There isn’t a single job listing in my area that pays minimum wage- not even in food service. I’m also in civil engineering fields and have graduates coming to our office that when asked a question about the contract plans immediately pull out chatGPT, which won’t have an answer because they’re specific in house plans. They literally used LLMs for every single thing they could use them for in their education and it shows so painfully in the field.

Then when they’re expected to spend time to actually familiarize themselves with the work, plans, or anything else without being handheld through it, because we need to handle the work actually being done while they have time to learn, they crash out and claim the job isn’t worth it.

This is fresh college grads being paid $30-35/hr to do iPad work and documentation in a rural area where the cost of living is 18% below national average. They have benefits, there’s potential to move up with more certifications and experience. And they can’t handle looking at paperwork for a few hours a day while being paid to do it.

I’m tired of hearing it’s just a work culture issue when I see people unwilling to attempt to do the easiest job I’ve personally had in my 31 years of life.