The Kids Are Not Alright

Friends…

We need to talk about the kids.

I’ve had a lot of different jobs. Everything from tacos to coffee, warehouses to automotive repair, and a few others in between. I’ve worked with a lot of different people. Some young, some old, and some with questionable age-to-appearance ratios. But, it’s a rough scene out there with the youth of today.

In the words of the late and great George Carlin:

“Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize that half of them are stupider than that.”

That poor guy is spinning in his grave like a damn jet engine concerning the average American teenager.

Now, before everyone starts telling me all about how I sound like an old man yelling at the clouds playing music too loud on his lawn, let me explain.

I, like many others in this day and age, work two jobs. (So many jobs available in this economy, I have two of them! Har-har-fuckin-har!) For my second job, I have the privilege, the immense pleasure, and the exceedingly insulting pay package, of working evenings at my local Planet Fitness.

It’s not so bad, honestly. I hang out in my fishbowl-shaped front desk area. I bounce my homemade rubber-band ball off the floor. I walk around and feather dust the machines. I wipe sun screen lotion booty imprints off the tanning beds. Sometimes, if I get lucky, I even get to observe a couple meth-heads fighting over who was in line for the massage chairs first.

No, Carla, I don’t really care if Janelle slept with your dad. Or baby daddy. Or… Brother? It’s always hard to tell with these people.

But, I digress. We’re talking about the kids, after all.

Every year, the benevolent corporate suits, shareholders, franchise owners, and other assorted yes-men of Planet Fitness, decide to unleash a very special type of cruelty upon the dedicated staff that run their facilities. A horde of broccoli haircuts, Axe body spray, and social ineptitude assault the gym for a couple months.

I’m talking, of course, about the appropriately named “High School Summer Pass” program. On the surface, this sounds like a great idea. Keep the kids off the streets! Come work out for free! Let the violently purple color scheme of our establishment seep into the subconscious areas of your adolescent brains.

Good… Goooooood…

Aside from the obvious concerns we may have about this whole affair, the real horror comes from a realization I had just the other day.

Picture yours truly, tired dad-bod decked out in my abhorrent purple shirt. People enter, I say “Hi!” with my practiced customer service voice. I watch the clock, patiently waiting for the sweet release of 10pm.

A gaggle of teenage girls approach through the front door. Their appearance is disheveled and unkempt. They do not respond to my friendly greeting. The alpha, clearly the driving force of this pack of troglodytes, thrusts her phone toward my face and utters a guttural sound I chose to interpret as: “Please assist me, sir.”

I stare blankly, evaluating my options. Attempt to assist? Respond in kind? Perhaps thrust my own phone toward her in an effort to adhere to the customs of her people?

I decide my duty as a dedicated employee is to offer whatever helpful service I can provide. Her cohorts cluster around her, heads down as they bump into random shit while their eyes stay fixated on the phones.

“What seems to be the problem?” I ask politely.

“THIS NO WORKING,” she says, greasy hair and press-on nails clacking against the broken screen.

“Did you download the app?” I ask, trying my best not to laugh.

“I don’t know,” she responds, oblivious.

I stare, unsure of what absurdity I’ve just encountered. In retrospect, I’m not entirely sure if she could read. If you haven’t seen one of those viral clips of someone on the street asking random people to read a note card with some moderately long words while they sputter and choke, then you’re not living, my dudes.

It’s glorious.

Like watching a train full of kittens derail into a packed church. Horrifying and enlightening all at once.

As it turns out, with enough patience and resolve, I was able to guide this young woman to her ultimate goal of free gym festivities. I’m sure I’ll regret it at some point, but alas, I am a humble servant of the purple fitness hegemony for 20 hours a week.

The problem, dear friends, is that this is not an isolated incident. Literacy rates for just about everybody are down across the board. Attention spans have been diminished. Our entire way of life has devolved into some form or another of instant gratification. Push the button, get the prize. Repeat.

Now, I’m not recommending we all throw our phones away and move onto a nature commune, but it does worry me a great deal to observe these situations in public. We might expect an entire generation of young people, raised with technology more advanced than the equipment that enabled the goddamn moon landing, to be able to successfully download an app, read the instructions, and then enter a public business with confidence.

Instead, my disgruntled old self is over here holding the hands of young adults as I walk them through what is largely an automated and instantaneous digital process. I spend an obscene amount of time helping people navigate technology that is literally designed to remove my presence from the equation. The very technology that promised us the most digitally intelligent population in the history of the world is, in fact, destroying their hope of growing into strong, capable, resilient adults.

I can’t tell what’s more depressing, teens 100 years ago dying in a coal mine, or teens today too afraid to make eye contact with the guy behind the counter at a gym that looks like McDonald’s Grimace vomited everywhere.

Pray for me, folks, it’s going to be a long summer.

Thanks for reading.

I’m still a little surprised that people actually want to read these things, but I’m grateful for every subscriber, comment, and share.

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See you in the next one.

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