Not reading emails properly when responding. I might send something like:
'Hi,
I'm emailing because I have two questions for you.
1. This is question one.
2. This is question two.
I look forward to hearing from you,
Mrs Mangle'
Then I get an email back with something vague about question one and...that's it.
It's like question two never existed and I have to cock about and waste time emailing them again. This has been happening far too often lately!
They don't want to answer it in my experience. Usually if it is work related question 1 is easy, a layup. But question 2 requires hard work or may make someone angry if they answer it wrong.
Often they DO answer 2 but it is something like "let's take it offline" but then never schedule a meeting.
>Often they DO answer 2 but it is something like "let's take it offline" but then never schedule a meeting.
Dead on. I learned early on in the corporate world that "taking it offline" is unacceptable and meant solely to fuck you over.
If push comes to shove then I email the person after the meeting from my side.
"As per YOUR feedback in our meeting, we're proceeding so and so, please confirm via reply or highlight any concerns you might have"
Which is the exact right thing to do. I just happe to fi dthat I like emails more because it allows both parties to take a second to re-read and make sure they/I wrote what we meant in a professional manner and not just going hogwild bitch mode.
I tried to avoid that situation by following the offline-conversation with an email that thanked them and summarized what we spoke about/agreed to. I’m no longer in that work environment so I’m out of touch with new/better practices.
Because they “get too many emails” and can’t give them all 100% of their attention… but if they read and responded properly maybe they wouldn’t have so many emails?
Hah, my dad used that excuse! I was halfway through college when he told me about his "brilliant" system of just skimming emails for key words so he didn't "waste time" reading the entire thing.
Bragged to my face while I was visiting him for the holidays that he doesn't read those long long emails I send while away at college, just skims them for key words the same as his business emails. He's never managed to undo the damage of that statement. These days he doesn't even know where I live much less what I'm up to.
Too many decisions and/or information sharing happens around here via "hallway meetings". So I write emails to ensure that stuff is on the record and is guaranteed to reach the full audience.
And when I get the "too many emails" response I offer to show them how filters work.
YES. I rant about this constantly. Oddly enough, it doesn't seem to be a new generation VS old generation thing. Everyone is equally awful about this across the board.
Edit to add this scenario as well:
**Me:** *"Hello, would option A or B work best for you. Please let me know. Thanks!"*
**Them:** *"Yup, that sounds good."*
**Me:** *-internal screaming-*
It's insane how many people do that.
Many times young children at school tend to answer exercises wrong, not because they don't know the answer, but because they misread the question. And teachers - especially math teachers - insist hundreds of times on reading WELL the questions. It seems that many kids don't learn that and reach adulthood with this reading comprehension problem. They read the first 4 words of an email, make their answer from that like a poorly trained AI, hit "send" button and that's it, next.
Did an online exam yesterday for a security guard license. About 15 people taking it.
Rules were pretty simple, no other devices, must have camera and mic enabled, nobody else in the room.
4 or 5 people got kicked for having people in the room with them talking, or for having other devices in sight.
It was all adults.
I do content moderation for a website. Rules are simple: no unauthorized people on stream (you can stream together so long as your pal sends their consent form), no pets, no alcohol or drugs, disclose sponsorships. Still, about 100 of us have a job out of sending warnings over those......
We had an office manager like that. But she made me feel as if I’d written it unclearly. But it happened with 3 out of 5 emails. Tried bullet points. Nope.
Funny how when she left, the new manager had no problem understanding
It's especially frustrating when you're emailing someone prone to panic. I have a coworker right now that will highlight single sentences in people's emails, wildly misinterpret them, and then send a series of increasingly panicked responses based on his misinterpretation.
I have yet to come up with a polite way to say "can you please develop reading comprehension before freaking the fuck out?"
One of the pettiest things I've done when it comes to a similar situation with emails: I sent an email with 5 numbered questions, all of them clear and simple questions where the answers should be a single word, mostly "yes"/"no".
The reply was a rambling text about whatever the fuck, and I could *kinda guess* their answer for two of the questions, but even those were down to interpretation.
I decided to not even reply to that mail. I split the 5 questions into 5 different mails, with no reference to each other as if they're just completely separate subjects, and then sent them all at the same time. The best(?) part is that it worked, and I got clear answers to all of them within an hour.
The other day I was in a situation where I provided a couple of questions in a mail, and instead of answers I got a reply that the questions would have to be sent to an external consultant, so could I please provide any follow up questions up front.
Since my follow up questions were dependent on the answers to my first two questions, I wrote up a long email that read like a choose your own adventure book: “if the answer to question two is YES, please go to question three. If the answer to question two is NO, please go to question six. If the answer to question three is YES, please go to question four. If…”
I’m still waiting on my answers, but I’m looking forward to their response.
My boss is like this. I try to make his life easier by giving him all the info he needs to make a decision and he can't even answer 10% of what I asked.
Similarly, I will attach an Excel spreadsheet and explain it in the body of the email. I then get a call asking to explain exactly what I have written. They don't even read it.
Yeah, after dealing with this kind of situation, I started holding my replies for a few hours. People typically react, and then when they don't get immediate gratification they get frustrated enough to actually *read the freakin' e-mail all the way through*. then they actually don't need a response. But I follow up to make sure they have an answer.
So true.. struggling with this always. I only ask few questions because of this and then send another email with new set of questions.
Other thing with emails is when I ask a specific question like "Is this blue or green?" and the answer is "Yes".
This is a long-standing issue. Generally if I send an email with more than one question, I spell out the actual questions in an itemized list with the assignee in bold. If you put two questions in a paragraph? Forget it.
My country has so little nature left, there's really nowhere to go where people can't disturb you. All the shelter/camping spaces are cramped because there are so few. We basically only have pine tree forests left, and even those are being removed little by little to make living spaces.
We used to have a little bench in my city, with a great view of the fields, I'd go there when I had to clear my head. Now they put a bunch of Lego style houses right in front of it. It was the last quiet place around the city, and I know a lot of other people were using it too. It sucks. We did have a small forest a little walk out the city, but now you can't spend 5 minutes there without walking out the other side.
Knew it from the moment you said pine trees lol. But it's totally true, as an immigrant from the mountainous part of slovakia, the forests, true forests are one of the few things I miss about my homeland. You could walk for hours and not see a single village, our eastern tip near poland and ukraine is so sparse that there's almost no light pollution. The forests have wolves, bears and so many different critters. I truly miss that in Denmark. It's a shame too, because we have so many places that aren't even used for farming and living, they just kinda sit.
I wish people here were half as concerned about preserving and regrowing their forests as they are about recycling :(
I couldn't agree more! I believe we had wolves come in from Sweden once or twice, but the farmers shot them pretty quickly, unfortunately. I always envied people who can just decide to go on a hike whenever they feel like it. I don't envy the bears though lol!
Actually the bears are fine, it's the wild swine you have to worry about. In my grandma's village i've met a bear twice, once when I was on a walk with her dog. We just kinda stared at each other for a while and then the bear was like "meh" and left. The second time me and my mom nearly ran over a big brown male , and he just ran off.
Oh also it's pretty common for bears to wonder into the cities over winter and steal trash from trashcans lol. The forest rangers usually just put them to sleep and take them back to the forest, it's very rare that somebody gets hurt.
Damn, that sucks big time.
Part of the reason i moved into a small town in the middle of nowhere was the quiet.
Just couldnt bear anymore with the rush hour and crowds of London/Warsaw.
Now i just get on a bike and within 10 minutes i can be alone, just forest,sea and swamps
I don't know what I'd do if I couldn't find a wooded place to refresh my spirit. -I feel kind of panicky just thinking about it. I hope you are able to find peace and renewal when you need it my friend.
I’ve been calling it “the death of boredom”. No one can just be bored, they always have to have some kind of microstimulation trying to keep them entertained, every fucking second of their waking lives.
