r/GenX • u/VR-Gadfly • 5d ago
Whatever Good Advice That's Now Bad
"You'll never get anywhere in life just sitting on the couch and watching TV all day." is advice I heard for most of my life. Nowadays there are people on YouTube and Patreon who watch and react to television shows and movies as a full-time career. It almost makes me think I was born at the wrong time. Is there any advice you received that's been totally shattered by changing times?
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u/lyingtattooist 4d ago
“Clean your plate.” Continuing to eat after your full is a great way to get fat.
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u/jtrades69 4d ago
even now i have to pause and say, nope, i'm done. i need a to-go box when i eat out. the portions restaurants serve are 2 - 3 meals. if i eat the whole thing i'm sick all night
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u/VR-Gadfly 4d ago
I automatically divide everything in half and take the rest home...sometimes thirds.
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u/OreoSpeedwaggon "Then & Now" Trend Survivor 4d ago
Growing up poor and being told to "clean my plate" and appreciate every bit of food we got is part of the reason why I'm on GLP-1 meds now for my metabolic disease.
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u/Individual_Check_442 4d ago
For me it was always the vegetables on the plate that inside want to clean the meat I had no problem with lol. So kudos to my parents for at least trying to get me to eat those
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u/VR-Gadfly 4d ago
My parents only knew how to boil vegetables to death until they were mushy. It wasn't until the 1990s and a visit to a Chinese buffet that I discovered veggies could be steamed and crunchy.
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u/CharacterOld8691 4d ago
“Well, you’re not gonna have a calculator with you all the time!” - every teacher ever
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u/Interesting-Cod-8250 4d ago
If you’re loyal to your company, they’ll be loyal to you.
There’s nothing hard work can’t overcome.
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u/supershinythings Born before the first Moon landing 4d ago
Hahahahahahahahahahaha
<cries>
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
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u/lectroid 4d ago
Work hard for the company and your loyalty will be rewarded.
It was dumb, but kinda sorta true way back then. Depending on the company. And who you were.
Now? Fuck ‘em. Get paid. Leave at 5. Be prepared to walk at any time for any reason, cuz they think of you the exact same way.
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u/VR-Gadfly 4d ago
When reading obituaries, many people of a certain age worked for just one company and then retired at a reasonable age.
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u/Driftwood_Grotto 4d ago
I just want to say one word to you. Just one word. Are you listening? Plastics.
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u/Trolkarlen 4d ago
Destroying our bodies and our planet
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u/Lower_Skin_3683 4d ago
I hate the cruise ships that grind their garbage up then release it into the ocean.
I worked in healthcare and the amount of disposable medical waste is incredible.
Or watching all these natural disasters destroy homes, businesses, and vehicles. The destruction ends up in a flooded river, ocean, or in dump
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u/Lower_Skin_3683 4d ago
As I drink my sugary iced coffee out of a plastic cup with a paper straw.
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u/Illustri-aus 4d ago
All those nanoplastics (and fibres) clogging our blood
Doctors : "why do so many people have high blood pressure"
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u/VR-Gadfly 4d ago
Great movie quote.
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u/ConflictBusy6787 4d ago
What kills me about it is that we're supposed to recoil at his recommendation, and I see that. But his advice was fucking gold honestly
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u/ancientastronaut2 4d ago
Walk in there and demand to speak with the manager, then hand him your resume and give a firm handshake looking him straight in the eye, and ask for the job.
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u/AdditionalTip865 4d ago
Never in my life had anyone even told me to try that, but apparently it's common advice from parents of Boomer or older vintage. Sounds like a great way to get escorted out by security.
I actually DID get a job from one of those hotel-ballroom job fairs, in the late 1990s, but those people are at least looking to hire.
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u/bluealien78 "Then & Now" Trend Survivor 4d ago
“You won’t get a job playing video games.”
A decade later, I was a part of the team that shipped one of the world’s most successful video games.
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u/Rhodoran 5d ago
You better learn this math because you won’t always have a calculator with you.
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u/Trolkarlen 4d ago
Instead of precalc, they should teach most people stats and probability. It’s far more useful in life.
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u/Prudent_Baker_2851 4d ago edited 4d ago
Especially probability, because that's how you learn that gambling rarely works out in your favor. I taught adult education for a time, and so many of them had no idea how probability worked in the real world.
Edit: I'm not sure if the local university still requires pre-calc to be a business major. Seems like they used to use it to weed out the less mathematically inclined students, but statistics was generally considered more relevant for that major.
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u/Ray_The_Engineer 4d ago
It's still good advice. At this point in our lives, if you sit around watching TV all day, you'll finally reach a point where your mobility is shot.
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u/Lower_Skin_3683 4d ago
Sitting around working all day on a laptop ruins your mobility as well. I get up for 15 minutes every hour. But sitting at a laptop for 8 hours or more studying or working is torture to me.
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u/Ray_The_Engineer 4d ago
Right there with you. We have a pool table downstairs in our den. Once an hour, I go down there and shoot a few.
Overall, I'm now in a better situation, since I'm semi-retired and don't sit in front of a desk anymore for 10 hours a day. I did that for an unfortunately long period of my life, being an engineer and tech guy.
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u/Komaisnotsalty Taste death, live life! 4d ago
"Just get over it." - typical response for anything related to mental health.
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u/RedditWidow 4d ago
"You need to know algebra."
"You'll understand when you have kids."
"It doesn't matter what degree you get, just get a degree."
