Where has customer service gone

[Blueheeler1959]

As the title says where has it gone.. Needed a new computer the other day so i went to a local store (only have 2 to chose from). When i went in their was 0 staff on the floor, after about 10 min i finally seen one staff member come out and another 10 min another one come out, 20 min after that i finally seen the manager come out and went for a smoke. I stood in the computer section for 45min as i watched people come in after me and get help, even other people came in and stood in the computer dept and got help before me. Well after 45 min someone finally acknowledged i was their and finally came over to ask if i needed help. I pointed out the computer i wanted and as he was looking it up he informed me that the shelf tag was wrong, so that means every sale tag on that shelf was wrong as i watched one of the other workers fix most of them when they were helping another customer. Well by this time im beyond pissed so i informed him that i had been standing their for 45 min and now they are telling me their price is wrong and that they should really learn how to do their job and customer service, told him i would take my money elseware and walked out. Went to the other store and they were more than helpful, asked if i needed help and then let me look around with out being pestered. Ended up spending way more than what i was originally budgeting but at least i had been acknowledged.. Both stores are part of large chains but the bigger store is getting worse all the time, they will not even sell a display model but they will also not keep anything in stock. They have lost about 10g in sales from me in the last year between work and personal..

You are not alone in your search for customer service. The world has certainly changed from the virus. We wonder in our house where all the people are at and how they are obtaining money to live. Our workforce never recovered, except for the spam callers, I can't believe all of the missing workforce passed from the virus. The ones that are working seem ill prepared, last year I was in a big box store and all and I mean all of the plants in the garden section were dead. Cooked, no water, new plants still on racks , all brown and shriveled. I went through the store to customer service and asked why the garden department was full of dead plants. They didn't know but figured there had been Noone to water them.....really I asked to speak with a manager. Why? one girl asked. For my own entertainment I said I really don't have enough to do today. They began looking at me like I was possibly off a bit. After a 15 min. Wait a woman wandered in and began to discuss haircolor products and asked if they thought she should go with a vivid primary color. I finally caught a glimpse of her name tag. It was a sort of manager... oh I said interrupting the important convo about haircolor. ..I believe you are here to speak with me. What's wrong she asked. I pointed out the dead state of all of the plants in gardening. Yes they are dead she agreed solemnly. Why I asked. We don't have anyone to water she said. Honestly she said that! Why I asked again, doesn't anyone know how to hook up a hose and turn on a spigot? I'm old but I can certainly show one or two of you how to do that and how to apply water to the plants. It's really fairly simple. She was shaking her head sadly. There is no one for the job. She actually believed that. Well it doesn't take a degree I explained. How about I show you. She shook her head and said the 4 words I really dislike. It's not my job.
Well it should be, you are a manager, you are supposed to lead instead you are making excuses and let thousands of dollars of plants just die. She looked at me shrugged and honestly she just waked away. This is what we have come to. The wheels have fallen off the bus, there is a hole in the bottom of the sea. Apparently customer service is dead. What a disgrace.

 

[johneh]

In some cases, it's not customer service people will just not work for
minimum wage would you You can not live, eat, or house yourself on minimum
wage. You are better off getting Gov . money.

 

[Blueheeler1959]

I as a senior citizen with alot of health issues prefer to continue to struggle along at my part time often more job of rehabbing houses for a tax lien Co. I go into houses that have been so abused I would not take my dog into one. Yet I go I dry wal replace plumbing, lay new flooring, I give the house a total redo and I am proud of my work. It is up to code done for a reasonable price and they sell quickly for excellent money when I am finished. I give goodservice to the company I part time for, I make less than minimum wage but I set my own hours and often stay on the job site at nite so I don't have to drive when tired. There is something called pride and accountability , I would rather work 2 jobs than take money from the government. My parents taught us that any job was worth doing well and I still do that.

 

[johneh]

I would rather work 2 jobs than take money from the government. My parents taught us that any job was worth doing well and I still do that.

