Have We Forgotten How To Be "Professional"?

According to a survey of young job seekers, a quarter of applicants admitted to bringing their parents to a job interview, 70% asked them for help applying for jobs and almost all successful applicants credited their parents with helping them land a job in some capacity.
Another report found that 75% of companies could not rely on some or ALL of the college graduates they hired last year to perform their role to a satisfactory level, mainly because of a lax attitude towards their responsibilities.
90% of hiring managers surveyed are now suggesting that basic professional etiquette training should be taught in schools to reverse this trend…
It’s not painting a pretty picture… but in defense of ‘Generation Brainrot’ the companies themselves have not been doing any better.
The rate of reported abuse (both physical and mental), overstepping of responsibilities and good old fashioned bad management were all higher in 2024 than they were in any other year since we started comprehensively collecting this data.
In an era where major employers spend hundreds of millions of dollars to blur the line between work-life, and make their laidback office attitude part of their brand image… maybe this shouldn’t be surprising?
But no matter who eventually gets blamed, there is now a lot of money on the line to reverse course. Some reports now estimate the uncivil behavior in the workplace is now costing the American economy 2 billion dollars… every DAY!
So have we really forgotten how to be professional? And is that actually a problem?