Plan B Forum

Just got home from conference, gone 2 full + 2 half days.

Hired my friend's teenager to dogsit; figured I could trust him as he stayed here while I was in GA and other than leaving the house a bit untidy, all was okay.

All he had to do was feed dogs 2x day, keep water bowls full, shut door to outside before bedtime so they wouldn't be in yard all night.

He's dog/house sitting three blocks away, so this should be no worries.

I paid him very handsomely last time.

It's been in the high 90s all week at home.


I get home tonight and the dogs have ZERO water. Not a drop in either outside or inside bowl. These are large bowls! He's also opened the half of the house I shut off, so the dogs have been all over my bare mattress, which is now covered in fur.

The bed is annoying; it sucked to come home after 14 hours of training & driving to a sweaty cleanup job.


But the water?!?! I'm very troubled. How do I know if they had any water at all today? It was this hot last weekend and they didn't drain the bowls.

I want to write this young lad a note to impress on him the importance of taking an employer's trust seriously. One, or both, of these dogs could have suffered heat stroke and died, if left unwatered long enough in 97 degree heat. (My brother lost a dog in the space of one afternoon when his roommate neglected to water the dog as promised on a hot New York summer day.)

When I was this young lad's age - 14 almost 15 - I was babysitting infants for entire weekends. I never forgot to feed, bathe, clothe, etc. At that age I once took on a 16 mo. old, a 3 yr. old, two black labs and a tank full of fish for 3 days.

Why are we raising a generation (+) of careless, stupid kids who can't complete the simplest of tasks without issue?

My friend is a very responsible gal with a military background. I know she's trying hard to teach her kids responsibility; they are both struggling and I guess I just don't get why so many kids these days (argh! I hate that phrase) seem to struggle with basic responsibility.

For starters, you don't pay him. That will give him the message faster than anything you might say to him (and if you would have asked him to sit for you fairly frequently, you should provide him with the calculation of how much he will now be losing over the course of the next year because he cannot be trusted).

You're going from the narrowly particular to the very general a little quickly.

I don't think this one person's behavior typifies a generation.

Besides, they're going to be paying for our Social Security, better hope for the best.

yrs,
rubato

Scooter, that would've been true (hiring him often) except that my moving in two weeks changed things.

rubato, I wouldn't have generalized, except it's something I see a lot of, and hear from friends/family/acquaintances with teens. Work isn't taken terrifically seriously by many of them - except at paycheck time.

My boss hired a teenager (18) for our open clerical position; she's a reasonably bright gal, but after three weeks she still doesn't 'get' that you have to ask WHO is on the phone, or WHO is at the front desk asking to be seen.

How hard is that?

I'm not counting on Social Security. I'm not sure how we will compete with up & coming economies - they work damned hard in China.

I'll vouch it's not purely an American problem.

I would at least seriously consider filing a police report and possibly pressing animal cruelty charges against him.

Unfortunately it has been my experience the the majority of the youth today consider "manual labor" to be the president of Mexico and "work ethic" to be an unknown force.

"Kids these days ... not like when we were young and perfect." Saying this is how you know you are getting old. It's an age old refrain:

"The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers."--Socrates

I'll vouch it's not purely an American problem.

Gee Strop, it's refreshing to know that at least there's something you don't see that way....

But seriously folks....

I'm sorry but I don't believe this generation of teenagers as a group are anymore or less responsible than any other...That certainly has not been my experience....

It seems like every generation of fuddy duddies says that about the existing generation of teens, (I know my parents and their friends certainly felt that way about teens when I and many others here were teenagers) but in my experience, I encounter teens that are both quite responsible and quite irresponsible, and in between...

What most teens as a group are (and this is true of every generation of teens) is somewhat easily distracted and inconsistent. This is going to be true even of "good kids" who are generally responsible and reliable; occasionally they are going to get distracted, use poor judgement, and fuck up. (hormones, body and brain development, and the general confusions that adolescents encounter can do that to a person)

That may very well be what happened here.

I agree with rubato and Lord Jim. (I've always wanted to post that sentence! )

And thanks, Big RR, for that quote from Socrates to put things in perspective!

I remembered that Socrates quote Big RR, and I was going to include it in my post but you beat me to it....

Yeah, I recall the Socrates quote as well, which had me resisting a bit before posting this.

I guess I just don't ever see any of these allegedly highly responsible teenagers. That would make some sense, since most that I do see are being coddled in one way or the other by parents, poor or wealthy. The kids I see in juvenile court are of that sort - they have developed very little sense of responsibility nor respect for others.

I still don't get an inability to complete basic tasks when they are written on a piece of paper as a reminder left for one to follow. I can't imagine not being conscientious enough to ensure that ability, even at 14. I guess my parents did okay with me.

Jarl, I can't ever tell if you're being serious or facetious - but in any case, while I'm concerned about what might have happened if they'd been left a long time w/o water, nothing would come of a misdemeanor citation that his mother won't already subject him to - he will learn from the mistake.

No, I am dead serious: he should get serious jail time for neglecting a dog in hot weather!

Not to burst your bubble - and I appreciate the concern for animals - but most animal abuse/neglect charges don't result in jail, in Montana or elsewhere.

His mom says he feels terrible, and wouldn't accept any payment even if I offered. Claims he last gave then water five hours before I got home - but I think that's just not possible. In the 14 hours since I got home, they haven't drained both their bowls. One of the bowls is really big. I think he probably just forgot to check their water yesterday.

bigskygal wrote:His mom says he feels terrible, and wouldn't accept any payment even if I offered.

I would say that's good enough. Even if you think that might not be completely true, his mom has determined that she won't let him accept any payment, and she could also make him feel terrible about the neglect. Mothers can do that.

Seconded!


...and he is a boy; who knows why, but for some reason that exempts many* teens from babysitting duty. I guess he has no dog, nor pets either?
(At least none he's solely responsible for, and not 'assisted' by mom to care for)

It may just take time to learn this lesson; believe it or not, I was terrible about caring for my pet hamster!


*I didn't say all, just many.

Miles wrote:Unfortunately it has been my experience the the majority of the youth today consider "manual labor" to be the president of Mexico and "work ethic" to be an unknown force.

My LOL!! of the day Cheers Miles.

Lord Jim wrote:Gee Strop, it's refreshing to know that at least there's something you don't see that way....

I could change my mind.

In fact, I did start to think about posting a diatribe about Hatch, how perfect she is, and how we recently left her at home to look after our two dogs, one of whom is sick and blind, while we went off to Sydney for a long weekend gallivanting. Also, that me and Hen are having a (dirty) week down at the coast next month, and Hatch will be, with our full confidence, staying home to run the house and look after the dogs again.

But I wont, you hear me brag about her often enough.,

Might as well ...