Gen Y: Healthy egotists or selfish parasites?
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Okay, I admit it — I don’t have kids, and I don’t know if I’d feel differently if I did. And I am about to imitate one of those fogey types that I hate — the types that start sentences with “In my day…” or “When I was your age….”
But man, the New York Times piece on the way young folks have been sailing through the recession made me gag. No jobs available? No sweat, move back with mom and dad. Jobs available, but don’t pay what you think you’re worth? No sweat, move back with mom and dad. Jobs available, but don’t offer the fun or intellectual challenge you deserve? No sweat, move back with mom and dad.
Talk about a disappointment. Remember, this generation once embodied the Great White — and black, and hispanic, and Asian — Hope.
Once described by the trend-watchers Neil Howe and William Strauss as “the next great generation” — optimistic, idealistic and destined to do good — millennials, born between 1982 and 2002, have been depicted more recently by employers, professors and earnestly concerned mental-health experts as entitled whiners who have been spoiled by parents who overstoked their self-esteem, teachers who granted undeserved A’s and coaches who bestowed trophies on any player who showed up.
As they’ve entered adulthood, they have inspired a number of books on how unmanageable they are in the workplace, with their ubiquitous iPods, flip-flops and inability to take criticism. Stories abound about them as college students, requiring 24/7 e-mail access to professors and running to Mom and Dad for help with papers or to contest a bad grade. A consensus has emerged that, psychologically, they’re a generation of basket cases: profoundly narcissistic and deprived of a sense of agency by their anxiously overinvolved parents — in short, a “nation of wimps,” as Hara Estroff Marano, the Psychology Today editor at large, has put it.
The piece goes on to expound. Even though the millennials outnumber jobs by a huge amount, they still turn up their noses if the jobs require too much of their time (no way they’d make it as olden-day law firm associates!) or pay too little (or, in the Times’ priceless terminology, don’t “match their self-assessed market value” or do not represent “an expression of their identity, a form of self-fulfillment”). Instead, they’ll just sponge off their parents for a few years — or decades — longer.
The Times piece quotes many “experts” on how this narcissism is in fact well-adjusted adaptive behavior. Yeah, well, the Times by definition has to offer balance and equivocation. I can be more direct: I think these kids are ghastly, and I blame the parents. And offer my parents as true counterpoint (I warned you I was going to do this…)
Anyone think I really wanted to spend my college summers in the typing pool of a management consulting firm? Or that my idea of a good time at Cornell was helping to write user manuals for the Office of Computer Science?
I had no choice. Why? My parents had laid down the law — City College was a stellar institution in my day, and free to boot. If I wanted to go to an out-of-town college, well, fine — except I was paying for it myself.
They were brilliant. They wanted me to understand that things weren’t mine for the taking, that if I wanted something badly I had to work for it. But they also didn’t want to look in the mirror and see cheap martinets looking back at them.
So they kept scrupulous records of how much my education cost me, and secretly matched me dollar for dollar. The day I graduated, they presented me with a bankbook for exactly half of what Cornell had cost and said “Go buy yourself a car.”
I tell that story for a bunch of reasons. First, of course, is I’m so proud of my folks for thinking of this — and of me for sticking it out. But just as important — lots of parents today let kids lay guilt trips on them, “You have so much money, why are you too cheap to share it with me?” or better still, “You spent all that time working when you should have been playing with me, now at least let me share in the fruits of your labor.” Parents who do what my parents did don’t feel guilty, because they know they are, in fact, going to give the money to the kids. But they don’t let the kids develop that disgusting sense of entitlement that makes them pariahs in the job market.
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A great disservice has been done to this generation. They are soft, and totally unprepared for the nasty turn of events that’s waiting for all of us around the corner.
It’ll be interesting to see, once their parents have passed on, who they turn to for bailouts and support…
In response to another comment. See in context »Actually the issue with turning down jobs that don’t pay enough is so we can pay pack that absolutely crushing college debt, inflated beyond belief over our lifetimes. We don’t want to work long hours because we watched our parents get ground into dust, ruining their marriages, because of the painfully long hours they were obliged to work by unscrupulous employers. We have iPods because, technologically, we blow right past you and it makes you incredibly uncomfortable. We wear flip-flops because we don’t give a shit about superficial traditions, and instead prefer to get down to brass tacks. We move in with mom and dad because the minimum wage, not raised in over a decade, won’t even pay for housing in the worst neighborhoods. Hey, we’re just working with what you gave us. THANKS.
Yeah, you are indeed -= you are working with the sense of entitlement and privilege and superiority that your parents mistakenly gave you. Better to not work at all than to work for less? Better to look like slobs as long as you are not conforming? Better to blame the world we left as you continue to live off us, rather than try to change it, the way my generation tried? Sam, there is nothing about your comment that inspires anything other than contempt in me — and if that continues to feed your ego, so be it
In response to another comment. See in context »You’re really out of touch if you think that my generation is entitled and feels superior. The number one sword of Damocles hanging over our heads is inflation. Health care costs, housing costs, fuel costs — pretty much anything made or served domestically is at a crushing level compared to the wages we are earning. I don’t think any economist has named stagflation as a certainty, but lots of people in my generation work hard and still can’t earn enough to move out. Knowing that it’s an Employer’s Market, employers know they can assign any number of hours and productivity goals they want — when they hire gets burned out, just fire them and hire someone else in the long line of needy workers. It’s pure economics. It doesn’t help that the wealth of the baby boomer’s most productive years, typically between 30 and 50 years old, was wiped out in an enormous speculative bubble. That was the inheritance of Gen Y in a very real sense.
If you want to do something to help, you should find a young person to mentor and encourage. We’re facing some really dark times and no amount of elbow grease or moonlighting is really going to do much more that paste a bandage over an infected wound. The problems our economy is facing — stagflation, globalism, competition for knowledge-based jobs from Asia — are extremely complex and people my age are caught in the middle. America’s glory days are over and we’re having to come to terms with how to reshape (and lower) our expectations without (hopefully) grinding ourselves into a financial hole.
In response to another comment. See in context »sorry, sam, but you’re still not earning much sympathy from me. I have zero complaints about kids in your generation moving back with their parents because the jobs they got don’t pay enough to afford a livable apartment — as long as they pay their parents a large amount of their pay check in rent. And the idea that you even mention your generation’s “real inheritance” at your age speaks for itself.
In response to another comment. See in context »(oh, and btw, inflation is not a major problem right now…)
Sam sez:
Actually the issue with turning down jobs that don’t pay enough is so we can pay pack that absolutely crushing college debt, inflated beyond belief over our lifetimes.