But we are of a different time ( I am 74 and retired but still work part-time )
People nowadays just want it handed to them
not have to work for it

 

[zrock]

You are not alone in your search for customer service. The world has certainly changed from the virus. We wonder in our house where all the people are at and how they are obtaining money to live. Our workforce never recovered, except for the spam callers, I can't believe all of the missing workforce passed from the virus. The ones that are working seem ill prepared, last year I was in a big box store and all and I mean all of the plants in the garden section were dead. Cooked, no water, new plants still on racks , all brown and shriveled. I went through the store to customer service and asked why the garden department was full of dead plants. They didn't know but figured there had been Noone to water them.....really I asked to speak with a manager. Why? one girl asked. For my own entertainment I said I really don't have enough to do today. They began looking at me like I was possibly off a bit. After a 15 min. Wait a woman wandered in and began to discuss haircolor products and asked if they thought she should go with a vivid primary color. I finally caught a glimpse of her name tag. It was a sort of manager... oh I said interrupting the important convo about haircolor. ..I believe you are here to speak with me. What's wrong she asked. I pointed out the dead state of all of the plants in gardening. Yes they are dead she agreed solemnly. Why I asked. We don't have anyone to water she said. Honestly she said that! Why I asked again, doesn't anyone know how to hook up a hose and turn on a spigot? I'm old but I can certainly show one or two of you how to do that and how to apply water to the plants. It's really fairly simple. She was shaking her head sadly. There is no one for the job. She actually believed that. Well it doesn't take a degree I explained. How about I show you. She shook her head and said the 4 words I really dislike. It's not my job.
Well it should be, you are a manager, you are supposed to lead instead you are making excuses and let thousands of dollars of plants just die. She looked at me shrugged and honestly she just waked away. This is what we have come to. The wheels have fallen off the bus, there is a hole in the bottom of the sea. Apparently customer service is dead. What a disgrace.

forbid someone goes out of their way and do something to improve customer experience. Gezzz i still work in customer service as a manager and one rule i have always lived by is i will never ask my staff to do something i would not, so quite often you will see me in the bathrooms cleaning them or outside picking up garbage or shoveling snow. Staff see this and they will not hesitate to do something that is " not in their job description". One thing that really pisses me off is anytime i walk through a store a lot of the staff are sitting their on their phone when they should be working, on several occasions i have walked up to the employee and told them lucky you do not work for me or you and your phone would be looking for a new job.

Customer service issues come down from the top " lead by example". My original issue i filed a complaint with the corporate head office and told them that the manager was part of the issue that day and do not have the manager contact me. Within a hour they had forwarded the email to the store manager and i was contacted by the store manager. When and if a customer ever companied about me it always went to my district manager and handled properly. Having the store manager contact me just showed me that the DM and upper management was just as lazy as the store manager.

 

[Blueheeler1959]

forbid someone goes out of their way and do something to improve customer experience. Gezzz i still work in customer service as a manager and one rule i have always lived by is i will never ask my staff to do something i would not, so quite often you will see me in the bathrooms cleaning them or outside picking up garbage or shoveling snow. Staff see this and they will not hesitate to do something that is " not in their job description". One thing that really pisses me off is anytime i walk through a store a lot of the staff are sitting their on their phone when they should be working, on several occasions i have walked up to the employee and told them lucky you do not work for me or you and your phone would be looking for a new job.

Customer service issues come down from the top " lead by example". My original issue i filed a complaint with the corporate head office and told them that the manager was part of the issue that day and do not have the manager contact me. Within a hour they had forwarded the email to the store manager and i was contacted by the store manager. When and if a customer ever companied about me it always went to my district manager and handled properly. Having the store manager contact me just showed me that the DM and upper management was just as lazy as the store manager.

We have similar views. I remember the surreal feeling during covids early days. Since I work alone in my repair work I went back to work since I was still pretty much still alone, but was at least busy. I still remember the drive on a rt that was always well traveled. During the 45 minute drive from point A to point B I saw 3 other vehicles on the road. I felt like I was in a Sci fi movie, it was really creepy. Something changed I a great many people during that time. It became easy just to not, ANYTHING . It seems many never got restarted. Apathy has taken over many. I am here to announce, its okay to resume living. Go back to work, back to functioning as a normal person with responsibilities and a sense of interest and pride in life. Put down your phone! It's a crutch, look at people again, see what goes on around you again. Don't let go of what you used to have, pull out of the lethargy and become part of the solution. It's too easy to continue as a lump that is only part of the problem. Come on quit contacting people on Facebook communicate face to face. It's so much more real. It's so much more human.

 

[Ashful]

But we are of a different time ( I am 74 and retired but still work part-time )
People nowadays just want it handed to them
not have to work for it

I think you're out of touch, or just seeing a small slice of the population that's not really representative of the whole, if you really believe that. Maybe you watch too much sensational news, who likes to fixate on the exception, rather than the norm?

