On those "Entitled" Twenty-Somethings

http://squashed.tumblr.com/post/164976505/on-those-entitled-twenty-somethings

by bkudria • 17 years ago

105 102 17 years ago

squashed.tumblr.com

bkudria• 17 years ago

Before everybody starts complaining, yes, I know that this is, on the surface, about the health care debate. However, before complaining that this isn't HN-material, consider for a moment the prevailing expectation college graduates have: "I need to get a job, which I can now do because I have a college degree." The author doesn't even consider entrepreneurship.

Can we as a society do better, so more people realize that that no one owes them anything, and any promises that were made to them were probably made by the well-meaning, but ultimately un- or misinformed?

karzeem• 17 years ago

A lot of 20-somethings — especially the ones with natural intelligence — grew up jumping through hoops. An adult puts up a hoop, you jump through it. A clear series of steps. Take the tests, ace the classes, get into the good college. It's clear what you're evaluated on, and it's clear what you have to do to ace the evaluation.

But once kids get out of college, no one's putting up hoops anymore. No one's telling you "Do x, then y will happen." And a lot of people have no idea what to do if the hoops aren't being put up by someone else. Making your own hoops — being able to do anything and not necessarily getting clear, immediate positive reinforcement that you've chosen correctly and done well — is simply not something that a lot of people are good at.

Maybe that's related to the upbringing of today's 20-somethings and maybe it's not, but being a member of that group myself, it does seem like a widespread phenomenon.

Alex39174• 17 years ago

"Maybe that's related to the upbringing of today's 20-somethings and maybe it's not"

Science shows pretty clearly that it is related to upbringing. C.f. Punished by Rewards.

The way high-SES parents overstimulate their infants and toddlers also seems to be causing long term damage to executive function. Because of poor parenting and the way our school system is designed, kids are essentially graduating with severe cognitive damage and are unable to invent and manage their own lives.

yardie2• 17 years ago

^^^ This. My experience of people at college could classify them into 2 types. Those that were dealt a shitty hand in life and were doing everything possible to get a new deck. And those that knew the game and were just playing along. Do X and you'll receive Y. Good grades means a good job. College is, predominantly, made of the later. The third group of slackers doesn't really count and were gone by the 2nd year.

I was dealt the shitty hand. Single working mom with more kids than resources to handle them. A broke elementary school. I learned early on the social contract between jobs and employees was broken when my mom was laid off and we were constantly fighting the water, electricity, and telephone company to maintain basic services. I signed up for every afterschool program available because I hated having to go to an unairconditioned home in the Florida heat. God must have a wicked sense of humor, my reluctance to stay home meant I did academically well. And eventually getting into a good uni.

When I got to university I was incredibly envious of those around me. Who had the resources to buy a computer when I certainly couldn't. They had everything in life handed to them. I wished I had a tutor but it was expensive. I wished I had a scheduled life because it seemed easier than trying to figure it out. I wished my family wasn't 1000 miles away because for the first time I felt alone. All of these things meant I had to fend for myself and take nothing for granted.

When I see how life is for kids lately I feel sorry for them. Everything is planned out around them with little input from them. You rarely see a kid sign up for basketball or soccer without the parents nearby. I remember signing my moms signature on so many things that when she really did sign something they thought it was a forgery. I remember forging health insurance forms because I couldn't play soccer without it and I knew we didn't have it. God if I would have gotten seriously injured we would have been fucked.

They are told to complete a task and expect a reward. I was told to do something because it had to be done. As my mom would say, "Go to school or I will beat your ass!". Life is actually like that. It can be rewarding, but fundamentally life doesn't reward you for doing a good job. You are trying to avoid getting your ass kicked by life.

TomOfTTB4• 17 years ago

Well, I wouldn't hire him. Look, no one questions this is a hard moment in time to Graduate. It's just bad luck for those who are entering the job market. But guess what, Life isn't fair. Sometimes your handed lemons. Not understanding that is what makes this guy just as entitled as the articles claim he is.

