I'm Gen Y, and I Don't Feel Special or Entitled, Just Poor

http://aweinstein.kinja.com/fuck-you-im-gen-y-and-i-dont-feel-special-or-entitl-1333588443

by kefka • 13 years ago

194 161 13 years ago

aweinstein.kinja.com

NovemberWest4• 13 years ago

I am not gen Y. I also don't feel special or entitled, just poor.

vacri5• 13 years ago

Admittedly, few entitled people are going to say they /feel/ entitled.

NovemberWest4• 13 years ago

I am currently homeless. So, like, fuck you.

aristus• 13 years ago

Oh, calm down. People said the same crap about "Gen X".

gchpaco• 13 years ago

And if you notice, they're still doing it. And it was still just as wrong.

D9u• 13 years ago

The burden is heaviest for those who bear it...

Existential angst...

I try not to adhere to any chronological ranking scheme, but rather rate individuals based on demonstrated ability.

haldujai• 13 years ago

I can't like this comment enough. It's not that we feel special, we just want what our parents didn't have, we want to improve our station in life. This is natural. This is evolution at work. Our parents wanted the same thing, they wanted stability when our grandparents grew up in recession after recession, war after war, plague after plague.

People have the audacity to say that we should accept stagnation without trying? That line of thinking is what is wrong with the world today.

thenerdfiles• 13 years ago

State Change for a biological species involves drastic shifts in population density, for like no reason.

We're supposed to be teching fast enough from our barracks, but we're not. Move.

wavefunction• 13 years ago

All I'm going to say is that the Forbes 400 (America) saw their total wealth grow 300 billion(!) in one year between 2012 and now. That was 17.6% in a single year.

dnautics5• 13 years ago

It's even worse: The real wages not keeping up with productivity, I don't think is only because of mendacious CEOs but because that productivity is going to pay off benefits and pension plans of the previous generation, so not only are they telling us to 'suck it up' but they're leeching off of us.

Then there's systematic debt, like sovereign debt, social security, medicare, which we're 'legally enjoined to pay off somehow'. Well, we could pass the buck on that one, if the overleveraging of society doesn't cause another economic realignment that burns our generation in our old age, just as it burned us as we were seeking jobs.

WalterBright2• 13 years ago

The real wages not keeping up with productivity,

Total employee compensation does (i.e. you have to include taxes, benefits, etc.). It's easy to see why - if someone produces way more than they cost, then employers will be lining up to hire them.

It's like as if you could buy widgets for $.10 and sell them for $1.00. You'd buy as many as possible!

dnautics5• 13 years ago

if someone produces way more than they cost, then employers will be lining up to hire them

Not someone who buys into efficient markets in labor (or anything really): I don't think that's true. The cost of additional employment can be burdened by other things (human resources expenses, compliance) times the risk that the employee is a dud. These can increase the 'activation barrier' inherent into adding a hire. And what if you only need one widget? You wouldn't buy as many as possible at all, because the rest will just be dead weight.

droidist2• 13 years ago

It also has to do with increased global competition. In the wake of World War II, much of Europe and Asia was destroyed and in turmoil and had a lot of rebuilding to do. By the 1970s and 80s many countries had caught up and started seriously competing with the US in things like automobile manufacturing.

moron4hire2• 13 years ago

Whoa, people are considering as early back as '77 "gen-y"? Since when? I was '82 and people have always told me I was "too old to understand gen-y, the gen-x-er that you are."

My wife was '78, and I know she doesn't consider herself gen-y.

But I do commiserate. Actually, I think we have it a site worse. At least our youngers should have had the chance to see the college-degree-bubble-writing-on-the-wall. We were the first to get fed into the meat grinder.

dnautics5• 13 years ago

very few sees the bubble popping until it's popped. The worst off are approximately 2010-2013, because we're at 'peak undergrad' right now. Best time to go to college will be in about 10 years.

Edit: citation

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/26/education/in-a-recovering-...

karlkatzke• 13 years ago

I was born '80 and consider myself to be in the nebulous area. My sister is '83 and is firmly 'Y'.

I saw the college bubble popping. It's why I went to night school and graduated debt free from a state in-state urban public university with a solid, practical program and a degree in business. It was a tough few years, but it also set the expectation that life would suck for a few years and then would get better, and I would find a way to do what I wanted after I met the goal.

Too many people, the author of the linked rant (I won't dignify it by calling it an article) seem to have been sold a promise of a fulfilling fun college experience and fulfilling fun career if only they mortgaged themselves. Mortgaging yourself never is a good idea. That is a horrible approach. I hope that the generation now in high school learns from their errors.

mgkimsal3• 13 years ago

I will never for the life of me understand "unpaid internships" as a career path. I get that they exist, and they continue to exist because... they currently exist and "that's how it's done", but... holy cow. "Come slave away for months on end with no pay, and maybe one day you can continue doing it and we'll give you a bit of money. Maybe". And people fall for it. And continue to fall for it.

Perhaps it's a "prisoner's dilemma" problem (too late to find the better analogy if it's not) but if everyone stopped taking 'unpaid internships'... those wanting the work done would have to pay.

stephengillie4• 13 years ago

It's like pre-union car factories - there's no shortage of people willing to endure crappy conditions for work (experience).

twelvechairs• 13 years ago

this is exactly why unionism was born. to allow a collective voice for workers which can stand up to employers. unfortunately due to a number of factors this is a declining factor in modern workplace relations.

we need some form of collective voice to return

cperciva• 13 years ago

Unions don't necessarily help. Look at pilots, for example: The unions are run by the pilots with the most seniority, and as a result those pilots get (a) all of the job security, and (b) most of the money.

crdoconnor2• 13 years ago

everyone stopped taking 'unpaid internships'... those wanting the work done would have to pay.

And if your other option was McBurger flipping after taking a journalism degree... you'd readily take it?

