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| What more and more young people see |
The first time I saw this was way back in the late 90s when we were still living in Louisville. Being me, I had a few last minute things to get. It was 1998 I believe, when our second son had been born. I went out to buy what I needed and noticed that the stores were already packing up. As one who had made a life long habit of shopping late on Christmas Eve, that was the first time I recalled seeing the decorations being removed in force before Christmas proper.
Over the years, it has crept slowly on. Sometimes there might be a rebound. Some years it might seem closer to Christmas Eve that they are removing things, only to see the following year be even earlier. Of course putting up Christmas decorations ridiculously early isn't anything new. The 1974 It's the Easter Beagle Charlie Brown addresses that very thing.
But the symbolism of tearing things down, even as - from a traditional Christian perspective - the holiday has yet to formally begin, seems to me symbolic of the problem with our modern corporate structure. In the days of consumerism or commercialism, corporations at least had to pretend they cared. Oh your average person of even limited intelligence could guess it was always about the money. But commercial enterprises had to put on a good show. They had to entice. To sell. To put up a good front. To occasionally pander to the wishes of the all important consumer.
But today? Not really. They don't even pretend to care. In the old days, they had to put on a good face and act like it was important to appease the consumer. The customer, as they used to say, was always right. But today? Nowhere close. And I fear it isn't just the trappings of a Christmas holiday that is on the block. It's anything really, and not even apologizing or trying to excuse. It's just 'we do it to make billions, so suck on it.' Whether it be the consumers, the employees, the national well-being, the common weal, it matters not.
I had to go to a local auto parts store recently. I stood in line for over half an hour because there was only one guy working in the whole store. He apologized to everyone as we made our way to the register. Then someone in front of me asked him why he was alone. Apparently they just cut staff and hours. Not that they're hurting. I looked it up and nothing about the company tanking or anything. In fact, it has had a financial turnaround. Apparently, that includes closing stores and cutting staff and hours to save money, at least for the uppers. Does it hurt the customer experience? Sure. Does it decrease the quality of service? You bet. Does the corporation appear to care? No more than it does putting on airs about Christmas time any longer than financially needed, no matter what people might want. You might say it obviously is no big deal. The company in question has seen a financial turnaround, so apparently the consumer isn't bothered. Or in our neck of the woods, there aren't many alternatives.
Yet that's the big thing I see. On the short term, it does appear corporations can almost flip everyone the bird today and people just keep coming back for more. But what of longer term consequences? Conservatives are running around with their hair on fire as poll after survey after study finds more and more youngsters up and coming are at least open to the possibility of socialism, Marxism or even by name communism! How can this be? How can they be so stupid?
Because of this. Somewhere along the line corporations found a way to game the system; an out from the old 'it leads to competition and innovation and creates wealth' paradigm. Giving less for more, lowering quality, slashing quantity, and all while shellacking the consumer and frequently screwing over their own employees willy-nilly makes it somewhat easy to explain the average younger person's skepticism about the bountiful blessings of the private sector and that all important Capitalism experience.
In fact, I also hear a lot of people harp on your Gen-Z types as being lazy and entitled and having no loyalty to their employers. But that door swings both ways. As I said here, what used to be the season for Christmas bonuses and office parties has become, in many sectors, when employees cower down with targets on their backs. And seniority doesn't cut it. A fellow I talked to a few years ago said that in many companies today, seniority and experience make you feel like a prime target. After all, ditch you and a couple others, consolidate your positions, and hire some newbie for a fraction of the cost. But doesn't that cause a glitch in quality and harm the potential consumer? See 'pack up Jingle Bells whatever the shmuck consumer base thinks' above.
One of the reasons we have Trump is best described by my oldest son: Trump is the wrong answer to all the right questions. And those questions involve a growing segment of the population feeling that things are getting worse, not better; that more and more are being left behind; that fewer in our younger generations have hope for the future - and worse than anything, our leadership and institutions including, but not limited to, corporate America don't seem to care. In fact, until 2016, it increasingly appeared that they didn't even have to pretend to care. Which is why, as my one son likes to say, the biggest booster for communism today is corporate America. Will it change since the era of Donald Trump? Perhaps. But it better change, or the unthinkable for so many of us older folks will become the acceptable option going forth for the younger ones.
(Tom New Poster)
ReplyDeleteDave, you may be confounding two things. Stores respond to customers and for the new generation a lot of the stuff they want and buy is online. I've noticed the dwindling of customers in many local stores (just south of San Francisco) and fewer customers mean fewer employees. This old guy (almost 69) finds it frustrating, but I can't change other people's shopping habits.
The other is a false set of expectations building for decades: that jobs of the future will all be like George Jetson: sitting on your bum and pushing buttons, when a lot more are going be like George Lopez: hustling in coveralls, driving trucks or stringing wire. Some of those pay better than the junior pencil-pusher spots, but (gosh) it looks bad when Mommy's lil' DEI grad has to (you know) sweat a little to make his living.
There is a common connection, somewhat ironic: the same technology that makes shopping the world so easy-peasy for the tech generation is rendering a lot of their white collar dreams redundant.
I think there is certainly truth to that. But even with online, I notice a difference between what people wish was true about online shopping and what is. Again, was a time when companies had to pander to the customer's wishes, or at least pretend to do so. But today, it just seems not so much. Whether online or brick and mortar. At least the larger corporations. And this doesn't address the growing disregard so many corporations have for their own employees. Loyalty is not a one way street, yet many seem to think it is. Of courses unionized companies might be different. But those that aren't union display an almost flagrant disregard for the loyalty my parents' generation seemed to take for granted.