You made the debt, pay it. You could have worked to pay for your college and learned a Plan B while you were at it. Instead, most of you guys didn’t even know what you wanted to be at all, yet you start trying to get into “the right schools” when you were 10, then stomped your feet when it wasn’t Ivy League and then you stomped your feet for the loans. Pretty hurtin’.
We don’t want to work long hours because we watched our parents get ground into dust, ruining their marriages, because of the painfully long hours they were obliged to work by unscrupulous employers.
You’ll be putting in mega-hours for The Man, don’t worry. It’s called “striving for success.” Or, these days, “scratching and clawing to stay off welfare.” Only difference is you’ll be farting into cubes instead of having to do anything physical, which, as we can see from your unsightly lack of muscle tone, will suit you just fine.
We have iPods because, technologically, we blow right past you and it makes you incredibly uncomfortable.
Piss off. I’m so tired of that lameness out of you kids. There’s a difference between learning the actual rudimentary guts of a system (the way we had to, for example, when we wanted to install now full-auto bullshit like screensavers) and playing with those Tamagotchi appliances you annoy your little friends with. Twitter’s stupefying superficiality is your legacy.
We wear flip-flops because we don’t give a shit about superficial traditions, and instead prefer to get down to brass tacks.
Hmm. Would “brass tacks” be code for “working hard,” or is it just another way of saying “I don’t give a shit about looking decent?”
We move in with mom and dad because the minimum wage, not raised in over a decade
Why don’t you use your high-tech Tamagotchi gizmo and check if anything happened in 2007, 2008 and 2009.
won’t even pay for housing in the worst neighborhoods.
Then find roommates your own age who’ll put up with your utter lack of motivation and quit being a lazy fucking sponge.
In response to another comment. See in context »hey, we gotta be fair about one thing here — those Gen Y’ers wouldn’t have been worrying about the “right school” at age 10 if their parents (my cohorts, God help us) hadn’t imbued in them from pre-school the idea that this was a life and death issue. We’ve gotta do a bit of mea culpa-ing here too….
In response to another comment. See in context »Claudia sez:
We’ve gotta do a bit of mea culpa-ing here too…
The hell we do, dearie. I’m sick of that one too. Until the mysterious “they” start letting up with the anti-corporal-punishment BS, it’s hopeless. Never has such a massive group so thoroughly needed a good smart slap on the butt or fifteen.
They’re the Ecstasy Generation, too, you know –even bigger wiseass jerks, thinking everyone wants to hear the awfulest of truths. I remember when cocaine was going mainstream and all my homies were starting to get all mean and short-tempered. That was nothing compared to this crap. They need the fear of God, end of story, and I will never relent, period. Begin talking in random tut-tut sentences to sway me; you will not. Wake me when the beatings commence.
In response to another comment. See in context »yeah, friend, but it was our generation that was supposed to be administering that massive slap on the butt. We didn’t.
In response to another comment. See in context »Yale had (and maybe still has) a student-aid system that injected a bit of reality: The first $800 (this was the late ’50s) was a student job. The next increment was a loan, and finally cam grant money.
But there was some hypocrisy involved, too: Yale’s stated reason for the job portion was “to help scholarship students realize the value of their time.” A fine idea, but I knew the my time after graduation would be worth far less, at least in monetary terms, than that of some classmates who didn’t need scholarships and would step right into high-salaried jobs in Daddy’s company or with someone else from the same country club.
It would have been less hypocritical to simply say the bursary jobs were a way of making us realize the value of our scholarships and of making the available scholarship money available to more of us.
On the other hand, Yale’s rationale would have made lots of sense if applied to everyone.
Sorry, Ivan, I don’t agree. Yale did for you scholarship students what my parents did for me — gave you a sense that you can in fact earn what you want, rather than wallow in envy of the rich kids. There is nothing hypocritical about helping poor and middle-class kids put a value on their time, just because spoiled rich kids don’t have to.
In response to another comment. See in context »You can’t really blame the kids for their behavior; it’s been cultivated by their parents since the day they were born. I have two teenaged kids and am completely astounded by the wimpy, permissive parenting I see around me which, as you point out, is doing this generation no favors. Perhaps I’m a throwback to an earlier generation, but I think kids really need to understand that (a) the world doesn’t revolve around them and (b) fostering independence should be a parent’s main goal. We all make mistakes, but constantly being a safety net so junior doesn’t feel the pain of falling and failing is not helping him/her to realize that paying one’s dues is a part of life. I also make it clear to my kids that “my house, my money, my rules” will apply for as long as they choose to live under my roof. Pretty soon, they’ll realize that moving out will mean they can take my advice, but they won’t have to follow it. A huge badge of independence if there ever was one.
Now, Mr. Fletcher, above, does raise an interesting point: college and housing have become so insanely expensive that the average debt-laden graduate just simply can’t make ends meet.
But I will tell you that in my day (early 80’s), I had friends who chose career paths with notoriously low-paying entry-level jobs. But instead of whining they did two things: they took on second jobs on the weekends and they lived with multiple roommates in less desirable sections of NYC. In doing so, they had less time to blow their money on beer and nightlife, but they had their financial independence.
But I certainly can blame the kids without absolving the parents of guilt. There comes a point in life when you can no longer blame your parents for who you are. I do not give abused children the right to abuse as adults, I do not give battered children the right to beat me up as adults. By the same token, I do not absolve spoiled children of guilt for becoming spoiled adults — they are old enough to recognize what their parents did, and to rebel against it.
And your last graf totally negates the one where you say Mr. Fletcher raises an interesting point. Yeah, they have a lot of debt. So? I have no sympathy for the mentality that says if I can’t pay it all off within a year, by getting a job that pays me $250,000, then I won’t bother paying it down at all. I wonder whether these kids would have sympathy for someone on welfare who refuses to take a job that pays less than $90,000 a year. Somehow, I doubt it…
In response to another comment. See in context »What I was trying to get at, but perhaps fell short, is that the level of debt kids have to take on today is, as a percentage of future income, probably far greater than ours was. So, they should indeed do the right thing and do what it takes to pay it back, but they can expect to have that second job/roommates/whatever for far longer than we had to have them. Again, not an excuse for the bank of Mom and Dad to give indefinite support, but something we as a society should be thinking about in terms of insisting they get a college education while making the debt load a reasonable one to pay back before they hit the age of 30.
In response to another comment. See in context »okay, we meet in the middle. Agreed.
In response to another comment. See in context »It’s not a matter of whether you pay off a loan in ten years or a year. It’s a matter of meeting your month to month financial obligations while still attempting to pay off a comically high student loan.
