Lazy or stupid, your call...

It's not just Millenials... I have a buddy who is an electrician. He has several repeat clients who pay him regularly to come out and do basic homeowner tasks like change burned out light bulbs and swap their HVAC filters.

These are all older, well-off folks, who apparently have more money than sense.

They are NOT the only ones. Working in a gas station in the 70s for a couple years was interesting at times. Many many people had no clue about checking and adding oil. Same with tires no clue about checking and adding air. Or snow chains people would get some one else to put them on to drive around for a few days not even trying to take them off when they did not need them. The chains would end up breaking.

You wouldn't believe how many service calls I run to reset breakers or GFIs, change batteries, and change light bulbs. Ironically they get mad at me when I walk in spend two minutes there and give them a bill for $130. "Wait all you did was press a button or change a bulb?" I just want so badly to tell them, yep, you're right, this is stupid tax you just paid, but I bite my tongue and remember to myself that it's paying my mortgage.

Millennials have no clue how mechanical things work. I remember being a kid and many of my friends who didn't even have a driver's license could tear down and rebuild a motorcycle, gocart, or car engine.

You'd be amazed at how many calls I get for outlets not working only to find it's a switched outlet. Walk in flip switch on, present bill, move on to next incapable individual. I love these calls, I get paid hourly in half hour chunks, so if I spend five minutes "resolving" their problem I get paid for half hour.

I have three sisters (waaaayyy older than millenials.) I've gotten calls to change light bulbs for them.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: BBMW, February 28, 2019 05:05 PM

You people need to stop gloating about your competency privilege.

quote:

Originally posted by Jelly:
They are NOT the only ones. Working in a gas station in the 70s for a couple years was interesting at times. Many many people had no clue about checking and adding oil.

Ah yes, the mysterious 710 cap...

quote:

These are all older, well-off folks, who apparently have more money than sense.

Maybe they are lonely and some want to meet nice young men who work with their hands. LOL

quote:

Originally posted by Fenris:
You people need to stop gloating about your competency privilege.

WINNER!

RMD

quote:

Millennials have no clue how mechanical things work. I remember being a kid and many of my friends who didn't even have a driver's license could tear down and rebuild a motorcycle, gocart, or car engine.

That depends on the kid. My daughter's boyfriend repairs elevators and everything else that breaks. College was hard for him, mechanical things are no problem. He makes serious money in the elevator industry.

I"m 33, so by their definition, I fall into this 'category'
Can't imagine calling/paying someone for such a simple task.

But, I also change my own oil & rotate my own tires, mow my own lawn & will look up troubleshooting on home repair stuff before calling it in.

You can put me firmly in the camp of 'a lot of millenials hate surveys and try to intentionally skew the results'.

I'm sure plenty of them don't know how to change light bulbs, just like other generations don't but I bet you it's no where close to 60% of them and probably more in line with other age groups.

I'm 100% convinced that a segment of the millenial population relishes in misleading surveys. These people grew up in a digital age where videos of people screwing with cold calls (from scammers, surveys, solicitors etc) go viral and get tons of views.

I find this difficult to believe.

quote:

I'm 100% convinced that a segment of the millenial population relishes in misleading surveys.

I have to admit that I do that too.
I'm involved politically. I frequently get polled. I always participate. I usually skew the poll, depending on who I think paid for it.

I also have to admit that I have 3 millenial children. They are all fully capable of doing most of the things millenials supposedly cannot do. My youngest works as an engineer for a major oil company. She's in the middle of a 'turnaround'. Shutting down an oil refinery for scheduled maintenance is considerably more complicated than changing a light bulb.

Because they stopped teaching critical thinking skills, or they’re just lazy.

Look it up on the internet. Hell, I’ve remodeled just about our entire house, including masonry and plumbing all from watching YouTube videos or looking shit up.

It is not the fault of millennial’s, rather their stupid baby boomer parents who didn’t raise them properly and fucked our education system.

Besides, you can go on YouTube and learn how to fix anything. You can avoid paying your appliance repair man a small fortune to fix the solenoid on your gas clothes dryer. DYI for $8 w/ the correct part from Amazon.

quote:

Originally posted by RogueJSK:
It's not just Millenials... I have a buddy who is an electrician. He has several repeat clients who pay him regularly to come out and do basic homeowner tasks like change burned out light bulbs and swap their HVAC filters.

These are all older, well-off folks, who apparently have more money than sense.

I guess it depends on the people. There is absolutely no flaming way even though he is only 70 that my FIL should ever be on a ladder. He is questionable walking on flat ground. Now he doesn’t pay anybody, he just calls one of his kids or in-laws, but I can see how someone with mobility issues and the bucks might hire someone to help instead of calling their kids. I’m sure some folks are just lazy or have more money than sense, but some folks have realistic limitations.

quote:

Originally posted by RAMIUS:
Because they stopped teaching critical thinking skills, or they’re just lazy.

Look it up on the internet. Hell, I’ve remodeled just about our entire house, including masonry and plumbing all from watching YouTube videos or looking shit up.

Back in the early 1970s wife and I decided to build a second home. It was a "package" house which included the basic setup. Included all finishing materials, dry wall, etc etc etc. Did not include plumbing or wiring.

I finished the entire thing while working an average 60 hours a week, and one year of that time going to college full time.

We purchased the wiring and plumbing separately as we could buy it cheaper. I also installed the hardwood floors, sanded and finished them.

Still have the place.

They can change a light bulb. They can't muster the motivation.

A few decades ago I ran the service department in a higher end foreign car dealership.
You would be surprised (or not) how many almost new cars were towed into the service department because they stopped running. The customers were usually very irate. "I just paid x$ for this car and it broke down on me" was the usual story.
The problem? Well the first hint was that when you turned the key to on, the gas gauge didn't move.
The second part that pissed me off even more was how many mechanics didn't start there and had already performed a other diagnostic checks before they figured it out themselves.