Ch,ch,ch,ch,changes since 1989. The year I graduated.
Posted by JezebelJade1@reddit | GenX | View on Reddit | 157 comments
Colored hair is normal. Women show their bra straps under/ thru their clothes in public. That used to be really taboo! Tattoos are normal. Gay people can get married. We have so much more tech. I’m fine with all that. What is not ok? No one’s there to help you in a store anymore. Absolutely everything is unaffordable now. My two children are child free by choice, and I can’t blame them. I would love grands…. But I don’t think they would have the same opportunities I had. My kids sure don’t. We bought our first house, without help, making minimum wage in 1992 when I was 21. My husband made a little more than me, but not much. My wage was $3.35 hr. Our total costs out of pocket for my firstborn after insurance was $500. 1994. I don’t know how folks are surviving these days.
MaximumJones@reddit
Bought a house while working for minimum wage?
wyohman@reddit
Imma call bullshit
JezebelJade1@reddit (OP)
Um, no? It was in Raytown, Mo. 64133 A suburb of Kansas City. I had just gotten married. He did have a VA loan. That helped with deposit. He sold some photo equipment for the closing costs. Definitely not BS. Our kids are 31 and 29.
wyohman@reddit
And you paid how much?
JezebelJade1@reddit (OP)
$54,000
wyohman@reddit
No matter how hard I try, the math is not mathing. I think you are underestimating your income.
JezebelJade1@reddit (OP)
From my ex husband. I, wife, was making minimum wage. Him “It was 54,000 and payment was $470. I was making around $6.50 an hour. Went by it last month, and they are really keeping it up, looks great”
wyohman@reddit
VA loan means no down payment but your interest rate was probably around 8%.
Median house price was $59k which gives a mortgage payment of around $425 (not counting taxes and insurance).
Assuming "a little more" is $4 per hour, that's $310 per week before taxes for both of you. Now add gas, food, utilities (I'll assume no car payment) and this makes a scenario that is VERY hard to believe.
JezebelJade1@reddit (OP)
My husband worked crazy amounts of overtime. He made a little more than I did. I worked full time. We only had one car. We were dead broke. I ate a lot of pb&j.
HaloTightens@reddit
Raytown, O Raytown….
Sorry, I’ll never forget that song.
At least you didn’t live in Bump!
CommunicationNew3745@reddit
LOL! Now I can't get it out of my head👂🏼🪱 https://youtu.be/29wxn4fh_dA?list=RD29wxn4fh_dA
HaloTightens@reddit
I grew up loving this show, and I still love it today. I’m honored to meet a real Raytonian! 😁
crashin70@reddit
We had people covering our hair all kinds of colors back in the 80s too...
LevelPerception4@reddit
Yeah, but people judged you for it. Old men stopped telling me to smile and started asking me if the rug matched the drapes.
I bet no one would ask that now because pubic hair is so unfashionable.
crashin70@reddit
True, but male or female, most of us didn't care.
AlmiranteCrujido@reddit
So one sort of rudeness from old men interchanged for another? Sounds lose/lose.
LevelPerception4@reddit
Well, I went from smiling on command to saying fuck off, which was much more satisfying.
I think dyeing my hair purple helped me become more assertive and address adults as peers instead of reacting with submission or defiance.
AlmiranteCrujido@reddit
Saying fuck off (or the equivalent) is the right choice, and if dyeing your hair helped with that (vs. just looking cool), even better.
dox1842@reddit
I think its starting to make a comeback.
TotalRecognition2191@reddit
Yes. Never went out as far as I'm concerned.
AbjectHyena1465@reddit
Class of ‘89, here, too. Went from ooooooh piercing left ear only meant you weren’t gay, wearing girdles even though you were the skinniest in your life, along with pantyhose, to everyone in the modern era getting nose, belly button piercings and sleeve tattoos on women.
Can we address trends like LuLuroe, jeans that are so torn on the thighs that peoples leg fat pour out of the holes, or what is up with poeple wearing pajamas in public and super obese kids wearing crop shirts letting it all hang out?
Now, all I hear about are women in their 30’s and up complaining about everything being “perimenopausal”. What a joke! Just got thru menopause with none of that fear mongering nonsense.
Public pools have closed around the country because it is no longer cool to be a lifeguard for penny’s. That was like the COOLEST job you could’ve had when I was growing up. Did I have a friend in the punk scene back then that had earlobes full of safety pins? Yep, I did. Most down to earth person I have ever met. Am bored with the pretentiousness of everyone needing a service emotional support dog and people still claiming discrimination because of skin color.