I worked most of the last three decades in various roles as an engineering and manufacturing supervisor, and had to deal with many younger guys and girls, in my department as well as adjacent departments. Although they do have much more "group think" than I and my contemporaries did at the same age, there were maybe even fewer slackers in the younger generations, than those approaching retirement. I actually think the millennial inclination to work in groups and collaborate was a beneficial way to augment our mostly-older group of people used to working in their own silos, always wanting to be the sole provider of all solutions.

I agree that some want everything handed to them, but I don't think that's new, there have been plenty like that in every generation. Like all things, it's just better-televised now, and sensationalized by news organizations increasing their audience and profit by dividing us against one another.

I also think that our society's response to slackers has changed, and maybe that's what you're seeing johneh. Slackers used to be shamed and ridiculed, now they're coddled. That's all true, but saying much more on that would be... politics.

 

[stoveliker]

Looking at what homes cost now in comparison to median incomes suggests young folks have to work harder these days...
I'm just saying. (And I'm happy I was born a bit earlier and got my first home paid off a decade ago...)

In my line of work, 25-35 year olds work their behinds off to get established. It's kill it out there or be killed.

 

[Ashful]

Looking at what homes cost now in comparison to median incomes suggests young folks have to work harder these days...
I'm just saying. (And I'm happy I was born a bit earlier and got my first home paid off a decade ago...)

In my line of work, 25-35 year olds work their behinds off to get established. It's kill it out there or be killed.

I bought my first home in 1998. I was pretty young at the time, and just barely scraped together 10% down plus closing costs (maybe $25k, in all), to do it. Some friends the same age argued they were being more responsible, by waiting until they had saved enough to go 20% down, and avoid PMI. But what happened ca.2000, is that local home prices basically doubled overnight. Those who waited could never hope to save anywhere near as fast as the instant equity I had just achieved by buying a year or two earlier. Even more stupidly, anyone who read anything knew that was coming, and choosing to wait was just a convenient and lazy excuse to avoid some risk and work, for anyone with the means to do otherwise (e.g. several of my friends). I just got the house re-appraised in 2001, it jumped $165k to $350k in something like 2-3 years, and my mortgage instantly dropped from 90% to something like 40% of the home value... no more PMI.

My friends and siblings who chose to wait just 3 years, then ended up stupidly buying houses at the peak of the market, which dropped to a fraction of their value just a few years later. Again, everyone knew we were in a bubble, they were stupid to jump on the bandwagon and buy at a known market peak. No excuse, unless you were in a situation where renting was just impossible... and they weren't.

My parents had it much rougher, back in the early 1980's they got a mortgage at something like 17% APR. Insane, and the housing prices were doing similar leaps. I can't even imagine, they really struggled with cash flow through the 1980's, but in the end they were fine.

Long way of saying, things have always been difficult for those unable to time things just right. Young people do indeed have it tough, maybe even as tough as my parents, or my friends who missed the ca.2000 doubling in housing prices. My advice to my kids, don't get yourself in a situation where you're playing a passive role in your destiny. To many people, life just happens to them, rather than them spending a little time and effort on planning and foresight. Luck usually plays a role, but mostly only for those who work hard to put themselves in the place where luck can happen, and they can take advantage of it.

I look at most of these young professionals with whom I've had to work, and I think most of them are going to be just fine, a very smart and thoughtful group. Many will do the same stupid things I describe above, and then whine it's "the system". But each one who does otherwise is another good example that it's not "the system", it's just the fact that most people operate on whim and impulse rather than research and planning.

 

[joop]

I bought my first home in 1998. I was pretty young at the time, and just barely scraped together 10% down plus closing costs (maybe $25k, in all), to do it. Some friends the same age argued they were being more responsible, by waiting until they had saved enough to go 20% down, and avoid PMI. But what happened ca.2000, is that local home prices basically doubled overnight. Those who waited could never hope to save anywhere near as fast as the instant equity I had just achieved by buying a year or two earlier. Even more stupidly, anyone who read anything knew that was coming, and choosing to wait was just a convenient and lazy excuse to avoid some risk and work, for anyone with the means to do otherwise (e.g. several of my friends). I just got the house re-appraised in 2001, it jumped $165k to $350k in something like 2-3 years, and my mortgage instantly dropped from 90% to something like 40% of the home value... no more PMI.

My friends and siblings who chose to wait just 3 years, then ended up stupidly buying houses at the peak of the market, which dropped to a fraction of their value just a few years later. Again, everyone knew we were in a bubble, they were stupid to jump on the bandwagon and buy at a known market peak. No excuse, unless you were in a situation where renting was just impossible... and they weren't.

