Baby Boomers are full of knowledge and experience. Here are some of the moments their guidance just wasn't the most logical.
Internet is Useless
When I was in high school looking for a job, my grandmother told me to just go to places and fill out applications; she told me it was useless using the Internet to look for a job. Every place I checked for a job had an Internet-based application.
sharkutterzero
See if they’re hiring
Mom: “You have to reach out if you want a job! Just go to the stores to see if they’re hiring! Plenty of places are hiring! It’s so easy for you to get seasonal work. You’re just not trying hard enough! Why don’t you get off your computer and get out there??”
sharkutterzero
Master’s degree
Get at least a master’s degree so you can be successful. Sure, a degree helps, but coming out of school with a massive amount of debt is not the greatest thing to do. My parents owned a home when they were 25 and 23. They didn’t have to worry about having 40k in student loans.
The kicker? I work for my parents and they decide my salary. They know damn well I can barely afford rent, much less a house. Also, my degree has nothing to do with my job, but I had to have it.
EmperorLeroy
401k
They tell you to live while you’re young because these are your best years. And then they tell you to start saving up for your 401k as early as possible.
What do they think “live while you’re young” means? Something compatible with saving?
marb249
4 weeks vacation
“Don’t take a job unless it gives 4 weeks vacation in the year.”
Because that’s what someone can get fresh from college.
John0517
Guest lecturer
I was getting my masters degree and we had a guest lecturer come in. He had been CEO of a small company for many years. He basically told us that he stumbled into the job right out of college because he didn’t know what to do and gave it a shot. They gave him the assistant CEO position because he had been the assistant manager at a movie theatre for a summer. And then 2 years later he became the CEO.
He was basically telling this entire class of people getting theiradvance degrees in the hopes to get his position that he got his job on a whim.
dreamqueen9103
$160k a year
Mother in law is a gold mine of these:
“Nobody’s ready for a house or kids, you just do it!”
“You don’t need that much of a savings.”
“I don’t see why you can’t handle the student loan repayment and a house payment?”
And so on and so on. She makes $160k a year but we have more money to our name due to her 6 credit cards with enormous balances and $500k home. She doesn’t understand our financial fears at all. And regardless of generation, the woman just doesn’t understand money or frugality.
NameLessTaken
Mistake
College professor told me he thought it was a mistake that I got a job to pay my rent, because it would take time away from school. When I brought up the cost, he said that education is an investment and that I should focus on that. Hard to invest when you don’t have any money to invest with. Or anywhere to live. Or anything to eat.
T271
Makes a Difference
My mom encouraged me to walk in and give my resume to the manager at our local grocery store because “seeing you face to face makes a difference” thinking it would help. I had to beg to see manager, and when he showed up, he seemed annoyed at being interrupted. I gave him my resume and shook his hand anyway. A few weeks later they hired a new cashier who was the cousin of one of the people that already worked there.
Welcome to the new job market, millennials.
Mahoganytree
“Participation trophies.
Talking to my dad recently, he was going on about “participation trophies.” When I pointed out that we didn’t ask for them and wouldn’t have received them had his generation not invented them, his response was: “Yep, that’s another problem with your generation. Always blaming your faults on other people.”
Be grateful
I love being told, “Be grateful you ‘have’ a job!”
Then they look on in horror as I explain that I can’t afford to live on my own while working over 40 hours a week. I don’t get vacations. I don’t get sick days. I get absolutely no paid time off, even for Christmas. No time to pursue things I enjoy, no money to see a doctor.
But it’s not their problem, you know? They get to walk away from the conversation.
meinsaft
Never Having Kids
“You’ll feel different when they’re your own children.”
Yeah, I’m not willing to take that risk so I’m never having kids. Also I’m poor.
Megamca
My first retail job
My first retail job, any time I complained about customers or coworkers to my father I would get, “You just have to suck it up. It builds character, and you’ll always have something you don’t like about your job or coworkers.”
A few years ago, he lost his desk job, and nobody wanted to hire him because he didn’t have a degree. Being unemployed and realizing the gig was up he actually ended up working in a grocery store just like I had in high school.
Now, whenever I go to visit him, I always hear something like, “Can you believe this rude woman? I just finished building a corn pyramid, has to be 7 feet tall, and she wants one from the center on the bottom, because she says she can tell those are the freshest. Can you believe it?”
No, dad, not a clue at all what you’re talking about, but your character sure seems to be growing.
*shikitohno*
Your Generation
You know, your generation doesn’t understand that you have to buy a house as young as possible to pay it off quickly.” No old man, we get it. We’re broke as crap, making 1/3 of what you do in the same work place.