SteveGerencser• 13 years ago

I delivered pizzas after I got my architecture degree and didn't magically find my dream job. The internship program is 3 years at near minimum wage after a masters degree, because that's the way it has always been. Never mind trying to take and pass the architects exam which staggeringly few pass the first time.

I 'do' architecture for fun now and make far more money than nearly everyone I went to college with. Assuming that they are even working.

mgkimsal3• 13 years ago

You'd take a job that provides real income, as would everyone else, and the people wanting journalism work done would offer to pay up... ???

The problem is that there's always someone willing to go work for free, often with crappy conditions, because they hope that maybe someday someone will throw them a low wage bone because of all their 'experience' at working for free.

moron4hire2• 13 years ago

Isn't that rather much a false dichotomy? A person with a journalism degree should be able to figure out several ways in which to provide themselves beyond the immediate-but-inadequate burger-flipping versus delayed-and-maybe-still-inadequate that unpaid internships provide.

einhverfr6• 13 years ago

What about "we hire from the pool of those who contribute to our open source projects. If you want to work for us, that's where to start?"

The problem with unpaid internships is that they are closely supervised and hence end up with something like an unpaid employee. But what if the relationship is more loosely coupled? What if "just because we won't pay you for this doesn't mean someone else won't" is a part of the message?

acadien2• 13 years ago

The beauty of open source development is I can do it in my free time, and because I want to. Often times having open source development on your resume is simply a way to show you're a motivated developer and to demonstrate the quality of the code you produce. I'm not sure it can be directly compared against an unpaid internship, apples and oranges.

mgkimsal3• 13 years ago

That might happen at one or a few companies, but it doesn't describe the entire software industry or even a large portion. It seems to in some other career paths.

contingencies• 13 years ago

What he says is true. A 26 year old economics major approached me yesterday here in Asia and revealed that in lieu of any obvious job he was making a play in to journalism and researching resident foreign sentiments of the local environs. I sort of shrank in horror that he would see journalism as a viable career path, but stranger things have happened.

The one potential escape our subculture has is remote work and the option of living in lower cost parts of the world. I'm here, and it's nice. If anyone wants such a job - permanent gig, frontend dev - I've got one going right now.

7Figures2Commas6• 13 years ago

While you’re at it, stuff this economy. Not this GDP, not this unemployment level: this economy, this financial system that establishes complete social and political control over us, that conditions us to believe that we don’t deserve basic shelter and clothing and food and education and existence-sustaining medical care unless we throw our lives into vassalage and hope, pray, that the lords don’t fuck with our retirements or our coverages.

How is that not entitlement?

toomuchtodo7• 13 years ago

Would you prefer the word "right" instead?

7Figures2Commas6• 13 years ago

How can you make shelter, clothing, food, education and medical care rights without taking away other individual rights?

If you believe that everybody has a right to food, are you prepared to take away the property rights of land owners so that you can grow the food?

If you believe that everybody has a right to medical care ("medical care" being defined as the services of a doctor), are you prepared to take away the rights of doctors to their labor?

jameskilton• 13 years ago

I'm sorry, are you trying to say that being alive is an entitlement, not a right?

ctdonath6• 13 years ago

You have the right to not be deprived of life by others.

That doesn't mean you have a "right" to compel others to facilitate yours to an arbitrary level of your choice.

EarthLaunch3• 13 years ago

Don't evade the difference between a right to life, and a right to the products of others' lives.

baddox3• 13 years ago

I would say that, because "entitlement" and "right are synonyms.

FD3SA• 13 years ago

Fascinating. I constantly wonder about the psychological mindset of entrepreneurs in the US. It seems to me that being an entrepreneur is the riskiest profession imaginable in the USA. Unless you come from a family of means, failure becomes a one way ticket to homelessness, malady, and squalor. The social safety net is extremely poor and unforgiving, such that one mistake could be a life changer.

This is why I wonder, to this day, why a coalition of entrepreneurs do not support a basic income. It is the ultimate hedge against failure in a capitalistic society, and would severely curtail the risks of failed ventures for every individual.

This would massively incentivize the fail-fast mantra of startups, and unleash a scramble to create the most valuable and profitable companies with a long term focus.

I'm not holding my breath for basic income in the USA, but if Europe or the Commonwealth countries instigate it first, it would be a massive draw for serious entrepreneurs in the long term. Of course, this would have to be balanced by access to capital, which does not necessarily require presence in traditional VC hotspots (many UWaterloo companies have gone thru YC and received top tier VC funding).

This is the world I hope to see going forward. Basic income, single payer or nationalized healthcare, and a long term focus on efficiency at the state and national levels.

einhverfr6• 13 years ago

Family of means, I think, can include "someone I can live with rent free for a couple years." There is not as much in the way of means required as some think, but family itself has become a bit of an economic luxury.

But the larger issue is this: ballooning debt and harsher bankruptcy laws. The simple fact is that if you want to be an entrepreneur, it is hard these days to justify a college education if coming out of it means five figures of debt that you have to pay back. This debt hangs like a stone around the necks of the younger generations who are struggling to swim in turbulent economic waters.

So entrepreneurship becomes a privilege of the wealthy, and yet another way to suck money from everyone else. We don't need a government safety net. We need an organic one.

One option as you say would be something like an entrepreneur's guild. This could be a good idea--- it could function as a sort of labor union among startups, and also a safety net for founders. It could also help ensure that people who enter as early employees make the kinds of contacts that could let them go into business for themselves. And despite functioning as a labor union it would not be one, because the stated business would be to help new entrepreneurs succeed (i.e. it would not be adversarial against management). To work it would have to count as members investors, founders, and workers.

JonFish85• 13 years ago

coalition of entrepreneurs

In a lot of ways, isn't this what YC et al. are for? Essentially an interview for funding so that you can get a company started. If it works out, YC makes some money for the next group of people. If it doesn't, you got an investment. It's up to the panel of investors to decide whether they want to make that investment (i.e. if they think your idea is worthy of investing).