To be quite honest, I feel like college has become a negative financial gain. You’re better off trying to make it with a high school or vocational diploma and just have lowered expectations for your standard of living throughout your life. But, that’s a real nightmare scenario in our economy, which is 70% consumer spending.
In response to another comment. See in context »Our economy is 70% consumer spending? Not sure what that means….
In response to another comment. See in context »If you’re not sure what that means, then get educated. “The gross domestic product (GDP) is the generally accepted measure of the size of the national economy. It is the sum of investment, personal consumption, government spending, and net exports. Personal consumption, at 70 percent, is the largest component of GDP.” http://www.hoover.org/research/factsonpolicy/facts/4931661.html
Basically, it means if people lower their expectations for what they want out of life, a very real possibility according to pretty much all economists, then the economy will be damaged for years. You really don’t understand basic economics? Seriously?
My comment about an inheritance is, of course, speaking on a national scale. It’s what the baby boomers got from their hard working, world-war-fighting parents. That period of wealth the baby boomers were raised into did not get there by accident. What is Gen Y getting from our boomer parents? Not much, as twenty years of accumulated investment wealth went down the drain. That was money that could have paid for infrastructure, research, any number of things. Instead, Gen Y will have to start over from what ever is left after the boomers finish off the last social security money.
Finally, to your earlier point, YES inflation is a very, very real problem right now. Just because we can get cheap stuff from China and Asia does not mean we don’t have ravaging inflation for goods and services produced domestically. Housing (duh), health insurance, school tuition, professional services, fuel, ad infinitum are inflating beyond belief. Due to the structure of the Federal Reserve, we don’t have a South America style currency ballooning. We’re still dealing with some pretty bad economic times.
I begin to feel like you’re speaking from a position of reading a story in the NYT (congratulations!) and otherwise, complete ignorance. I would encourage you to peer into the workings of our nation’s financial situation, and ask, WHY are things the way they are?
In response to another comment. See in context »I think there’s some middle
I’m a little younger than Claudia and also have no kids — and have no patience with adults living with their parents. If you are physically or mentally disabled and cannot work, maybe. If you can find paid work, you can rent a house or an apartment and find a way to make your share of that total rent $300 or $600. You won’t be buying Manolos or any of the stupid garbage that all the baby Hollywood stars wear or maybe you won’t even OWN an Iphone because….they cost money. Money you need, instead and only, for rent and groceries.
I lived on $350 a month in Toronto, one of the most expensive cities in North America, while in college, which I paid for myself. My rent was $160. Then I paid for groceries. There wasn’t much money after that. I paid for my phone and an answering service which I needed because by sophomore year I was writing freelance for national magazines because…I needed money!
My parents have never once offered me the possibility of moving back home, then or later when I had some tough times. I earned money, I saved it (didn’t I?) and it was up to me to figure it out. I know people my age or a few years younger who have even sold their blood. Some people are too proud to run home to their parents.
I overheard a 10 yr old girl yesterday in Manhattan shrieking (?! WTF?) at her mother halfway down the block. Her tantrum was what you’d expect from an exhausted 2-year-old. The mother did nothing to shut how down nor discipline her, but begged feebly from 15 feet away.
My partner and I are staggered at the way kids and teens and young adults behave — because their parents want to be their “pals.” Thank God we don’t have to hire or manage these paragons of self-control.
Life is tough. If you find the cost of living so terrible, tell your elected officials and get them to do something about it. Oh, they won’t? Hm.
Way to go, Caitlin! You and I reached the same ends through different means. I moved back with my parents for three years after I graduated. We had a big fight about it — they insisted this was my home, and they would not take my money. I said that I was an adult, and would not be willing to live there as their child (and thus subject to their rules) and that they must accept rent as the price of my independence. I won. And the day I could afford my own cramped studio apartment, I was out of there.
In response to another comment. See in context »Sorry, Sam, lousy writing on my part (which embarrasses me a lot more than any economic ignorance). I meant, what does the 70% consumer spending figure have to do with your Poor Me attitude. And you answered that in your comment.
That doesn’t, of course, mean I agree with your answer. I do not worry that our economy will be harmed if you and yours decide that what you want out of life is a job with easy hours and very high pay, and that you will settle for nothing less. You sound very much like Lloyd Blankfein specifically (we’re doing God’s work) and the Wall Street crowd in general (our industry is essential to the thriving of the capitalistic system, and thus it is essential that you pay me megamillion bonuses). My lack of sympathy for your stance does not connote a lack of economic understanding on my part, simply a very different value system and world view.
I will also point out to you that the Baby Boom lasted from 1946 through 1964, which means that “boomers” actually lived through very different circumstances, depending on age. Quite a number of us older boomers (I’m born 1947 — wish me a happy birthday on June 11) were born to parents who immigrated to this country from Hitler-ravaged Europe, and who gave us experience-rich childhoods but not goods-rich ones. Many others were born to returning soldiers, who also had to struggle — and we struggled along with them. They had to “start over”, much as you complain you guys will have to. We inherited an ethic of hard work from that generation, not just an infrastructure of new highways. That’s the “inheritance” I see lacking in Millennials.
I don’t have a Poor Me attitude. I live with my wife, working hard every day to help not only my wife, but my parents and siblings as well, all in the same boat of financial hardship. My attitude is all about numbers — it is far more costly to live now than it was “back then.”
I saddens me to see someone write about business and yet not even have a working knowledge of how business works. Sure, you can write about management, and employees, and marketing, till the cows come home. If you don’t understand what economic forces cause people to get out of bed and sell their time and their products, why bother?
You insult me by comparing me to Blankfein. He and his comrades used the liquidity of the baby boomers to enrich themselves, at a generation’s expense. What I’m talking about is Economics 101: If people buy less stuff, and less services, then it follows that people are making less money. This was true from the moment people created currency. I can’t believe I’m having to educate a so-called business writer on this, and I can assure you that Wall Street is entirely periphery to this process, but if the country doesn’t find some way to raise wages in a meaningful way, then it logically follows that our economy will shrink and everyone will have, collectively, less. (Seriously, how can you not understand this?)
Also, how can you not understand the difference between individual and collective? You generalize on the values of Gen Y with an incredibly broad brush (somewhat understandable, as it has become quite fashionable to bash inexperienced young people) Yet, you can’t seem to understand that by their very nature, economies are collective trends, and the individual experiences you had are pretty meaningless when talking about GDP, inflation, wages, and employment. There are always exceptions to general rules, as I’m sure you and I agree. But if we are to discern a viable path to sustainable employment (which is what this entire discussion is about) then we need to come to grips with policies that can work on the collective scale. Simply charging the young to scrape by and Get Our of Our Nest will not work because the economy is broken.