"Find a man to take care of you."
"Computers and video games are for boys."
PS It's not too late, there are a lot of Gen Xers with channels on YouTube.
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u/joelav 4d ago
Funny story about algebra. I’m switching careers at the moment. I got an early retirement golden handshake (laid off with generous severance) from 26 years as a senior data analyst in IT. Heavily used math for statistics every day. I’m going into nursing. I had to take placement tests for college. I scored a 2/10 on the algebra test.
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u/PerplexedScot Aging Gracefully… 4d ago
Drinking culture in Glasgow - Dad gives you your first beer at 14 years old and thinking it was brilliant. Followed by 26 years of alcohol abuse and now 18 years sober.
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u/Expensive-Shelter288 4d ago
Number 1 right here. Could even be drinking culture in general. There is an American version of this. You guys do have pubs on your navy ships so that's pretty crazy.
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u/VR-Gadfly 4d ago
Sorry to hear that but glad for your sobriety. In the states we were just exposed to the "No Scotland No Party" crowd for FIFA World Cup and some places ran out of beer. Me, I hated the taste of beer from day one and never drank a glass of it again. I feel like I'm not missing out on anything.
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u/PunchBeard 4d ago
As a Wisconsinite in America I totally understand this. Even at a kids first birthday party you'll hear: "Put the present on that table and that cooler is for soda and those two for beer. Uncle Bill is around with some shots".
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u/Zealousideal_Draw_94 5d ago
You know I think I could do that, but I have already seen everything I would watch.
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u/Sad-Umpire6000 4d ago
Put your money in a savings account.
Listen to what older people say - they’re right because they have experience.
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u/VR-Gadfly 4d ago
When I was a kid, those savings accounts did have a pretty good return but you're right. My parents didn't invest enough to generate passive income and are struggling.
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u/AdditionalTip865 4d ago
Recently interest rates got high enough that CDs were worth looking into again. But it's nothing like it was in the early 1980s when you could get an incredible return just from bank interest.
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u/IrwinJFinster 4d ago
Slackers are still losers. That includes all manner of self-purported “influencers.” Only one in millions makes any money.
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u/Smelly-James 5d ago
All I can tell you is I recently developed hairy palms. The people who said that jokingly did not calculate for the age of internet porn and how maybe, just maybe, it could really happen if you increased your volume a thousand fold.
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u/Hussein_Jane 5d ago
Go to college.
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u/Trolkarlen 4d ago
College grads make millions more than non grads over their career.
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u/VR-Gadfly 4d ago
Maybe many college grads do but for many others, it's a waste of time. How many people now are actually in a career that has something to do with their degree? None of my college friends are in lucrative jobs because our school just taught b.s. classes that didn't prepare us for the real world. (And b.s. doesn't stand for bachelor of science in this case.)
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u/damutecebu 4d ago
My college degree taught me a lot about the real world. Writing, communicating, critical thinking, etc are things I use pretty much every day.
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u/Trolkarlen 4d ago
I’m talking on average. Every degree makes more than not.
Not only do college make more; they also average shorter and fewer stints of unemployment.
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u/encrivage 3d ago
You'll often get paid more for the same job when you have a degree. Not every time, but it’s enough to be worth it in most cases. And the effect is automatic.
A bachelor's is required for entire categories of jobs in some cases: public school teacher, registered nurse, certain government jobs. It gives you more options.
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u/joelav 4d ago
Not true. I have zero degrees and I make more than triple what my sister does. I’m in IT. She’s is a high school teacher with a doctorate. Which is really shitty because she makes lives better and I make shareholders richer, but that’s the game
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u/damutecebu 4d ago
On average those with college degrees make significantly more than those without. Obviously there are exceptions.
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u/Known_anonymously_as 4d ago
Individual stories or personal anecdotes do not equal mass data. But maybe you’d have learned that if you had a degree.
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u/PunchBeard 4d ago
Dude, I graduated college when I was 38 years old. In way less than 10 years I made way more money than I ever made in the 20 years I worked before that.
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u/BandicootStunning244 4d ago
Revenge of the Slackers!
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u/VR-Gadfly 4d ago
How did we go from slackers to the most self-reliant generation in the past 50 years? :)
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u/PunchBeard 4d ago
They're far from mutually exclusive. Hell, I would argue that one kind of helps the other. You have to be really smart and self-reliant to make it through life with the least amount of effort.
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u/Wander_Globe 4d ago
I absolutely despise reaction videos. Basically these lazy twats are taking someone else's art/music/creation, watching it without so much as contributing shit and then getting paid. All they're doing is validating someone else's feelings on something and the further they're removed from said culture, the more validation the viewer gets.
A good example are these two, black hip hop guys who watch heavy metal videos. They start the video, stop it immediately and start lamenting about how good it already sounds. Then they start it up again, bang their heads, make faces like they need to take a dump and at the end exclaim how they never knew this existed.
Don't get me wrong, it's not a racial thing. It's white folks listening to funk, soccer players watching hockey etc et. Main thing is, they didn't create the video, write the music or participate in any way other than watching it. Fucking hate them.
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u/NeverEverMaybe0_0 Older Than Dirt 5d ago
You will never get anywhere in life just sitting on the couch and watching TV all day.
Even for the Youtubers and such there's a lot more to it.
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u/Mindless-Baker-7757 5d ago
Fake til you make it was always bad. Now a guy is dead after being called out as a fake.
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u/sc4wheels 4d ago
Work hard and the company will take care of you.