I grew up poor and as a white female, I was always at the bottom of the discrimination pile. The so-called privilege is such a made up lie straight from hell. I had nothing, have had an exhausting uphill battle my whole life finding employment and had to pay for my own education and have been working since I could walk. Everything I have, I have busted my ass for. No breaks, EVER, in 54 years. Horrible childhood but thank God, escaped major family dysfunction.
I treat people the way I want to be treated. I have just come to terms that there is literally evil in this world, and you have to learn how to cope with it, and dodge it. If I could just be a hippy on a beach in Hawaii, I would be. But that is not reality. Tired of so many grifter people milking all of the systems and not being accountable for anything. There is so much more I want to say, and this is just the tip of my iceberg.
This is my… Gen X… Flex. We are a bad ass group of people!!! To those of us who have made it this far, I salute you!!
GenX-ModTeam@reddit
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deleted_by_reddit@reddit
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GenX-ModTeam@reddit
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HermioneMarch@reddit
Thank God we got rid of pantyhose! And I’m fine rocking a dress in doc martens or converse. I used to think I hated dressing up. Turns out I actually love dresses. I just hated the foot/leg wear they required.
liddybuckfan@reddit
Pantyhose were the worst! I was in South Florida, too, so they were hot year round.
Cwjhnsn71@reddit
My son got offered a summer internship paying $35/hr. I didn’t make that until I was nearly 40!
Lonely_Owl_3@reddit
I still don't make that (30 years in non-profits)!
Astronaut6735@reddit
US federal minimum wage after April '91 was $4.25/hour.
marfalump@reddit
I made $3.25 an hour working in the mall during high school.
Unpopular opinion on Reddit: $;.25 was plenty. I was living at home with no real adult expenses. Most teens don’t/didn’t need a living wage.
Genuine907@reddit
Nobody’s living situation should dictate their pay. You give up your time to work. You can’t get it back. Pay needs to be commensurate to that loss, whatever your living situation.
neepster44@reddit
But for every teen making that, an adult did as well. The minimum wage should be $28/hr if it had kept up with inflation. Instead it’s still $7.35 nationally.
SparksWood71@reddit
I moved to The Castro in SF in 1995 when I was 24 and with two roomies my rent was $400.
I bought my first home in the Bay Area for $199k in 1999 (sold five years later for twice that).
I paid $475 a semester at SF State and I remember my mother being horrified that I had to pay over $100 for books.
My first corporate job in 1998 was for a large advertising company in the city and I paid nothing for healthcare.
I don't know how anyone growing up today can afford to live, and I am exceedingly grateful I never had kids.
apc961@reddit
That in-state tuition in the CSU system in the 90s was such a bargain. This generation of kids simply won't have an opportunity like that.
fryerandice@reddit
As a millenial right after you guys my instate tuition was $9,000 a semester in state and I left college 60,000 in debt. The 12,000 I paid off myself by working a full time job in school, something my grandfather and his kids were able to do an leave debt free.
My generation was then blamed for our college debt.
apc961@reddit
Yikes. Thank Buddha my parents had me in the 70s. I think 9k or 10k was probably the total amount for my 4 year degree (tuition + books)
I had the same issue about attending a state university that was not anyone's dream school. This did not go away until I was in my 30s.
PinkyLeopard2922@reddit
My friend and I rented a 2bd townhouse apartment in Petaluma in 1993. It was $750. Those same apartments are now $2800 a month.
Fair-Wishbone-1190@reddit
1990 grad here. I would get sent home from my McDonald's job in 1989 for not being 100% clean shaven. Nobody could have 1 ear pierced, (like a lot of us guys did) back then. I made $3.35/hr. It's crazy how times have changed in our lives. I miss those days.
Livia-is-my-jam@reddit
Same, I could not get a job in McDonald’s at 17 because I had bleached orange hair and a nose piercing. If you were different back then shit was hard. I left home at 17 because my home life was shit. If I had been brought up with support and not abandoned as a latch key kid my life would have been so much fucking better. Can we please stop romanticizing neglect, we are not better for it. I would love to be able to ask for help, have no idea how to do that. Fellow 1989 graduate.
Fair-Wishbone-1190@reddit
Ya we also could not have colored hair, and I also had to wear a hair net since I was a guy with long hair. (But that one I can understand)
darthjertzie@reddit
I think the stigma around getting therapy for real issues has diminished quite a lot. That’s a good thing. People are getting help who should have done it years ago.
AlmiranteCrujido@reddit
Sadly, the cost of therapy has gone up quite a lot at the same time, but yeah, it's good that it has less stigma, and at least some of the time insurance will cover it vs. my memory of it being like never.