You further stretch my ability to take you seriously with your last comment: “We inherited an ethic of hard work from that generation, not just an infrastructure of new highways. That’s the “inheritance” I see lacking in Millennials.” Um, excuse me, but that begs a questions, doesn’t it? Why didn’t the boomers pass that on to Gen Y? Are you… are you actually taking responsibility for the failures of your children?! How very adult of you! :-O
I would certainly never question your decision to not have children, but perhaps you could spend some time with some caring parents, and some people from Gen Y? My wife, who is from Brazil, came from a place where children are EXPECTED to live with their parents until marriage. And marriage in Brazil happens late into life, into ones 30s. The parents don’t consider it a burden, but a privilege to raise their children well and send them into the world prepared and financially ready for what’s thrown at them. My wife’s parents are incredibly loving people who continue to help their children well into old age, because they know that that is how a strong, caring family is built, and they know they can rely on their children to help them when they are very old.
I think you would reconsider what you’re calling “spoiled” were you spend some time in their shoes, and show compassion for the hard times that will shape the rest of our lives. There’s no easy way out of the situation we’re in, and I can vouch for my generation: Despite our inexperience and naivete, we’re good people who are well-educated and, yes, we do work hard.
In response to another comment. See in context »Interesting comment, in many ways. You’re right, of course — it simply did not occur to me that you were a married man, struggling to make a home with another adult, and perhaps some young ‘uns.
In response to another comment. See in context »We are products of our cultures. I speak only of the modern American middle class culture of today. I spent last night at an engagement party in Hassidic Brooklyn — where children are absolutely expected to stay at home until they marry, anything else would be considered a sacrilege. That’s their culture, not mine. Brazil is your wife’s culture, not the one we are arguing over.
You say I should mentor a youngster — I’ll start with you. You make some very good arguments. But you don’t enhance them by attacking my education or savvy, and assuming that my disagreement with you could only stem from lack of understanding. Secondly, perhaps some issues should be raised as questions rather than pronouncements — was it your decision not to have children, Claudia (no, couldn’t), do you have many cousins with Gen Y children (yes), are they caring parents (yes), do you spend time with them and their families (yes). Then we can argue from there.
And lastly, you do not help your case by accusing me of generalizing (mea culpa) and then proceeding to generalize about your generation where it suits you (tua culpa, or however that’s spelled — there’s my lack of education again)
I think it’s your attitude from the very beginning that I find rankling. “Gen Y: Healthy egotists [huh?!]] or selfish parasites?” It’s mean and belittling. It’s meant to scare people. Your generation has so much more experience and life knowledge than us, and you choose to belittle us that way? Really? How about this headline: “Gen Y: Inexperienced in dealing with tough issues.” We are your children, not parasites, god damn it.
In response to another comment. See in context »That criticism I don’t accept, Sam. A headline is meant to draw people into an argument — and in this case, also to click on the link and read what I think was a very interesting article that raised exactly that question
In response to another comment. See in context »Many of you I would be proud to call my children. Many of you are parasites. I will not generalize if you will not — but understand that the two are not mutually exclusive
I’m sorry to say it, but this is just another NY Times piece meant to make it’s core readers (born before 1982) feel good about themselves.
Sure, my generation is spoiled. So spoiled we actually get annoyed that the older generation (you know, the one that thought it was OK to take all those irresponsible mortgages) is always telling us that all they needed to get into whatever profession they wanted was a “willingness to starve” (that’s from Claudia’s profile).
Imagine that, all they needed was to want jobs, and they could have them!
And then they raised their kids telling them these incredible stories about how all they needed was a college degree and the “willingness” to work, and they could get the job of their dreams.
Nowadays, to find a job a young person has to be willing, well-connected, lucky and not just “willing to starve”, but willing to work for free — because paying for someone without professional experience is unheard of.
So maybe the Times is right. Maybe the jobs crisis has revealed the “Millenials” as a spoiled bunch. But we’re not nearly as spoon-fed and entitled as those who came before us.
They were entitled to jobs just because they were willing to work!
Bravo.
In response to another comment. See in context »I beg to differ, Graham. If anything, it makes those born before 1982 — a.k.a. those who birthed the post-’82 crowd — look aghast at what they hath wrought.
In response to another comment. See in context »And re: my profile — don’t generalize from it, m’friend. All I was saying — am saying — in that little squib is that, back then, there was nothing glamorous about journalism, you didn’t need to have a particular talent or “in” to get a job, you just had to be willing to work cheap. My first job I got paid $105 an hour; the editor’s secretary, with a high school education, got paid $125. I was being modest, saying I broke into journalism at a time when that was easy to do. I would not have said that if I’d had my sights set on being a doctor or investment banker
$105 a day ain’t bad these days.
Last year when an Applebees opened at Fordham Plaza in the Bronx, 6,000 people applied for jobs which paid between $10 and $15 an hour. Most of the front-end jobs went to millenials with college degrees.
It was just like the Times said, just a bunch of entitled college-educated kids turning their noses up at jobs.
In response to another comment. See in context »My dad told me that during the Great Depression, you needed a college degree to become a Macy’s sales clerk.
In response to another comment. See in context »That’s not a typo? $105 an hour is an incredibly large sum. I have a master’s and the best I can hope for in my local economy seems to be downwards of $20 an hour.
In response to another comment. See in context »Damn it, when will I learn to type? Of course I meant $105 a week. I assure you, if I’d been making $105 an hour, I would NEVER have moved in with mommy and daddy
In response to another comment. See in context »Let me guess: a loaf of bread or a cup of coffee cost less than a quarter back then, and you could buy a nice new car for under $3000, or a starter home for $15,000. These days, you’re ahead of the game if you’re making $500 a week at your first post-college job, that loaf of bread costs $2-3, the nice new car is $30k, and that first home is $120k-175k. The only thing that’s gotten much cheaper is all the consumer crap (electronic gadgets included) that used to be made in America but is now made by some poor fool in China who dreams and strives and kills himself to get a promotion, so that he can someday make $50 a week and afford to move out of the company dormitory. Our health care is vastly more expensive (growing far faster than inflation), gas and other utilities are more expensive, though about on pace with inflation, and college education is of course insanely more expensive (even working and taking full advantage of financial aid while at Cornell you’d certainly have over $100,000 in debt by the time you graduated, if you could even get the financial aid you needed to stay in school these days). So today we’re making five times what you were making back then, and yet our expenses are more than ten times what you had. You struggled back then, even moved in with your parents because your $105 a week wasn’t enough. Puts it into perspective, doesn’t it?