My advice to him would be get what ever job he can for now, continue to perfect his skills and learn to be grateful for what he does have. If he does that I can almost guarantee he'll find a good job. I can't say exactly when (I can't predict the economy) but it will be before 99% of his fellow 20 somethings

pyre6• 17 years ago

> Not understanding that is what makes this guy just as entitled as the articles claim he is.

Does that make him 'entitled' or just naive?

> My advice to him would be get what ever job he can for now, continue to perfect his skills and learn to be grateful for what he does have.

Not always true. I've worked many jobs that suck the life out of you. And I've known people that have languished in such jobs because once you get home you don't feel like doing anything but shutting down. Thankfully I'm in a much better job now.

hexis• 17 years ago

These twenty-somethings want it to be one way, but it's the other way.

ojbyrne• 17 years ago

Damn I miss that show.

mmt2• 17 years ago

The author was lied to, but not by me or my kind.

I actually vaguely remember hearing the same lies, but not from my parents, at least not without the "nobody owes you anything" caveat.

It didn't take me long to realize, intuitively, if not explicitly, that finishing college wouldn't help me get the job I wanted. Today, obviously, it might not even help me get any job.

Even absent an entrepreneurship opportunity, I dropped out, and I don't regret it, despite the stigma it carried in the computer industry, well into the dot-com boom.

I'm definitely embarrassed for my generation that we perpetuated the lies, rather than encouraging choices, including self-employment or learning a trade.

pyre6• 17 years ago

> I'm definitely embarrassed for my generation that we perpetuated the lies, rather than encouraging choices, including self-employment or learning a trade.

This is mainly the result of over-protective, risk-averse parenting. To them, the best way for their child to achieve success was along this path. If their child tried to deviate from the path, they were grabbed by the scruff and forcefully put back on this path by their parents until it was ingrained in them as the only path.

To such parents, things like entrepreneurship are too risky. Their child might fail, and have nothing to show for it. It's better for their child to just go through college, get a job at a large corporation and possibly spend their life working their way up through middle-management until their seniority gains them a nice juicy salary along the way...

cakesy2• 17 years ago

You know, I was told if I worked hard I would get a job. I did, and I did. Many people I know did the same, were always working during Uni, and had little problem getting a job. Many people I know don't work hard, slacked around at uni, and can't find a job.

I found this advice to be quite good, although I am sure it doesn't work for everyone. Then again, I never felt I was entitled to a job.

nostrademons6• 17 years ago

I was told if I worked hard I would get a job. I figured this was bullshit, so I slacked off. I never had problems finding a job. :-P

The plural of anecdote is not data. ;-)

ryanwaggoner2• 17 years ago

False dichotomy. You can go to college and start a business or learn a trade. And it gives you way more choices and options, not to mention enriching your life.

mmt2• 17 years ago

Assuming infinite time and resources, it's absolutely a false dichotomy.

However, especially from the standpoint of a graduating high school senior, it is very real.

I think there's an implied "first" (or "next" after secondary school) in all of this.

moe• 17 years ago

Quote: Apparently people in their 20s are a bunch of entitled whiners.

Judging by the tone of this article I have to say, yes, his premise is dead on.

Someone fix the headline: College boy finds out that life isn't fair, cries a river.

pyre6• 17 years ago

The point that I took away is that there are plenty of people in their 20's that bust their butts. When the older generation is complaining about the '20-something whiners' the tone of those rants is usually about how little the '20-something whiners' do (i.e. they sit at home and watch tv/smoke pot/play videogames/etc rather than bettering themselves through education/etc).

gehant• 17 years ago

Entitlement involves having an inflated view of oneself - based on what's said in the article, sounds about right.

Just seems odd that the author complains about not being able to find a job, yet takes zero responsibility for his situation.

When I graduated college (into a shitty job market) many job offers were delayed, rescinded, or simply unavailable - I don't remember blaming everyone else.

olliesaunders• 17 years ago

I think it's pretty bad if their parents and teachers let "College boy" believe that for so long. This [TED talk](http://ted.com/talks/lang/eng/alain_de_botton_a_kinder_gentl...) might be of interest.

adrianwaj5• 17 years ago

de Botton: Snobbery is taking a small part of someone and judging them in their entirety by it.

