Is it mere coincidence that when you walk into a department store, or order food at a fast food restaurant, or even perhaps an upper class restaurant or cafe,  you are completely bewildered by the type of service you receive? Some really dumbed down, lazy or ignorant service person, leaving you pondering if there is a prank camera hidden somewhere, as this type of behaviour just couldn't be real?

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Well fear not, or perhaps we should fear this! But rest assured that this is not a figment of your imagination. It is not a prank, but in fact it is very real and you are experiencing it. But how or why has it got to this?

 

Gone are the days when the service industry had common sense, and would go the extra mile to ensure that their customers were happy. But those days are long gone my friends. 

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That was another generation. In fact, the last of the great generations, and that was Generation X. I often thought that we Gen X's had the hardest transition because we remembered the days of things such as the music cassette player, or the VHS player.

 

We had to learn new technology at their biggest shifts in their evolution, such as moving from DOS to Windows 95, and paper based application to the digital age. We were not just born into it like Gen Y's or Millennials. 

 

Remember those old Blockbuster and Video Ezy stores where we would rent videos each week? Or when Metallica were about to release their next album and we would line up at Utopia, and Red Eye Records to be one of the first to hear the awesome new tracks. We would catch a train and a bus just to get there. Ah, the thrill of that adventure, knowing that we couldn't wait to get home and listen to the songs. We would pick up a copy of Shoot Magazine at the Newsagency to check out the new rumour of soccer transfers for the summer, or Ring Magazine to see this new guy they call Mike Tyson take on all comers in the Main Events.

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We had the great pillars of TV channels, 9, 10, 7, ABC and SBS, and that was more than enough. Free to air live games, live boxing, live NRL, Cricket, Friday and Saturday night feature movies, and even the cooking and baking shows such as Yan Can Cook, you know, all the things that you just cannot find today.

 

Back then the media was very informative. Journalists would make it their mission to get to the bottom of stories, working for little or no pay, they would want the truth out there to the public as this was their calling in life. They couldn't care less about fame, or followers, or how many "likes" they would get on social media, or how many subscribers they had. This meant nothing to them. 

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Remember we would sit down together as a family and watch Sale of the Century, Burkes Backyard, or my personal favourite; Hey! Hey! It's Saturday? Yes those were the days. We would converse in family conversations on a daily basis. Mum would have us home from school, a quick lite snack before we were kicked out onto the road to play with our mates. We wouldn't need an invitation to ride our BMX bike across to Jimmy's house and knock on the door. Not like today where you literally have to book in a "play date", time and place as well as duration and purpose. 

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We never needed maps to find our way around our own city. If we couldn't find our way, we would just drive around the area until we found what we were looking for, or we would pull over and ask a local. These days these kids need google maps just to walk to the local shop. 

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Have you been to a restaurant recently? Or perhaps taken public transport? What do you see? Almost every single person is on their damn phone! I was at a restaurant recently in Melbourne and this young couple sat at the table next to me to have dinner. They didn't say one word to each other the entire time, but were rather staring and fiddling with their phones from when they sat down until they left. It was uncanny to watch. 

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I popped my eyes across to see what the girl next to me was looking at, and of course, not to my surprise, it was her Instagram page. 

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My daughter and I recently attended a David Jones store in Sydney seeking an automatic whisk. Their kitchen section was approximately 25 metres squared, with very little products on the shelves. I asked the young lady where the whisks were. Not only did she not know where they were, but she didn't even know what a whisk was, and most of all she didn't even seem interested. I couldn't believe what I was witnessing. How could she be working in a job like this, in a kitchen department with this type of ill-knowledge? But there she was plain as day. Eventually we found the whisks on our own, and it took all but 30 seconds. How could this be possible? But it was. 

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We have become lazy as a nation, and more selfish, and amongst all of this, we have become stupid. Kids today cannot even tell the time from a clock, let alone know their own address. None of them know what a board game is, and none of them have ever heard of a video or cassette player. None of them can think either for themselves or even outside the square. They follow instruction to the letter just to tick boxes from their teachers and parents in order to be left alone to surf their phones all day and night. 

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Their source of entertainment is that of watching other ordinary people on YouTube or Tik Tok doing general things such as water their plants, or put their makeup on. And these people they are watching are just as brain dead as they are. But the kids are not to blame, no, it is the parents. Parents nowadays have very little idea on how to even raise children. This is evident if you spend enough time around parents who take their kids to school. Like a chore, they just chuck the child into the assembly line with one hand, whilst fiddling with their phones in the other hand on their way back to their car, whilst they are preparing morning brunch with other mothers just like them. 

