I think you might be on to something here. I think if you look at the class structure, in the 70s/80s/somewhat in the 90s before NAFTA, most of the kids were children of the middle class. What that meant looked different as fuck (teachers, mill workers, dog catchers, etc) but they were able to provide a decent living for the fam. You weren't rich...you might have been in the 'hood' but not in the projects so you also weren't poor. As a result, what we were taught was to always do a great job. Be it because of your reputation, integrity, building work ethic, etc...you had to "go get it" or simply put "you signed up for it, now you gotta finish it - complete work".

Nowadays, kids aren't seeing that variety in their parents or even the variety within jobs due to the nonexistent middle class. What used to be considered Upper Class jobs, is now Middle Class (IT, Lawyer, Engineer, Bi'ness, etc) and those types of jobs, come with those type of sedentary complaints that you mentioned in your post: "'my boss is wack'. Or 'my group is cool but we have to work with another group and they hire anybody over there'. Or'these sales folks be trippin'. AKA people/work relationship shit.?"