Historical-Kick-9126@reddit
Yes. And availability has decreased. My dad’s career was in mental health/addiction treatment. There’s a serious shortage of practitioners/clinics now. I’m shocked at the dearth of options for most people now.
SilverAgeSurfer@reddit
Dogs in stores. I love animals but I don't wanna look at them while I'm fucking grocery shopping 🛒
AlmiranteCrujido@reddit
OK, here we get something someone complains about that I actually agree with. Worse yet, in restaurants.
Yes, I get it for some people they're basically their kids, but ... smh
SilverAgeSurfer@reddit
Their not children they're animals and unsanitary.
Aisling207@reddit
And yet somehow all of Europe survives with dogs in restaurants.
SilverAgeSurfer@reddit
We are not Europe 😂that's why we are The USA...... KICKING ASS AND TAKING NAMES SINCE 1776.
Aisling207@reddit
So basically the U.S. is a bunch of crybaby weaklings who can’t mind their own business. That tracks.
SilverAgeSurfer@reddit
Sounds like a struck a nerve😂
Aisling207@reddit
Lol, I don’t know dude, you’re the one posting in all caps and cringy emojis…lmao
mmconno@reddit
The dogs don’t want to be there either😭
fryerandice@reddit
Lowe's is different, my dog loves Lowe's, the employees love my dog in Lowe's, and half the customers as well.
My dogs just a whore for attention and cute as a button and the young girl Jordan that works there will take her for a walk around the store when I come in.
SilverAgeSurfer@reddit
Why take your dog? It's not a fashion accessory.
fryerandice@reddit
Lowe's has their pet friendly policy permanently screen printed on their doors. It makes my dog happy and she is well behaved and well socialized, it makes the employees super happy, and I get a bunch of GenX biker and construction dudes coming up to me melting like butter in the hot sun to pet my dog.
The worst comment I get is "I wish I could bring my dog but my dog would never behave".
If it bothers you, go to Home Depot, they have their no pets allowed policy permanently screen printed on the door.
Ok-Mention6768@reddit
As newlyweds, our first little house was $400/month in rent. When we bought our first home a year later, it was only $40K. Granted, we live in the rural Midwest, but that was only 25 years ago.
Our kids' generation is screwed financially. We have told them they can live with us as long as necessary.
AlmiranteCrujido@reddit
When did this become the boomer group? I'm going to get downvoted like crazy, but man, this doomer thing is NOT right for our generation.
you're only 4-5 years younger than me; I was still in high school but turned 17 that fall.
So why comment on it? I don't care about the tattoos one way or bra straps one way or the other, but I dig fun hair colors (my wife has done bright red highlights on and off since I got to know her in the 1990s) and I've got gay people in my family so I'm happy for them.
And without the tech, I'd be bored and out of a job.
I find myself are much less likely to need to, so I'm OK with that. Heck, I can just have stuff shipped to my house.
Although stuff being in locked cages in Home Depot when I need something from the electric section is annoying, f the retail thieves.
Stuff always gets more expensive. If you're not in a career where your income keeps up, that sucks, but going from 1992 to today you should have been in the fat part of your career growth for most the recent run of inflation.
Look at the 1970s. Inflation was 3x between 1970-1989 (19 years) and not even that far between 1989-today (36-37 years.) Our generation got a run of the lowest-inflation period in a long time... sucks that that ended, but we got spoiled.
What kind of boonies were you in? I looked at getting an apartment in 1994, and I couldn't have afforded an apartment on $3.35/hour then, heck, I could barely have gotten an apartment on the $10/hour I was getting if I'd gone full-time vs. going to college.
Granted, I was in NYC. You do not what to know what a $400/month studio in NYC was like, even in 1994, and remember, income taxes were higher back then.
Our total costs out of pocket for my firstborn was about $70 ($50 for inpatient admission, $10 each for two prescriptions on discharge), 2012. We had good insurance. It was zero four our second in 2014, as we were double-covered.
With the same insurer, but copays going up, I think the same would be $220 or 230 now, I'm not sure if one of the prescriptions was a brand-name drug.
Cykoth@reddit
This. I refuse to believe that things are so much tougher now. People make a ton more money now! I’ve got a great niece who makes over $20/hour at a Smoothie King for Gods sake. My first home in 1997 had a Mortgage rate of 8.5% and I felt grateful for that! We still had high rates for quite some time after that.
Simple-Practice7382@reddit
Refuse to believe what you want; doesn’t change the fact that it WAS easier then. Just makes you ignorant
AlmiranteCrujido@reddit
It was easier for some folks. Nice if it was for you; definitely wasn't for everyone.
Simple-Practice7382@reddit
It was an easier playing field.