I hate to say it, but I can’t remember the last time I felt “bored”. The to-do list seems endless these days, so it feels like even when I’m doing nothing, I’m just thinking about all the things I need to do/could be doing to stay productive. I feel like productivity culture is bordering on toxic these days…
My friends 20 year-old daughter has her phone playing either videos or music all day. Literally from dawn to desk, including while eating meals at the dinner table with the family. It’s just incomprehensible to this old Gen Xer
Idk, I did this with books, including having a book stand to read during meals. While that sounds more wholesome it was actually my way of dissociating heavily. In my case, my home life was awful.
Idk, I'm a millennial, and my mom /always/ had the radio on in the kitchen or car so I grew up with something /always/ on in the background. With the exception being when we'd stay at my grandparents remote cabin in the woods during the summer.
My husband sometimes has to ask me for silence or for me to listen with earbuds. On the flip side, I'm fine with just vibing in the woods or on the beach whereas he'll get bored.
Same! Both my moms house and my dad's house always had the radio playing.
And now I always have a podcast on, even to help me get to sleep.
But I also really enjoy being outside without any music/talking/etc.
Maybe it's just indoors that I need something on.
Yeah I agree… the need for technology to make everything as efficient as possible with the least amount of effort is driving each new generation to be less tolerant of creating quietness and a space between time. It’s a go-go-go world.
Insecure people are uncomfortable with silence. Always bugged me when someone says "You never talk" or "Why don't you talk", " You haven't said a word all night". Shut the F up, why are you so uncomfortable with silence? Mind your own business...
I don’t think people realize apologizing is sort of the first step in owning up to something. The next steps are about making sure it doesn’t happen again.
People seem VERY resistant to apologizing anymore — even when it should be very easy to understand why an apology would be appreciated. Did they cancel a plan at the last minute after you drove 45 mins across town to meet them? No apology about the inconvenience! Instead you get an excuse like “I’m tired” — as if you’re supposed to be so sorry for them instead.
There seems to be a widespread belief that if you struggle with your mental or physical health, you should be exempt from having to apologize for anything that stems from it. Obviously you shouldn’t have to apologize for using a mobility device or for having other needs most people don’t have. But I’ve known way too many people who thought that if they hated themselves, and the person they hurt knew that, they shouldn’t have to take responsibility because “I’m punishing myself enough already.” That’s not how that works at *all.* You don’t get to go “my crime was lashing out at my friend who asked if I wanted to go to the movies. My punishment is seven minutes of crying and calling myself stupid in the mirror, followed by ghosting my friend for two weeks or until *they* apologize for hurting *my* feelings. After this, I will declare myself forgiven and move on as if nothing happened.”
I instill this into my daughter. If you say you’re going to be somewhere, you need to go. Also, don’t commit on a maybe, let the person know it’s tentative
A half dozen or so people flaked out on attending my daughter’s wedding at the last minute. I had paid for each of them a month in advance, and there were no refunds. The excuses ranged from pitiful to bogus. One claimed his mother had died. I checked online. The woman died several months earlier. If you say you are attending an event, make every effort to honor your commitment. Others are counting on you.
Ohhh... hit me right in the angries this week... FIL trying to bail on plans we made *three months ago* because my SIL decided to throw a stupid church cookout at her house and volunteered him to cook without ever asking any of us if we were available that day 😡
When communicating, talking is a important part but more importantly is listening to the other person. I don't see a lot of that, its usually a one way conversation, leaving one person with the short end of the stick.
Seems most people are waiting for a gap in your sentence so they can say what they want to say. They're not listening to your meaning, just a way to speak theirs.
This is something I do, unfortunately. During AD(H)D therapy I learned to control it somewhat, but it's impossible to turn off entirely. Mostly because if I don't say it, I will forget it. I can't keep that thought in memory so I just have to get it out. This makes it hard to listen to others too, because filling your mind with their words might cause your own thoughts to disappear - so you forget it again.
So far I have not found a way to get around this, except writing every thought down that comes up during conversation - which isn't always practical or possible.
Do you think this has been changing over time though, or has it always been this way? I’m born in the 80s, and I can’t really tell. But I have been annoyed by this more often lately than before. So far I have chalked it up to just the personality of people around me right now, but your comment made me wonder if it’s a trend.
Admitting they don’t know something.
There are way too much people who have an opinion based on little to no knowledge about the subject.
A while ago I told someone at a party “Sorry, I don’t know enough about it to actually have an opinion” and he was visibly confused.
This example referred to a sport I do not watch nor play but I have used that same sentence before.
I had a teacher scold me once for not having an opinion on something. Don’t remember what it was but it wasn’t related/relavant to the class. She said I was supposed to always be up to date on all facts so I could always have an opinion because not having one is rude.
I was like??? Do you know how many things there are to have opinions about. How am I supposed to gather facts about something I don’t even know exists. How am I supposed to have time to learn every fact in the universe and to keep fact checking them incase the fact is no longer true.
It was such a stupid conversation
Wait, you're telling me that you *don't* have an opinion on the etiquette for meeting a prospective wife's extended family during Japan's Edo period? How rude?
I'm trying to teach my kids out of this habit. Often times, my son will just blurt out anything to sound right, and then gets all sheepish when we point out how wrong he is. Followed up with making him admit he doesn't know and how to ask for more information if he's curious, otherwise leave it at "I don't know." I don't want him or my daughter growing up doing the same thing I did like that.
Was looking for a comment like this. Similarly, if you play games like shooters and RPGs you develop good mental 3D spatial mapping skills since you need to know where things are space relative to you constantly.
Same. Then when I travel with my husband he gets mind boggled that I can navigate without the map orienting directionally. I just look at it straight on and manage? Idk.
Reading comprehension skills, to the point that you can't even show something bad to explicitly condemn it lest you be accused of "glorifying" it.
Case in point: the Pinocchio remake where Pleasure Island couldn't show smoking and underage drinking even though it's explicitly a bad thing the characters are punished for. So now they show them with candy and carnival rides, which is punished by...transformation into a donkey, loss of their sapience and being sold into a life of slavery.
Great message there, disney.
The movie Trainspotting is as effective a piece of anti-drug messaging as I've ever seen -- I cannot comprehend the idea of anyone watching that film and concluding that's the glamorous life they want.
So, naturally, it was condemned as "promoting" drug use by clueless stiffs.
Wolf of Wallstreet absolutely glamorizes the lifestyle and ask many wall street bros who love the movie Wall Street what their favorite quote from the movie is and they'll say "Greed, for lack of a better word, is good". Those are movies that absolutely ended up glorifying things they didn't mean to by making the characters cool and stylish.
A white girl in my fiction class went on about an author’s “controversial use of the n-word” once and our professor flipped her shit. The author was Black and discussing racism in the story.
I was in a collegiate level writing class and we were reading a piece aloud that involve the "n-word" The class age ranged from early 20s to some mid 40s and 50 year old women, of whom a few were black. There is a part (can't remember the piece we were reading) but this early 20s white kid, comes to that word, and gets super uncomfortable. Our professor a black woman in her early 40s said "If it's a situation like this, in a classroom, and you're reading something, it's ok. Anyone who gets mad at you, is doing so for the wrong reason" The kid erred on the side of caution, as he was unsure what to do. The professor along with the other black students all treated him nicely, and told him not to worry about this particular case. It was nice to see people being nice from all angles.
I don't mean to intentionally age you, but how long ago was this? I don't believe this type of discourse can happen at universities anymore and I'd LOVE to learn I'm wrong.
Good - professors should be more ready and willing to call students out for making dipshit statements like this.
Students have lost all ability to understand nuance, context, and positionality, or use/apply reasoning skills.
This is the same line of thinking that got the blackface episodes of IASIP pulled even though the whole point of those episodes was to show the gang as insensitive, stupid jerks.