You're welcome to start your own coalition of investors, and lower the barrier of entry/investment. Guarantee entrepreneurs a certain salary for a certain amount of time. It could be interesting. I wouldn't invest in such a fund, personally, but it's an interesting idea.

Unless I missed your point and you simply meant that entrepreneurs should politically support such an idea. That's a different point all together!

jonahx• 13 years ago

On the flip side of that, taxes for the very wealthy are much higher in most European countries with a social safety net, especially when you consider the legal loopholes available to the rich in the US, so the potential payoff to successful entrepreneurs is greater.

The payoff is greater in another way too: Because our culture is generally less shameless about its love of materialistic success, the social reward is higher.

Said another way, we Americans love us a good lottery ticket, risks be damned!

rlanday2• 13 years ago

“This is why I wonder, to this day, why a coalition of entrepreneurs do not support a basic income. It is the ultimate hedge against failure in a capitalistic society, and would severely curtail the risks of failed ventures for every individual.”

Doesn’t that kind of sound like “privatize the gains, socialize the losses”? I don‘t really see how entrepreneurs would benefit overall from a basic income; successful individuals would have to pay for this through higher taxes, which would probably disincentivize risk-taking overall. Intuitively, it seems to me that any sort of scheme that tries to cheat the free market by subsidizing people who take risks and fail at the expense of those who either succeed or avoid risks probably overincentivizes risk-taking. Why should someone who doesn’t think their idea is good enough to put their own money at risk and can’t find anyone else who wants to invest and put their money at risk either get a taxpayer subsidy?

This makes especially little sense in Silicon Valley: “OK, I quit my well-paying tech job with health insurance and free food because I thought I could successfully bootstrap the next big social media blogging platform with my entire life savings, and now I’m somehow unemployable, bankrupt, and homeless, I deserve a bailout!”

Obviously, there needs to be some amount of risk-taking, but I’m extremely doubtful that it makes sense in general for the government to subsidize starting tech companies, especially when there are so many willing private investors. I agree that having health insurance be largely the employer’s responsibility does complicate switching jobs and starting companies.

rhizome2• 13 years ago

Doesn’t that kind of sound like “privatize the gains, socialize the losses”?

Yes it does, and it exists for ventures above a certain size, such as banks. Why not democratize that policy? The free market you mention and defend does not actually exist.

yetanotherphd• 13 years ago

Mainly because "basic income" is just a fancy word for welfare. If you want to be an entrepreneur in Australia, just go on welfare. Sure, you might eventually be forced to get a job, but you can easily live in the zone between having no work, and having full time work, and satisfy all the requirements for receiving welfare. In fact they even have a special program for entrepreneurs [1].

Removing the strings would be extremely costly, since there are a lot of non-entrepreneurs who would rather live off basic income and do nothing.

[1] http://deewr.gov.au/new-enterprise-incentive-scheme-neis

kazagistar• 13 years ago

The people most drawn to the idea that wealth is earned, not just made, are the ones who want to be entrepreneurs. You don't create webapps and whatever because you are passionate about it, you do it because you are passionate about becoming rich and famous, and think that you can do it, if only you try hard enough. Failure is only for those people who didn't try as hard as you, right?

curiouscats3• 13 years ago

People born in the USA in the last 40 years don't have the same near universal likelihood of a better economic life than their parents. I suppose you can look at this as unfair to you.

You might want to realize you have been born at very close to the best place and time economically for any human in history. You are likely in the top .5% of lucky people though maybe not quite as lucky as someone born in 1950 in the USA (if you were white anyway).

The 1960's in the USA was probably the richest middle class in the richest society ever in human history. That you might be a bit less lucky than that hardly seem like being super unlucky.

And frankly, while I agree, those born a few years earlier in the USA had a better shot of bing in the top .5% of the world economic lucky winners than those born in the USA today do I would still rather be born today (or twenty... years ago). Basically I'll take the other gains and accept the economic well being is not as largely in my favor.

The article seems to talk of blaming those born recently for their situation. That is lame. They have almost nothing to do with why they have this economic situation versus someone born 40 years ago. But that misses the main point. Being born in the last 40 years in the USA is SUPER LUCKY. Yes you still struggle with challenges but nothing like what hundreds of MILLIONS of people born someone else the same decades you were in some other part of the world. And other than a handful of people in human history and then maybe some fairly large numbers born in the 1950 or 1960 in the USA, Europe, Japan and a few other places you are EXTREMELY LUCKY.

einhverfr6• 13 years ago

The fun thing about these sorts of viewpoints is the lack of comparisons. We can never really compare with other people regarding where we were born but unless you have spent significant time living in other countries, I really wonder about this. It's like saying "Budweiser is so great beer I will never even try another!"

Now a different perspective. I have spent around four months in Ecuador living with middle to upper class families there, and around three years total living in Indonesia. What I can tell you is that poverty in these countries is qualitatively different than poverty in the US, so much so that it is really hard to say one is worse than the other for most of the bottom 20%. For the bottom few percent though there is no question. The availability of affordable, nutritious food and basic shelter is much better here in Indonesia (and in Ecuador) for the poorest of the poor than it is in the US. Water is somewhat different but availability of water that won't kill you in the short term isn't a problem (drinking boiled polluted water is however).

Economically the poor have more stuff in the US, but they also carry a lot more debt, have more restrictions on what they can do, and they have weaker family ties, which means they have access, paradoxically, to less capital.

So I am not sure. I think that the bottom 50% may not be that much worse off in most other countries and I think there is a certain American arrogance which looks at the way we destroy the families, neighborhoods, and communities of the less well off as "progress." But if you never live elsewhere for long enough to really get the sense of how other people live, you don't see it.

curiouscats3• 13 years ago

I agree it is far from cut and dry. I have lived in Africa and Asia for 5 years - the rest in USA. Billions of people today do not have electricity and clean running water in their house.

Air conditioning, that many in the USA act like is necessary wasn't available in 1950 in the USA (in any significant way) and in much of the world until fairly recently.