Maybe it’s not that our generation is lazy and entitled, it’s that enjoying a middle class lifestyle is no longer an option, and working our asses off to enrich people we hate is a lot less appealing when all we’ll get for it is a lifestyle vastly poorer than the one your generation has enjoyed. Just a thought.
In response to another comment. See in context »[...] Gen Y: Healthy egotists or selfish parasites? – Claudia Deutsch … [...]
Claudia,
talk about living in glass houses. When our generation was in our 20’s, we were dropping acid and freaking out. As I recall our parents and their peers didn’t approve either. I think the sociology by anecdote that typifies NYT coverage serves you poorly here. A second’s Google will find you plenty of pre-Christian Greeks complaining about the latest generation; I’m afraid you’ve made yourself a cliche.
As for me, I’m proud of my millenial children and I respect their peers, many of whom are fighting our wars for us (apropos of Memorial Day).
in my defense, i admitted up front I hated folks who talked about “in my day” etc. and knew I was turning into a cliche even as I typed. But remember, cliches become cliches because they are true….
In response to another comment. See in context »I don’t think it’s selfish or unreasonable to expect to be able to afford a middle-class lifestyle within a few years of graduation from college. You know, owning a small comfortable home, saving for retirement, making a car payment on a modest used car, maybe an inexpensive computer every few years. Having a standard of living similar to what our parents were able to afford at our age. Does that make me self-entitled?
Yet here I am, making less money than I did just five years ago, scraping by, struggling every single month. No fancy dinners, no going out drinking every night or vacations. Christ, my parents still have to buy my tickets to go visit them. I am every bit as frugal as my parents ever were in the hardest of times, yet I’m just barely getting by. I suppose I could take your advice and get another job, but every single job posting gets 100+ responses, and it was hard enough finding the jobs I have been able to find the last couple years, selling pest control for less than minimum wage, digging holes in the ground for $10 an hour. All around me is the same thing, smart, talented people who give it their all approaching 30 and without a damn thing to show for it, struggling and getting nowhere. We’ve got young lawyers working in the same restaurants they worked in to put themselves through college because they can’t find work, young teachers who go years of odd-jobs to get by while they try to find work, writers and journalists entering the market right in the middle of the collapse of the industry, MBAs working as security guards. You clearly have no idea what it’s like out there.
Inflation’s been under-reported for decades now, and it’s caught up with us. Even with the figures we’re given, wages haven’t increased since 1970, though productivity is up 90% in that time. We’ve got unemployment over 30% for college-age adults and over 50% for high schoolers yet you think this is because we’re lazy? Look around you! There is a massive economic disaster going on and you have the nerve to blame the victims. It’s disgusting. Abusive employment practices are the norm and we’ve got a government system that is so corrupted that even the modest improvements your generation were able to achieve are basically out of reach. Our generation bought into the Obama hype machine, worked tirelessly to get him elected, and he’s done nothing for us, just another Clinton, throwing scraps to the proles to keep them quiet.
Your generation had the benefit of a robust economy with ample access to the middle class, and you squandered it, let it fall prey to rapacious corporate villains and financial hucksters who buy and sell politicians like party favors. Your generation drove the economy off the cliff, not ours. We have to live with it, and we’re a lot more pissed about it than you think.
This is a great post! Thank you for putting it better than I could.
In response to another comment. See in context »I am every bit as frugal as my parents ever were in the hardest of times, yet I’m just barely getting by.
Good on you if you’re doing it on your own. Despite any curmudgeonizing you may have seen here, don’t think GenX-and-alders don’t know how difficult it is for you.
This downturn will swallow whole a lot of people, but if, somehow, some way, you can see it as an opportunity to lay the foundation to do what you really love, you’ll do fine. Never has there been a better opportunity to eschew the corporate teat and do unto yourselves. Now get the fuck out there and kick some ass.
Your generation drove the economy off the cliff, not ours. We have to live with it, and we’re a lot more pissed about it than you think.
Really? So what’ll you be doing about it, tweeting? When you’re ready to mobilize, there’ll be plenty of X’ers and Boomers tossing bricks in the same windows. And don’t think for one second that your generation couldn’t spawn the same handful of greed-crazed criminals.
Revolution is as easy as a brick in a cop’s face. Don’t blame previous generations for standing around in shock over all this crap while you fatties grumble like you wouldn’t have been equally blindsided and that that somehow absolves and anoints you.
Do you really think previous generations were totally jacked about working the same stupid drone job all their lives? We weren’t handed independence, we had to put up with bullshit every single day. So, kick ass, dude, and make your way. Kick all the ass you see, until there’s none left. Put down the $5 latte, ignore your stupid fucking iPhone and kick some fucking ass.
In response to another comment. See in context »Are you… um, are you saying we should do violence to police? Am I getting this right?
Otherwise, good advice. My wife and I previously put into practice the advice you’re giving. I’m on the phone every day making sales calls and looking for prospects with my sister in our little business. My wife owns her own business that, after just one year, is almost to the point of covering all our financial basics, which includes an apartment in a nice neighborhood. Yeah, definitely, there’s going to be strong Gen Ys on the other side, and I do wonder if they’d all be better off starting little micro-enterprises.
In response to another comment. See in context »Are you… um, are you saying we should do violence to police? Am I getting this right?
Jesus, do you bunch of fucking sallies even have an underground press these days, or does your rebellion come wholly from tweets from uppity emo-metal bands?
Otherwise, good advice. My wife and I previously put into practice the advice you’re giving. I’m on the phone every day making sales calls and looking for prospects with my sister in our little business. My wife owns her own business that, after just one year, is almost to the point of covering all our financial basics, which includes an apartment in a nice neighborhood. Yeah, definitely, there’s going to be strong Gen Ys on the other side, and I do wonder if they’d all be better off starting little micro-enterprises.
Exactly. Now shut your computer off, right now, don’t wait, and kick some ass. Kick that ass until it stays kicked.
In response to another comment. See in context »Okay, we’re getting a little off-topic, but Twitter isn’t as useless and vapid as you think– it all depends who you’re following. I get better, timelier, more important news and articles there than I do anywhere else, as well as info about events happening I might want to actually go to, including info about local protests and flashmobs that’s hard to find anywhere else. It’s a very useful tool for rapidly disseminating personally relevant information. The revolution will most certainly be twittered.