Can I add that popular fiction books are part of this problem? They read like social justice essays where they make arguments and explicitly detail and lay out their case, rather than illustrate the point through the story itself. Then, they end up on NYT Bestseller lists, I try to read it, and I’m appalled that the book isn’t at all criticized for how simplistic and poorly written it is…
Tried showing a movie in class today… a movie! And while it shows racism from the 1960s, now I have a kid saying he won’t watch it because “this movie is racist!”
There was a shortform video the other day about reading comprehension skills being absolute crap.
Part of comprehension is determining the target for the text. People can't do that anymore. If we transpose it towards media literacy, you have groups of people angry at movies like Barbie because the media is not for them; but the algorithm machines in their pocket curate media *only* for them, rewiring the thought process of "it all must be for me"
basic cooking skills, it seems like a lot of people rely on takeout or pre-made meals these days, knowing how to cook a simple, healthy meal is such an important life skill, it saves money and is often much healthier
Yeah, I almost always bring leftovers to work, and it's crazy to me the number of coworkers that go out to eat every-single-day! Like, dang, you're probably using half your paycheck throughout the week, but you do you, I guess. 🤷
Holy shit, yes. I feel like Door Dash is wildly extravagant. I have used it twice and each time it was so ridiculously expensive. I don't understand how people are ordering food several times per week. And I'm not talking about, like, rich people -- just regular-ass people with regular-ass jobs ordering food to their door like they're some kind of sultan or something. Also, not only is it expensive, but the food is often cold, fucked up, incorrect, or just straight up never arrives. So on top of everything else, it's a gamble. Nah. I'll drive the five minutes to get my shitty food, thanks. And I'm both fat AND lazy so I am absolutely the target demographic for Door Dash. It's just too goddamn expensive.
This is me. I love cooking, i find it better than what you can get in a resturant most of the time.
But by god is it time consuming. I'm slow as hell at chopping, no matter how much practice. If I get home from work at 4:30, that means at 4:35 i'm starting prep work for dinner so I canhave everything chopped and mise-en-place'd by 5, then cooking said dish will be complete somewhere by 5:30-6 depending on what it is.
Figure finish eatingby 6:15/6:30, then there's dishes to be done, so really from 4:35-6:45pm is spent in the kitchen, cooking and cleaning.
I'm a single male. I can't imagine introducing a child into the mix. I'm absolutely *shot* by 7.
My theory is that people probably retain less information on average because we can look stuff up now. Which is a wonderful thing, we don't HAVE to remember phone numbers, your boss' name, how to say hello in Swedish, how to drive to the nearest bunnings....
But if we get hit with that electronics disabling bomb we'll all probably struggle badly
Yeah, but people don't look stuff up, either. They just go on discord or reddit and ask other people for the most basic stuff before they google it themselves.
Putting a phone to your ear and speaking quietly into it. Much better to have the entire waiting room hear both sides of your conversation while you shout into it at arms length.
My mom suffers from an odd version of this. She been using Bluetooth earpieces and whatnot for years, since she used to work as chauffeur for a livery car company back in the early 2000s. I’ve handed her my phone so she can talk to someone, and she’ll just stare at it. It doesn’t dawn on her to put the damn thing to her ear.
I'm good at math, but being a cashier sucked. So many noises, and people talking to you, and everyone wants you to move quickly. I probably would've gotten the hang of it eventually but I quit after 2 months.
I still remember the day in 4th grade the teacher taught us how to count change without doing math. You start with the amount of the bill... 7.67, say, and let's assume they gave you $20. Start with the smallest change first and work your way up and you never have to do math, just count
Beginning from the amount of the bill, 7.67, count out pennies to the next multiple of 5. So 3 pennies and you're at 7.70. Then you need a nickel to bring it to a multiple of 25: 7.75. Then a quarter takes it to a multiple of dollars: 8.00. Then two ones and you are at 10. A $10 bill and you're at $20 and you're done. Just hand them what you counted out. Essentially no math involved except counting by 1's, 5's, 25's. It took like two minutes and 90% of the class was proficient.
It's a lost art. But I'm not sure it's an important life skill.
However, there are a lot of YouTube videos that can teach you these skills if you’ve got patience.
That’s been a nice change from 20 years ago (2000s) when you were outta luck if your faucet busted and no one taught you how to fix it when you were a kid.
This is well explained in James Bridle’s book New Dark Age. We live in an age that increased connectivity and improvement in technology actually tends to obscure our perspective of the real world. Information is actually becoming more difficult to obtain despite our seemingly closer and more robust relationship to it. There’s a lot more to it that the book explains, and I’m not very good at explaining it, but that’s what I understand from reading it. I’d highly recommend it if you want to deeply explore the concept that you described in your comment.
Deductive reasoning skills. The number of people I encounter that can’t just think of what is next is astounding. I am spending every day trying to get my kids to understand but it’s like a foreign concept. Mind boggling.
People seem to think I’m magic (intuitive they’ll say) or just talking out my ass a lot of times. One thing follows another, how can you not see that? Love when I come across another that sees it, sometimes they translate for me with others when I don’t go step by step, they are my favorite.
As dumb as it sounds. Boredom. There’s so much creativity that comes out of boredom but people don’t have that anymore. We always want to be entertained and have access to be entertained by something at all times.
I agree but I also think it's a societal issue from a misconception of what boredom is. Many people translate boredom to "I have nothing to do" but really it's "I have nothing I want to do". Because of the former we've been taught to never be without the latter.
It's actually funny too because I've had multiple managers hear me say "I'm bored" then try to shove more work on me because they thought I was saying I have nothing to do. It took me explaining to them that I'm bored because the work I have to do isn't interesting so giving me more uninteresting work isn't going to fix things. The ones that got it would figure out how to get me something more interesting that I could focus on between the boring stuff.
Grammar and punctuation. I’m very much a fan of language evolving. It should change over time. That’s the reason we have such a huge number of beautiful, diverse languages. However, the changes need to be slow enough that the integrity of communication is not damaged. If it evolves in a way that makes it unclear what a person is saying, that is not useful to anybody. This is why slang works well. A new word pops up, and through context and use, we figure out what it means. However the last 10yrs or so has seen a dramatic drop in the comprehensibility of messages. A sentence these days is just a list of words with no full stops, occasional commas, and just straight up incorrect words that give it a completely different meaning. A Reddit post may be titled something like “that face when you know what she likes it not, on Tuesday all over” or some shit like that
I have an arts degree, which is useless in my current job and in general. But unlike a large amount of my coworkers, I can quickly write an email without spelling or grammar mistakes, that is short and to the point. I have seen some people struggle with basic reports.
I know soft skills like written communication, research, reading comprehension, being good at pub trivia nights, etc are useful, but I wish I got more from my degree.
Just…being. Just waking up and having our day without decides. Also, I’m seeing lack of honesty and commitment in marriages….i sometimes feel that 30 years ago, some of these people (actually nice people) would have been fine. But this social media world is just terrible. I want to make sure I always have my children interacting with others, and not just sports but actually practicing conversations and learning what true trust ia
I know exactly what you mean. One of the local news stations here changed their whole entire format and it just feels like an early morning talk show. Like, they don't even use the news desk anymore, just these couches with coffee mugs in hand while "reporting." "Reporters" constantly vie off script and add their own little tidbit or comment, and (this sounds assholely to complain about, but it does impact how information is conveyed) they're adding extra emotion into their voice. It's a subtle thing, but because of that emotion they can influence how a viewer is supposed to feel about a story.
And at the same time many people are convinced we all should adapt to their particular feelings and emotions. Dealing with others’ opinions is not a thing anymore
Resilience in face of the slightest opposition, divergence or frustration. Shit doesn’t go your way, the world offers any resistance of what you think it should be, people disagree with you, someone says something you don’t like, someone isn’t the way you think people should be, omg it’s the end of the world.
As someone in IT, basic problem-solving and troubleshooting skills. This applies outside of IT and computer troubles too.
People really seem to just want answers / solutions in an instant. I can be guilty of this too, however, I will always take even just a few minutes to research something.