It is an intensely ugly trait.

jasoncalacanis• 17 years ago

1. It's fairly clear a decent portion of the 20 somethings coming out of school now are entitled and don't work hard. 2. It's fairly clear that a lot of the 30 and 40 somethings out there came out of school, gave up their souls and worked for the man and regret it--in other words they weren't entitled enough. 3. It's fairly clear this story has nothing to do with the folks reading Hacker News who are a self-selected group of entrepreneurial folks who are hard working and self-motivated.

Please move along, nothing to see here.

Elepsis• 17 years ago

The article linked to at the end (http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/08/16/our_gim...), interestingly, is complaining about a group of young people who are asking Congress for this list of "youth bailouts":

Among other things, the coalition wants: free college tuition for low-income students who are willing to do volunteer work; the right to be covered in their parents' health insurance program until the age of 26; college loan-forgiveness programs for young people who agree to serve distressed communities after graduation; and micro loans for young entrepreneurs to start their own businesses.

... Frankly, those all sound like far smarter, better initiatives than propping up failing car manufacturers (which are, coincidentally, dominated by an older generation) or expanded government health coverage (which also disproportionately benefits older people). If that's what the 20-somethings of today "feel entitled" to, I feel pretty good about being a part of the group.

TomOfTTB4• 17 years ago

I'm sorry but I disagree (I'm a 20-something but not for much longer so I really don't think it counts).

Volunteer work is just that. You're supposed to volunteer. It's purpose is to show people the value of sacrifice. Doing volunteer work for Government compensation is called being a Government employee. Plus, as a former low income student I can tell you programs already exist that allow them to go to college for free and they're called Student Loans. With a part time job you can pay your living expenses and through grants and loans you can pay for school with very little problem.

Health care's screwed up and it should be cheaper but I don't want to send the message that it's ok to live off your parents at 26 years of age.

I don't have a problem with loan forgiveness for graduates that serve impoverished communities but that already exists for teachers and public servants.

Finally, while micro-loans seem like a good idea it would almost certainly end in a huge cash drain with virtually no pay off. Programs like YC work because they educate while funding. A 22 year old with little work experience who thinks the answer is to turn to the Government for money stands almost no chance of creating a successful business imho (and as someone who knows his fair share of entrepreneurs I've found most will tell you their first venture failed)

Alex39174• 17 years ago

"The purpose [of volunteer work] is to show people the value of sacrifice."

No it isn't. It's to help people and/or the community.

pyre6• 17 years ago

> Doing volunteer work for Government compensation is called being a Government employee.

So does that make people that collect social security and/or welfare cheques 'government employees?'

mynameishere2• 17 years ago

I believe private insurance for 20-somethings is very cheap.

Anyway, health care. I think old people understand that the system is kind-of, sort-of insolvent already, and that expanding it will probably push it over the cliff at a bad time for them. Being shrill and ranty is all well and good, but other people have their worries, too.

krschultz• 17 years ago

It's not.

mynameishere2• 17 years ago

Yeah, well, doing 5 minutes of research shows me that plans in the 300-400/month range are available.

http://www.ehealthinsurance.com

...the deductibles tend to be 2000-3000 dollars, but that's not unreasonable. If you have any data to provide, please do so, because chirpy little responses are just so much pollution.

unlinkedlist• 17 years ago

I'm perplexed by this. I pay $44/month for Blue Shield California health insurance. Prior to that I live in Washington state and paid only $37/month. Clearly, I'm a recent graduate, and I'm young and healthy, so lots of people won't be able to get that sort of policy. But the article specifically addresses young, healthy, recent graduates!

For some reason the Blue Shield website isn't responding for me right now, but I just checked out Anthem CA's website (the other Blue Cross/Blue Shield company in CA) and they have a bunch of plans listed right off the bat that start at $80: https://express.rwsol.com/roi/getCCRecommendations.do?produc...