Even things like access to a library and school is far from universal today. The internet is a great boon in providing access (and is available to more than have access to a library).

I don't see any quick and decent way to compare making $40,000 in the USA today with making 1/2 that much somewhere else. But I do know that what you can live on for $40,000 in the USA today provides luxuries most people today, and in all of human history, could never have afforded (electricity, indoor plumbing, heat, air conditioning, TV, car, cell phone, internet, food, clothes...). Yes you don't have as fancy stuff as you can see other people have. But you have a ton of great stuff.

Getting into debt is a huge issue - as it can really get you into financial trouble. And the current options for going to college are not easy. But it isn't like it was super easy before either. Both my parents had to get scholarships. I would have been out of luck probably.

We often are comparing our "shortfall" to this tiny little stretch of time and location that was great and worrying that it isn't fair it isn't quite as great as that.

I agree there are quality of life issues in the USA that are obscured by cash wealth. I also agree that those in the USA often create a much worse financial situation for themselves by taking on debt for useless junk and then complaining they can't afford to live on so little... (this even happens to rich people in the USA making over $100,000 a year).

Dylan168072• 13 years ago

We proved as a nation that we can set up the economics well. There is no excuse for letting them get significantly worse. There might be luck in finding setups that let the most people succeed, but keeping them is another matter. Fix the mistakes of the last couple decades and do what works.

icambron• 13 years ago

I don't love the article's tone, but I do like the implicit point that Gen Y's sense of entitlement about success is not so different from older generations' sense of entitlement about pensions.

"Aww, you promised that if you to get that fancy degree and then everything would magically work out for you? And it didn't? Totally predictable--serves you right."

Isn't so different from:

"Aww, you were promised that if you showed up to work consistently for 40 years, your employers would pay you to do nothing for the rest of your life and cover your skyrocketing medical expenses? And that's not working out? Totally predictable--serves you right."

jmspring• 13 years ago

The article compares Gen Y against boomers. Reality, at least in my world, Boomers had a good deal in terms of pensions, health care, and the like -- but unless those same Boomers were in Government jobs, those pension/healthcare promises are not as rosy as they were purported to be, or they took their early retirement benefits and folded them into risk in to the market. Those that did found themselves in a world of hurt come the late 90s/early 2000s and are now working at sub-optimal jobs in their 60s.

Personally, I've been working since I was 14 and I actually enjoy it -- a mix of pays the bills jobs, projects, and hobbies. My work ethic is best described as puritanical with a dose of optimizing for work life balance (at home preferred over sitting in a car for 45-60min). I probably work more than my parents did, but I don't have kids.

Any success I have is hard one over time, hard work, and being smart about decisions. I've never had a sense of "I deserve X". I don't agree with the article in a number of things, but when I've lead/managed members of Gen Y, there is a general feeling that they desire to advance/have more responsibility than their experience dictates. This is a generalization -- greater than 50% were of that mindset, but there were those in the remainder that were more balanced in their expectaions.

Sure, it is great to be goal oriented and have optimism, but for some of us a track record is more important than professed potential.

vacri5• 13 years ago

One of the reasons why people think that Gen Y is self-entitled is because they are so inward-looking that they (in general) never bother to think of what it was like for those before. It's all about "I hurt now"

Example: "Last weekend my baby had a fever, and we contemplated taking him to the ER, and my first thought was - had to be - “Oh God, that could wipe out our bank account! Maybe he can just ride it out?”"

As opposed to previous generations who had much less access to healthcare in the first place?

The boomers are such a target for Gen Y wrath, yet there's little reflection on how growing up was different for the two. Boomers and before just buckled down and got on with it, because life is tough.

I was once having this discussion online with a Gen Yer, and I pointed out the medical advances, civil rights advances, relative lack of scarcity, so on and so forth. Not to mention growing up under the constant threat of the Cold War, which makes the War on Terrorism look like child's play. Despite all this, the entirety of her counterargument was 'some schools now require metal detectors'. She just couldn't grasp what it was like to grow up in previous generations - where instead of getting a false promise of a better life, you got no promise at all, and fewer entertainment options for distracting yourself. And as a woman, life would have been worse, with spousal and sexual abuse swept under the carpet as a matter of routine, and entirely legal reduced wages for the same work.

Are Gen Y better or worse off than previous generations? I certainly don't think they're worse off, it's just not 'perfect'. This article shows a lack of perception of the hardships boomers had and overcame, plus it quietly sifts in some whinging because his choice of career is dying... which is his choice of career, unrelated to Gen Y, and I noted that there was no acknowledgement of people in previous decades whose careers fell by the wayside (farriers? manufacturers? miners?). He certainly didn't mention that there are entire careers that now exist that didn't 20 years ago (pretty much all of the internet-related environment, for example).

The simple test is: would you rather live as an average person now or in 1960? If you're a young man in the US, remember that conscription is about to hit you, big time. (edit: and common jobs are mostly manual labour - there's very little in the way of 'designer' and the like)

angersock4• 13 years ago

So, here's some things that magically never seem to make it into the bookkeeping:

- We were at war with an enemy that actually felt credible. The Reds had nukes, invaded countries, and could have (as both sides nearly did) brought about the fiery death of the world.

- Not only was this threat credible, the government did useful things to protect its citizens: Civil Defense stockpiles and training, school drills and films that educated, and so on. Our current .gov is willfully ineffective.

- Healthcare was much more affordable, as basic care was cheaper and not being eaten alive by soulless administrators with fuckoff-huge budgets in a non-profit dickwaving contest. Resistant strains of bacteria weren't as widespread. Insurance and malpractice was not as big a deal.

- Not only was healthcare cheaper, there was not as much science as we have today invested in feeding us shit food that tastes great and has no redeeming nutritional value. There wasn't a McDonald's or Starbucks on every corner.

- The prison-industrial complex was not as embedded as it is today, nor were police as militarized.

- You could get a good-paying job doing vocational work, and even receive useful training for it at school. You might even get a good pension. Neither companies nor unions had screwed everything up yet.