My parents had it much rougher, back in the early 1980's they got a mortgage at something like 17% APR. Insane, and the housing prices were doing similar leaps. I can't even imagine, they really struggled with cash flow through the 1980's, but in the end they were fine.

Long way of saying, things have always been difficult for those unable to time things just right. Young people do indeed have it tough, maybe even as tough as my parents, or my friends who missed the ca.2000 doubling in housing prices. My advice to my kids, don't get yourself in a situation where you're playing a passive role in your destiny. To many people, life just happens to them, rather than them spending a little time and effort on planning and foresight. Luck usually plays a role, but mostly only for those who work hard to put themselves in the place where luck can happen, and they can take advantage of it.

I look at most of these young professionals with whom I've had to work, and I think most of them are going to be just fine, a very smart and thoughtful group. Many will do the same stupid things I describe above, and then whine it's "the system". But each one who does otherwise is another good example that it's not "the system", it's just the fact that most people operate on whim and impulse rather than research and planning.

same here,used to try and explain to the guys at work that trying to save a extra ten grand for a house that's going to jump 15grand was like chasing your tail.the ones that listened are laughing to the bank.

 

[joop]

bought first house in 91 14% interest made 8 bucks an hour.no furniture to fill house 14" black and white,wife had to beat a penny into a dime.now i have three houses market value 1 million owe 250 i'm happy i did it when i did

 

[EatenByLimestone]

I somehow, probably shouldn’t have, bought a house 6mo out of college. PITI was 50% of my GROSS income, lol. It was some program for recent college grads who were expected to make more in the future. I don’t know how I ate. I don’t think I made anything on my house when I sold it 5 years later, but I had a place to live. I vowed I’d never be house poor again. But I met my wife while I was poor. It all worked out!

I didn’t extend myself as much on future home purchases!

 

[zrock]

We have similar views. I remember the surreal feeling during covids early days. Since I work alone in my repair work I went back to work since I was still pretty much still alone, but was at least busy. I still remember the drive on a rt that was always well traveled. During the 45 minute drive from point A to point B I saw 3 other vehicles on the road. I felt like I was in a Sci fi movie, it was really creepy. Something changed I a great many people during that time. It became easy just to not, ANYTHING . It seems many never got restarted. Apathy has taken over many. I am here to announce, its okay to resume living. Go back to work, back to functioning as a normal person with responsibilities and a sense of interest and pride in life. Put down your phone! It's a crutch, look at people again, see what goes on around you again. Don't let go of what you used to have, pull out of the lethargy and become part of the solution. It's too easy to continue as a lump that is only part of the problem. Come on quit contacting people on Facebook communicate face to face. It's so much more real. It's so much more human.

Definitely sounds like it. During covid i did not even miss a day of work, they shout down our shop but since truck drivers were still our working so was I and my phone never stopped ringing so i just went to work in a empty building..lol

I think you're out of touch, or just seeing a small slice of the population that's not really representative of the whole, if you really believe that. Maybe you watch too much sensational news, who likes to fixate on the exception, rather than the norm?

I worked most of the last three decades in various roles as an engineering and manufacturing supervisor, and had to deal with many younger guys and girls, in my department as well as adjacent departments. Although they do have much more "group think" than I and my contemporaries did at the same age, there were maybe even fewer slackers in the younger generations, than those approaching retirement. I actually think the millennial inclination to work in groups and collaborate was a beneficial way to augment our mostly-older group of people used to working in their own silos, always wanting to be the sole provider of all solutions.

I agree that some want everything handed to them, but I don't think that's new, there have been plenty like that in every generation. Like all things, it's just better-televised now, and sensationalized by news organizations increasing their audience and profit by dividing us against one another.

I also think that our society's response to slackers has changed, and maybe that's what you're seeing johneh. Slackers used to be shamed and ridiculed, now they're coddled. That's all true, but saying much more on that would be... politics.

