YEC kids

Maybe it's working in the tech field that did this to me, but honestly, I don't often find the old are that worthy of respect, in terms of just being old - I mean, if a person deserves respect, then they get it, from me. But I don't give respect just for age.Seniors by and large that I run into are inflexible, set in their ways, unable to embrace change, can't absorb modern skills, and most dammingly - show a blatant lack of respect for anyone younger than themselves. Especially to anyone working a service job. (I work night desk at a hotel and the worst, rudest customers are always over 50.)Basically I guess I'm saying that I'd have a lot more respect for the elderly if most of them weren't so arrogant.Off topic, sorry. And no offense to the more seasoned members of this forum.

Myself I find I'm looking forward to being a cranky old curmudgeon. The work I do makes me largely a kind of servant; for some reason old people, it seems, have a hard time realizing that I'm not serving them because I was born to the servant class - and therefore worthy of no respect from "real" people - but rather, I'm working as a servant because our economy is moving to a service base.Everybody, nowadays, does the servant thing. Everybody seems to clue into this - and realize that the pizza guy, the waitress, and night desk guy are just as educated and trained as they probably are - except the old folks.

Having acted like an idiot my share of the time I can assure you that we're not always actually idiotic. Generally when the young punk across the counter from you old farts is acting like an idiot, one of two things is going on:1) Because of interfering or otherwise constricting edicts from the old-fart manager, we're unable to do what you want us to do, even if it's something that any reasonable person could expect. Often we'd like nothing more than to make you happy, with a refund, or opening the pool after hours, something - after all our paycheck doesn't go up or down when the business makes more or less money, so we have no real incentive to make them money - but the manager has made it pretty clear that our attempt to please the customer in this regard will cost us our jobs. I run into this problem a lot.2) You've asked us for something totally unreasonable and idiotic, and there's a lot less chance of a confrontation if we just act like an idiot instead of telling you what an idiot you are.

Having done the coffeehouse tour of duty myself I think the blame for this mentality rides squarely on the shoulders of those sugary hot-cocoa-like crappuccino machines at gas stations. You know what I'm talking about?So a bunch of people associate "cappuccino" with a sugary pseudo-coffee beverage instead of espresso with steamed foamy milk. Ergo they don't know what they're ordering and assume that's your fault.

Yeah, I swear that at every job I've had - especially the customer service jobs - the vast, vast majority of my work is making things the way my boss likes, not doing things for customers. Well, that's what you can have when you hire people of intelligence and imagination. On the other hand, if you price wages rock-bottom, you get rock-bottom workers.So, uh, yeah. Buy American! Or something.

The funny thing for me is, the Presidents of the United States of America is just one of many bands that were totally big when I was in high school, but I never knew totally rocked until years after. Weezer, all these awesome bands that I could have totally been into - which would have improved my social situation, at least a little - but no, I was too busy being a stuck-up nerd, disdainful of anything remotely percieved as cool.Ok, rant over.