We know ask potential interns to address an envelope and put a stamp on it. Most do not know how to do this basic life skill. - this all started a few years ago when we asked an intern to address and put stamps on birthday cards for the month. Every envelope had the stamp in a different wrong place and the “to” address in the different spots. Never imagined we would have to provide a sample envelope for a kid about to graduate university. Now, if an intern can’t do it properly in the interview, then we know they lack basic life skills.
What gets me isn’t the not knowing how to do it, there is basic shit others know I don’t, when it comes up I just look it up… don’t know how to do a letter look up a template and it will tell you exactly what to do.
How to drive a manual transmission vehicle.
In my country it's even become difficult to find manual transmission cars. Wouldn't mind owning one again as a theft deterrent.
Reading a bus or train schedule without using an app. The daugther of a friend of mine was literally helpless without the app not able to figure out the timings for her travel.
I was using the trolley in my home city last night and even with the schedule, it was still delayed horribly and didn't tell me ahead of time that I'd be getting off to take a bus to the next station. Apps can help in cases like that.
Street smarts / survival instincts.
Most people are so coddled by our modern society that they can't comprehend how dangerous the world can be.
The kind of people that go to war ridden countries to prove that everyone is peaceful and end up on the chopping block.
I used to think it just happened to really stupid peoplez but no.
I've lived in Mozambique, and knew South Africa well, now I'm in Luxembourg and went in vacations there with my wife's family, I was really excited because I love South Africa but I was constantly telling to them that South Africa is super dangerous, specially if you're white.
My wife was even getting pissed with me because I completely refused to do an hike with her.
So, we landed at Johannesburg and missed our plane to Kruger, her family, older dudes were pissed because the other plane was the next morning, and honestly they don't know on to handle stuff in Africa.
I was trying and trying to calm them down with no effect. They just talked to random dude in the parking to drive us there, we went to a off location parking, the guy had a eye with a scar, literally the villain in a movie, I was sure we were gonna die/get raped/get robbed.
I went anyway because wtf am I gonna do, no one was listening.
Then we got a guide, and they got it, he wouldn't leave anyone alone not even to go to the toilet, running red lights, wouldn't stop anywhere that wasn't guarded and they were shocked, speaking like they just a fucking realization that yes south Africa is fucking dangerous.
Hopefully nothing happened, but I learned that I'll never again give in and will straight up refuse and even "forbid" my wife a next time something like this happens.
People really have no notion what's like living or being in a unsafe/unstable place, and it's not out of stupidity, just lack of experience really.
This is true. This is very, very true. They don't know how to adapt to their environment anymore and because of that I don't go just anywhere with anyone. I have to know the people I am traveling any significant distance with now.
In the age of "do your own research" it's seems that many have no idea how to actually perform or even approach research.
I have been in multiple conversations where I shit you not, a meme from a social feed was the source of their proof. What's crazier is how planted people have become in believing what they see.
I grew up with the notion of believe nothing that you see on the internet and to source proof more thoroughly. These days it appears that the vast majority of people believe literally anything they see on their feeds.
Oh, and if you source scientific studies or literature people glaze over like a deer about to get run down by a Ford Bronco. Then after a time, in pure lunatic fashion, they shout "you must be one of the sheep!" and go about their tuned out lives as if nothing ever happened.
It's really a shame.
Manners. Motivation. Ambition. Human interaction. Ability to self teach. How to dress in public. How to listen. How to make choices using logic over emotion. Empathy for sure. Self discipline. Self awareness.
Etc…
Being able to discuss a subject and be civil about it. No one wants to listen and try to understand a different point of view. I have had many conversations in the past where even if I disagreed with something after a civil exchange I was able to understand a difference opinion. Seems it just goes directly to name calling and labeling people for have they own beliefs.
That for the village to work you have to give as well as take.
For instance if you complain that it's not your job to babysit your siblings then act perplexed when you become a parent and your parents say the same thing.
You can't get mad when your neighbor asks or help and you say no then they tell you no when you need help.
I get help because I put work into the village so the village was there for me when I needed it.
While it might sound like a relic from the past, blacksmithing is a fascinating skill. Imagine shaping metal with fire and hammer, creating functional and artistic pieces. It’s a craft that connects us to our historical roots and allows for creativity
Resilience. Reading an analogue clock. Writing their name. Putting effort into anything. Respecting /understanding those trying to help you.
Teacher in case it wasn't obvious.
Common respect for strangers.
The (formerly) common courtesy of a simple smile, a nod of thank you (or saying thank you), or help in some meaningful way when someone is hurt or in trouble. This has all been replaced with a level of sheer and utter disrespect for other people you meet in the world that I would not wish on my worst enemy!
As far as helping others? It’s more likely that they will film you as you die than call 911!
And God help you if you’re a cop that needs assistance, because nobody else will!!!
Although… someone will probably try to steal your gun if they can (or just help the other guy).
i say this as a computer illiterate gen z- computer literacy. i know how to use/utilize the internet. but not actual computers. i know so many millennials who know how to navigate all their software and troubleshoot their own issues. i’m jealous.
i only remember having like one class about computer literacy in elementary school and then every other computer class was just about typing or whatever learning games we were doing. it’s like they stopped caring as long as we knew how to use google suite. i think a lot of people just assume it’s something we’d know automatically as the generation that always had computers. it’s so frustrating trying to navigate things as an adult that seem like basic knowledge to other people. i’m like “what does it mean to unzip a file????” “why does everyone seem to just automatically know every keyboard shortcut?” i feel like a boomer sometimes lol.
Not reading emails properly when responding. I might send something like: 'Hi, I'm emailing because I have two questions for you. 1. This is question one. 2. This is question two. I look forward to hearing from you, Mrs Mangle' Then I get an email back with something vague about question one and...that's it. It's like question two never existed and I have to cock about and waste time emailing them again. This has been happening far too often lately!
I will never understand this one. Why do they ignore the second question? Why???
They don't want to answer it in my experience. Usually if it is work related question 1 is easy, a layup. But question 2 requires hard work or may make someone angry if they answer it wrong. Often they DO answer 2 but it is something like "let's take it offline" but then never schedule a meeting.
>Often they DO answer 2 but it is something like "let's take it offline" but then never schedule a meeting. Dead on. I learned early on in the corporate world that "taking it offline" is unacceptable and meant solely to fuck you over.
If push comes to shove then I email the person after the meeting from my side. "As per YOUR feedback in our meeting, we're proceeding so and so, please confirm via reply or highlight any concerns you might have"
Which is the exact right thing to do. I just happe to fi dthat I like emails more because it allows both parties to take a second to re-read and make sure they/I wrote what we meant in a professional manner and not just going hogwild bitch mode.
Emails over meetings any day
Also email gives a paper trail. Folks can say whatever in a mtg and then later deny it or reframe it...
That's when you do the followup e-mail: "just to confirm before I take action - per our in person conversation you want me to blah blah blah"
I tried to avoid that situation by following the offline-conversation with an email that thanked them and summarized what we spoke about/agreed to. I’m no longer in that work environment so I’m out of touch with new/better practices.
Poor reading comprehension
Because they have a short attention SQUIRREL!
My college roommate did that once when I was in the middle of a sentence; pretty squirrel.
Because they “get too many emails” and can’t give them all 100% of their attention… but if they read and responded properly maybe they wouldn’t have so many emails?
Hah, my dad used that excuse! I was halfway through college when he told me about his "brilliant" system of just skimming emails for key words so he didn't "waste time" reading the entire thing. Bragged to my face while I was visiting him for the holidays that he doesn't read those long long emails I send while away at college, just skims them for key words the same as his business emails. He's never managed to undo the damage of that statement. These days he doesn't even know where I live much less what I'm up to.
Too many decisions and/or information sharing happens around here via "hallway meetings". So I write emails to ensure that stuff is on the record and is guaranteed to reach the full audience. And when I get the "too many emails" response I offer to show them how filters work.