I’m sure some people struggled then as well…
But it is an indisputable FACT that it was an easier economy, job market, & real estate market back then
It is what it is.
Dismal-Vacation-5877@reddit
Approximately 100 mil more people now than then too. Lot of supply fighting for jobs.
AlmiranteCrujido@reddit
That's also 100 million more consumers of services, a proportionally larger number of researchers, software engineers, etc.
Dismal-Vacation-5877@reddit
And a lot of those are on H-1B visas from other countries. We are more a service economy now unfortunately vs. then which comes with lower paying positions.
AlmiranteCrujido@reddit
The median household income has gone up even after adjusting for inflation: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEPAINUSA672N
I can't find a useful time series for bachelor's degree or higher, but looking at point in time inflation-adjusted numbers the difference is larger.
Dismal-Vacation-5877@reddit
Sure - do not disagree with you there. Costs of stuff have also risen quite a bit. I'm not complaining b/c it doesn't hurt me much but the younger gens it does / will continue to for sure.
AlmiranteCrujido@reddit
Costs have been rising pretty much forever, and that graph is already inflation-adjusted.
CPI isn't a perfect measure of inflation, but even if you want to argue that it understates it, it doesn't understate it by nearly as much as household incomes have gone up (and again, that's median not average.)
Some costs have risen faster than inflation, both on national averages and even more so locally.
Other costs have risen more slowly, or actually gone down.
Other classes of costs didn't exist back then - essentially no-one had an internet bill in 1988, and if you had the (rare) mobile phone bill it was literally just for voice service.
Housing in particular has some particularly unpredictable and very highly regional patterns; as noted much further up-thread, OP was somewhere where housing costs were especially low even for the early 1990s.
AlmiranteCrujido@reddit
You're completely missing that the structural changes came earlier some places than others. Roger and Me came out in 1989, all of Reagan's bullshit was already in play for nearly a decade.
Knowing a bunch of folks who graduated into the early 1990s recession, that's not an easier economy or job market.
This is like looking at back when my dad was a young adult. 1958 and 1962, when he graduated from high school and college were great... if you were a man, and white (back when "white" still meant anglo and Christian, which he was neither of.)
Simple-Practice7382@reddit
You’re cherry picking low frequency examples (some places, these specific years, etc) to argue against the overall trend.
And, honestly, you’re not even choosing GOOD examples. Even in the worst part of the 90s it was easier to find gainful, lucrative employment.
It. Was. Easier.
Maybe not in EVERY single place, or for EVERY single person, but overall and in general it was easier.
It’s rough out there right now and getting worse.
Simple-Practice7382@reddit
And, sorry, but your dad DID have it easier. There were union manufacturing jobs… Low skill jobs still paid a living wages… Homes, although I’m sure expensive at some points between then and now were not OVER valued and treated as financial assets.
AlmiranteCrujido@reddit
OK, here's data instead: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEPAINUSA672N
I'd also look up all the great society laws that got passed before you insist my dad had it easier, and again, just because it was easier for anglo men doesn't mean it was easier for everybody.
Not an issue for my dad, but look up when banks were prohibited from telling married women they couldn't have their own bank account.
Reagan left office with nearly 600,000 fewer manufacturing jobs, despite the economy overall adding 16M jobs - the whole move to services we've seen since was accelerated massively under his economic policies.
For crying out loud, our generation was the one who got to sit through Falling Down and six million movies about how hard young adults had it.
Shit has always been hard - not always in the same way. Rosey colored glasses and woe is me does no good for anyone.
My kids have resources for learning and physical safety that our generation never had. There's more competition for college seats, but skipping college was a mug's game for our generation too.
therealgookachu@reddit
Then you can keep your head in the sand.
Minimum wage hasn’t risen since 2006. A 1br apartment in Denver costs between $1.5-2k/mo. My condo that my husband bought is now worth almost $300k. A 1200sq/ft house costs over $500k. Tell me how these kids on $20/hr are going to afford that? That’s $41,600 before taxes and health insurance. Takehome will be about $36k. They can’t afford a $2k/mo mortgage.
AlmiranteCrujido@reddit
Nationally. A moderate number of states - nearly half if you count ones that passed it in the last couple of years and it hasn't kicked in yet - have indexed the state minimum wage to inflation. Those states are more than half of the population.
It's $16.90/hour here in California
You couldn't afford an apartment where I grew up (NYC) in 1994 on minimum wage; could barely get a studio in a terrible neighborhood for the $10/hour I was earning.
It's great that some folks in the square states hadn't caught up with Reaganomics, but the big cities on the coasts hit that a LOT earlier.