That said, revolution by means of mass uprising with or without violence is a fool’s game in this high-tech police state, and especially with rigid corporatist control of all broadcast media ready to paint you as terrorists, and spineless Democrats willing to go right along with that assessment. I’m not against it on principle, I just think it’s a recipe for giving the right wing ammunition to use against us, particularly in a situation as bad as this. It sure didn’t seem to do much good back in the day, and it’s a lot worse now. If we wind up in a sovereign debt crisis and we can no longer maintain order, that would be a good time to try a mostly non-violent revolution, though in that event you can be assured that the right wing would push for their own takeover by force or threat of force. Regardless, this is the center of global corporate power, and we have to assume that the US will stand unless the entire system collapses.
The fact is, this was all foreseeable, and there were people on the left and the right who did see it coming 30 years ago. But then, as now, they had no meaningful media presence, they had no sway in politics, and they were largely ignored by the masses. What good’s a few humorless naysayers off in the corner compared to a field full of well paid cheerleaders?
In response to another comment. See in context »Okay, we’re getting a little off-topic, but Twitter isn’t as useless and vapid as you think– it all depends who you’re following. I get better, timelier, more important news and articles there than I do anywhere else, as well as info about events happening I might want to actually go to, including info about local protests and flashmobs that’s hard to find anywhere else. It’s a very useful tool for rapidly disseminating personally relevant information. The revolution will most certainly be twittered.
I can’t argue with that. But do pardon me if I mention the signal-to-noise hovering in the 0.00001 percentile on the goddam thing. That’s a lot of distraction, boy.
That said, revolution by means of mass uprising with or without violence is a fool’s game in this high-tech police state
You have to try anyway. The Cochabamba protesters knew what they were facing. So did Gandhi. Try recruiting one of the Kardashian sisters to stand in front of a foreclosed home. There’d be no great loss if Blackwater whipped out their chain guns. People would write books!
In response to another comment. See in context »Again, getting the most out of twitter all depends on who you’re following. If you’re serious about only following people who post relevant stuff, your signal-to-noise will be very low. It doesn’t matter if the bulk of tweets are about justin bieber (whoever that is) or where people went to lunch, because you only follow people you want to follow. And it takes hardly any time to skim your tweets, so the half or two-thirds that isn’t totally awesome really doesn’t impact your time compared with the quality of the remainder.
There have been people trying to build a revolution for decades. Who are they? What are their ideas? What organizations have they formed, what sort of protests have they run? What successes have they had? I’d be surprised if you can think of anything beyond the WTO riots. Why? Because nothing else from the hard left has gotten significant broadcast media coverage in 30 years, which like it or not, represents the bulk of media consumption even here in the internet era.
I say that if we want to build a revolution we need to build economic infrastructure.
In response to another comment. See in context »“Revolution is as easy as a brick in a cop’s face.”
Amen brother.
In response to another comment. See in context »Sam, Uriah, esaeger, you are having a spirited discussion here, you don’t need me butting in. But I’ve got to add at least one cent, if not two. Those Gen Y’ers who are trying to get by and can’t — you have my full sympathy. But in the same way that you very justifiably resent my appearing to tar all of you with the same spoiled-brat brush, don’t lay all of the greed and corruption at the door of me and my age cohorts. Lloyd Blankfein et al may be my generation — but the actual traders, the guys doing the deals that benefit no one but themselves, that rake in the huge bonuses, many of them are in their early 30s. There are bad apples in all our generational barrels, and I get furious with all of them. This particularly discussion is about Gen Y — but I’m certainly on record castigating the greed that is spanning generations on Wall Street.
I can agree with you wholeheartedly on that point! I’ve met exactly those people you describe, and there isn’t a thought in their heads, collectively.
In response to another comment. See in context »oh, that would be an improvement — there are many thoughts in there heads, all of them geared to making Ayn Rand look like a socialist!
In response to another comment. See in context »Ugh, Ayn Rand is the worst thing to happen to America. RIP Post-modernism.
In response to another comment. See in context »uh oh — second time in a row we’re agreeing.
In response to another comment. See in context »I realize I’m weighing in on this debate a little late, but I just want to point out a section from that article that you – Claudia – decided not to quote:
“These emerging adults may be off-putting to a worried 40-something — their sense of entitlement and their lack of humility are somewhat hard to take — but they’re not necessarily maladapted. On the contrary, with their seemingly inexhaustible well of positive self-regard, their refusal to have their horizons be defined by the limitations of our era, they just may bear witness to the precise sort of resilience that all parents, educators and pop psychologists now say they view as proof of a successful upbringing.
It may be that this resilience — this annoying yet admirable ability to stay positive in depressing and frightening times — has nothing to do with the parents. Perhaps it’s a result, as some longtime observers of this generation have suggested, of growing up in an era of almost unremitting ambient anxiety: school years spent in the shadow of Columbine, 9/11 and, lately, widespread parental job losses. Maybe chronic unease has simply raised this generation’s tolerance level for stress, leaving it uniquely well equipped to deal with uncertainty.”
I just thought it was an interesting counter-point, even if it does make us all sound like delusional, rainbow-eyed morons. Adaptability is important, especially in an ultra-accelerated culture.
Also, the article quotes Jean M. Twenge, a leading researcher in the issues facing this generation. Have you read her books, Claudia? I don’t mean this to sound patronizing, but I suggest you do, if you haven’t. What you’ll find, undoubtedly, is fuel for your position (that we’re narcissistic and spoiled), but you’ll also be informed about the specifics of what that means.
It’s not just that we’re waiting to be pandered to; it means we WERE pandered to by a generation that believed their children were consumer products: the more unique, the better. That’s a generalization, but it’s one backed up by the kind of research Twenge et al have done: the cause & effect of the whole what-is-with-this-generation question. In essence, that the narcissistic trend didn’t start with Gen Y, but was learned. It’s informative stuff, whether it reinforces your position or not.
(Btw, apart from Twenge’s books, I’d suggest Branded by Alsion Quart; Quarterlife Crisis by Alexandra Robbins & Abby Wilner; No Logo by Naomi Klein; The Dumbest Generation by Mark Bauerlein. Those should run a good gamut of pro-to-anti-Gen Y for a good balance on the subject.)
hey, no fair — it was that counterpoint argument that I was referring to in the question headline –that’s the healthy egotist part. And I’ve been arguing throughout this comment stream that in fact whether these traits are positive (adaptive) or negative(parasitic), they represent learned behavior, learned mainly from their boomer parents, many of whom sacrificed discipline and sanity at the altar of building “self esteem”
In response to another comment. See in context »I’m not certain whether this is your own argument, or the argument you extracted from the NYT.
“Even though the millennials outnumber jobs by a huge amount, they still turn up their noses if the jobs require too much of their time (no way they’d make it as olden-day law firm associates!) or pay too little (or, in the Times’ priceless terminology, don’t “match their self-assessed market value” or do not represent “an expression of their identity, a form of self-fulfillment”). Instead, they’ll just sponge off their parents for a few years — or decades — longer.”