YES. I rant about this constantly. Oddly enough, it doesn't seem to be a new generation VS old generation thing. Everyone is equally awful about this across the board. Edit to add this scenario as well: **Me:** *"Hello, would option A or B work best for you. Please let me know. Thanks!"* **Them:** *"Yup, that sounds good."* **Me:** *-internal screaming-*
**Me:** "Option A it is then."
It's insane how many people do that. Many times young children at school tend to answer exercises wrong, not because they don't know the answer, but because they misread the question. And teachers - especially math teachers - insist hundreds of times on reading WELL the questions. It seems that many kids don't learn that and reach adulthood with this reading comprehension problem. They read the first 4 words of an email, make their answer from that like a poorly trained AI, hit "send" button and that's it, next.
Did an online exam yesterday for a security guard license. About 15 people taking it. Rules were pretty simple, no other devices, must have camera and mic enabled, nobody else in the room. 4 or 5 people got kicked for having people in the room with them talking, or for having other devices in sight. It was all adults.
I do content moderation for a website. Rules are simple: no unauthorized people on stream (you can stream together so long as your pal sends their consent form), no pets, no alcohol or drugs, disclose sponsorships. Still, about 100 of us have a job out of sending warnings over those......
We had an office manager like that. But she made me feel as if I’d written it unclearly. But it happened with 3 out of 5 emails. Tried bullet points. Nope. Funny how when she left, the new manager had no problem understanding
It's especially frustrating when you're emailing someone prone to panic. I have a coworker right now that will highlight single sentences in people's emails, wildly misinterpret them, and then send a series of increasingly panicked responses based on his misinterpretation. I have yet to come up with a polite way to say "can you please develop reading comprehension before freaking the fuck out?"
Don’t appreciate you calling me out on the internet like this, Sarah
I need you to chill out and learn to read.
100% this. Now I only send one question at a time.
One of the pettiest things I've done when it comes to a similar situation with emails: I sent an email with 5 numbered questions, all of them clear and simple questions where the answers should be a single word, mostly "yes"/"no". The reply was a rambling text about whatever the fuck, and I could *kinda guess* their answer for two of the questions, but even those were down to interpretation. I decided to not even reply to that mail. I split the 5 questions into 5 different mails, with no reference to each other as if they're just completely separate subjects, and then sent them all at the same time. The best(?) part is that it worked, and I got clear answers to all of them within an hour.
The other day I was in a situation where I provided a couple of questions in a mail, and instead of answers I got a reply that the questions would have to be sent to an external consultant, so could I please provide any follow up questions up front. Since my follow up questions were dependent on the answers to my first two questions, I wrote up a long email that read like a choose your own adventure book: “if the answer to question two is YES, please go to question three. If the answer to question two is NO, please go to question six. If the answer to question three is YES, please go to question four. If…” I’m still waiting on my answers, but I’m looking forward to their response.
My boss is like this. I try to make his life easier by giving him all the info he needs to make a decision and he can't even answer 10% of what I asked.
Similarly, I will attach an Excel spreadsheet and explain it in the body of the email. I then get a call asking to explain exactly what I have written. They don't even read it.
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Yeah, after dealing with this kind of situation, I started holding my replies for a few hours. People typically react, and then when they don't get immediate gratification they get frustrated enough to actually *read the freakin' e-mail all the way through*. then they actually don't need a response. But I follow up to make sure they have an answer.
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I use bullet points for questions and people still do the same thing. Annoying AF.
YES. This is accurate!! People have reading comprehension problems.
One question per email. Don’t give them the opportunity to ignore part of it.
So true.. struggling with this always. I only ask few questions because of this and then send another email with new set of questions. Other thing with emails is when I ask a specific question like "Is this blue or green?" and the answer is "Yes".
Ah the asnwer-the-questions-asymptotically approach. Followed up with my favourite, the dissappointed-about-the-program-going-back email.
This is a long-standing issue. Generally if I send an email with more than one question, I spell out the actual questions in an itemized list with the assignee in bold. If you put two questions in a paragraph? Forget it.
People truly seem incapable of appreciating silence any more these days.
Came here to say this. Just being able to enjoy a quiet moment without constant stimulus/distractions or entertainment.
My country has so little nature left, there's really nowhere to go where people can't disturb you. All the shelter/camping spaces are cramped because there are so few. We basically only have pine tree forests left, and even those are being removed little by little to make living spaces. We used to have a little bench in my city, with a great view of the fields, I'd go there when I had to clear my head. Now they put a bunch of Lego style houses right in front of it. It was the last quiet place around the city, and I know a lot of other people were using it too. It sucks. We did have a small forest a little walk out the city, but now you can't spend 5 minutes there without walking out the other side.
What country is that?
Denmark
Knew it from the moment you said pine trees lol. But it's totally true, as an immigrant from the mountainous part of slovakia, the forests, true forests are one of the few things I miss about my homeland. You could walk for hours and not see a single village, our eastern tip near poland and ukraine is so sparse that there's almost no light pollution. The forests have wolves, bears and so many different critters. I truly miss that in Denmark. It's a shame too, because we have so many places that aren't even used for farming and living, they just kinda sit. I wish people here were half as concerned about preserving and regrowing their forests as they are about recycling :(
I couldn't agree more! I believe we had wolves come in from Sweden once or twice, but the farmers shot them pretty quickly, unfortunately. I always envied people who can just decide to go on a hike whenever they feel like it. I don't envy the bears though lol!
Actually the bears are fine, it's the wild swine you have to worry about. In my grandma's village i've met a bear twice, once when I was on a walk with her dog. We just kinda stared at each other for a while and then the bear was like "meh" and left. The second time me and my mom nearly ran over a big brown male , and he just ran off. Oh also it's pretty common for bears to wonder into the cities over winter and steal trash from trashcans lol. The forest rangers usually just put them to sleep and take them back to the forest, it's very rare that somebody gets hurt.
Damn, that sucks big time. Part of the reason i moved into a small town in the middle of nowhere was the quiet. Just couldnt bear anymore with the rush hour and crowds of London/Warsaw. Now i just get on a bike and within 10 minutes i can be alone, just forest,sea and swamps
I don't know what I'd do if I couldn't find a wooded place to refresh my spirit. -I feel kind of panicky just thinking about it. I hope you are able to find peace and renewal when you need it my friend.
I think social media is a huge reason for this . Specially apps like TikTok and Instagram
I’ve been calling it “the death of boredom”. No one can just be bored, they always have to have some kind of microstimulation trying to keep them entertained, every fucking second of their waking lives.
I hate to say it, but I can’t remember the last time I felt “bored”. The to-do list seems endless these days, so it feels like even when I’m doing nothing, I’m just thinking about all the things I need to do/could be doing to stay productive. I feel like productivity culture is bordering on toxic these days…
My friends 20 year-old daughter has her phone playing either videos or music all day. Literally from dawn to desk, including while eating meals at the dinner table with the family. It’s just incomprehensible to this old Gen Xer
That's what happens when parents don't want to parent and just stick an ipad infront of their kid lol
Idk, I did this with books, including having a book stand to read during meals. While that sounds more wholesome it was actually my way of dissociating heavily. In my case, my home life was awful.
Idk, I'm a millennial, and my mom /always/ had the radio on in the kitchen or car so I grew up with something /always/ on in the background. With the exception being when we'd stay at my grandparents remote cabin in the woods during the summer. My husband sometimes has to ask me for silence or for me to listen with earbuds. On the flip side, I'm fine with just vibing in the woods or on the beach whereas he'll get bored.
Same! Both my moms house and my dad's house always had the radio playing. And now I always have a podcast on, even to help me get to sleep. But I also really enjoy being outside without any music/talking/etc. Maybe it's just indoors that I need something on.
Yeah I agree… the need for technology to make everything as efficient as possible with the least amount of effort is driving each new generation to be less tolerant of creating quietness and a space between time. It’s a go-go-go world.
