Coworker of mine was handling hardware returns for our main data center. There were two issues with this: It wasn't his job and he never told anyone about it. Work fired him during his vacation because they saw he wasn't completing his assignments, but never asked him for reasons.
Six months later, the company got hit with over 200k in service plan renewals for hardware we no longer used.
Lmao, I hope you let him know after this happened.
Imagine being in a meeting with all the most important people when they figure out the problem and it turns out that you were the one who fired the guy. What I wouldn't give to listen in on that meeting lmao
You know they just blamed the dude they fired for doing things he wasn't asked.
This right here? ☝️
This is how "business" people save money.
STOP HIRING BUSINESSPEOPLE
Save a penny, cost a pound.
When I started living by myself a while back, I realised how much random housework was being done by my parents. There's the obvious ones like cooking, shopping and doing the dishes. But there's also meal planning, cleaning, buying non-obvious essentials like toiletries, and more, which I wouldn't normally think about.
Yeah, we really don't notice all the bullshit our parents deal with when we're kids.
I've got a kid who is nearly out of school. There's a real sense that his idea of the future is eternal summer vacation at his parents' house earning just enough money to hang out with friends. It's a struggle to decide how to deter that pattern of behavior. As parents we want to be able to do anything for our kids, but we also need to do what's best for them, not just what they want.
The kid is going to learn a lot about what we do to keep the house in reasonable order and stocked for life. We've been trying to teach that as we go, but it doesn't always seem to sink in.
My parents kicked me out twice as a kid. One time was when I was 18, and I ended up homeless for almost 5 months on the other side of the country. The shit I went through fucked me up good. They said it was "tough love."
Please please please don't do something like that to your kid if you're trying to teach them a lesson. Those 4+ months still haunt me a decade later and continue to cause me immense pain.
Oh hell no. My partner and I are in no way interested in just kicking anyone out. The reason we're trying to work on the attitudes and trajectory now is to have time to set goals and work together to build up his skills & resources to enable independence, which is a far cry from a kick out.
I'm sorry to hear that I happened to you even once. We've had some friends of our kids end up being treated that way, so the kids ended up at our place briefly while they found their feet.
The gradual increase in responsibility. They have to pay board. A roster for dinners, a bill out into their name (one that you can deal with being cut off for a little bit (!!!).
But ultimately, it is also out habit of just getting it done that means we just do it.
I expect that it is a conversation and agreement of shared tasks and responsibilities.
Cutoff access to wifi and don't pay phone bills, plenty of ways to get started, but it always starts with a chat.
Yeah, we're working out how to have that chat and to put some agreed upon goals into place so that no one is suddenly surprised by unspoken expectations. It's hard, though. We'll get through it.
Get them to cook dinner for the family once a week. Help em if they get stuck but that alone would set them up immensely.
We're moving to more of this for the whole household (there's a couple kids at home still). They're all able to generate meals and do chores. The requirements are being ratcheted up across the board. My wife and I are busier than ever trying to make ends meet, so the work is trickling down to the whole household one way or another.
I think necessity is often the driver of learning, so when they have no choice but to manage themselves, they will. Good luck
Will they be able to afford their own place and have access to healthcare? I've got siblings that have failed to launch even after several attempts. It's possible this isn't a failure of parenting.
But if it is fixable, you may want to check out William Glasser's writings on the workless (I forget what books of his he writes about it in). Be warned that it's not mainstream psychology and I don't generally think that his views on medication and several other things are good, but the specific ideas about how to deal with a household member that doesn't contribute or take care of themselves might have something useful for you. From what I can remember, it's things like making ingredients available but not prepared foods so they get into the habit of doing things. (Naturally, this is a super bad idea if there's a different issue like depression that should be dealt with first.) That may be difficult to do with apps and streaming services where there's very little between a person and food/entertainment, but you might get some new ideas.
It's still early days on them being in a position to afford a place, and in the US healthcare is a fucking abomination, so it's going to take some real effort to reach a point of independence.
We're in no hurry to move anyone out. It's still early enough that we planet of time to wire in work on skills and such. I'm mostly worried about the general attitude more than individual skills though. His sense of what it takes to keep yourself afloat in the world and little open desire to achieve independence is just worrying at this point. Likely I'm being too worried at this stage, but I'd rather turn the ship in a positive direction earlier and easier rather than later and with more difficulty.
I have heard it's good to have a small house, so they move out for more room. I didn't get the chance to find out (or maybe it worked really well) as mine left home aged 16 for the sort of reasons 16 year olds have
Interesting strategy, and likely one that has some merit. Though, I'd point to similar problems in Japan where it's not rare to have incredibly tiny homes/apartments, but a very high rate of youths staying at their parents' places well into adulthood.
The US has reached around 50% of young adults continuing to stay with their parents beyond school. It's up to a similar rate as the Great Depression era. We've priced our kids out of independence to try to satisfy a few billionaires' desire to be ever richer.
that's really fucked up. don't get me wrong, i'm not judging you, our culture has probably fucked me up the same way as you, i just dont happen to have kids. but not preparing kids for the real actual world is fucked up, and there is a serious disconnect with reality being instilled by our culture in them, and also in you to make that happen. my point is that it is a serious dysfunction in modem culture required to make happen.
God you don't realize how many tiny things you need to buy until you don't have them.
You'd expect to find something like a ruler, some tape, a pen, sticky notes, ect. but realize you gotta buy them first instead of just searching your clutter drawers.
Someone I worked with (indirectly) managed her team when certain changes needed to happen with infrastructure. After she left, her replacement wasn't given guidance on why this was important. A routine infra change led to multiple days of chaos because that end wasn't handled properly.
I ended up demoted as a result, but not fired nor docked pay. My job is easier because I have less responsibility, so the grass is definitely greener over here. I'm watching my temp replacement struggle with the position and I don't miss it.
that's kind of awesome. the inverse of your story is what ive seen more often, the promotion that is more work for no more pay. both reflect the same corporate dysfunction.
Emptying the dishwasher. Good golly.
everything my parents ever did.
Ask Elon Musk after he "improved" Twitter 🤭
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