Now, is $80 really that expensive for health insurance?

ryanwaggoner2• 17 years ago

My wife and I are both self-employed, in our late 20s, and live in CA. We pay around $150 per month for both of us to be covered, with a $4 - 5k deductible. Office visits and prescription drugs are both covered, and we pay like $40 / month for basic dental coverage.

Now, we're both healthy, which is a huge blessing. The issue of not being able to get coverage if you have health problems is one of the main problems I have with the healthcare system. That said, $150 / month for two people is hardly insurmountable.

edw519• 17 years ago

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Like OP, I busted my butt in pursuit of a better future, graduated with an BS in Math and an MBA just to work at Denny's for 18 months before finding my first programming job.

But I can't imagine ever writing a piece like this.

I have only one "understanding". No one is ever going to give me anything, so I just have to suck it up and get it for myself.

If OP perseveres for what he wants as well as he whines, problem solved.

Oh and by the way, I got my MBA and worked at Denny's in 1978, so STFU and get busy.

cakesy2• 17 years ago

People who are really serious at work, get into jobs in the last year of uni or before. There are loads of programs at uni, that you can get involved in, to help businesses. Some of these even pay, i did one that involved stochastic modelling for a large car company. That is when you should get involved, companies don't want someone with no experience of how to act in the work place.

yardie2• 17 years ago

I sort of agree, except schools are hosting job fairs and finding out no one is coming. Laying people off is hard emotionally. Except for corporate raiders, most companies don't like to do it. It depresses morale. Now imagine you've gone through 2-3,000 workers. But you're still shopping around for interns. The people that stay will see this, and you can guarantee there will be a great deal of sabotage.

I remember when there was the contraction (dotbomb) in 1999-2000. I was in Uni and when I went to the job fairs (Engineering, Science, and business colleges all had their own) the amount of alumnus was overwhelming. Guys that had graduated many years before me were taking a 2-3 hour drive to this land-grant university hoping to get a shot. Using their alumni connections to get any job. You can imagine what it would be like for an undergrad, no experience, no references, a meager resume, and a start date months or years away. I remember when Intel gave new hires severance money $7-10,000. They weren't going to start for at least 6 months. But Intel just laid off ~4,000 people so no way these guys were getting in.

The problem is those programs are also tied to the economy in general. When businesses aren't hiring paid positions, it is also unlikely they are looking for unpaid interns. And those university programs are meaningless if there are no where for them to go.

teeja• 17 years ago

Me too, graduated with a degree in the hard sciences, 1974. (They're called that for a reason.)

Then I worked as a fry cook, then a dishwasher, then a radio station librarian, then a DJ, then a lumberjack, then a carpenter. THEN I got a real job.

Don't misunderstand: kids graduating right now landed in the shit. You're right: the greedy bastards have worked us over good. But guess what kid: we're all in it, and it's always been that way.

Heard of anyone who worked all their life to build up a 500K retirement and just lost 60% of it? Two decades ago I listened to a guy tell me that he paid into a pension for 30 years, and when his company went down, it was ALL GONE.

Rodney Dangerfield: "It's a jungle out there." Bank on it.

andreyf2• 17 years ago

Things are much better now, then. For every person complaining, there are a lot of people working quietly - I graduated a year ago, and I had no trouble finding a job (and then switching it a couple of months ago) - but that's just one example, maybe I got lucky. Still, I can't think of a single college friend whom I could honestly call smart who can't found a job. Yes, I'm sure the people that wasted their time in college drinking and cheating didn't get much out of it, and are having a tough time now, but I can hardly feel sorry for them.

sophacles• 17 years ago

Except when we get our real job we will get the same starting pay you got. That's without adjusting for inflation. Seriously, My best offer out of college was for a programming job paying what my father was offered for an entry level sales job in 1979. However, we are paying 2000's prices on our college education. We'll be lucky if we get to have the inflation adjusted equivelent of 500K in retirement to lose.

rsheridan63• 17 years ago

If that happened to you now, you would be crushed by student loans that would be unpayable on Denny's wages, possibly going into default before you got your first real paycheck.

presidentender2• 17 years ago

Or you could work while going to school, skip the partying, ride a bicycle, and keep your debt to a repayable level.