TheDarkestTriads@reddit
$20 an hour job at Smoothie King isn't a career. Buying a house isn't always the smartest investment anyway. After maintenance, closing costs, realtor fees, interest, taxes vs renting and putting money into 401k and taxable account in the S&P. Kids today are starting to invest at 18 if they have any brain matter.
luluislulu2520@reddit
Guessing the poster came from a more rural area. I remember making around 10/hr out of high school in early nineties (made the min wage at my first job at McDonalds when I was a teenager) and I couldn’t believe how expensive it was to buy. Boy do I wish I did buy back then though. Bra straps, colored hair, etc were definitely acceptable starting in 80s where I’m from. Less people were out as being gay, but where I from it was pretty accepted unless maybe you drive through some hick or biker towns where there’s a phobia. I feel like our generation was a lot more intelligent and accepting about things as we were born on the heels of a lot of civil movements. Then, of course, people take it for granted how good we have it and the pendulum swings.
Oiggamed@reddit
Pot is legal.
Sad-Reflection-3499@reddit
I love it that nobody stalks me in a store trying to "help" me.
LithiuMart@reddit
I went on a two year IT training course when I left school in 1989, earning £29.50 a week ($40). I left there with qualifications that I hoped would get me into an IT career, but it never happened. I found it so hard to get a job that in desperation I went into blue collar work and never left.
Fritzo2162@reddit
Really? I got poached out of college in the 90s because some Internet provider startup heard I knew how to implement tcp/ip and how to program routers. I was a chemistry major and only did IT work on the side as a hobby. They were pretty desperate for talent back then.
LithiuMart@reddit
I live in a small village in the countryside, and it's a 30 minute drive to the city. I lost my driving licence in 1991 due to an epileptic seizure, which massively reduced the job availability nearby. The only jobs I could get to using other modes of transport were to nearby factories, and that was usually by hitching a lift with friends that worked there.
Fritzo2162@reddit
Yeah, it was definitely location dependant. Cities were the hotspots at the time.
If it makes you feel any better, I'm 30+ years into IT, and with all the stress, pressure, after hours work, and constant training, I kind of wish I went into a different career where I work 8 hours, come home, and my job stays at work.
LithiuMart@reddit
That's the only plus point about factory work. You can clock in, mentally switch off and think happy thoughts whilst your body goes through the motions, clock out and forget about your day.
altairstarlite@reddit
Our out of pocket for our first born was even less than that. ($35, if I remember right) Can't imagine what new parents are paying now.
MuchMoreThanaMama@reddit
My firstborn was nine weeks early and in NICU for 6 weeks. Our bill was over $250k and we paid $25 because my husband’s company had such great insurance. This was 2006.
dearestnomad@reddit
The store thing drives me crazy! I bought some stuff, less than $10 total. The man at the register never spoke to me at all. I held out the $10 for him and, without a word, he just turned the pin pad around and tapped it. I pushed the money towards him and he tapped the pin pad again. I looked at him like he was crazy, then he says “ oh you want to pay with cash?!” Yea, I do. He took the money like it was poisonous, just kept looking at it and the register. Finally he put something in the register and it opened, I guess telling him how much change to give me and it took him FOREVER to count it out! He was a college aged male, looked of average intelligence, but I don’t know. I felt sorry for him in a way, I mean has he never been taught how to do cash transactions? Am I the ONLY person that still uses cash for small purchases?
AbjectHyena1465@reddit
There is a small food market near me with a kid who litrelly will not say one word to you and piles up my food on the counter after he checks it out, and I have to ask for a bag every 30 seconds while he tries to stare at me down as if I have 4 eyes. A BAG, you know, so that I can carry my cart of food out with? He literally will not just automatically use common sense and get out a bag.
Aisling207@reddit
Meh. I’ve been childfree since I first had an epiphany at age 11 in 1985 that, despite what grownups led you to believe, children aren’t actually mandatory (well, they weren’t then, and still aren’t in some states. Ugh.) I think a lot of people today just plain don’t want kids, and personally I think that’s fine, but you still get so much vitriol spewed at you if you actually admit that, I think they say it’s the economy, the environment, lack of services, etc., etc.
Individual-Trick3310@reddit
My lord, where?! I was making seven bucks an hour in NC and was very far from the property ladder.
JezebelJade1@reddit (OP)
Kansas City.
Individual-Trick3310@reddit
Wow!
Reddiculusness@reddit
I was making 17/hr in 92 in NC running printing presses . I was married with a kid and bought my first house in 1990 at 19. It's crazy to think of being young now and starting out with prices the way they are.
fryerandice@reddit
17 an hour if you're lucky now and a house trailer without a place to put it costs 85,000 for a 2 bedroom 500sq ft single wide. Once you have a lot hookup and fees you're in over 120,000 to own a house trailer on a rented plot it's fucking wild.