- You didn't have to worry about your job being trivially outsourced, as international shipping hadn't quite gotten together just yet.

- You didn't have to worry about being bombarded with advertising target directly at you every day from every appliance, because the 'net wasn't around, nor was Facebook.

- My alma mater had free tuition for the first half of the 60s. :|

- Ma Bell had a competent government-sanctioned monopoly, instead of the patchwork fiefdoms from the 80s and 90s.

- We put a man on the fucking moon, instead of ads in the browser.

So, uh, yeah. There were downsides to be sure--I'd probably be running some ENIAC derivative or working at NASA (given my skillset) doing server monkey work right now, I'd to write weird programs for weird machines in weird languages, I'd have been bullied more growing up, and if certain classes of accidents happened I'd be shit out of luck.

If I were not white, male, or straight I could expect more trouble; then again, I'd probably have a more close-knit community to help me with those problems.

I'll leave speculation on dating and gender relations for some other thread and time.

All the same, I bet I could raise a family more healthily and more easily, and with greater (if perhaps more false) confidence that Things Would Be Alright.

001sky• 13 years ago

you were promised

entitlement is contraindicated a wrtitten contract

EarthLaunch3• 13 years ago

This person believes he represents his generation, and he is advocating for things that reduce economic prosperity. He should not be surprised about the results he's seeing.

crdoconnor2• 13 years ago

The same religious economic dogma we've had pushed on us for decades predicts that the things he's advocating reduce economic prosperity. They don't.

EarthLaunch3• 13 years ago

religious economic dogma

Whatever this means that you feel persecuted by, the science of economics is clear enough about what promotes economic prosperity. History corroborates.

You should be making a moral argument, though that would also be wrong.

ilaksh• 13 years ago

Its not just journalism of course. I am a programmer (born in 1977) and have found myself for many years without full time employment or benefits. Now that's a misnomer because I certainly worked full time but I just wasn't given regular employee status at those jobs. I have also had jobs where I had to work at an outsourcing rate. Because if the lack of health insurance I have been unsuccessfully dealing with health problems for many years which has also made it more difficult to secure regular employment rather than contract work. Now I also do not have a degree so I'm sure some people will chalk up all of my difficulties to that. But I believe that we are actually in tough times for workers of all sorts and have been for some time.

ctdonath6• 13 years ago

You have no idea about student debt, underemployment, life-long renting. “Stop feeling special” is some shitty advice. I don’t feel special or entitled, just poor.

Uh...yeah, we do have an idea. We've just lived long enough to take a look around, discovered there are alternatives, decided to stop making stupid decisions, realized that life isn't fair, learned that shouting "fuck you" at others results in a pretty poor life, and decided to make it better.

http://xkcd.com/23/

mratzloff3• 13 years ago

Your post has basically zero content. Care to be more specific?

ctdonath6• 13 years ago

Considering it was upvoted, others did see worthy content therein. But to spell it out...

Yeah, we do have an idea. We have either experienced or studied such problems, including many which are much worse. We've variously experienced crushing debt, empty bank accounts, war, death, injury, illness, loss, etc. If the peak of your whining is school debt and rent payments, and you don't notice the comfortable indoor HVAC + balanced nutrition + comfortable convenient transportation + easy instant access to the bulk of human knowledge + clean water, you've got it pretty darned good over most.

We've just lived long enough to take a look around. We've lived longer than you, some of us by several times over. We've seen more than you have, and discovered the range of options is much bigger than you think it is. We chuckle when we start telling you what those options include, and you cut us off to cling to the limited range you don't want to let go of - but insist we fix everything for you.

discovered there are alternatives. YES you can live on $1/meal, with fine nutrition and taste, if you're willing to research and get dirty. YES you can own your home outright, if you'll not demand expensive location & structure, do some serious research, be willing to move, and do some work yourself. YES you can get a good education with little debt, no debt, moderate cost, and (if sufficiently flexible & hard working) they might even pay you to attend. We also have noticed that taking the "sign here" easy path is very expensive. NO you don't have to put a gun to someone's head (be it by implication thru proxy) and make them pay for you.

decided to stop making stupid decisions. "Life is tough. It's tougher when you're stupid." - John Wayne

realized that life isn't fair. It's not fair. In no way is it fair that over 87% of people on the planet are doing worse than you. It's also not fair for you to, after making the choices you did and in the health you enjoy, to demand the other 13% improve your lot in life while giving nothing in return.

learned that shouting "fuck you" at others results in a pretty poor life. The link I provided sums it up pretty well. BTW, should be obvious I was referencing the first two words of the thread & article's title. If that's your attitude toward prior generations, don't be surprised if they become disinclined to help you more than they already are (which they are and obviously are unappreciated for). ETA: I see the first two words of the thread's title were removed subsequent to my prior post; I wish the original title, being that of the linked article, was retained in full as it set the tone as the author clearly intended.

and decided to make it better. In the rather immortal words of a notable HN thread, and in the language which the author seems to understand: fucking figure it out. Solutions to the problem are not impossible, quite achievable actually, and everyone else you're demanding support from have their own equivalent problems that they're figuring out. Yes that debt sucks; you signed up for it, you CAN pay it off, yeah it might hurt but that was your choice, everyone else you want to pay your bill have their own voluntary debts they're working on paying off and they're not making you pay. Yes that rent sucks; move somewhere land is cheap and building materials affordable and start swinging a hammer. Yes the kid's illness threatens the bank balance; take that as a red alert warning klaxon telling you to start saving money now because unexpected expenses DO happen, and just because you didn't prepare with adequate savings or insurance doesn't mean you get dibs on the funds of those who did prepare.

