Why Don't You Try Harder?

“Please, free yourselves from your preconceptions.” That's how a Swedish McDonald's employee named Mike opens a Facebook post. Why did he write those words? Mike says he'd had enough of the judgment: he's tired of being told he lacks ambition, motivation, or intelligence just because he works almost 50 hours a week at McDonald's. The people who criticize him, though, don't know that the job is actually flexible, and that it lets him grow both professionally and personally. McDonald's isn't a dead end for him. It's part of the beginning: the fast-food job is simply a way to pay for university.

I'm sharing Mike's story because I can't stand listening to the latest self-made tycoon lecture us about work ethic. Not all Italians are lazy freeloaders. Not everyone wants to live off their parents until they're 40, and not every young person willing to work moves abroad and never comes back.

There are hundreds of examples that prove that entrepreneur wrong.

That said, it's fair to admit that a good share of recent graduates will answer the question “how's the job search going?” with some kind of complaint. In my view, the good ones are the ones who never complain, or, if they do, let determination win over self-pity. Plenty of young Italians fall into that “good” category: some start signing up with employment centers as early as 15, even while still in full-time secondary school, just to pick up occasional work. Many attend evening classes too, working by day and studying by night, pushing through and learning what real hardship feels like.

These kids try to enter the job market at such a young age to build references, climb the placement rankings, and gain professional experience, often unrelated to what they're actually studying. These steps have become almost mandatory, since most new graduates simply can't turn their investment in human capital into a job within a reasonable time, and struggle to fit into a labor market that's evolving faster, and differently, than the education they received, risking becoming, in effect, unused capital.

And the “bad” ones? The “bad” ones are the ones who keep complaining, who sit at the bar sipping coffee and smoking cigarettes, who believe money isn't earned by working but by waiting for a permanent job promised by relatives, politicians, or worse. Their real problem isn't what's around them. It's themselves: they need to want to take responsibility, put away the handkerchief for easy tears and the megaphone of professional protest, and roll up their sleeves. The only issue is that our system of values is hard to change. Few people have the courage to do manual work, the kind most consider beneath them. And yet, paradoxically, some waiters earn far more than a young trainee lawyer, the only difference being that practicing law is seen as far more rewarding than waiting tables, perhaps at McDonald's. Plenty of people in Italy are like Mike, but most fall into the “bad” category. Maybe it's a different value system, maybe Sweden is simply a different reality from ours, but I'm firmly convinced there are plenty of young Italians who, like Mike, show up every day and make sacrifices to get where they want to be.

I'm equally convinced, by the way, that it's convenient to criticize “the young” when part of the responsibility for their condition falls squarely on “the old.”