Slaughterhouse451
Entitled
My boss recently told me my generation was entitled, and began quoting various articles on how we all think we’re special and exempt from criticism.
As I was shoveling a dead rat out of the doorway.
Fatherchristmassdad
Join the army
Join the army, so your family can have a future.”
Well done. The family left. And now, seventeen years later, the only way I can get a job is if I do NOT tell people I was in the military.
Idiot_Savant_Tinker
The may want help
“Just walk into the store and ask if they’re hiring. Even if they don’t have a help wanted sign, they might need help with something in the back. Just hand the manager your resume and be polite.”
No. That’s not how it works anymore. It’s not the 1970’s where having a college degree automatically gets you a job, straight out of college.
Midnight_arpeggio
Respect your culture
Marry your own people out of respect for your culture and god…
Little did they know I was a Muslim turned Atheist and hated how the women in my country were treated as house wives instead of actual people.
SgtBigPigeon
Start a Business
They still think you can put on your best suit and walk right into any company, shake the CEO’s hand and look him right in the eye, and start the next day.
Everything is online and entry level positions require 3-5 years experience with no hope for advancement and crappy benefits (if any) and below average salary
“But just start a business if you cant find something!” …Whatever that means.
Rutawitz
Unemployed
Right after I graduated from college, I was unemployed for nearly 2 years. I applied everywhere and I either didn’t get responses, or I got interviews and would be turned down. My parents and other relatives would constantly tell me to “just hit the streets and be persistent.” That advice annoyed me.
No Sympathy
My government teacher just told me it was hard for him to sympathize with people who have to work at McDonald’s (we were talking about raising the minimum wage) when he was able to put himself through college while working and studying full time. He said it was still possible for anyone that wanted to put in the work.
I’d just got out of economics, where my teacher had told us it wasn’t possible, and made us calculate the cost of our preferred college or trade school and write up our financial aid options. Weird getting an almost word for word contradiction in such a short span of time.
HrairHlessil
“Babies just need love, not money.”
“Babies just need love, not money.”
Sorry, mom, no grandkids until I have a job with a decent paycheck and less student debt.
NotReallyMaeWest
Drop Out
“Drop out of local community college and RUN, don’t walk to most expensive state school in the country. A degree from a community college isn’t worth anything.”
Naturally this suggestion came from a customer while I was working, so I hid my upset face behind a polite smile and said I would consider it.
WickedGingah
Online College
Doing college online is worthless.”
Got my degree, doubled my income within five months at the job I had been at while doing my online degree. Many jobs just have that piece of paper as a barrier.
crackerjeffbox
Get a Job
My mother told me to, “Just get a job. Tons of places are hiring.”
Though, she has come to understand the struggle now, as she spends all day applying to jobs and not getting a single call back.
bluepandadog
Social Media
I started my own companies fueled by social media and online advertising as a 17 year old. I just graduated college, but I really wanted to drop out but my parents pressured me and I did not want to let them down.
Ever since I graduated, I just keep getting told to get a real job, and be normal, and that this entrepreneurship thing is just a phase despite earning six figures a year since I was 19. Despite all of this, it’s still a hugely depressing feeling knowing that you’re going against your parents and “disappointing” them simply because they don’t understand how much things have changed.
elijahsolidum
Housing Crisis
Around 2006 my dad was always telling me to stop renting and buy a house. I pointed out the prices (where I live, anyway) were rising significantly and it didn’t appear to be sustainable. He dismissed what I said. My sister and husband purchased a house at around £180000 that same year. after the crash it was valued at 95k….. could never bring myself to say I told you so!
craickiller
McDonalds
“You don’t deserve to make a livable wage at McDonalds, get a real job”
Followed by:
“What, are you too good to work at McDonalds? Grow up and stop being entitled and do what you gotta do.”
Cursethewind
Call Center
During college I worked in a crappy call center that was more of like an… autonomous Kafkaesque call factory.
I met my manager once. They did “points” for lateness and absences and if you hit X amount of points then your login was turned off and you were fired. One girl I knew was fired for tending to her dying father. They just didn’t care.
On sick days you called a number and entered a code and they docked your points. No human interaction. If you were more than 2 minutes late you got a .25 point.
My dad completely did not and could not understand the level of impersonality and ruthlessness of this place, however.
I said I couldn’t take a certain class because I had to be to work at 10 and they don’t work around school schedules, blah blah.
He said “Well, just tell your boss that you’ll be a few (like 45!!) minutes late every day this semester. He’ll understand!
It was just miraculously out of touch with the robotics of the place. I didn’t even know who my manager was or how to contact him. I would have been fired within a week for points.
effieokay
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