Enough people have said the above, and a whole lot more, on HN. I assumed you've read it, and grokked the reference thereto in my post above. Accused of "zero content", there's some elaboration short of handing you a copy of Foxfire and a link to Google ... aw, heck, here ya go: http://www.foxfire.org/thefoxfirebookseries.aspx http://www.google.com ... there, now you've got everything you need to solve those problems yourself.

bedhead• 13 years ago

Could it possibly just be that he's poor because:

1) he's not a good enough writer to earn more. 2) he's chosen jobs that have little hope of a lucrative payoff. 3) his personality is such that he gets fired from everyplace he works.

Or is any of that too far-fetched?

gwern• 13 years ago

No, it's not far-fetched, but it means you've fallen to the bottom of the pyramid of disagreement by indulging in ad hominems/character assassination; which while possibly valid in this case, still means you are failing to deal with the many objective points he brings up (eg the quartering of the Village Voice rates paid to the best writers, not him).

vacri5• 13 years ago

Journalism is dying. It's entirely unrelated to being Gen-Y.

It's a pretty bad logical error on his part.

tomrod6• 13 years ago

It's hard for people engaged in a career path to recognize the end that's coming.

Much journalism is literally farmed out to content mills and pays fractions of a penny per word. This implies a labor supply glut. I wonder sometimes if we see this in web dev too?

jimmcslim• 13 years ago

First World Problems?

netpenthe• 13 years ago

he has a baby who had a fever that he couldn't afford to take to see a doctor.

that's not a first world problem.

c1sc0• 13 years ago

That's a revolution-worthy problem. Add some hunger to that & you're getting close.

dreamdu5t2• 13 years ago

Sounds entitled to me. He feels that his degree entitles him to wealth and financial security. It does not.

He acts surprised that other people aren't providing for HIS child. Again with the entitlement, as if he and his kid are somehow owed something from someone purely by virtue of their existence.

ChuckMcM2• 13 years ago

God it sucks to hit 35 doesn't it? That was a really rough couple of years for me. You are like halfway to 70, and 70 is like way old. What is worse is all these "You can be anything" dreams start becoming undeniably impossible, like being a fighter pilot or competing in the Olympics. But the worst bit for me was thinking "Wow, that didn't seem all that long, am I really going to be 70 in just that much more time?" And frankly a mixture of panic and depression set in. I'm never going to be "somebody", I'm over the hill, all of my heroes were famous by this age, Etc. It doesn't stop.

And for me it was the time where I really internalized that life isn't about the goals, its about the trip and the stops along the way. Imagine your life is to drive from the San Francisco Airport to JFK in New York and catch a flight and fly back. That is your life. And sure you put goals in like "see the Grand Canyon" or something which takes you down a side path but once you have seen the Canyon, maybe hiked Zion, skiied the Rockies, you just have to keep driving east. And you hit Kansas which goes on and on and on and on and on.

I had started piling up things from the 'someday' pile into the 'remember when?' pile, like from 'someday I'll have kids' to 'remember when we didn't have kids?' When that 'someday' pile gets smaller you can imagine it has nothing in it but 'someday I'm going to die' well that is a scary thing to imagine indeed.

So it sucks, but what can you do about it? The thing I found that got me past that was focusing really hard on what I had (a great family), what I could change (where I wanted to be), and how I felt about the world (my outlook on the future). By focusing on that I kept from looking at that ugly visage of Christmas Yet to Come, and the fear and guilt that came along with it. I stopped following the news for a while since it only wanted to reinforce my fear of the future. I fed my curiosity and tried to seek out sources of wonder again (rocketry, quantum physics, and robotics systems are all amazing things to me).

That keeps me engaged and interested and learning, and in so doing keeps the future away in the future.

orangecat• 13 years ago

So it sucks, but what can you do about it?

Live life as you're doing, and consider supporting sens.org. Aging is terrible for many reasons, but we might actually be able to do something about it in the not too distant future.

stephengillie4• 13 years ago

So it sucks, but what can you do about it?

Stop driving northeast -- Gone south to the Grand Canyon? Don't get back on track to NY, head to Philly or DC or NC or Florida instead. Better yet, make a J and head to Seattle.

Today I saw a kid walking down the street with an ice cream cone in his hand. His girlfriend was with him, he was in his 30s. But his inner child held the cone. Just because you age doesn't mean you can't still be a child.

Edit: from my profile -- Therein lies the best career advice I could possibly dispense: just DO things. Chase after the things that interest you and make you happy. Stop acting like you have a set path, because you dont. No one does. You shouldnt be trying to check off the boxes of life; they arent real and they were created by other people, not you. There is no explicit path Im following, and Im not walking in anyone elses footsteps. Im making it up as I go. - Charlie Hoehn

baddox3• 13 years ago

But the worst bit for me was thinking "Wow, that didn't seem all that long, am I really going to be 70 in just that much more time?"

To make it slightly worse, the second 35 years will feel like they pass faster than the first 35 years.

biff• 13 years ago

On the other hand, could get hit by a bus tomorrow.

gonehome• 13 years ago

Well that's depressing - I was banking on 30s being a lot better (at least for dating) than early twenties. I guess I didn't consider the inevitable midlife mortality crisis. Guess I'll have to make the most of late twenties and early thirties.

enraged_camel4• 13 years ago

>I was banking on 30s being a lot better (at least for dating) than early twenties.

In my early 20s I was in college and the place was full of young, single girls. I'm 28 now and it is pretty depressing how everyone has either married or at least in stable long-term relationships. So yeah, the trajectory is not moving towards "better."

nostromo• 13 years ago

I found this article interesting: http://www.economist.com/node/17722567

Self-reported well-being follows a U curve. "Happiness" declines starting at age 18 and keeps going down until it bottoms out in middle-age. But then, interestingly, it rises, and keeps rising, all the way to end of life. This has been observed all over the world.

What's the global average least-happy age? 46.

antihero2• 13 years ago

Weird, I'm on an upward trajectory since 18. At 18 I was a total mess with low self esteem. Now I'm doing pretty damn good other than the constant poverty.

bedris• 13 years ago

46 is also the average age for a first-time Porsche buyer.

nutball• 13 years ago

That U curve makes sense. It aligns with when people usually work.

pintglass• 13 years ago

I feel like you didn't read the post at all.