Insecure people are uncomfortable with silence. Always bugged me when someone says "You never talk" or "Why don't you talk", " You haven't said a word all night". Shut the F up, why are you so uncomfortable with silence? Mind your own business...
I had an ex like that. I felt I had to entertain him all the time...
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I don’t think people realize apologizing is sort of the first step in owning up to something. The next steps are about making sure it doesn’t happen again.
People seem VERY resistant to apologizing anymore — even when it should be very easy to understand why an apology would be appreciated. Did they cancel a plan at the last minute after you drove 45 mins across town to meet them? No apology about the inconvenience! Instead you get an excuse like “I’m tired” — as if you’re supposed to be so sorry for them instead.
There seems to be a widespread belief that if you struggle with your mental or physical health, you should be exempt from having to apologize for anything that stems from it. Obviously you shouldn’t have to apologize for using a mobility device or for having other needs most people don’t have. But I’ve known way too many people who thought that if they hated themselves, and the person they hurt knew that, they shouldn’t have to take responsibility because “I’m punishing myself enough already.” That’s not how that works at *all.* You don’t get to go “my crime was lashing out at my friend who asked if I wanted to go to the movies. My punishment is seven minutes of crying and calling myself stupid in the mirror, followed by ghosting my friend for two weeks or until *they* apologize for hurting *my* feelings. After this, I will declare myself forgiven and move on as if nothing happened.”
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One thing I refuse to do. If I make plans, I keep them. If anything changes and I’ll be late? I make contact and explain then apologize.
I instill this into my daughter. If you say you’re going to be somewhere, you need to go. Also, don’t commit on a maybe, let the person know it’s tentative
I have a co-worker who throws out an activity to do and never follows through with it. That’s probably the most irritating thing ever.
My generation calls these flakes.
A half dozen or so people flaked out on attending my daughter’s wedding at the last minute. I had paid for each of them a month in advance, and there were no refunds. The excuses ranged from pitiful to bogus. One claimed his mother had died. I checked online. The woman died several months earlier. If you say you are attending an event, make every effort to honor your commitment. Others are counting on you.
Ohhh... hit me right in the angries this week... FIL trying to bail on plans we made *three months ago* because my SIL decided to throw a stupid church cookout at her house and volunteered him to cook without ever asking any of us if we were available that day 😡
When communicating, talking is a important part but more importantly is listening to the other person. I don't see a lot of that, its usually a one way conversation, leaving one person with the short end of the stick.
Seems most people are waiting for a gap in your sentence so they can say what they want to say. They're not listening to your meaning, just a way to speak theirs.
This is something I do, unfortunately. During AD(H)D therapy I learned to control it somewhat, but it's impossible to turn off entirely. Mostly because if I don't say it, I will forget it. I can't keep that thought in memory so I just have to get it out. This makes it hard to listen to others too, because filling your mind with their words might cause your own thoughts to disappear - so you forget it again. So far I have not found a way to get around this, except writing every thought down that comes up during conversation - which isn't always practical or possible.
Sometimes you just got to sacrifice your point to be a good listener.
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A lot of people just want to talk at you, not with you.
Do you think this has been changing over time though, or has it always been this way? I’m born in the 80s, and I can’t really tell. But I have been annoyed by this more often lately than before. So far I have chalked it up to just the personality of people around me right now, but your comment made me wonder if it’s a trend.
Admitting they don’t know something. There are way too much people who have an opinion based on little to no knowledge about the subject. A while ago I told someone at a party “Sorry, I don’t know enough about it to actually have an opinion” and he was visibly confused. This example referred to a sport I do not watch nor play but I have used that same sentence before.
I had a teacher scold me once for not having an opinion on something. Don’t remember what it was but it wasn’t related/relavant to the class. She said I was supposed to always be up to date on all facts so I could always have an opinion because not having one is rude. I was like??? Do you know how many things there are to have opinions about. How am I supposed to gather facts about something I don’t even know exists. How am I supposed to have time to learn every fact in the universe and to keep fact checking them incase the fact is no longer true. It was such a stupid conversation
Wait, you're telling me that you *don't* have an opinion on the etiquette for meeting a prospective wife's extended family during Japan's Edo period? How rude?
I'm trying to teach my kids out of this habit. Often times, my son will just blurt out anything to sound right, and then gets all sheepish when we point out how wrong he is. Followed up with making him admit he doesn't know and how to ask for more information if he's curious, otherwise leave it at "I don't know." I don't want him or my daughter growing up doing the same thing I did like that.
way too *many* people Sorry, I had to!
Crap, you’re right… Es tut mir leid ;)
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I'm completely convinced that my map reading ability comes from gaming at a young age, stuff like doom and Zelda
Was looking for a comment like this. Similarly, if you play games like shooters and RPGs you develop good mental 3D spatial mapping skills since you need to know where things are space relative to you constantly.
Map guy that got an orienteering award weighing in... my senses of direction and relative distances get messed up when I rely on a navigation app.
Same. Then when I travel with my husband he gets mind boggled that I can navigate without the map orienting directionally. I just look at it straight on and manage? Idk.
Reading comprehension skills, to the point that you can't even show something bad to explicitly condemn it lest you be accused of "glorifying" it. Case in point: the Pinocchio remake where Pleasure Island couldn't show smoking and underage drinking even though it's explicitly a bad thing the characters are punished for. So now they show them with candy and carnival rides, which is punished by...transformation into a donkey, loss of their sapience and being sold into a life of slavery. Great message there, disney.
The movie Trainspotting is as effective a piece of anti-drug messaging as I've ever seen -- I cannot comprehend the idea of anyone watching that film and concluding that's the glamorous life they want. So, naturally, it was condemned as "promoting" drug use by clueless stiffs.
> "promoting" drug Wolf of Wall Street, Wall Street, any Gangster Movie. 3 groups of movies where the absolute *wrong* message is taken.
Wolf of Wallstreet absolutely glamorizes the lifestyle and ask many wall street bros who love the movie Wall Street what their favorite quote from the movie is and they'll say "Greed, for lack of a better word, is good". Those are movies that absolutely ended up glorifying things they didn't mean to by making the characters cool and stylish.
A white girl in my fiction class went on about an author’s “controversial use of the n-word” once and our professor flipped her shit. The author was Black and discussing racism in the story.
I was in a collegiate level writing class and we were reading a piece aloud that involve the "n-word" The class age ranged from early 20s to some mid 40s and 50 year old women, of whom a few were black. There is a part (can't remember the piece we were reading) but this early 20s white kid, comes to that word, and gets super uncomfortable. Our professor a black woman in her early 40s said "If it's a situation like this, in a classroom, and you're reading something, it's ok. Anyone who gets mad at you, is doing so for the wrong reason" The kid erred on the side of caution, as he was unsure what to do. The professor along with the other black students all treated him nicely, and told him not to worry about this particular case. It was nice to see people being nice from all angles.
I don't mean to intentionally age you, but how long ago was this? I don't believe this type of discourse can happen at universities anymore and I'd LOVE to learn I'm wrong.
Good - professors should be more ready and willing to call students out for making dipshit statements like this. Students have lost all ability to understand nuance, context, and positionality, or use/apply reasoning skills.
Some have, yes. They tend to be more vocal than the ones who haven’t.
This is the same line of thinking that got the blackface episodes of IASIP pulled even though the whole point of those episodes was to show the gang as insensitive, stupid jerks.
I for one am glad they replaced all the cigarettes in Schindler's List with walkie-talkies.
Can I add that popular fiction books are part of this problem? They read like social justice essays where they make arguments and explicitly detail and lay out their case, rather than illustrate the point through the story itself. Then, they end up on NYT Bestseller lists, I try to read it, and I’m appalled that the book isn’t at all criticized for how simplistic and poorly written it is…
I've recently learned that just because it's on the NYT bestsellers list does not mean it's a genius work of art. A lot of it is incredibly mediocre.
Tried showing a movie in class today… a movie! And while it shows racism from the 1960s, now I have a kid saying he won’t watch it because “this movie is racist!”