Law firm associates in the old days started with billable hour requirements substantially lower than the 1950 I started at. They did research in books instead of online, and were generally expected to accomplish less actual work in their first three years than modern associates. The firm business model is currently built on the idea that associates should be chewed up and thrown aside in the pursuit of profits for senior partners – please see the profits per partners at the top law firms after the revenue decreases of 2009 that resulted in substantial layoffs for young associates.
The crux of your piece, as I’m reading it, is that my generation doesn’t hustle (in the street hustling fashion, not the football fashion) as much as our elders. I respectfully (and vehemently) disagree. The difference between college (and grad school) graduates in now compared to thirty years ago is the amount of debt. My father borrowed $800 for a four year engineering degree in the 70s, and the same degree in 2001 cost me almost $70,000. I brought in around $30,000 during undergrad, and while I could have earned a little more during college, I’m sure I would have learned almost nothing. I have a friend who is a two-time Iraq veteran who owes around 50K on her bachelors and masters degrees, even after the education credits.
The cost of an education nowadays and the fact that it’s essentially a requirement for any job prevents us from competing with the experiences of prior generations.
Intergenerational comparisons actually ignore that we compete with more college and job applicants than ever before, compete for entry-level work with people who’ve been laid-off after 5 or 15 years of doing the same work, and the costs of recovering from our educational and life mistakes takes a lot longer to earn our way out of (http://ivyleaguedandunemployed.com/2010/02/03/breaking-a-college-degree-isnt-really-worth-that-much/)
I sympathize, I genuinely do. And the problem is not just facing you recent grads — it’s hitting high school seniors who need summer jobs and such to help pay household expenses and pave the way to go to college (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/01/business/01jobs.html?ref=todayspaper)
In response to another comment. See in context »By way of saying…
Someone who hustles and still can’t get ahead has my full sympathy. Someone who sits back and says, until I find the perfect job, with the perfect hours, I’ll let my parents support me, does not. I don’t claim to know what percentage of your generation falls into which category. But it sure ain’t single-digit
I think more telling than any statistic is that (at least in law) the graduates between 2008 and 2011 are being called the lost generation rather than generation Y or millenials or the like. Some of the problem is absolutely that people are unwilling to take work they view as beneath them. On the other hand, I know a lot of licensed attorneys and college graduates who feel like they’ve been forced to lie about their actual qualifications to get a foot in the door for entry level work.
The lasting problem is that, in a few decades, most of today’s college graduates will be at the same level (or below) those graduating in the next decade, in terms of earnings and professional development. To again cite the NYT, by way of ivyleaguedandunemployed:
In response to another comment. See in context »“Where you start out in your career has a big impact on where you end up. When jobs are scarce, more college grads start out in lower-level jobs with lower starting salaries. Academic research suggests that for many of these graduates, that correlates to overall lower levels of career attainment and lower lifetime earnings. [...] For many undergraduates, especially those with large student debts, graduate school would be prohibitively expensive.”
http://ivyleaguedandunemployed.com/2010/05/29/new-york-times-to-college-grads-your-future-is-bleak/
We do not disagree at all. I’m the first to admit — and do so in my profile, as some commenters have noted — that we leading-edge baby boomers had it a lot easier. By the time the world discovered how darn many of us there were, we already had our jobs. I’ve readily admitted that someone your age could not break into journalism with a simple undergraduate in child psychology, as I did. And I also recognize that the $2500 a year — including room and board! — I paid for my college education is ridiculously cheap, and that I could not have worked my way through Cornell today.
In response to another comment. See in context »BUT…
Today I would have gone to a local college, because out of town Ivy was too prohibitively expensive. I would have stayed with my parents and insisted on paying whatever rent I could (as I did, all those decades ago). Or, I would have grabbed a few friends and taken a small apartment together in some ungentrified part of Queens or the Bronx.
All by way of saying, you guys are facing obstacles we didn’t face. And more power to you if you overcome them. But I still will not offer a lick of sympathy to any of you who say, this is not fair, the boomers left me a rotten world, i refuse to pay my own way or otherwise work to improve it until the absolutely perfect situation drops in my lap. Again, I am NOT saying all of you are doing that — I’m just saying I have minimum sympathy and maximum contempt for those who are.
My first two years after college, I lived with my parents, which allowed me to take an interesting job that looked like a career path (and could have been, had I not chosen otherwise) but paid 10% over diddley-squat.
I also started freelancing in my spare time. And THAT was what led me to my own apartment.
In response to another comment. See in context »Maybe this will make you feel better, Claudia.
Despite what the angry media diatribe and subsequent blog posts like this one say, Gen Y isn’t just a bunch of flip-flopping, couch-surfing, fat-and-lazy kids.
We do try. We try hard. Check us out:
http://www.thenextgreatgeneration.com/
hey, the Times piece that I reference gives ample space to the next great generation point of view. And repeating myself ad nauseum here — I fully, totally, completely accept that many post-1982 kids are trying very, very hard, and I salute their efforts, applaud their successes, bemoan their failures. That will not stop me from heaping scorn on those post-1982s who expect mommy and daddy to take care of them until the perfect job drops in their lap.
In response to another comment. See in context »As a Gen Y-er with an excellent career, a wife, and a baby on the way, I have some significant observations/questions I’d like discussed/answered over this topic.
1) I wonder if any white baby-boomer (Full disclosure: I am white) realizes that there was far less competition when they were starting out. There were far fewer college-educated people in the world. This isn’t me whining about affirmative action, this is me wondering if people can see the benefits and downsides of globalization over the last 40 years.
2) What were the hippies? While this may have been a smaller segment of the baby boomer population than pop culture believes it to be, hippies weren’t spending their day at the law firm or working at the gas station for that matter. Most of them went on to excellent professional careers. Most of Gen Y’s late-starters will too.
3) What about the military/civil servants? Why is it that when these stories appear (either in blogs or newspapers) they rarely recognize the thousands of Gen Y folks in the military and civil service? It does a significant disservice to those who serve to not recognize that.
4) Why do Boomers and Gen X-ers have to maintain this myth? The greatest generation argued against the morals of the boomers, everyone decried Gen X as the “loser generation,” and now that my generation has come of age we’re hearing the same thing. Why maintain this as some sort of odd learned response to getting older?
5) We’ll outlive you and we’re the best educated generation ever. The economy is extremely bad for people just starting out. All my life I’ve been told the more educated you are the better your life will be. Many of the people I know have advanced degrees. What do we do with them? Tenured professors/teachers are refusing to retire, managers in government, the private sector, and in law practices are refusing to retire as well. We as a whole are not receiving the training or time investment that you were given.