You get into houses on a foundation and 200k is normal.
Reddiculusness@reddit
I paid 70,000 for mine back then, of course it was 2,400 sqft on an acre of land with well and septic, 2 neighbors and about 800 acres of woods surrounding us on 3 sides .
Someone I work with now is looking to buy and they found a remodeled trailer for 125k before additional expenses. Blew my mind
wyohman@reddit
$17 per hour in 1992 was pretty good
AlmiranteCrujido@reddit
$17/hour in 1992 was great - basically $34,000 a year, more with overtime.
My mom made basically that much, and she was a university instructor (not professor) with two masters degrees and an unfinished doctorate.
If we hadn't had a house they'd bought in the early 1970s and a tiny mortgage, would not have made it living in NYC after my dad passed away. Fortunately, they did, and we did OK.
Reddiculusness@reddit
if I had been smart and invested at that age I wouldn't be working now 🤣
wyohman@reddit
I started investing around 1999 and it worked out for me. I wish I had been smarter earlier
Reddiculusness@reddit
I was more interested in fast toys than anything else , always figured I'd end up a mangled greasy spot and they could invest the insurance money.
Sufficient-Pound-442@reddit
Kids, especially younger ones, have no creativity any more. They can’t use their imaginations-they have to look everything up and find the real answer.
tvieno@reddit
I blame the "little kids attached to their plastic coated iPads" that is so common place today.
Sufficient-Pound-442@reddit
Dude, do you work for Pixar? That’s totally the Toy story five plot.
vbtodenver@reddit
You sound like a whiny gen-xer. We aren’t that old.
SparksWood71@reddit
and what do you think you sound like here?
dox1842@reddit
This trend started in the mid 2ks. I saw it happen at SEARS when the merger with Kmart happened. I notice it at other retail stores as well.
I have a question, I heard that Lowes and Home depot only hired retired professionals to work in their departments (retired plumbers to work the plumbing section, retired electricians to work the electrical etc) but that was "back in the day". Now they just hire teenagers and college students so they can pay them less. Any truth to this?
luluislulu2520@reddit
It was in the nineties that I started to see corporations using less employees. My grandmother took me to Macys a lot to buy me clothes, and I was still use to shopping there as a young adult. I remember being so turned off in the nineties in how there was less and less customer service and how corporations in general seemed to make everything go down hill and less pleasant. It just gets worse the longer they exist, it seems. I like that about places hiring retirees. I wish that were still a thing.
MerryWidowHat@reddit
It was definitely happening by the 1990s hugely. My grandmother worked at the flagship Marshall Fields in Chicago in the 1930s and pointed out the lack of customer service to me in horror through out the eighties and nineties. She had to wait on each customer like she was their maid or something and she felt that's the way any proper store should be.
ofthrees@reddit
my son and DIL combined earn four times what i did when i had my son in 1993.
i had an apartment, paid for childcare, a car payment, car insurance, gasoline, food, etc. it was tight, but i could do it on $2000 a month gross.
in their case, i'm subsidizing them because they literally cannot do it on their own, even though his car is paid off, his car is still on my insurance, both their cell phones are on my plan, and i have family accounts for streaming services. they're balancing on shit. it is only a matter of time before they move back in with me. neither of them want to, but i can only keep covering their bills for so long before it makes zero sense for them not to just move in with me.
EnjoyingTheRide-0606@reddit
Everyone is sensitive. Everything is a trigger. Young people are fragile-minded. They have no natural curiosity, grit, tolerance for boredom, discomfort or ability to figure shit out. I’m afraid of what the workforce will be like when I’m 75. They can’t drive well. No one under 25 can pay attn longer than 3 mins before they’re distracted by a device notification.
TG I saved my pennies. I have my own little slice of earth to live and die on, too, for relatively little cost.
tvieno@reddit
TL;DR
TheChewyWaffles@reddit
My god you sound like a boomer
AlmiranteCrujido@reddit
OMG yes so much boomer energy.
I'd put it as "People are more tolerant, and respectful of others feelings. They are less likely to put up with bullshit at work and less likely to be conformist."
That's what our generation fucking pioneered. Whatever, man, some of the folks here make me really prefer the "Xennials" groups.
RedditSkippy@reddit
How many of us were told to just suck it up and ignore our feelings? It wasn’t that we were less sensitive, it’s that we weren’t allowed to express feelings.
AlmiranteCrujido@reddit
Cause and effect, for sure.