I do not think he is out of touch at all. Look at all the millennials they want to do the least amount of work for the highest pay and that is if you can even get them to work. Jobs we have all done for a lifetime they come in and refuse to do the job. Or as i see constantly the person working at walmart or the local coffee shop wants the same pay as those of us that have spent a lifetime learning our trade or going to school to get a trade. Their excuse is i should not have to work or work multiple jobs to buy a house or buy my toys. Take a look around th enext time you go shopping and see how many staff are just standing around doing nothing or sitting on their phone, went through walmart the other day and out of the 10 staff i counted on the floor 8 of them were on their cell phone. Look at all these self checkouts at wallmart, before these you could not find anyone that wanted to work at a checkout as it was to much work, now you have 8 staff standing their watching us do their job for them, Their are more of them standing watching us do their job then they would have needed to run the real checkouts. Not trying to be rude but open your eyes and look around when your out and about the truth is right their in front of you

 

[joop]

i miss covid no traffic,shoot zombies on the way to work.fun times

 

[Blueheeler1959]

forbid someone goes out of their way and do something to improve customer experience. Gezzz i still work in customer service as a manager and one rule i have always lived by is i will never ask my staff to do something i would not, so quite often you will see me in the bathrooms cleaning them or outside picking up garbage or shoveling snow. Staff see this and they will not hesitate to do something that is " not in their job description". One thing that really pisses me off is anytime i walk through a store a lot of the staff are sitting their on their phone when they should be working, on several occasions i have walked up to the employee and told them lucky you do not work for me or you and your phone would be looking for a new job.

Customer service issues come down from the top " lead by example". My original issue i filed a complaint with the corporate head office and told them that the manager was part of the issue that day and do not have the manager contact me. Within a hour they had forwarded the email to the store manager and i was contacted by the store manager. When and if a customer ever companied about me it always went to my district manager and handled properly. Having the store manager contact me just showed me that the DM and upper management was just as lazy as the store manager.

Many years ago I found that it did Little-good to go to a store manager. I purchased a loaf of bread that had been baked in the box store that I was going to at the time when I sliced the bread, I found several pieces of broken glass in it. I took it back to the store handing it to the manager because I told him I think you should go through this batch if you can possibly find it all and check it because there's broken glass in mine. I don't want another loaf of bread. I don't want to have anything done for me. I just want to make you aware of it. 2 weeks later, I received a threatening letter from the attorney of the corporation that if I was trying to sabotage their good reputation with my possibly added glass to their product that I could look for legal repercussions. I don't frequent that store anymore. And I would never put anything in something, but it just goes to show you that no good deed goes unpunished at least not from large box stores.

 

[weee123]

Definitely sounds like it. During covid i did not even miss a day of work, they shout down our shop but since truck drivers were still our working so was I and my phone never stopped ringing so i just went to work in a empty building..lol

I do not think he is out of touch at all. Look at all the millennials they want to do the least amount of work for the highest pay and that is if you can even get them to work. Jobs we have all done for a lifetime they come in and refuse to do the job. Or as i see constantly the person working at walmart or the local coffee shop wants the same pay as those of us that have spent a lifetime learning our trade or going to school to get a trade. Their excuse is i should not have to work or work multiple jobs to buy a house or buy my toys. Take a look around th enext time you go shopping and see how many staff are just standing around doing nothing or sitting on their phone, went through walmart the other day and out of the 10 staff i counted on the floor 8 of them were on their cell phone. Look at all these self checkouts at wallmart, before these you could not find anyone that wanted to work at a checkout as it was to much work, now you have 8 staff standing their watching us do their job for them, Their are more of them standing watching us do their job then they would have needed to run the real checkouts. Not trying to be rude but open your eyes and look around when your out and about the truth is right their in front of you

I think you’re confusing millennials with Gen Z. The youngest millennial is 27 while the oldest is 43. The vast majority of my generation have families and homes.

 

[joop]

Definitely sounds like it. During covid i did not even miss a day of work, they shout down our shop but since truck drivers were still our working so was I and my phone never stopped ringing so i just went to work in a empty building..lol

I do not think he is out of touch at all. Look at all the millennials they want to do the least amount of work for the highest pay and that is if you can even get them to work. Jobs we have all done for a lifetime they come in and refuse to do the job. Or as i see constantly the person working at walmart or the local coffee shop wants the same pay as those of us that have spent a lifetime learning our trade or going to school to get a trade. Their excuse is i should not have to work or work multiple jobs to buy a house or buy my toys. Take a look around th enext time you go shopping and see how many staff are just standing around doing nothing or sitting on their phone, went through walmart the other day and out of the 10 staff i counted on the floor 8 of them were on their cell phone. Look at all these self checkouts at wallmart, before these you could not find anyone that wanted to work at a checkout as it was to much work, now you have 8 staff standing their watching us do their job for them, Their are more of them standing watching us do their job then they would have needed to run the real checkouts. Not trying to be rude but open your eyes and look around when your out and about the truth is right their in front of

it's called maturing,the majority of young kids have been bubble wrapped no fault of their own .they will take a bit longer to realize the world doesn't owe them anything.

