Except for a year and a half from my senior year of high school to my second semester of college, I've had a job since I was able to work. My first job was a small town grocery store, little more than a convenience store by larger town standards. Still, it was useful and let me afford to fix up my truck and keep my BBS running, buy OS/2 upgrades, etc. I make significantly more than minimum wage now, but I might not have even gotten the experience to get this job if not for the minimum wage being $4.25 when I started. As a high school student, I was used to doing things that paid me $5 per *day*. Working 3 hours a night for $4.25 an hour was a raise.

I think the minimum wage is a big part of the problem with why younger people can't get jobs now. If you can't try them out for a reasonable price, how will you know if they're worth paying more? I've heard a point recently about this. If the minimum cost of entry level positions goes up, companies will turn more to unpaid internship for those entry level positions.

OH....I should add...he is an engineer in WA mining..... gets $4000 a week clear after tax....and after ALL expenses [including housing].

Oh, so you were just making a general comment about how a lot of college graduates specifically have no job experience!  Well that's different.  I was thinking (and think a lot of others in this thread though this too) that you were saying most young people were coming to you with no job experience.  So your comment was more that "a lot of college graduates haven't had any job experience" rather than "a lot of young people haven't any job experience".

Btw: did you directly post to all forums?  Your post doesn't mention any particular Stardock forum.

Someone who has never worked a day in his life can go to Harvard and then become the President of the US... I've seen it happen.

This was just posted to YouTube today. You may want to stick it in the OP. It ties into the subject of todays youth getting jobs very nicely. If nothing else, it is worth it just to get to the end and see how the father aims to rectify the situation.

Yeah I know.  It's just that the Draginol OP has JoeUser listed, but Frogboy's posts don't have any listed.  Is this is a special thing with JoeUser, or just with Frogboy's forum account?

Wouldn't that be...wait for it.... frogin?

My thought exactly! That guy is really scary.  He has no control of his anger at all, and I can understand with a temper like that, where his baby girl got her attitude.  Kids learn what is modeled for them.  This guy is just reaping what he's sown. 

He should have taken the laptop away and made her get a job to buy it back from him.

For the common masses, it's Soylent Green....

Reporting for duty, sir!!

When I got certified in my architecture coursework in 2006, the word on the street was you'd have three employers trying to hire you right when you graduated with all sorts of cool things like... insurance. Then 2007/2008 happened, I graduated and have only gotten actually close to an architecture job once. Strangely enough, it was a place I applied to through craigslist.

In the meantime I'm working at a service job at a great place, but unfortunately just pays the bills and the occasional smelly/tasty/pretty thing for the g/f. I get to watch all my friends with engineering degrees buying houses and new cars and stuff. My architecture degree feels like some sort of pariah stamp... too artsy for the engineering firms and too nerdy (as in, "I can do math") for any sort of extroverted job. I've been trying to branch out and find anything that I can get my foot in door with (like say, drafting/CAD stuff for the Navy or Aerospace industry) but no such luck.

I'll be honest and say that I'm not the hardest worker out there. Other architecture friends have found real jobs (well, two of them) that if I really, really, really wanted I probably could've gotten... if only I volunteered at Builders without Borders and got better grades in college. I make up for my lack of super awesome hard work ethic by getting things done faster and more efficiently. Unfortunately that approach doesn't cut it when looking for jobs. I also get really bummed out if I put in a lot of work on something and get nothing in return; like the last 3 years of looking for arch jobs. I've stopped looking for the time being, maybe I'll get enough strength to start looking again when I hear things are better. It's probably also a problem that I work at a super awesome place (albeit making little money) that I don't want to leave. Maybe I should just quit... I know I'd be a lot more motivated to find a real job if I did.

Am I the only person here that thinks there's a real problem where you have a red-neck with attitude.... some recalcitrant brat....and a GUN?

From the it-only-could-happen-in-America-Dept.

In the 'civilized world' Child Services would be removing the kid....

First, it's difficult to classify him a Redneck. Why? This wasn't some ignorant backwoods yocal going off.

This was a well thought out response. 

Here is a father who has had to face this issue before with the daughter. He told her what would happen the next time she pulled this stunt. In the interim, he went as far as to update/upgrade her laptop ($130.00 he spent) , which to me says he was trying to show he trusts her and wanted to move on.

He wasn't yelling  and cursing at the camera. He was very controlled, articulate, and he explained himself well. Then, he also isn't your typical redneck in that he is divorced and on speaking terms with the mother (which is rare). He defended the mom and step-mom. I think the clincher in all of this for me was the part where he said he had spoken to the girls Mom, told her what was going on and her response to him was to 'put a bullet in it for me.' As ludicrous as that may sound, it seems they have ALL tried to work with this ungrateful little brat and have had enough.

It's not like he put the laptop in a skeet shoot and was taking pot shots at it with a rifle. He was out in a field, away from people. Evrything about his response was measured and controlled to me. I think the guy knew what he was doing and how it might look and went the extra mile to minimze cries of 'He's out of control. He has rage issues.'

Could he have donated the laptop to a needy cause or anything else? Yes. But it was his money and his choice. Personally, I think the visual is more effective.

For every parent that thinks this guy is crazy, I'm willing to bet there are five that wish they had the balls to do what he did to their kids laptops, PS3's, Xboxs, and smartphones. Of those five, probably only one or two have ever even gone as far as to just remove the items from the home.

Who knows what this guy is like in the home, but he didn't do one thing that would deserve his child being removed from the home if your going to base that decision solely on the video.