I am 22 and I have a real job. During school, I washed a lot of dishes, picked up a lot of construction site refuse, drove a lot of nails, cut a lot of boards, and cleaned up a lot of spyware. Now I write software, for more than the spyware and dishwashing, but less than the construction. I'll still be able to repay my loans when they come due.

steveplace• 17 years ago

Can't default on student loans. It'll get pulled out of any paychecks.

adrianwaj5• 17 years ago

No one is ever going to give me anything, so I just have to suck it up and get it for myself.

Taking it one step further, the ruthless and ambitious (becoming a norm just to survive) will aim to take as much as possible and give back little or nothing at all, maybe a bit of lip service with some condescension.

Then there's bosses making staff feel they owe them something just for providing a work opportunity in a particular field, or even just providing an income. Bosses wanting their pound of flesh and then some: $1 more for you is $1 less for me.

Being paid regularly an honest wage for an honest days' work is a great thing, anything else and someone's being screwed over.

sjsivak• 17 years ago

Is anyone else really curious what sort of degree the author of this article has? I just graduated in May and almost everyone I know with a CS or engineering degree found jobs pretty easily. It was only the bottom of the barrel that struggled, and even most of those people still managed to find something in their field.

bdittmer• 17 years ago

I was wondering the exact same thing. That BA in a philosophy wasn't such a good idea after all, eh skippy? :D

angstrom• 17 years ago

I wouldn't say that. It's helping him expound upon the entitled morass that is his life. He'll have reached true zen when he realizes he could've saved $40K and said "Fuck You." to the world without college.

ibsulon2• 17 years ago

Oddly enough, Philosophy is a poor choice here. When measured, philosophy graduates end up doing quite well on the median, possibly because it is a path to law school for many but also because it teaches many skills that end up being useful in the workplace.

I suggest media arts. :)

californiaguy2• 17 years ago

No, fuck this guy and his bullshit attitude. I'm 25 and I work over 12 hours a day in my technology services company and startup projects and I make a good god damn living for myself and so does everyone who puts in time for our company.

It's his problem for believing the bullshit "adults" told him all his life. I knew from day one it was complete and utter nonsense. I bet he learned to blame others from them too. He should only blame himself for his lack of foresight.

I also have a degree from a good university but the difference is I used that time as an opportunity to extend my social and professional network instead of counting on a fucking piece of paper to grant me magical opportunities. College is what it's always been: a club for the children of privilege to come together and make relationships. If you treat it as such, the value of an "education" is apparent the minute you step foot on campus. Don't waste your time going to a bullshit school without any smart or wealthy people. Just skip it unless you can go to a good school.

blhack• 17 years ago

What company do you work for, I'd love a job...

See, the way it is where I work is that you better fucking have your laptop with you 24/7 because if one of the duct-tape and chicken-wire projects that you're required to support goes down...well then hollly shit it better be fixed like RIGHT. FREAKING. NOW. (never mind that these outages and crashes happen at companies that we are customers of...as in: they won't let me into their FTP server to fix it when it is just fucking dropping connections for no reason).

But by golly, we better be glad to even HAVE a job! See, if we whine, or don't perform 100% all the time every day (even during our "vacation") there are a few hundred qualified applicants ready to take our job for the same pay and the same requirements (these people will burn out in a couple of months...again...and the cycle will continue).

How did this start? Too many people were told that they were special. Too many degrees were given out, and now the job market is flooded with people. We have a surplus of "skills".

How is it that people can't wrap their head around man-hours as a commodity? De beers knows this, they keep vaults full of diamonds locked away in a basement in NYC because they know that if they dump all those diamonds on the market, the price will get driven down.

We've been screwed. I'm sorry, this isn't entitlement. This is facts.

We've been screwed.

beza1e1• 17 years ago

I would call it a surplus of skills, but a surplus of paper. The problem is that the paper you get at the end of your higher education isn't worth that much anymore. Experience is still worth something, though. So an employer is better of to take the experience indicator, since the education indicator isn't that useful anymore.

