By Lee Cataluna
Advertiser Columnist

In some ways, our grandparents and great-grandparents may have done us a disservice. As they bent their aching backs over hoes in the pineapple fields, hoisted heavy bundles of sugar cane onto weary shoulders or stayed up all night to do laundry for a little extra money, they vowed their kids and grandkids would never have to work so hard.

They wanted better for us, but they may not have realized the kind of lives they were wishing for, lives devoid of the blessing of knowing hard work.

Now here we are, years after the death of the sugar industry, so accustomed to bemoaning the lackluster economy that we've been caught unprepared for the wave of jobs that are upon us.

The Sunday job classifieds are lengthy. The construction industry is poised to explode with the building and renovation of more than 7,000 military housing units. The civilian housing market is soaring. Cruise lines are looking for thousands of workers. We should be singing in the streets.

But there are problems. Most of those jobs require skills. The new Hawai'i workforce has to be an educated and experienced lot. There isn't much out there for a recent high school graduate with no experience.

Many of those jobs require drug screening. As Advertiser reporter Kevin Dayton wrote in Sunday's edition, drug-testing laboratories recently told the Legislature that positive drug tests for methamphetamine have increased from 25 percent to 67 percent, depending on the kind of workforce groups tested. Some companies are seeing fewer applications for positions that require drug testing.

And many of the jobs available require that thing that our great-grandparents swore we wouldn't have to deal with: hard work. Ask someone what they want to do for a living and too many will tell you all the things they DON'T want to do.

"I want a job where I can set my own hours. I want a job where I can be my own boss. I want a job where I can take off early to golf three times a week and take vacations four times a year. I want a job where I don't have to answer phones, deal with complaints, fill out forms, work weekends, work holidays, wear a uniform, cut my hair, take out my eyebrow ring ..."

These days, too often, when someone describes their dream job, it's all about doing very little and getting paid very much. The American Dream is winning the lottery. It's the Megabucks in Vegas. It's "Who Wants to be a Millionaire" and "Idol." It's being so rich that you can just party all day, every day.

But having to get up every day, get to work on time, think, break a sweat, do stuff you don't want to do, stay clean and sober, defer gratification and put in a full day's work — that's no fun.

Here we are with such opportunity in front of us, and too many are in danger of squandering the chance to work hard.

Lee Cataluna's column runs Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Reach her at 535-8172 or lcataluna@honoluluadvertiser.com.