Merry Christmas Bermuda! This week my pet peeve is the laziness, poor work ethic, poor work paradigm, sense of entitlement, malaise and total lack of understanding of how to get ahead that seems to have manifested itself in the current generation of persons under-35. But guess what? I believe that my generation has created this scenario. More on this after the top 20.Getting a nice Christmas present by moving to #1 is a DJLT fave Mr Saxobeat by Alexandra Stan. This track is funky, creative, loaded with energy and will make you dance. Up to #2 is Sexy And I Know It by LMFAO. Tumbling to #3 is Moves like Jagger by Maroon 5 featuring Christina Aguilera, a catchy banger of a dance tune.Steadily improving to #4 is Love On Top by Beyonce. This is one of her better songs of late. Falling to #5 is She Will by Lil Wayne featuring Drake. Improving to #6 is We Found Love by Rihanna featuring Calvin Harris. This is one of her better hits, but I must give her production team credit. Whatever they are doing, it just works, because Rihanna is dropping hit after banging hit.Slipping to #7 is Party by Beyonce featuring Andre 3000. Down to #8 is Put Your Hands Up (If You…) by Kylie Minogue. On the way up at #9 is Countdown by Beyonce. Tumbling to #10 is Pumped Up Kicks by Foster the People.Improving to #11 is Without You by David Guetta featuring Usher, one of the hot new dance tunes on the circuit. Tumbling to #12 is Rolling In The Deep by Adele. Tumbling to #13 is Chris Brown’s hit entitled She Ain’t You.Jumping to #14, like a hungry NBA player, is last week’s essential new tune, Rain Over Me, by the Latin duo, Marc Anthony and Pitbull. This hit is well produced and you will find yourself bopping your head and singing along. Falling to #15 is I’m Into You by Jennifer Lopez featuring L’il Wayne. Down to #16 is Fly Away by Mavado. Slipping to #17 is Party Rock Anthem by LMFAO featuring Lauren Bennett & GoonRock.Now this week’s essential new tune. Entering at #18 is Levels by Avicii. You have to see the video for this hit. The song is a banger, very creative and keeps dance floors packed. New at #19 is The One That Got Away by Katy Perry. This is yet continued excellence from Katy and her team of producers, who also keep bringing hits. Holding onto the #20 spot for the final week and after a long run at the top is Give Me Everything by Pitbull, Neo, AfroJack & Nayer.Now back to this week’s topic: how the current generation of persons under-35 became the way they are. Let’s first look at a few scenarios. A young person approaches me needing a job, or a better way to put it, is that the person does not have a job. So I offer the dude some suggestions. I open the newspaper and advise him of a few positions I’ve seen advertised. One was a landscaper position and the other was a waiter. After giving me the sad story about how he can’t find a job, this young fellow has the sense of entitlement and warped mindset that he doesn’t wanna do landscaping or wait tables. It’s like he thinks those jobs are beneath him!! Are you hearing me?? A person with NO JOB actually thinks that he can turn his nose down at two jobs and feels that in this recession, the worst in Bermuda’s history, he is entitled to pick, choose and refuse?? There is something wrong.Then I ran into a young brother the other day. He is away at university and is financially-strapped, with bills up the ying yang. His credit card is maxed. His cell bill (yes, he actually has a cellphone in Canada whilst his cash situation is short) is unpaid, he can’t make his monthly credit card payments; in short he needs cash, any cash, and his parents are not able to provide much for him, or he doesn’t want to ask them for help. I told him I know a guy who owns a few restaurants who might need waiters or a host over the holidays. He said, “Oh I can’t wait tables, I can’t be a host in a restaurant, I’m not a chatty person, that’s not the job for me.” I was astounded and felt like I was wasting my time, because I actually sent my boy who owns the restaurants an e-mail to help this individual. I felt like I was wasting my time when the student told me he couldn’t or wouldn’t do restaurant work.But this phenomenon exists in so many persons. I was talking to a colleague the other day from Trinidad who reports that the same phenomenon exists in Trini! He was at home recently and could not believe that the young people in his country have the same attitudes toward work.So, my devoted and faithful readers and followers, I can only conclude that it is not only a Bermuda problem but a worldwide and generational problem, mostly with persons under the age of 35. I used to think it was persons younger but I’ve seen persons in their early 30s exhibit the same behaviours and flawed thinking.But I also conclude that my generation is responsible for this, because I’m 47 and my peer group is persons between 40 and 60, I think. Guess what? We are the people who made and raised the people under the age of 35. So whilst our parents raised us to be hardworking, diligent, humble with regard to taking any job, conscientious, with a good work ethic; something has gone wrong in that this message, work ethic and attitude did not get passed on to the current generation of persons under 35! So I blame my peer group for this.I really need to pause here and thank my mom and dad for instilling in me the work ethic that I have today. I don’t turn my nose down at work. I have an MBA and I drive a taxi, work on the front desk of a hotel and will do anything to make a dollar. My Trinidadian bredren said to me the other day that, “One must have several income streams”. This dude is an accountant, a bright, successful, clever guy who in his country wrote multiple articles for a newspaper, stacked shelves and did whatever to have those ‘multiple income streams’ about which he spoke.On another issue Bermudians, you don’t need to be xenophobic; you can learn from people from other places. Fear, dislike and hatred of guests in your country or people from other places or people with alternative lifestyles is old, passé, has no place anywhere in the world in 2011 and has to be stamped out. But I digress. What’s the solution for this poor work ethic in so many young people?The solution is to cause young people and anyone else who still has these work paradigms to be more like the mature lady featured in the newspaper earlier this week. Tired of being unemployed for six months, she humbled herself in taking the drastic step of standing on East Broadway one morning with a billboard featuring her cellphone number and announcing that she was looking for work, that she was professional, competent, etc. Since taking such a drastic step, she has had several job offers from all over the world. People have told her that her boldness, creativity are just the kind of work ethic and brilliance they want in their companies and in their staff. Imagine that?The key word there is that she HUMBLED herself. I’m zeroing in on a concept here. The concept is humility and our young people are not humble. They are victims of the success of the generation before them. During the 1980s and 1990s and right up until about 2008, we all had jobs a plenty, money was flowing in like crazy, people had three jobs and we spoiled our kids and their generation into thinking that we were rich and would be rich forever.Well, we were not rich, it was false wealth, not real wealth, because we were always one pay cheque or one tenant’s missed rent payment away from not being able to pay our mortgage, car loan on our fancy Honda CRV that was macked out with spinners and a sound system you could hear in the next parish.As a result, too many people under 35 don’t know that you have to start small, sacrifice, work hard, wait, soldier for a while, work in the trenches, pay your dues, etc. All they saw was the results, not the hard work and the sacrifices that paved the way for the success later on. I think that’s our fault because we either didn’t show them or tell them.Its not too late. Let’s tell them the story, our story, so that they can ‘commit to switch’ their flawed thinking and poor work ethic to something that is more sustainable, realistic and humble……DJLT