He said 2 things:

1. These are weirdly contrived generational categories...

2. You have no idea about student debt, underemployment, life-long renting. “Stop feeling special” is some shitty advice. I don’t feel special or entitled, just poor...

So basically, the post is about the Huff Post author being detached from reality. "You just want to feel special- get over it" is really shitty advice, he's right. They teach you not to say things like that at work. At least I hope they do.

I'm a bit above 35 (past the next "old" barrier that starts with 4), and although I fall more into the Huff Post author's vision of the sad yuppie close to the start of gen Y, it pisses me off that on Marketplace (PRI radio broadcast on NPR stations) today they were basically trying to convince everyone that no one knows what the middle class is and that we should just get used to the new normal and should even consider wealth redistribution as a way to deal with it (I'm not joking- this was really said and the Marketplace idiot went along with it- seriously L.A.- are these the people you want representing you?).

So, I'm with Adam Weinstein on this one saying, "Fk you".

I didn't sign up for the economic situation we're in, and I feel that our fiscally irresponsible government is to blame. Wealth redistribution? No, I don't think socialism or communism is a good idea. The only countries in which either are working having been abandoning them for capitalism, from what I see (specifically, India and China).

Can we stop threatening to bomb people, open borders again fully to allow all kinds of immigrants, hire ex-Israeli soldier elites to profile passengers and replace the TSA and no-fly lists in our airports/etc. (like Israel does), and have less government. Our government has better things to do than to try to tell us how to live and how we should manage our money. Did you notice how the Democrats were giving Yellen a hard time because she was female? Almost completely washed over in the liberal media. Shame! So much bullshit. I cannot wait to cast my vote next time to oust every single one of the losers currently in office.

dnautics5• 13 years ago

I feel that our fiscally irresponsible government is to blame. Wealth redistribution?

The irony is that (in my opinion) all of this was created because we wanted to redistribute wealth - but we did it by creating easy access to debt (dominantly, debt access for real estate and debt access to college, two signifiers of wealth that possessing them, as it turns out, does not make you wealthy), and because we wanted to grant everyone the luxury of illusory security that the rich "enjoy" without considering the upside cost of trying to cover everyone with no holes in the social service. So we got a whole bunch of bureaucratic overhead to make sure we are in compliance with artifical metrics and schemes to guarantee equitability, yet more people are falling through the holes. There's a greek word for this: ὕβρις,

Truly, our society in many ways is no better than the cargo cults.

einhverfr6• 13 years ago

Forcible wealth redistribution is a bad thing. Worse, when it has been done, it is done in a band-aid approach. Let's subsidize subsistence as a way to chain people to job searches. No thank you.

But having said that, I think it is reasonable for encouraging a sane wealth distribution to be a part of public policy. This doesn't have to be done through taxes just for owning something. It could be taxes on renting something for example, unless that is a rent to own agreement. The idea would be simply encouraging ownership to align with utilization rather than life-long renting as the norm.

I would recommend reading some conservative alternatives like Chesterton's "An Outline of Sanity" or Belloc's "The Servile State" for alternatives that are more historically grounded.

ChuckMcM2• 13 years ago

Actually I did read it, several times actually trying to tease out the angst from the fiction.

The author, Adam, is angry, that much is clear. And he writes that he is angry at people who write pieces like the HuffPo one [1] which is "full of crap". That piece, basically labels people of a certain age (by calling them 'Gen Y') and then disparages them as being unrealistic in their expectations and their self image.

So what can we infer from that? Well first, if this was a single instance then it probably wouldn't be emotional for Adam; Second, if the complaints that the HuffPo piece was disparaging weren't complaints that Adam had been espousing he would have ignored it, and third he chose not to argue the merits, rather to argue the presentation and author.

Now, my opinion here is that the HuffPo article was a hit piece aimed right at Adam to generate rage views. And the HuffPo author tapped into that mid-life angst about how the world isn't what you imagined it would be, and twisted as hard as he dared to maximize the rage views. As for the 'weirdly contrived generational categories' every group of people gets exposed to the world (or made aware of it) around 15 - 25. And the 'big themes' in that time period become influential in their lives. These categories are self creating.

What I was trying to point out was that the anger over life not being what one hoped it isn't unique to any generation, the Economist article mentioned in this thread talks a bit about that.

So to address your second point, awareness about debt and underemployment and life-long renting. One can be aware, and care, and still have perspective.

And then you said, "I didn't sign up for the economic situation we're in, and I feel that our fiscally irresponsible government is to blame." This is where you have to choose. (And this is why, for me, 35 was pretty painful) You have to choose to either be a victim or to not be a victim. Do you look for 'blame' or do you look for 'fixes'. The Marketplace episode pissed you off because it was wrong, you can either show them how it was wrong or you can whine about it.

For me, when I hit 35 was when it sunk in that there wasn't any "they" anymore, there weren't grown-ups which were going to fix things. That was up to me, being one of the grown ups, I had to start fixing things. And I was irritated in the mess the previous generation had left behind.

[1] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/wait-but-why/generation-y-unha...

polemic• 13 years ago

"Last weekend my baby had a fever, and we contemplated taking him to the ER, and my first thought was - had to be - “Oh God, that could wipe out our bank account!"

For the sake of your family, consider moving somewhere in the world that treats you like a human. It is happening elsewhere too ("this financial system that establishes complete social and political control over us") but not nearly to the extent that a gainfully employed individual can't reasonably expect basic healthcare for his children.

paul_f3• 13 years ago

Seriously? Because you have to make $50 co-pay at the hospital, our society doesn't treat you like a human?

enraged_camel4• 13 years ago

>$50 co-pay

I take it you have never been to the ER. Hope it stays that way!

angersock4• 13 years ago

Where the hell are you that you can spend only half a Benjamin on healthcare?