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Once they meet up, they only tend to talk negatively about other people they know, or about teachers in the school, or about their husbands or wives. A somewhat exterior excuse for also fashioning their latest handbag or shoes, or a spiel of boring useless information just to make use look clever when, in fact, we are not, and perhaps an excuse to dress up fancy for a morning. Then its off to the nail and hair salon before having to miserably struggle with the notion that its almost 3pm, and its time to pick up the kids from school. The time flies when one is having such as great time. 

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The child is then collected from school, and is either placed into swimming lessons, or some useless, pointless afterschool activity such as flute tutoring, karate, or even worse, MORE educational tutoring such as mathematics or English. Like the brain hasn't suffered enough for the last 6 hours for the poor child, yes lets add some more strain on that brain. 

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Then off home we go to throw the kid into their room to play with their iPad until dinner is cooked. God forbid we would need to spend a bit of time with them and have a fun discussion or perhaps a playful game. By now the time is just past 6pm, and the partner is about to walk through the door after a long day at the office on the computer and countless coffee and snack breaks. They now have to endure the agony of the boring talks about the friends at brunch, or the stories about other people they couldn't care less about, and all they wants to do is kick their shoes off, jump onto YouTube and check out the latest goss in sport or whatever. 

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By the time the dinner is eaten and the dishes cleaned up, its time for bed for the child. He or she must have had a whole one hour quality time with mum and dad for the day (or is it mum and mum, or dad and dad? Or is it They and them? I cannot even remember anymore), demoralised as they were at that late hour. And tomorrow is yet another day of the same old same old. 

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What happens to children who live in this environment? The lack of true nurturing and confidence that they richly deserve before they hit their teens? They cannot find themselves in their parents, and therefore struggle to find some form of identity.

 

As for the school, most teachers are useless, as they are bound by low pay and stupid new legislation that comes into play each year, applying more and more restrictions for them to do their jobs. Most high schools across the country nowadays have abolished detention altogether, can you believe that? Therefore there is absolutely no avenue for a child to learn from their mistakes through a mild form of schooling discipline. 

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So where are our children turning to for guidance to find themselves? The internet. Other people just like them who broadcast their ideas and lives to the world. Boredom simply takes over. LGBTQI, formed possibly out of sheer boredom in my opinion (people have far too much time on their hands these days), for the most part anyway, and then one day we become shocked to come home to see our 14 year old son sitting in the living room with a dress and hormone pills in his hand, informing us her has something he wishes to get off his chest. 

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These people on the internet that they follow are telling our kids to lash out towards their parents and society. That we are the cause of their instability and misidentification. And you know something? They are absolutely right!  Who else could be to blame? Fathers and mothers are there to protect, nurture and educate their children. Children need a form of identity and culture. Does Australia even have a culture? Beer and meat pies? Or are we just putting on that thick bogan accent to simply impress ourselves and blend in to our "Aussieness"? 

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I am not saying that it doesn't exist. I am saying that it doesn't exist anymore. It used to, but not anymore. There are no more "hard" men and women of Australia. All we have left are the remanence of that once amazing culture back in the 80's and 90's. Because of our ongoing ignorance and selfishness, our children are the ones who have suffered the most. The saddest part about it is that they are not even aware of what they are going through, because we have never inflicted into their brains what life should be like, what culture is really all about, and what quality family time means in a society. 

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Our kids have no sense of being, no sense of self worth and value. Many of them are dazed and confused and we are to blame. Ask yourself a few things:

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1. When was the last time you had a family dinner? 

2. When was the last time you let your kids go out into the street and just play without setting rules and time slots?

3. When was the last time you walked around to your friend's house without an appointment?

4. How long has it been since you checked your email, messages or social media? 

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So yes, this is why we have dumbfounded people working in our service industry. 

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I worry about our future. What is going to happen when we Gen X's reach the age of 70-85 years of age and we have to rely on this generation to keep us medically sound, repair our cars, ensure our financial institutions don't go bankrupt? 

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Eventually people in this country will become so lazy and incompetent that the rest of us will suffer for it. We need to wake up as a nation and start using our brains. Put the damn phones away, quit the morning yoga classes, cancel the nail salon appointments and spend that time raising your bloody children! 

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Our future depends on it! 

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17th February, 2023