6) The “Me” Decade: You all invented the Me Decade, and you really think this is our fault? No generation in the history of history has demanded more money, or spent more time making money than the baby boomers.
Our expectations are different than yours, yes, but we are good workers, we’re talented, and educated. We do want to work and we want to be professionals. We want to be mentored and brought up just like you were. We want the same chance previous generations had, but it’s not there for us.
Somehow it seems like you’re admitting that your generation broke it, but that my generation has to fix it.
Okay, I’ll try to tackle them in order:
(1) I’ll add even another dimension to that. As far as us leading edge boomers, we had long landed our jobs by the time we discovered that we outnumbered the available opportunities. We had entered college in a world in which good jobs far outnumbered people educated enough to fill them, and even though that was no longer true, we felt as though it was — and that gave us self confidence
(2)The hippies — us if-it-moves-protest-it folks — rebelled against everything, which included our parents. We did not move back home, we did not expect financial support. And yes, many of us moved on to excellent careers
(3)Fully agree — but most of these stories (including my post) are bemoaning those who think society owes them, not the other way around.
(4)Sorry, don’t understand. Which myth?
(5) All true. Still doesn’t excuse not driving a taxi cab until a more suitable job opens
(6)Those boomers who became Masters of the Universe or other Wall Street parasites — the rest of us have castigated them a great deal more than we are now castigating you guys. Because I despise Lloyd Blankfein, I can’t also despise a 25 year old slacker?
I’m not admitting that my generation broke anything. Those of you who graduated into a recessionary economy are suffering == but I have every expectation that the economy will revive, jobs will open up, funds will again flow for start-ups. All I’m saying is that I do not grant any of you the right to suck on the parental teat until that happens.
One more time: I’m not suggesting that all of you are doing that, any more than you are suggesting that all of my cohorts were hippies or, conversely, evil financiers. I am just saying that, for those of you who are in fact doing the Poor Me routine — cut it out!
In response to another comment. See in context »Regarding your point 5 – what happens to the person who starts out driving a taxi until better jobs become available?
The answer, at least in law and engineering, is that people with experience in the field are hired or people still in school are hired. Taking a job outside of your field that has little if any transferable training won’t help you ever get that job. Entry level engineering jobs are currently asking for two years of post-graduation engineering work – waiting tables isn’t going tide you over until GE is ready to hire another 1000 engineers, it helps remove you from the pool of potential future applicants. The same things happens in law, and something like 25 percent of my former law school classmates will never use their $100,000 degrees to practice law, because they’ve been trying to make ends meet while the legal industry reinvents itself.
Regarding your 6th point, there’s a difference between Wall Streeters who’ve had their shot and abused it to become parasites, and those 25 year old slackers, as you call them. A huge part of the picture is, again, debt, depending on familial support rather than living in unsafe hovels makes a lot more sense. Things like income based repayment that are ostensibly supposed to make it possible for a typical 20 something to support him or herself after school, actually don’t (see: http://butidideverythingrightorsoithought.blogspot.com/2010/04/angry-future-expat-discusses-ibr.html). Supposedly 15% of Americans owe more than 40% of their incomes (http://www.usatoday.com/money/perfi/basics/2010-04-19-personalfinance19_ST_N.htm?csp=obinsite) and I’m pretty sure the income of the typical income of millenials is lower than Americans on average. I really think you’ve decided that people living in their parents’ basements have given up rather than simply been knocked down.
In response to another comment. See in context »Again, every word you say is true. And I sympathize, I truly do. Granted, driving a taxi won’t bring you any closer to that entry level law job — but neither will staying home with mom and dad and moping. At least it will help you earn some money and pay some rent — or at least start paying down some of that crushing debt.
In response to another comment. See in context »I truly don’t have a double standard — as I admitted several times, I moved back with my folks for three years after college. But I paid them $100 a month — $5 less than my pre-tax weekly wage. They didn’t need or want the money — but I needed to give it, for my psyche. And I’d like to see 20-somethings feel that same need, is all.
a few thoughts for Sam:
if you can’t afford to repay your student loans, you can get a hardship deferment. And I believe that you can still make payments while the deferment is active. Pay what you can afford.
The technological superiority you claim is superficial, at best. The people who design and build that technology are many years your senior, and have spent lifetimes studying ways in which that technology can be made more intuitive and thus easier to use. I should mention, too, the people in market research and advertising, who are also many years your senior, and who have spent lifetimes figuring out ways to convince you that you need the newest gadgets while still letting you believe that the idea to buy them was yours all along.
these “superficial traditions” and “getting down to brass tacks” remarks are just nonsense. It’s a sign of your immaturity that you do not think how you are perceived is every bit as important as what you have to say. Credibility matters. People in flip flops don’t have it.
you don’t want to work as hard as your parents? Fine. You’ll need to come to terms with the fact that you’ll be earning less money, then. You’ll get exactly as much out of your career as you put into it, and if you decide that your profession is only worth 75% of your efforts, then you’re going to have to adjust your expectations accordingly.
To repeat something I said in an earlier post:
Things like income based repayment that are ostensibly supposed to make it possible for a typical 20 something to support him or herself after school, actually don’t (see: http://butidideverythingrightorsoithought.blogspot.com/2010/04/angry-future-expat-discusses-ibr.html). A deferment doesn’t shrink your debt, doesn’t improve or protect your credit score, and doesn’t help put you in a better position for future retirement. Student loan debts, with or without deferment and payment plan, have made a lot of people under the age of 30 into indentured servants who realistically cannot change fields over time.
The people who design and build technology tend to be younger engineers, but you’re right, the managers and CEOs who get the credit are decades older. Older people lend credibility to endeavors, because banks and investors want to see an older face in charge. There honestly is nothing inherently better about being younger or older when it comes to innovation.
I won’t argue with the superficial traditions portion of your comment, but I will say that at my law firm, the three attorneys who wear suits and ties every day at 26, 72, and 80.
In response to another comment. See in context »You just reminded me of a piece I wrote in late 1999/early 2000 — all I know is, it was before the Doc Com Bust. And it was about how the dot commers, at least those in the B-to-B space, were all hiring 40-somethings and 50-somethings to run their marketing and sales departments, because while they spoke fluent bits/bytes/URLs, they did not speak the language of the older folks they were selling to. They needed people who understood RFPs, RFQs, SKUs, all the old-economy concepts and terms.
In response to another comment. See in context »BRAVA CLAUDIA!!! Having essentially just been run out of my boyfriend’s house by a very Y, Gen Y, I couldn’t agree more!