 

[stoveliker]

Moreover, "should not have to work multiple jobs to buy a house" - has to be contrasted with the 60s and 70s where a single family house could be bought at 2-2.5 times the median income of a SINGLE person.
These days, the median income is 67k$, but there are not that many homes available for 134-167 k$ ...

Yes, mortgage interest rates were higher then (near 13% at the end of the 70s, leading to the 7 years of crazy high rates early 80s), but these days, even with low interest rates, there are almost no single family homes in 2-2.5 times median income. I.e. single income families have it far worse than back then.

It's easy to complain (though I have to say that those standing around self check outs are put there *by the management*, not because they choose to stand around and do nothing in spite of a job description that asks them to do something...), but the numbers don't lie.

(And no, I'm neither millenial nor gen Z - in fact, I'm too old to really remember all those gen XYZ alphabet soup labels...)

 

[joop]

i used to work literally 7 days a week no vacation for years,paying for it now.i don't want my kids to have to work like that for a company that will roll your dead body out of the way because they have to meet quota.

 

[weee123]

Companies sort of used to value loyal and hardworking employees. Not anymore.

 

[Ashful]

I do not think he is out of touch at all. Look at all the millennials they want to do the least amount of work for the highest pay and that is if you can even get them to work.

I think that has always described some portion of the population, and maybe we're just seeing different subsets of the population as we go through our daily travels. I can say with 100% certainty that I also wanted to get the highest pay for the least amount of work, when I started working nearly 40 years ago. I even remember more than one of my college professors stating our goal is all to make as much money with as little work as possible, as an opening argument to a lecture, 30+ years ago.

Did you want the least pay for the most work, when you were young?

Moreover, "should not have to work multiple jobs to buy a house" - has to be contrasted with the 60s and 70s where a single family house could be bought at 2-2.5 times the median income of a SINGLE person.

This depends on whether you use median (in the middle) or mean (average) income. Housing prices have dropped enormously against average income, since the 1940's, and other than the early 2000's bubble and now post-COVID inflation, have been pretty constant since before 1990.

(And no, I'm neither millenial nor gen Z - in fact, I'm too old to really remember all those gen XYZ alphabet soup labels...)

Born before 1965? Squarely in the middle of Gen X, here.

Companies sort of used to value loyal and hardworking employees. Not anymore.

I think you really hit on something important, here. Yes, companies have become so averse to litigation from employees, that now they seem to treat employees like ticking time bombs. It's a two way street.

 

[stoveliker]

(Apart from the insanity of using a single number to describe a distribution, as you well know,) median is much better to describe "the average" because of a few high-income outliers not skewing the number. And in this country there are always those outliers to the top. And those outliers did have significant increase in effective income in these decades.

Indeed:

Apart from that, starting at the '40s, having the effects of WWII define the start of a trend comparison seems a bit dishonest to me... Hence I started defining the trend in the 60s. I admit that's a choice too. But the WWII after-effects are not negligible.

About a decade after '65 for me. Whatever alphabet soup that is.

 

[Ashful]

I think good arguments can be made either way, I'll give you that. But even by your chosen metric and start date, houses were cheaper in 2019 (immediately pre-COVID), than 1965.

So, what's everyone whining about?

The post-COVID spike may just be the next bubble, like 2008, we won't know for a few more years.

The old rule about local real estate was a doubling every 10 years, and that trend had been tracked by local realtors, going back quite a few decades before I even bought my first home. I hope that trend continues, as home value is a very big part of retirement cash-out, for many.

 

[gthomas785]

I call BS on the whole argument that people of an earlier generation were somehow naturally more motivated to be useful at their jobs.

The reason I go to work is to earn money. Feeling good about helping other people only goes so far if it's not paying the bills. I can very easily tell when I'm appreciated at work and when I'm not. I can tell when putting in a little extra effort is going to benefit me or someone else in the long run, and likewise I can tell when it won't benefit anyone. I've been there, working a crappy job where my boss was just riding the last few years until retirement and didn't give a crap about anything, so it rubbed off and I stopped feeling the need to put in as much effort. It's not a healthy place to be, psychologically, but sometimes people make a strategic choice to stay in a job like that for some time because it's in their long term best interest (salary/promotion, health insurance, or whatever).

Hmmm, if only there were some monetary way to "reward" people for doing their job better... </snark>

 

[joop]

aren't we snarky