DeleteI think there's some truth in what Tom says. Online shopping has definitely changed the marketplace somewhat detrimentally to brick-and-mortar stores. But I do think there is "corporatism" in the way you described running a bit roughshod over customers as well. I think of Hobby Lobby that puts out fall stuff when it's 95 degrees in July and Christmas fare starts to make an appearance shortly after that. I hate buying Christmas stuff so early, but often I find myself buying in Sept/October because I know if I don't get what I like then it might not be available when I actually want it for decorating. I've definitely missed out on things before. This year they clearanced Christmas stuff the week before the actual date while filling the rows with Valentine's and spring offerings. But honestly, by the time Christmas comes I'm a little Christmas fatigued because I spend enough time in stores that my sensibilities are less wonder and more exhaustion by then. I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one. On the other hand, people like my neighbor lady put Christmas decor up on Nov. 1st and take it down on Dec. 26th. So, some of this is also culturally driven. Their customers have it all backwards too.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, whether we like it or not we live in a materialistic society and the younger generation, I'm sorry, does have some unrealistic expectations sometimes. (I have watched enough episodes of Financial Audit to see what thought processes manifest most frequently, including how many young women, even mothers, find OFans an acceptable side gig.) Young people are attracted to Marxist ideologies because they are fundamentally material in their promises.
Trump was a necessary answer, IMO, politically, but an incomplete one for sure. One man cannot save people from their material attachments and expectations unless that man is Jesus, and even his record is spotty given the free will x-factor.
As a caveat, I don't fully blame the younger generation. A large swath of them have been raised by extremely selfish parents who pursued their own whims and happiness and, quite frankly, hardly set their children up for success...financial or social success.
DeleteOddly, in my listening to youngsters, it seems they have a very jaded expectation. My sons frequently pass on to me what I often hear from others - that so many have little hope for the future. Hence why they seem more interested in voting out whoever is in than any party loyalty when it comes to politics. And while some of them do have unrealistic expectations, I don't think corporate America has behaved itself either. I once got into this discussion and I was told the fellow I was discussing it with had a relative who worked for K-Mart but ended up losing his job after decades of working there. It's how the market works. I told him yes, because K-Mart went under. That has always been how it works. But today, sometimes it seems almost arbitrary. With a push of a button 2000 people will lose their jobs just as their employer boasts of the best quarter ever. That 'just you try to work here for the long haul' attitude, and how the results are passed onto both employees and consumers, is making more than just young people lose their enthusiasm for the modern marketplace. And, IMHO, rightly so.
DeleteThat was me, Dave G. in both cases
DeleteHonestly, sometimes I think they are jaded because they are told they are getting a bad deal and should be mad about it, which kind of lends itself to both a victim mentality and also a scarcity mindset. ("I'm going to live selfishly because I deserve some happiness in my crappy life." To be fair, I know a number of older people who have the same mentality.) However, I think a bigger issue is that every previously stabilizing institution has pretty much lost its credibility, including marriage. I don't think we can underestimate what broken families have done to society regardless of corporate structure. In fact, it's probably tied together. Men and women who have broken loyalty in their private lives can hardly be expected to show business or employee loyalty. A LOT of kids have grown up without familial stability, and many go on to perpetuate it which hardly gives them any footing in life. Everything is temporary and on the material plane and things are hardly worth building if they are so easily torn apart.
DeleteBelieve me, I'm not completely unsympathetic, but I'm not overly sympathetic either. Ultimately you cannot have your cake and eat it too, and there are a lot of people who haven't learned that in any meaningful way or are never told personal life choices still matter long term. I point this out ALL the time to my kids when they bring home stories of their acquaintances' ill-advised but often enabled decisions that do nothing good for them in life. So, I think young peoples' lack of enthusiasm for the marketplace is primarily a spiritual and meaning of life crisis that is exacerbated by "corporatism". Just MO of course!
That's all true of course. And I'm not saying that youngsters for the last few generations haven't been hindered by very mixed, if not bat crazy, signals from society at large. But I fear so have those at the top, including the corporate top. I just heard that an entire department at my wife's job was eliminated. No reason. No financial problems. Her company is doing splendidly. They just did. And the ones let go? Many have worked there years. But no loyalty. No seniority. Nothing really. They just did it because they can. When my parents' generation worked, I note most of them retired from the same industries and companies they worked in for the bulk of their lives. Oh in the early days they struggled. My dad was laid off many times and had to grab what jobs he could when he was starting out. But he stayed with it, and over the years obtained seniority, and enjoyed that security. By the late 70s he, and most of their siblings, were safe, as long as their companied didn't go belly up even as the economy floundered. But today? Not in the least. Again, it might be different for Union jobs. But outside of that, I just don't see it. And it's not unique to my wife's employer. Like that fellow said, with seniority today comes a bullseye on your back. And I think young people rightly see this as a big problem. Because to them, you can be a hard worker, talented worker, dedicated worker, reliable worker - but it won't matter. You could get snuffed tomorrow, not because your employer is struggling. Just because those at the top can squeeze a few bucks out of it, if even for that reason. And you have to admit, there's not a big incentive there if that is the case, and it is.
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