Even if we got more positive messaging from our parents, the rest of the world gave us the terrible message.
Strange-Breadfruit14@reddit
Don't insult boomers he sounds like an asshat
Bokononfoma@reddit
It's hotter.
I live in Denver, and we basically skipped winter this year. Barely any snow or moisture of any kind, and it never really got cold. I think I only had to wear my winter coat a handful of times. I've been concerned about climate change for a long time, but this "winter" seriously messed with me, feeling physical dread when I think of it. We had a cold spell a couple weeks ago, and my body started feeling like winter was just starting.
ManuteBol_Rocks@reddit
Talk to the people on the East Coast about this winter. Wasn’t warm for them. But, don’t conflate weather with climate.
Of course, lots of folks gonna be warm this coming winter during the Super El Niño.
Bokononfoma@reddit
Oh, I have family that live in the lake Erie snowbelt, and the UP. I'm familiar, and would trade with the UP gladly if I could have.
And while I only mentioned this year and only Denver, this is the state wide trend, and climate change impacts high altitudes more (13,000 feet and above warming 75% faster than lower altitudes). This winter was the 2nd warmest and one of the lowest snowfall in the last 125 years. Lowest snowpack in the last 38. Denver only had 13 inches of snow thru February, and almost none of that actually stuck. We average 38, and it actually stays when it's cold. They already have instituted water restrictions, and people are terrified of fires.
This year was DIFFERENT, and it was already bad.
The_Motley_Fool----@reddit
I own property on the Oregon coast and spent a significant amount of time there over the last few years doing some remodeling. It has been incredibly dry where it's normally raining 9 months out of the year. Very different weather from when I lived there in the 1990's
vajrasana@reddit
You want help in a store? Go to Sephora. I can’t take two steps without a different employee asking if I need help. I will have 5 ppl ask me if I need anything within like 2 minutes. I seriously don’t know how they keep that many ppl employed at a store for a single shift.
But yeah, like Lowe’s or Home Depot can fuck right off. They never have anybody around when I need help.
JaninthePan@reddit
Sephora folks are really just there to keep you from stealing stuff and using up samples. Try asking them for any assistance and only a few can actually help you
More_Pineapple3585@reddit
Best Buy and other stores employ the same loss prevention strategy.
Paint-by-numberrs@reddit
I don't like being bothered in a store. If I need help, I'll ask for it.
Twisted_lurker@reddit
Lowe’s immediately came to mind when OP mentioned lack of help. I was prepared to spend $500 on a lawn mower if they just moved it off the racks. I ended up spending more at Ace.
daydrinkersunite@reddit
I can't smoke indoors anymore, not even in a bar. Schools, I get. Hospitals, I get. Restaurants, I get. But you should be able to smoke comfortably in a bar without going out in the weather.
cheap_dates@reddit
I no longer smoke cuz I can't afford it but I smoked at my desk, at work for years. Everybody did.
AlmiranteCrujido@reddit
Luckily at the coasts where I lived that was out by the time I started working in the mid 90s. Go back to the mid-80s and I remember my mom smoking at work.
AlmiranteCrujido@reddit
I remember when San Francisco banned smoking first in bars that were attached to a restaurant, and then overall. It was fucking awesome.
You can't even smoke in your own apartment around here. Having got secondhand smoke from neighbors, I'm for that.
MaximumJones@reddit
sumthymelater@reddit
No.
ABrightOrange@reddit
Changes just in the past twenty years - when I started teaching (as a career changer) in 2005, you couldn’t have visible tattoos or facial piercings. Now they are very common. A terrible change to me is all of the phone talking in public. Especially those folks who think we all want in on their convo and use FaceTime or use speaker phone in public 🙄
hells_cowbells@reddit
I keep hearing about how younger people don't like talking on the phone, but I see lots of them wandering around in public talking to people on speaker phone.
LostMyShakerOfSalt@reddit
Saw a guy in the grocery store wandering around with some hellfire preacher on speaker. Eventually he was escorted out.
Substantial_Layer_79@reddit
I miss talking to people I did business with. For example: Betty at the bank. Now, if I call the bank I'm lucky to talk to someone in the country. The same with all customer service.
Consistent_Bat_2882@reddit
Omg how the times change for the worse? What was it like to be able to buy a house for less than 90k? How was the crack in 1989?
JezebelJade1@reddit (OP)
Never did crack. My first house was $54,000. It was a beautiful, well made home with 2 br, 1 bath, huge lr, dr, eat in kitchen, full finished basement and large fenced yard with attached garage.