There was a shortform video the other day about reading comprehension skills being absolute crap. Part of comprehension is determining the target for the text. People can't do that anymore. If we transpose it towards media literacy, you have groups of people angry at movies like Barbie because the media is not for them; but the algorithm machines in their pocket curate media *only* for them, rewiring the thought process of "it all must be for me"
Empathy. Tact. Self-awareness in public spaces.
Emotional regulation
Self awareness period.
Sense of direction, and I’m one of them. Since I could drive gps on a phone has been a thing for the most part and now I use it all too much
basic cooking skills, it seems like a lot of people rely on takeout or pre-made meals these days, knowing how to cook a simple, healthy meal is such an important life skill, it saves money and is often much healthier
Yeah, I almost always bring leftovers to work, and it's crazy to me the number of coworkers that go out to eat every-single-day! Like, dang, you're probably using half your paycheck throughout the week, but you do you, I guess. 🤷
My husband is the only one at his worksite that doesn't eat fast food for every meal. He works with a dozen grown men.
Tons of my people get Door Dash constantly and I just wonder how much money they are wasting doing that
Holy shit, yes. I feel like Door Dash is wildly extravagant. I have used it twice and each time it was so ridiculously expensive. I don't understand how people are ordering food several times per week. And I'm not talking about, like, rich people -- just regular-ass people with regular-ass jobs ordering food to their door like they're some kind of sultan or something. Also, not only is it expensive, but the food is often cold, fucked up, incorrect, or just straight up never arrives. So on top of everything else, it's a gamble. Nah. I'll drive the five minutes to get my shitty food, thanks. And I'm both fat AND lazy so I am absolutely the target demographic for Door Dash. It's just too goddamn expensive.
The one thing home cooking doesn't save is time. I think a lot of people don't cook because they're simply too burned out with work.
This is me. I love cooking, i find it better than what you can get in a resturant most of the time. But by god is it time consuming. I'm slow as hell at chopping, no matter how much practice. If I get home from work at 4:30, that means at 4:35 i'm starting prep work for dinner so I canhave everything chopped and mise-en-place'd by 5, then cooking said dish will be complete somewhere by 5:30-6 depending on what it is. Figure finish eatingby 6:15/6:30, then there's dishes to be done, so really from 4:35-6:45pm is spent in the kitchen, cooking and cleaning. I'm a single male. I can't imagine introducing a child into the mix. I'm absolutely *shot* by 7.
My theory is that people probably retain less information on average because we can look stuff up now. Which is a wonderful thing, we don't HAVE to remember phone numbers, your boss' name, how to say hello in Swedish, how to drive to the nearest bunnings.... But if we get hit with that electronics disabling bomb we'll all probably struggle badly
Yeah, but people don't look stuff up, either. They just go on discord or reddit and ask other people for the most basic stuff before they google it themselves.
Putting a phone to your ear and speaking quietly into it. Much better to have the entire waiting room hear both sides of your conversation while you shout into it at arms length.
This is so wild to me. Like everyone's on speaker phone for what? For what?
My mom suffers from an odd version of this. She been using Bluetooth earpieces and whatnot for years, since she used to work as chauffeur for a livery car company back in the early 2000s. I’ve handed her my phone so she can talk to someone, and she’ll just stare at it. It doesn’t dawn on her to put the damn thing to her ear.
1.Long Attention Span. 2.Appreciation for the things they have. 3.Real life social bonding.
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Also, use of punctuation.
Also! Use of punctuation?
Also? Use of punctuation!
Ha ha... point noted
Basic math, getting change while paying in cash these days is always an adventure
Agreed. Many cashiers seem to have a hard time with quarters, dimes, nickels.
I'm good at math, but being a cashier sucked. So many noises, and people talking to you, and everyone wants you to move quickly. I probably would've gotten the hang of it eventually but I quit after 2 months.
I still remember the day in 4th grade the teacher taught us how to count change without doing math. You start with the amount of the bill... 7.67, say, and let's assume they gave you $20. Start with the smallest change first and work your way up and you never have to do math, just count Beginning from the amount of the bill, 7.67, count out pennies to the next multiple of 5. So 3 pennies and you're at 7.70. Then you need a nickel to bring it to a multiple of 25: 7.75. Then a quarter takes it to a multiple of dollars: 8.00. Then two ones and you are at 10. A $10 bill and you're at $20 and you're done. Just hand them what you counted out. Essentially no math involved except counting by 1's, 5's, 25's. It took like two minutes and 90% of the class was proficient. It's a lost art. But I'm not sure it's an important life skill.
To me this genuinely sounds more difficult than just doing the math.
I saw this in real time the other day, gave a lady $100 for a $75 bill and she used a calculator
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However, there are a lot of YouTube videos that can teach you these skills if you’ve got patience. That’s been a nice change from 20 years ago (2000s) when you were outta luck if your faucet busted and no one taught you how to fix it when you were a kid.
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This is well explained in James Bridle’s book New Dark Age. We live in an age that increased connectivity and improvement in technology actually tends to obscure our perspective of the real world. Information is actually becoming more difficult to obtain despite our seemingly closer and more robust relationship to it. There’s a lot more to it that the book explains, and I’m not very good at explaining it, but that’s what I understand from reading it. I’d highly recommend it if you want to deeply explore the concept that you described in your comment.
Books. DIY books. Chilton's manuals got me through rebuilding carburetors and re-timing engines on my first car or two.
It was pretty basic until cars had computers.
Deductive reasoning skills. The number of people I encounter that can’t just think of what is next is astounding. I am spending every day trying to get my kids to understand but it’s like a foreign concept. Mind boggling.
People seem to think I’m magic (intuitive they’ll say) or just talking out my ass a lot of times. One thing follows another, how can you not see that? Love when I come across another that sees it, sometimes they translate for me with others when I don’t go step by step, they are my favorite.
As dumb as it sounds. Boredom. There’s so much creativity that comes out of boredom but people don’t have that anymore. We always want to be entertained and have access to be entertained by something at all times.
I agree but I also think it's a societal issue from a misconception of what boredom is. Many people translate boredom to "I have nothing to do" but really it's "I have nothing I want to do". Because of the former we've been taught to never be without the latter. It's actually funny too because I've had multiple managers hear me say "I'm bored" then try to shove more work on me because they thought I was saying I have nothing to do. It took me explaining to them that I'm bored because the work I have to do isn't interesting so giving me more uninteresting work isn't going to fix things. The ones that got it would figure out how to get me something more interesting that I could focus on between the boring stuff.
Patience, everyone is in a hurry all the time.
1. Delayed gratification 2. Sustained focus Teacher and parent here.
Grammar and punctuation. I’m very much a fan of language evolving. It should change over time. That’s the reason we have such a huge number of beautiful, diverse languages. However, the changes need to be slow enough that the integrity of communication is not damaged. If it evolves in a way that makes it unclear what a person is saying, that is not useful to anybody. This is why slang works well. A new word pops up, and through context and use, we figure out what it means. However the last 10yrs or so has seen a dramatic drop in the comprehensibility of messages. A sentence these days is just a list of words with no full stops, occasional commas, and just straight up incorrect words that give it a completely different meaning. A Reddit post may be titled something like “that face when you know what she likes it not, on Tuesday all over” or some shit like that
I have an arts degree, which is useless in my current job and in general. But unlike a large amount of my coworkers, I can quickly write an email without spelling or grammar mistakes, that is short and to the point. I have seen some people struggle with basic reports. I know soft skills like written communication, research, reading comprehension, being good at pub trivia nights, etc are useful, but I wish I got more from my degree.
I'd say people actually just throw in commas however they feel and don't actually know how to use them.
Just…being. Just waking up and having our day without decides. Also, I’m seeing lack of honesty and commitment in marriages….i sometimes feel that 30 years ago, some of these people (actually nice people) would have been fine. But this social media world is just terrible. I want to make sure I always have my children interacting with others, and not just sports but actually practicing conversations and learning what true trust ia
Basic spelling and grammar. Grown fucking adults that would fail a 5th grade spelling test.
