Zach M. Stafford | Website

Transcript

Comic in 4 Panels

Panel 1: A young bright-eyed man stands in front of a house.

Grandpa: I’m going to buy a house!

Panel 2: The young man is now old and bespectacled. He’s telling this story to his grandson, who is listening politely.

Grandpa: …and that was how I bought my house when I was 23!

Panel 3: Grandpa’s story turns into a yelling rant

Grandpa: I WORKED AT THE DRIVE-IN ALL SUMMER FOR THAT HOUSE!! NOBODY WANTS TO WORK ANYMORE!

Panel 4: Grandpa watches as his grandson unplugs a cord from the wall with a * POP *

Grandpa: …why are you unplugging my lamp?

Grandson: I’m just practicing

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Footer:

Pervis

Zach M. Stafford

    • Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world
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      22 hours ago

      The thing that angers me the most is that I said to my mom “I’m never going to have a retirement…”

      I’m 42, no house, no retirement savings, no 401k, and no way to save for those things. Some weeks I don’t have enough money to buy food.

      My moms response was “Oh you’ll be fine! I struggled when I was in my 20s, with both of your sisters, and I turned out ok!”

      Yes, it’s true that for about 5 years my mom had it as hard, maybe harder than I do. The difference is, then she met my dad, moved in with him, her money problems disappeared. She then got a better job, with retirement options, and a 401k, and benefits.

      Then she bought her own house in the 90s. The seller wasn’t sure if he wanted to sell to her as a single woman. So she said “you can either sell to me, or sell to someone else. The price is the same either way. You may as well just sell now, rather than waiting for the next buyer.”

      THATS the speech that got her the house.

      Today, you’d get laughed at.

      My biggest problem with boomers isn’t their selfish nature, or the fact that they’ve had an easy life. My biggest problem is that they refuse to admit that times have changed. I CAN’T live life the way boomers did. I’d LOVE to wear a suit, walk into a business, demand to see the manager before I even fill out an application and talk myself into a job. I’d LOVE to do that…but thats not how it works anymore! Now you fill an application out online, submit it to an AI crawler that steals your data, be in competition with 500 other applicants, and most of the time never hear back.

      I asked my brother in law 10 years ago if he could get me a job at his fortune 500 company. He works there, he’s not the owner, but I was asking him to put in a good word, get my application even looked at.

      He’s my age, and this was said right in front of my mom. He said “I couldn’t do that. That would be nepotism”. I said “Yeah. I’m fine with nepotism if it means I canpay my bills.”

      And my mom asked if I wanted her to storm the corporate offices of Progressive Insurance, and hunt down the CEO for an interview.

      So I just said yes. Not because I think it would work, but because I knew she’d fail spectacularly. Maybe even get arrested on a light charge. Then maybe she’d realize how times change.

      But she just said “I can’t always fight your battles for you. This is something YOU need to do.”

      God dammit.

      • sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        3 hours ago

        See that last quip there shows that she knows she is entirely full of shit.

        She knows none of her advice is actually useful.

        She doesn’t care.

        She just wants to always feel superior to you.

        Same with bro in law.

        ‘That’d be nepotism’ means 'that’d be nepotism that I personally might not benefit from.

        … here, I have the glasses from They Live, you can have them, but you’re not gonna like what you see.

        They know they’re full of shit, they’re complete hypocrites. Otherwise the advice they give would… you know, generally work. They don’t care that they are complete hypocrites.

        They have the mentality of scammers and con artists; a massively oversized ego that must continually be fed with I am awesome and everyone else is a sucker.

        They do not actually care about you or your wellbeing. They care about feeling like a success.

        If I were you, I’d cut them out of your life; all they’re good for is wasting your time and causing you sanity damage.

      • binarytobis@lemmy.world
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        21 hours ago

        During the worst of one of the recessions I was trying to find a job right out of college, and my dad (who regularly told me to use old-school job hunting tactics) asked me if I wanted him to apply for me and show me how it’s done. I said yes.

        A week later he had applied to five jobs. Taps out with a “Man, it’s rough out there!” That perspective really helped us communicate in the future.

        He did, at one point, help me get a nepotism hire. While I was there they got bought out, and they made him personally fire 80% of the company, including me and my mom, before firing him as well. Live by the sword die by the sword I guess.

        • Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world
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          20 hours ago

          2008? I was lucky during that time period. I had a job, I saw the recession. I still applied to other jobs, but I put up with my shitty job I had, because it was all I had. I’m sure many lives were ruined for those that didn’t have jobs at that time.

          • Spaniard@lemmy.world
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            7 hours ago

            Some countries haven’t even recover from 2008 when Covid hit (Spain for example) and are now in a three-economic-crisis spree.

        • sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          3 hours ago

          This is correct.

          They’re pathological narcissists, the idea that they are ever fundamentally wrong about anything is essentially not a thinkable thought for them, because that would damage their ego, their self-image.

          They genuinely cannot comprehend the idea that their worldview (which revolves around themself) can be substantially wrong.

          The world and everything and everyone in it exists to validate them and everything they’ve ever thought said or done.

          They basically have the arrogance of Old Testament God, something like that.