you, you have absolutely no idea how to even begin the thought process of how to navigate that situation. People don't have the tools, mentally, to be successful anymore. Schools have no discipline, things that seem challenging are straight up removed from curriculum or delayed until later. We instead need to be pushing our children to do more difficult things earlier. If some of them fail at the task, fine. They can try it again later. Failures are good, they build character and teach way more than a success does. When everything goes as planned, you don't learn nearly as much when there are problems that need to be fixed first.

IMO the solution is to get people who are graduating highschool and not interested in college into the trades. Those folks a few years into their career are pulling down six figures. People going into college for a liberal arts degree...need to be given about $10 to live on for a week for like a month and then ask them if that was fun. Tell them thats what they are asking for the rest of their life to be like in choosing that field. I got an engineering degree that today I use sparingly directly but indirectly it gave me problem solving skills I can apply to pretty much any company willing to pay me what I think my time is worth.

Nailed it...

I know more than my fair share of these kinds with degrees and advanced degrees that squander it away.

So many of the comments here are spot on and should be taken collectively. Too many of us as parents have fought our children's battles at school, with bullies, little league, cheerleading etc. and not let them work it out. Too many parents have tried to be their kids "friend" and not authority figure. Too many times parents have knuckled under when kids balk at direction or advice. "Oh, he/she, didn't want to do that so I did't make them". Or too many times the parents said "you must pick your battles" only never to fight one, important or not.

I see too that Pop Culture and school champions "chase your dream and be happy" above all else. Leads to major disappointment when kid chases the dream of being a museum curator with a secondary degree in creative writing only to find out there are only 1000 museums and hence only 1000 jobs in the whole country for them and only the top 50 pay anything, no body is leaving those jobs unless they get laid off, and you don't start at the top so they either have no job or a crappy paying one.

Then they discover that $200,000 of student loan debt they took because they HAD to go out of state to study creative writing and anthropology at Boulder or Stanford means they have a $2000±/MO loan payment every month FOR TEN YEARS! Didn't count on that. (Help me. Bernie! Liz?? Beto???)

I'm only getting started.

The poor babies. Thankfully, most still live with their parents so they have some support. In comparison, we had it so easy. We could go to work right out of high school at easy jobs in construction, logging, manufacturing, agriculture, etc. In addition we got the chance (mandatory) to work for the government and travel the world. These poor kids don't have these kinds of opportunities. No wonder they are so screwed up. GD

"It should come as no surprise that younger generations are paving the way for the de-stigmatization of mental health."

To de stigmatize mental health? Half of an entire generation are too mentally ill to work? BS!
They are too goddam lazy.

My nephew is 32, voted for Bernie, pays zero child support for his 3 children, hasn't had a job in 4 years. Loves socialism.

Wifey has several working for her, she hasn’t much use for them

WTF do you call Afghanistan and Iraq? Thousands of young men a woman proved their mettle there.
I am so sick of you old boomers ragging on the millenials. Yeah there are bad ones but do your old feeble minds remember the worthless hippies and other college dirt bags of our generation? Remember how our parents complained about us?
We were the ones that had everything handed to us from the greatest generation and we threw it away.
It's OUR generation that fugged up this country. It's OUR generation that raised this generation.
I have three kids that are all extremely successful, on their own. 90% of their friends they grew up with are all doing well.
I work and hunt with millenials. They are good people trying to deal with the mess WE handed them.

Kudos to RyanSinBA above^^^^^^.

I agree. I don't think this article is claiming that 50% of millennials have stopped working, but that 50% have left a job sometime in their lives due to their 'mental health'. I am guessing many of us have left jobs we hated for some reason or another. Part of the difference probably comes from the fact that older generations stigmatize 'mental health issues', and would therefore not admit to leaving a job for those reasons. Also, with disappearing manufacturing and other trade jobs, older people working longer, plus the great recession, a lot of the millennials have been doing crappy jobs in retail, services, etc.

It's a mind set the majority of them have! They are at that age where they think "I'll just quit and go work somewhere else". But eventually they will be in that age group where the employer will see that they are too old or whatever. I've seen good friends of mine whose kids have a good paying job and quit just like that for no good reason other than they get their feelings hurt! Crazy as long term employment is no longer the norm!

I've watched many of the youtube street racing channels and see hordes of 35 years old and down [some early 20's] with a nice home - $60K truck -tow trailers - 2-3 or more high tech race cars in their 5 car garage . New $95K nissan gtr with $100,000.oo in mods . They spill their whole life out on youtube/twitter/instagram/et. al. and never mention a job or anything pertaining to work .
Some of these cars would cost $250K to build .

I worked in the offshore oil industry in the 80's and detailed cars - bought sold/flipped cars/trucks on my days off . I couldn't afford a tenth of the stuff that i see todays youth with - no doubt what JPro said is true .

Guy i BS with at the gym - has a nephew + girlfriend who struck out onto the road living ''the van life'' - yeah . Trying to make ends meet by becoming youtube stars .
Parents helped with the van cost getting it rigged out for urban survival - meaning i-pads/x-box/++ ect. etc. . I said what do they do -answer; nothing just hang out i guess , times have changed .

Fuggin Millennials!

Wonder how unemployment is so low with everyone under 40 not working?

Guess the front lines are full of Reservist Walmart greeters....

Today's young people are too soft and their feelings too easily hurt. We raised them. They've had it too easy and expect everything to be cushy, no hardships.

Good point. 327 million Americans, 83 million of which are Millenials and only a 3% unemployment rate. A few of them must have jobs.

When I was young and went to Alaska I hung out for a while. A friend and I were looking for work. But we stayed in a shack that you could see through the walls with no water or sewer. Damn glad we found work before winter or it would have really sucked. Nobody was sending us money to live on. This was in the early 70s. Times change. Ed k

There is also the possibility that Fox Business might be wrong.

To be fair, when I was in my teens and early twenties, I quit a bunch of jobs. If another offer was better or if it was in a location I liked better, I might quit. If I didn't get along with the foreman, I might quit. I was a little thin skinned at times. It is also worth pointing out that challenges are much different today than they were 50+ years ago. There is no question, society is more complex and expectations are different.
Back then, I could buy a new car for three months pay. I could buy a house for a years pay. I wouldn't even be allowed to live in that house today; CPS would take my kids away!
As much as I bitch about lazy kids, I'm not sure I'd want to be in their shoes. In fact, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't. GD

They have to get to work!
I can't have my social security check bounce!

Get an advanced degree in Outdoor Masturbation- - - - -rack up $100K student debt in the process- - - - -find out there's only a dozen jobs nationwide that demand those qualifications, and spend most of your time whining and feeling sorry for yourself! Go ahead and moan and groan- - - -the rest of the world isn't going to give a damn. Develop a skill that's in demand, with 10 jobs available for every qualified applicant, and I'll bet your lifestyle and your self-image will suddenly get a lot better!
Jerry