So I’m in the military, and my unit is particularly pleasant to be at, enough that if there are other military people on here, they might get upset by what I’m about to say.
We have peer group meetings with the Commanding Officer of the base, meaning each paygrade meets with the CO without the people above or below them to hear, and discuss issues. As you can imagine, those in the lower paygrades tend to be significantly younger, and when it got to my paygrade, we were all, almost without exception, millenials.
To give a background, in the military we get 30 days of leave per year (basically vacation), unlimited sick days, maternity and paternity leave (I believe it’s at 2 months for Paternity, which is pretty generous by US standards). Additionally, at my unit, we get a four day weekend for every federal holiday, have various “morale days” through the year for fishing derbies, group hikes, etc, and a 6.5 hour work day (cue all military going WTF?!).
At the lower paygrade peer group, a few of them were apparently asking for “more control” over their time off, and being able to take ask for days off with no notice because the weather was going to be good (for hunting, for example). When the CO brought the stuff they were saying up to us, the older, supervisor, millenials, we were facepalming and talking about the fucking Zoomers. But then something amazing happened:
The CO said he could see their point, and maybe we take some of those four day weekends and instead give a few “Liberty Bucks” at the beginning of the year to each person, that can be turned in to get a particular day in the immediate future off (like getting the next day off to go hunting). That actually worked really well for us, because it made those long weekends easier to schedule, and spread out the days people would be out.
And I realized we Millenials were just so happy to have what we had, we couldn’t fathom asking for something better… but they could, they did, and got it.
My personal theory on why old people become miserable conservative pricks is that we’re born into this world knowing absolutely nothing, and spend every moment of our lives trying to figure out what in the fuck is going on. Over time, you start to figure some of it out. Then, when you’ve finally started to get a hold of some shit, and finally start to get into a rhythm of what you’re supposed to do, the next generations come in and start changing shit.
People aren’t against things being better. But they are against not knowing what the fuck they’re supposed to do in life. The problem is the overlap. Changing something for the better means people that spent their whole life doing it one way are now in a state of chaos and uncertainty, which is followed by fear.
So you slowly become conservative, and resist all change.
As MellowWheat said, people don’t become conservative as they get older. That’s a myth. People just stop accepting new ideas and stop thinking they can be wrong. They stop changing basically. They get what they wanted, but once they do they don’t want more so they end up just wanting to keep things the way they got them.
Also, even this I don’t think is fully true. The boomers and the next generation or two mostly became conservative when they got older, but I don’t know if this is necessarily the rule. They were just raised to be selfish. I’ve seen it with my parents. They just tend to think about themselves and their family first, and things happened to work out because the economy grew with them so almost everyone had enough, but that’s not the case anymore. We need more cooperation if we’re going to survive.
At 24, the world hasn’t yet had the time to change that much. I started seeing these effects at perhaps 35. Individuals are different, of course and not everything applies in the exact same way to everyone.
So I’m in the military, and my unit is particularly pleasant to be at, enough that if there are other military people on here, they might get upset by what I’m about to say.
We have peer group meetings with the Commanding Officer of the base, meaning each paygrade meets with the CO without the people above or below them to hear, and discuss issues. As you can imagine, those in the lower paygrades tend to be significantly younger, and when it got to my paygrade, we were all, almost without exception, millenials.
To give a background, in the military we get 30 days of leave per year (basically vacation), unlimited sick days, maternity and paternity leave (I believe it’s at 2 months for Paternity, which is pretty generous by US standards). Additionally, at my unit, we get a four day weekend for every federal holiday, have various “morale days” through the year for fishing derbies, group hikes, etc, and a 6.5 hour work day (cue all military going WTF?!).
At the lower paygrade peer group, a few of them were apparently asking for “more control” over their time off, and being able to take ask for days off with no notice because the weather was going to be good (for hunting, for example). When the CO brought the stuff they were saying up to us, the older, supervisor, millenials, we were facepalming and talking about the fucking Zoomers. But then something amazing happened:
The CO said he could see their point, and maybe we take some of those four day weekends and instead give a few “Liberty Bucks” at the beginning of the year to each person, that can be turned in to get a particular day in the immediate future off (like getting the next day off to go hunting). That actually worked really well for us, because it made those long weekends easier to schedule, and spread out the days people would be out.
And I realized we Millenials were just so happy to have what we had, we couldn’t fathom asking for something better… but they could, they did, and got it.
Fucking Zoomers indeed. Keep pushing, y’all.
The audacity of Zoomers will save the future.
My personal theory on why old people become miserable conservative pricks is that we’re born into this world knowing absolutely nothing, and spend every moment of our lives trying to figure out what in the fuck is going on. Over time, you start to figure some of it out. Then, when you’ve finally started to get a hold of some shit, and finally start to get into a rhythm of what you’re supposed to do, the next generations come in and start changing shit.
People aren’t against things being better. But they are against not knowing what the fuck they’re supposed to do in life. The problem is the overlap. Changing something for the better means people that spent their whole life doing it one way are now in a state of chaos and uncertainty, which is followed by fear.
So you slowly become conservative, and resist all change.
As MellowWheat said, people don’t become conservative as they get older. That’s a myth. People just stop accepting new ideas and stop thinking they can be wrong. They stop changing basically. They get what they wanted, but once they do they don’t want more so they end up just wanting to keep things the way they got them.
Also, even this I don’t think is fully true. The boomers and the next generation or two mostly became conservative when they got older, but I don’t know if this is necessarily the rule. They were just raised to be selfish. I’ve seen it with my parents. They just tend to think about themselves and their family first, and things happened to work out because the economy grew with them so almost everyone had enough, but that’s not the case anymore. We need more cooperation if we’re going to survive.
People stop changing around their 20s typically. But the world around them doesn’t stop. This happens to almost everybody.
guess that means i’ll effectively become more of a radical anarchist as i grow older? because i’m 24 and have yet to show any conservative tendencies
At 24, the world hasn’t yet had the time to change that much. I started seeing these effects at perhaps 35. Individuals are different, of course and not everything applies in the exact same way to everyone.
I don’t think it’s the zoomies that are particularly different, it’s just kids being kids