AlmiranteCrujido@reddit
Regional differences are crazy. My old neighbor bought in 1989 for $252,000 and our neighborhood is and was more of a working class one.
nixtarx@reddit
The times have changed, the times have changed
Humanity has lost lost its way
The people now, the people now
How they survive I don't know how
NeverEverMaybe0_0@reddit
Hi school bra straps were pretty normal in my early 80s high school.
Timely-Youth-9074@reddit
After hours, bras were shirts.
aran_maybe@reddit
https://i.redd.it/rj00u26luzyg1.gif
ChadTitanofalous@reddit
Thanks Madonna for bringing that to my adolescence!
ChadTitanofalous@reddit
Built our first house shortly after we were married while making 26k/year. Not self-built either, in a HCOL area. That house today is on the market for $560k. The only updates are a handful of solar panels on the room. Same 1994 kitchen, counters, baths, appliances.
I don't know how kids today can manage.
cheap_dates@reddit
One of my uncles was a house painter by trade. On the weekends, he would buy these dilapidated houses, way out and fix them up. I used to help him and I hated it. He retired a millionaire. He was smart in that he always bought properties in the way of new developments. I should have paid more attention.
78Anonymous@reddit
I know a young person who just qualified his undergraduate trainee program and just bought his first house. He's 21.
He's not a developer of anything, no crypto or stocks, just working in a service environment that pays decently and has limited outgoings (was still living at home).
In 1989 both my parents worked full time. My mother was office admin, my father was in life insurance sales. They only did that for about 7-8 years before relocating internationally and moving into the recreational services industry where my mother did retail and my father was an instructor. Good call and timing to leave the UK just before the bubble burst in 1990. Also an interesting time to grow up in Germany as a teenager in the nineties.
I don't recall what housing cost in the UK back then, but it wasn't much in the West Midlands. Even in the late nineties when my grandmother died her home (3bed, 2bath, front and rear garden, and decent driveway in a cul-de-sac, apparently sold for £90k. In hindsight a really bad idea for my mother and aunt (main beneficiaries) to sell it.
My parents were the most useless people in history when it comes to strategic decisions and finances.
Taekwonmoe@reddit
I am with you sister. I graduated in 1989 as well. My two adult children still live with me. One is paying off their school loans, the other one is trying to save up for a house. Neither of them have any plans to have children and I have to say I do not blame them one bit. I'm never going to ask or beg for grandchildren because personally my kids happiness and well being are the most important thing. They can do whatever they want on that front. I don't need grandchildren, I am happy enough with what I have helped create. I don't like boomers telling people they can't afford something because they've had a Starbucks or two. These old people have no idea how hard it is right now. It is so very different now than 1989 for sure.
fryerandice@reddit
As a millennial I bought a bag of avocados for $3.50 yesterday. it wasn't our toast holding us down lol.
lancerreddit@reddit
Man what fucking happened to this country.
Use to be your roommate in your early 20s and by mid to late 20s buy your own place.
Some of the younger ppl I work with in their late 30s early 40s still roomating to make ends meet.
Nothing is affordable
fryerandice@reddit
Boomers pulled up the ladder and dismantled it. You guys got to cling on, us millennials had some lucky ones, and your kids are straight fucked.
Randomwhitelady2@reddit
I think it wasn’t too great back then, at least not for me. After my $450 rent and $500 student loan, car insurance, utilities, and food my $1600/month paycheck was gone. And this is with a master’s degree. I was flat broke and paying for groceries with a credit card half the time.
mettaCA@reddit
Wow....buying a home on minimum wage. I have never heard of that before but I'm in California. The young people I know that are doing well have at least a masters degree or higher and it is in areas that pay really well, such as accounting, health services, robotics, ai, etc. And by well I mean 2 income families where they both make well over $100k a year. They are not wealthy but they can buy what they need, have families and still put money away for savings.
painterlyjeans@reddit
Never heard of that either and I’m in New England
notabadkid92@reddit
Never heard of that either
CitizenChatt@reddit
3.35 was minimum wage in 87 when I worked fast food. Manager gave me a nickel raise. $3.40
Woooohoooooo!
sentient-mist@reddit
Never owned. I'm "rent poor," living paycheck to paycheck sadly. But I enjoy DIY-ing my hair!
KBO_Winston@reddit
The bra thing is such a great reflection of how women are slightly less expected to exist in some idealized state. No, a woman's chest doesn't magically support itself on wishes, dreams, and unicorn farts.
catespice@reddit
Lots of folks aren’t surviving these days, is the answer. Especially in poorer countries or war afflicted places. But even in 1st World countries a lot of people are falling behind and will never catch up.
PragmaticPrime@reddit
Pajamas in public was an interesting one. I could care less. At least they're wearing clothes 🤷