Work ethic

[crankedup]

What is work ethic, I see it as the 'inbuilt desire' to work for a payment, which in turn will enrich one's life. Is the work ethic in decline or is this a false perception brought about by the media.
So is this work ethic something that's 'brainwashed' into children from day one, perhaps its a case of 'Daddy worked so I must'. Can a work ethic be squeezed out of an individual?

So many posts in here refer to young people being 'shy of work' when in many cases I expect they want to work but are unable to find a job.
Just a non political thread for open debate.

[Mojooo]

There are those that will work hard for money or those that will work hard for self respect or because they feel they have to.

I do neither.

[fido]

crankedup said:

So many posts in here refer to young people being 'shy of work' when in many cases I expect they want to work but are unable to find a job.

I doubt that is the case. There was a programme on the Beeb last year about helping unemployed people get back to work and comparing their work ethics with recent immigrants - some of younger folk on that programme typified the 'can't be arsed attitude' which unfortunately is corroborated by many of my mates who take on trainees in their businesses - and we're talking about basic stuff like being polite to customers etc.

Back to topic, when i left uni i to work because i enjoyed the whole career thing but nowadays it's because of the £s that enable me to enjoy my free time .. i still take pride in doing a good job though, just i'm more intolerant of being bossed about.

Edited by fido on Saturday 22 January 16:15

[AndrewW-G]

crankedup said:

So many posts in here refer to young people being 'shy of work' when in many cases I expect they want to work but are unable to find a job.

I've advertised for a couple of low level positions over the past year, I managed to fill one after 4 months and had no applications for the other, both paying just over minimum wage, no qualifications required etc. so perfect for somebody wanting to start at the bottom.

Part of the problem, for me at least, was dealing with the Job centre, it was as though they didn’t want to find their “clients” a job, to the point that I cancelled the ads with them and paid for them to go in the local paper

[Great Khan]

Depends really on what they want. I know loads of people in college with me who get EMA and whinge and moan when they don't get it, but when I mention to them about getting a part time job like me, I just get a load of "blah blah need time to myself blah no jobs at all blah" which translates to me as "Can't be bothered"
We're not all work shy though!

[Derek Smith]

crankedup said:

What is work ethic

It is more often known as the protestant work ethic and is a quote from a book title.

The idea is that people have a built-in desire to put effort into a community, family and themselves and that it provides its own rewards. The theory goes that those of us in protestant coutries, such as Scandinavia, Germany, GB, USA, are better off that Italy, Spain and other Meditterranean countries because we're protestants.

It was pushed between the two world wars over here, despite the mass unemployment in the 20s due to a poorly managed economy, and the suggestion was that those without work were slackers and didn't want to put the effort in. It was used as a term of derision amognst those on the left, its full meaning escaping me but it went along the lines of the phrase being used to cover faults. It became clearer when Blair was in government.

But there is more than a grain of truth in the phrase. I used to work in a small factory, 200 employees or so. Really grindingly repetative work. But the majority of those working in these tedious roles took a great deal of pride in their job. The odd thing is that the only group that was interested solely in the profit was the company bosses, a win treble if ever there was one. The phrase was actually used in a tirade against the 'foreman' of our department.

The staff had a meeting and the proposition was put forward that we should work to rule - union rules - to show that we resented being forced to cut corners and we should have a break both in the morning and afternoon and the full lunch break but many were unhappy with that as it would mean they could not do their job properly.

The firm lost their main contract when the business was taken over and it folded. I moved to another, virtually identical, firm and the attitude there was virtually identical except that the boss was more enlightened and encouraged top quality work. He would come and have tea with us during the breaks. But again the workers would not be prepared to let substandard work go though.

I was in my teens and early twenties for those first firms but the 'moral' attitude stayed with me.

My kids all seem to be interested in their careers and have thrown themsleves into them. I'm not sure that there is any change going by what they tell me about their jobs. All seem to want to do a good job for no other reason than that it gives its own reward. Fair enough, none of the four are in factory work. Their friends all seem the same way inclined.

There has always been a layer of people who don't want to work and don't want to put effort in. However, my experience is that the only people who put money above quality are those in charge.

I remember interviewing some factory workers for an article once and the majority said that they used to enjoy their jobs more when the intent was to turn out as good a product as they could. When the firm suddenly became very successful and corners had to be cut to fill the demand they went off it because they were producing substandard goods. This, I've found, is normal behaviour. Most people want to produce something which is as good as they can make it.

It's got nothing to do with being protestant of course.

[Jasandjules]

Work ethic? Well, some people are lazy, some people are not.

[Timberwolf]

It's the difference between doing the bare minimum you need to do in order to get that payment, or going in and doing the best you can do every day because that's your attitude to working.

IMO it's not quite as black and white as that, most people fall somewhere in between - although my experience is that younger folks are more likely to be toward the Facebook end of that scale, although this may be less down to individual ethic as it is to older people having jobs they find more rewarding having gone through a few moves, promotions, and/or general figuring out what they really want to do in life.