The problem isn't that there are a few hundred-qualified applicants. The problem is that an employer has no tool to filter those applicants, so the applicants can't do anything to be more qualified than the others and the process becomes quite random. My thesis is that given a good graduation result the next best thing is to learn socials skills and tricks in the interview process. In the end HR makes a gut decision.

caffeine• 17 years ago

Yikes. Potty mouth.

calcnerd2563• 17 years ago

Surely we can hack our language to get across our emotions civilly without resorting to swear words. I appreciate your comment and hope the sentiment you expressed is more widely shared around here.

AlisdairO• 17 years ago

Isn't it a bit sad that someone should have to work a 60 hour week (assuming you don't work weekends...), likely with no more than 2 weeks a year vacation, to earn a good living, though? Fair enough if you're doing what you love, but that is never, alas, going to be the case for most people.

I'm lucky enough to get to work on what I love, but I still think that we should endeavour to restrict the 'normal' working week to a lower number of hours. In Praise of Idleness is an interesting essay on the point: http://www.zpub.com/notes/idle.html .

californiaguy2• 17 years ago

I could easily earn a good living working 40 hours a week.

I'm trying to get rich so I don't have to answer to some clown barely half my age when I'm 40.

adrianwaj5• 17 years ago

Don't waste your time going to a bullshit school without any smart or wealthy people.

It's pragmatic of someone but not necessarily pleasant of them to seek another out just because they're smart or rich. Also, learning how to learn and learning how to relate can be undertaken at any college. But, I do agree with you on one level.

Furthermore, unrealized knowledge entitlement annoyed me far more than unrealized career entitlement (if any). I was ready to run or inherit a business empire knowledge-wise upon graduating. Alas, that did not occur!

Most grads (of Information Systems) said they used none of their knowledge after graduating: best study something one enjoys or something that will definitely be used.

fburnaby• 17 years ago

<blockquote>It's his problem for believing the bullshit "adults" told him all his life. I knew from day one it was complete and utter nonsense.<\blockquote>

This what he's warning everyone else against? Don't trust the lying fuckers. He did and he's now screwed. It may be his fault for having believed them, but it's a great thing for him to warn other potential suckers.

dlytle• 17 years ago

The older generation is bitter because they heavily invested according to a specific system of advancement, lived a good life because of it, and now these modern kids act like the system was always broken.

The younger generation is bitter because they heavily invested according to a specific system of advancement, discovered that the rewards provided by the system have fundamentally changed, and blame the geezers for steering them down the wrong path.

Neither generation wants to accept that the rules have changed and don't pay off the way they used to. That's why they're trying to find someone to blame. (Other than themselves, of course.)

baddox• 17 years ago

If he feels he's entitled simply because he worked hard and did what his parents told him, he clearly had (and has) some unrealistic expectations.

vitaminj• 17 years ago

If you go to the bank and deposit $20, you are entitled to get your $20 from the bank. If you fulfill your half of a contract, you are entitled to the other party’s performance.

Well, if you enter into a verbal agreement with someone, you're not necessarily entitled to anything. When your parents told you to work hard at school and college with the promise that the world will take care of you, you didn't enter into a legitimate contract. So despite your whining, the world doesn't owe you shit.

calcnerd2563• 17 years ago

He mentions generational justice. Does that even make sense? The older generation is going to die first, and then the one that was younger gets to take their turn. A revolving system like that doesn't have to have each pair of adjacent agents breaking even with respect to one another if the inequities are passed on. Well, I'm not saying I like the idea that we should be oppressed and then take our turn to oppress the next group; I'm just saying the notion of "generational justice" doesn't seem to make a whole lot of sense.

chairface• 17 years ago

I think it makes sense. Some generations are bigger than others, and the bigger ones (like the one this guy is complaining about) can throw their weight around at the expense of the others. They carry more political weight.

I, for instance, was born in a smaller generation. The baby boomers will control things for a decade or two more, and after they start dying, those younger than me will become dominant.

