Entitlement

I know it's a bit prejudiced, but I'm struck lately how entitled many people can seem. I blame the parents... we must have dropped the ball here. We have gone so far in assuring our kids that they can have the world if they want it, that many of them think they deserve it without any effort.

In my current day job I spend most of the day talking to people wanting shop assistant jobs. I talk to them about going to an interview, or about working rotas, and... what? Over and over again, the days that I mention are "not convenient". It is rarely due to being at school at that time. I often hear things like "I have a birthday party to attend", "I didn't really want to work weekends because it's the only time for me to see my friends", "I prefer not to work evenings", "Can I just work 3 hours on a Saturday?", "Could you please move that time after 11am so that I don't have to get up so early?"

What?

As one of my coworkers remarked: If I were going for a shop assistant job and the manager wanted to see me in thirty minutes' time I WOULD BE THERE. I would go any time, any place, exactly where they wanted me to be. Only a wedding or a funeral would stop me getting to that appointment.

And yet somehow in 2018, people feel entitled to an employer fitting things around when it's convenient for them. How did this happen? How have we created such snowflake monsters?

Sometimes the penny drops; sometimes not. Sometimes I have to tell them I can't consider them if they won't work on a Saturday. Sometimes they won't attend any of the four interview dates I offer them. Some of them wake up and reassess their priorities immediately... some of them say they will get back to me. No problem, love... I will give that job to the next person who calls, and then when you call me next week you'll be shocked that there is nothing left for you.

I write all this and yet at the same time I feel absolute envy for someone able to do this. Just like the ones who would quit any job where the manager disallowed trainers and jeans. Bully for you, for having the funds to walk away from a stable job just because you're forced into the horror of pressed trousers and tidy shoes. Slow clap for your self-righteous indignation that a company should value you for more than your attire. In a way many of us would like this. The freedom to work or not work, as our fancy takes us, to wear what we please.

But in the real world you are not your personality. You are not your inner traits. We do not look beyond your clothes to see the real you inside. Being a people person, or being a kind person, or being an organised person, none of that cuts it. When it comes down to human needs and wants, we don't want types of people.

We want actions.

We want the suit and tie... we want the time management. We want the cake baked by the lady in accounting. We want the high five, we want the early mark, we want the great sales figures. We want the Works On Saturdays.

We want the breakfast in bed, not the guy who says he is nice.
We want the warm hugs, not the girl who says "I love you".
We want the intimacy, the friendship, the real and tangible things.
We want that listening ear, that helpful advice, that kind gesture.

We have no interest in the person inside, really. What matters is the things that the good people DO. The person inside means nothing, because someone's insides never do a darn thing, I mean, think about it, your personality isn't smiling or holding the door open for someone, so what is the point of merely saying you're "friendly" or "considerate"? But if you start doing things... the doing is what we care about. We like that person who speaks honestly and we like that person who donates to charity and we like them due to things we actually see them do.

We have raised a generation of people who value who they are instead of the good things that good people do. And quite honestly, "who" you are is of zero interest to anyone.

But who is actually saying that out loud?