In their defence, it is a difficult concept to grasp. My dad started his career shovelling gravel for a few dollars an hour. Now he’s a vice president making very good money. In his mind, anyone can replicate what he did by working hard instead of being lazy and asking for handouts.
I eventually got through to him one day when he was talking about hiring for a senior management position. He was interviewing all these people with fancy degrees and credentials. I asked why not promote one of his hard workers? He laughed and said the person needs to be more than a hard worker to manage multi-million dollar projects. But where would he be now if his old boss had thought the same thing? My dad has none of the credentials of the people he was interviewing. He’d still be shovelling gravel 60 hours a week for minimum wage if nobody gave him the opportunity to advance. How could he think hard work will be rewarded when he doesn’t even reward it himself? That’s when he admitted the world works differently now.
I read one story the young adult finally convinced his dad when he showed him a job posting for his old job. It payed less than when he had it, not even accounting for inflation.
I remember that story and can relate. It took showing my parents the cost of my tuition at a university now and comparing it to when they were 18, then doing the same for the yearly wage of a fast food worker, before they realized that cost inflation has out-paced wage inflation by a crazy amount and no, people can’t just sustain themselves through college to get a leg up in society.
Outside the US college is sometimes stilll a good path. I’ve seen people blow it (useless degrees with no plan to get a job with it, etc.). but if you pick the right field it helps a lot.
Even still, weren’t their dozens of people shoveling gravel and only a couple of vice presidents? The pyramid structure of corporations imply that not everyone can go from the entry level work to the c suite. It’s an attrition and numbers game.
Plus, most companies now outsource their grunt work. The janitor cannot become the CEO anymore, because the janitor is a contracted worker, making minimum wage, not invited to the Christmas party, and prevented from speaking to anybody in a position of authority.
Hank doesn’t look like a boomer anymore. Cotton does. Boomers are 70+ year olds now. Weird.