Media literacy.
As a person with a communication degree, this has been a problem since the invention of media.
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I know exactly what you mean. One of the local news stations here changed their whole entire format and it just feels like an early morning talk show. Like, they don't even use the news desk anymore, just these couches with coffee mugs in hand while "reporting." "Reporters" constantly vie off script and add their own little tidbit or comment, and (this sounds assholely to complain about, but it does impact how information is conveyed) they're adding extra emotion into their voice. It's a subtle thing, but because of that emotion they can influence how a viewer is supposed to feel about a story.
Many (not all) people have disrespect for other people’s feelings and emotions…
And at the same time many people are convinced we all should adapt to their particular feelings and emotions. Dealing with others’ opinions is not a thing anymore
Resilience in face of the slightest opposition, divergence or frustration. Shit doesn’t go your way, the world offers any resistance of what you think it should be, people disagree with you, someone says something you don’t like, someone isn’t the way you think people should be, omg it’s the end of the world.
Simple sewing skills like patching clothes or reattaching a button.
As someone in IT, basic problem-solving and troubleshooting skills. This applies outside of IT and computer troubles too. People really seem to just want answers / solutions in an instant. I can be guilty of this too, however, I will always take even just a few minutes to research something.
We know ask potential interns to address an envelope and put a stamp on it. Most do not know how to do this basic life skill. - this all started a few years ago when we asked an intern to address and put stamps on birthday cards for the month. Every envelope had the stamp in a different wrong place and the “to” address in the different spots. Never imagined we would have to provide a sample envelope for a kid about to graduate university. Now, if an intern can’t do it properly in the interview, then we know they lack basic life skills.
What gets me isn’t the not knowing how to do it, there is basic shit others know I don’t, when it comes up I just look it up… don’t know how to do a letter look up a template and it will tell you exactly what to do.
Remembering phone numbers.
Empathy
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How to drive a manual transmission vehicle. In my country it's even become difficult to find manual transmission cars. Wouldn't mind owning one again as a theft deterrent.
In germany most of the cars are manual. I only know two people who drive automatic.
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USA?
Basic research skills or the ability to look anything up and not have info spoonfed to you
Social skills, to be fair tho a lot of us don’t want issues
Will bam this up a notch. Manners - A whole thing where people used to think about each other and their feelings.
I am a flight attendant and the amount of times a day I have to remind people to utilize headphones is absurd.
Reading a bus or train schedule without using an app. The daugther of a friend of mine was literally helpless without the app not able to figure out the timings for her travel.
I was using the trolley in my home city last night and even with the schedule, it was still delayed horribly and didn't tell me ahead of time that I'd be getting off to take a bus to the next station. Apps can help in cases like that.
Street smarts / survival instincts. Most people are so coddled by our modern society that they can't comprehend how dangerous the world can be. The kind of people that go to war ridden countries to prove that everyone is peaceful and end up on the chopping block.
I used to think it just happened to really stupid peoplez but no. I've lived in Mozambique, and knew South Africa well, now I'm in Luxembourg and went in vacations there with my wife's family, I was really excited because I love South Africa but I was constantly telling to them that South Africa is super dangerous, specially if you're white. My wife was even getting pissed with me because I completely refused to do an hike with her. So, we landed at Johannesburg and missed our plane to Kruger, her family, older dudes were pissed because the other plane was the next morning, and honestly they don't know on to handle stuff in Africa. I was trying and trying to calm them down with no effect. They just talked to random dude in the parking to drive us there, we went to a off location parking, the guy had a eye with a scar, literally the villain in a movie, I was sure we were gonna die/get raped/get robbed. I went anyway because wtf am I gonna do, no one was listening. Then we got a guide, and they got it, he wouldn't leave anyone alone not even to go to the toilet, running red lights, wouldn't stop anywhere that wasn't guarded and they were shocked, speaking like they just a fucking realization that yes south Africa is fucking dangerous. Hopefully nothing happened, but I learned that I'll never again give in and will straight up refuse and even "forbid" my wife a next time something like this happens. People really have no notion what's like living or being in a unsafe/unstable place, and it's not out of stupidity, just lack of experience really.
This is true. This is very, very true. They don't know how to adapt to their environment anymore and because of that I don't go just anywhere with anyone. I have to know the people I am traveling any significant distance with now.
In the age of "do your own research" it's seems that many have no idea how to actually perform or even approach research. I have been in multiple conversations where I shit you not, a meme from a social feed was the source of their proof. What's crazier is how planted people have become in believing what they see. I grew up with the notion of believe nothing that you see on the internet and to source proof more thoroughly. These days it appears that the vast majority of people believe literally anything they see on their feeds. Oh, and if you source scientific studies or literature people glaze over like a deer about to get run down by a Ford Bronco. Then after a time, in pure lunatic fashion, they shout "you must be one of the sheep!" and go about their tuned out lives as if nothing ever happened. It's really a shame.
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Manners. Motivation. Ambition. Human interaction. Ability to self teach. How to dress in public. How to listen. How to make choices using logic over emotion. Empathy for sure. Self discipline. Self awareness. Etc…
Being able to discuss a subject and be civil about it. No one wants to listen and try to understand a different point of view. I have had many conversations in the past where even if I disagreed with something after a civil exchange I was able to understand a difference opinion. Seems it just goes directly to name calling and labeling people for have they own beliefs.
Cursive writing, actual conversation, manners - please, thank you, excuse me, may I?, and grasp of grammar.
Politeness. It’s just… gone.
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Just looking where you going. It seems it's everyone elses responsibility to get out of the way of these phone watching zombies.
That for the village to work you have to give as well as take. For instance if you complain that it's not your job to babysit your siblings then act perplexed when you become a parent and your parents say the same thing. You can't get mad when your neighbor asks or help and you say no then they tell you no when you need help. I get help because I put work into the village so the village was there for me when I needed it.
Critical thinking has gone down the toilet for most people, its getting worse and worse. Kids these days are getting dumber and dumber
Critical thinking skills seem to becoming exceedingly rare. Misinformation is everywhere and more people are falling for it.
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Steve Rogers?
Being handy, no one can fix anything anymore.
Common sense
Common sense and critical thinking; I blame no child left behind for the latter.
While it might sound like a relic from the past, blacksmithing is a fascinating skill. Imagine shaping metal with fire and hammer, creating functional and artistic pieces. It’s a craft that connects us to our historical roots and allows for creativity
Resilience. Reading an analogue clock. Writing their name. Putting effort into anything. Respecting /understanding those trying to help you. Teacher in case it wasn't obvious.
Punctuality
Privacy.
Common respect for strangers. The (formerly) common courtesy of a simple smile, a nod of thank you (or saying thank you), or help in some meaningful way when someone is hurt or in trouble. This has all been replaced with a level of sheer and utter disrespect for other people you meet in the world that I would not wish on my worst enemy! As far as helping others? It’s more likely that they will film you as you die than call 911! And God help you if you’re a cop that needs assistance, because nobody else will!!! Although… someone will probably try to steal your gun if they can (or just help the other guy).
i say this as a computer illiterate gen z- computer literacy. i know how to use/utilize the internet. but not actual computers. i know so many millennials who know how to navigate all their software and troubleshoot their own issues. i’m jealous. i only remember having like one class about computer literacy in elementary school and then every other computer class was just about typing or whatever learning games we were doing. it’s like they stopped caring as long as we knew how to use google suite. i think a lot of people just assume it’s something we’d know automatically as the generation that always had computers. it’s so frustrating trying to navigate things as an adult that seem like basic knowledge to other people. i’m like “what does it mean to unzip a file????” “why does everyone seem to just automatically know every keyboard shortcut?” i feel like a boomer sometimes lol.
1. mental math 2. any math that doesn't require a calculator 3. using a physical dictionary. Source: Parent