Canada?

smoyer• 13 years ago

Maybe words are less expensive these days because so many of them are being published ... When I was young, we could either read the newspaper, magazines or books. Each newspaper had exponentially more eyeballs looking at them because they were (in my town) a monopoly. I think what he's describing as a writer is simply a case of supply and demand. We're all writers now (notice I didn't say good writers).

stephengillie4• 13 years ago

Isn't it nice to have the luxury of living when we have the choice of whether or not to take an infant with a fever to the hospital? Our parents/grandparents didn't have that luxury, they had to ride the fever out and hope their family member lived. Options like that are why our society is so expensive to live in today.

mratzloff3• 13 years ago

How old are you? My grandparents (nevermind my parents) could rely on hospitals, and they lived in rural Kansas on lower middle class incomes.

My Depression-era great grandparents had to make that choice (and worse), but implying we should be so lucky that we as a society are regressing 80 years is not such a good thing.

stephengillie4• 13 years ago

I'm 32, but my grandparents were depression-era. My parents are baby boomers. Longer generational strides?

kevin_rubyhouse• 13 years ago

Seriously? It's like the author, Adam, and I read a completely different Huffington blog posts. And why the hell does he need to drop the f-bomb so much to grab attention? I'm at the very end of Gen Y, born 1993 and 19 years old right now.

Adam says 'So take your “revise your expectations! check your ego!” Horatio Alger bullshit, and stuff it.' Are you kidding me? The Huffington blog post said the opposite! It said that Gen Yers should stay ambitious, but be more humble. We need to keep being ambitious, but expect that we need to work very hard to fulfill those ambitions.

Furthermore, Adam is ranting that he chose something he really wants to do and is poor, because his job doesn't pay enough. It sounds like he is very capable and could get a better job if he wanted to. He is expecting that the job he likes to do will make enough money to support his family and lifestyle (whatever it may be.) That sounds a lot like what the Huffington Post was saying too ("career path expectation.")

I think the Huffington blog post is fantastic, and many of my friends could benefit from its advice. At first though, it does seem to bucket and portray Gen Yers unfairly, but the post's conclusions make up for it.

wavesounds• 13 years ago

This! Why do we let these rich robber barrens get away with having the lowest tax rates since the 1950s when the middle class is clearly falling off a cliff? This is ridiculous people! Lets raise taxes on these guys back to what it used to be under Clinton when we were doing fine, it won't hurt them one ioata, then we can fix all the problems with schools, hospitals, social security and build infrastructure to get some money back into the economy so people have some disposable income so they can buy things and get a healthy economic system moving again. This isn't that complicated, we can just be apathetic and go back to being peasants ruled by a few elite or we can demand they pay their fair share!

Aloha• 13 years ago

I'm 30.

I have a good job, for a telecom carrier, I make more money than I thought a could, enough to live in one bedroom apartment and save a little for a rainy day. That said, I have no stability (I'm a contractor who's project could vanish at any point in time), no retirement (my retirement plan right now is death), no insurance I can afford (would cost over 10% of my take home to get it).

I long for stability, permanence and benefits.

I know right now it sucks - but I know in a couple years the boomers will be exiting the workforce in droves, and there will be room for me in the permanent roles. I just have to bide my time, be patient, and wait, and it will all work out. I hope.

zcarter• 13 years ago

Seems a fitting time to remind those put off by this sort of complaining that it is not sufficient to merely convince like-minded bystanders to blame the victims. Victims must blame themselves for true peace and quiet.

I say carry on with the social hectoring of those who seek a better state of affairs and don't (yet) feel personally responsible for the outcome of their (increasingly loaded) societal dice roll.

collypops• 13 years ago

"I’m doing what I love, and it makes me completely miserable".

I've got a suspicion that he's not actually doing what he loves, only what he loved once, or hoped he'd learn to love.

TheZenPsycho• 13 years ago

Take away any semblance of job security, benefits and any possibility of advancement, then stand back and act surprised that Gen Y isn't totally loyal. Huh.

mratzloff3• 13 years ago

What an utter shock that those so minimal affected by the economic changes taking place over the last 30 years (tech community) are among the most skeptical that those changes are harmful to the vast majority.

Someone mentioned US economic prosperity. Any definition of "economic prosperity" must include prosperity for the majority.

presidentender• 13 years ago

Pretend the graph doesn't exist. Pretend the statistics don't exist. Pretend you have no way of knowing that "the 1%" are reaping the lion's share of the recovery, that they all live off in an Elysium we'll never know about.

Compare yourself to your parents, given that. You have the internet. If it's killed work for "the creatives," it's given the rest of us free access to their works. You have a cell phone, where your dad might've broken down on a highway north of Phoenix and prayed for a pay phone. If your kid runs a fever and the treatment wipes out your meager savings, at least he'll live, where his uncle might've died under the same circumstances.

I'm blessed with a good job. Maybe my luck clouds my vision, and there's a huge structural problem I refuse to recognize. Maybe it'd be different if I had a wife and kids, but I can't help but think that's... optional, especially for those of us in our 20s.

So maybe I just don't understand the plight of the author or those like him, but I can't help thinking that the primary drive behind the complaints is jealousy. The HuffPo article tries to say it nicely, and explain it with unfairly inflated expectations, but it still comes down to the same thing. Young people are jealous because other people have status, and it's just not fair.

jokermatt999• 13 years ago

Cell phones and the internet are nice, but I've bills and debt and crap job that I can't support myself on. I've got a mother in law dying of cancer, and once that's over with, the debt from the meager medical care she's received will burden her family for years. I've got a fiancee that can't find work in her field so she's stuck in a crappy job as well. The circuses are nice, but I'd rather just have some damn bread.

It's not "jealousy" when I'm asking to be able to support myself. Is it unfair to expect not to start out in life heavily burdened by student loans, unable to get a job that provides any sort of benefits, or to be able to pay bills? I'm not asking for the shiniest and newest, I'm asking for a basic living. It's not status; it's not being stuck living at home.

I'm Gen Y, and I Don't Feel Special or Entitled, Just Poor

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