> I'm an American living in Europe and it's frustrating for me at times dealing with people who don't want to work.
I haven't seen what you experienced nearly as bad, but I think a much larger challenge is dealing with people who are content to repeatedly exercise substantially the same skillsets each year, every year. Even after I take to the trouble to mentor them with identifying what they desire for their career, aligning to their revealed preferences of what user stories they opt to deliver in team scrums, writing up suggested "getting started" lesson plans, pointing out appropriately small, simple improvements in the code base they can apply their new skills towards, and arranging for free access to one of the big technical training sites. You can lead a horse...
I haven't seen what you experienced nearly as bad, but I think a much larger challenge is dealing with people who are content to repeatedly exercise substantially the same skillsets each year, every year. Even after I take to the trouble to mentor them with identifying what they desire for their career, aligning to their revealed preferences of what user stories they opt to deliver in team scrums, writing up suggested "getting started" lesson plans, pointing out appropriately small, simple improvements in the code base they can apply their new skills towards, and arranging for free access to one of the big technical training sites. You can lead a horse...