I work in a production environment with two 20 year old "kids". They were hired to run some machines, lift boxes, move crap, etc. It's manual labor, and it can be boring and monotonous, depending on the day. But maybe I'm from a different day and age, but when I was their age I was hustling when I worked. If someone asked me to do something I did it real fast, and I always worked as hard as I could. I think I still have the same work mentality, but that's a matter of perspective I suppose.
These two "kids" show up late all the time, are on their phones all the time, and complain whenever you ask them to do anything beyond the bare minimum. I think I bring this up today, because we had an afternoon lull where there wasn't anything going on, so management asked them to unload a couple of skids of paper. Now keep in mind that when I say "paper", these are boxes of tabloid paper that weigh about 55 pounds each. It's heavy lifting to say the least. You would have thought the world had come to an end in even asking them to do this.
I am not management, and I don't supervise these "kids" so I have the perspective of "observer". But I just shake my head and shrug my shoulders at a) how little these "kids" want to work, and b) how much management enables the behavior. My management philosophy would be a bit different then what is currently taking place. I have a simple three strikes rule on the tardiness. First time you're late, you get a warning and get to stay and work. 2nd time you are late I tell you so, and tell you to go home and come back tomorrow on time. 3rd time you are late don't even show up, because you are gone. It's not hard to understand, and it weeds out undesirables. But management here let's them get away with it and doesn't really seem to care, so again, I just shrug my shoulders and carry on. Oh, and I wouldn't tolerate the complaining and the laziness on the job. If you complain about being asked to do stuff I'd send you home. You don't want to work, fine, go punch out and go home.
I'd also be hiring a few folks to serve as replacements. These machines aren't rocket science, and I will eventually hire a couple of folks who are A) hungry, and B ) actually want to work. I don't play nice with slackers who think they are entitled to a paycheck without actually putting in the effort.
But I guess this means I'm getting old.