I'm not really that concerned about this - I came to terms with it long ago. But it's still there, and I can understand if some people get bitter about things like this.

jsz0• 17 years ago

I don't feel all that entitled but I can understand why the "get good grades, goto a good college, have a wonderful life" crowd feels short changed. That message was drilled into their heads by teachers, family, friends, etc. I would probably feel entitled in that situation. You did all the "right things" and aren't seeing the promised benefits. No one mentioned sometimes it takes a while or just never happens. For any political issues like health care young people make themselves, and issues they care about, irrelevant by not voting in sufficiently large numbers. Again, the promise of democracy doesn't really live up to reality. I suspect it's just a common generational problem. In your 20's you're young enough to remember carefree youth but not successful enough yet to see your own life as living up to your expectations.

paul9290• 17 years ago

Why is this even getting voted up?

This guy needs to join that girl in her silly lawsuit she filed against her college. I'd never hire her nor this whiner. Though maybe this is there way of thinking of the box and getting attention. They say any kind of attention is good(publicity), yet for me I still would not hire either!

brianmckenzie• 17 years ago

Everything your parents told you was a lie. Well, not really - raising children is fundamentally different than raising adults.

Only adults can raise themselves.

Do the drugs. Have underage sex. Steal a car. Get into a fistfight.

After this, you will realize that life is not prescriptive/deterministic.

c00p3r• 17 years ago

He will say "Thanks for that" to his parents when he will be "thirty-something".

hooande• 17 years ago

So let me get this straight... people told you to study hard and over achieve, and now you're upset because things aren't as easy as you were promised?

Welcome to the real world.

Sad Fact #1: Everything people tell you isn't true. Even your parents, religious leaders and teachers will tell you things that aren't entirely true, mostly because they have their own motivations.

Sad Fact #2: You can do everything the right way and still fail. Mostly because there are a lot of people who's parents also told them to study hard and overachieve, and by the nature of the system you can't all win big.

I had to learn these lessons the hard way, too. Everyone does, sooner or later. Some people respond by taking another look around and wondering what else they don't know. Other people start to demand the respect they were promised without having yet accomplished anything impressive. If you're in that second group you have what they call a "sense of entitlement", no matter what the previous generation told you.

BearOfNH• 17 years ago

For every complaint about the benefits of seniority, networking, etc., there's an older guy (and usually it IS a guy) who is laid off so a cheaper kid can be hired to replace him.

Of course if you've got a liberal arts degree from a diploma mill, that won't be you.

maximumwage• 17 years ago

What is the correct attitude that twenty-somethings should have? So far I have a few guesses: work on creating value for the world, be relentlessly resourceful, focus on cause and effect instead of whether something is "right" or "wrong", etc. Am I on the right track?

adrianwaj5• 17 years ago

Learn how to look at yourself from the other side of the table and build bridges, take, but also give equally.

pj• 17 years ago

The problem is that twenty somethings don't vote and silver hairs do.

I was watching footage from the town hall meetings around the country for the health care reform and noticed only one person without gray hair there and she was still old.

chubbard• 17 years ago

Knowing everything you know now. Would you not do your homework, participate in extracurricular activities, play sports, learn to play the piano, apply and attend a good college? If not then what? Do you feel you wasted your time doing those things?

squashed• 17 years ago

My article. Yes I would do it again. I would probably take Spanish instead of Latin. That would have been useful.

All those things are good things to do in themselves--and many will be useful in the future. That said, It's a rough time for a lot of people graduating now--and it's ridiculous to see older people pretend that they're having trouble because they did something wrong.

kp212• 17 years ago

  All I can say is, and I've been working over 8 years, if I was graduating college in this economy with 50+k in loans, no job, the worst UE rate in 20+ years, I'd be pissed as well. Not saying its right, not saying its wrong, just saying...

etravers• 17 years ago

And now a few words from a parent...

We tell you these things so you will apply yourself and have what it takes when/if you get the opportunity. There is a diff between flipping burgers because [the market is tight| you're working through college| any other hurdle] and flipping burgers because you aren't qualified to do anything else. We remember questioning "when will I need to know X when I grow up?". Nine times out of ten they are teaching something completely useless, but it is something you have to work your way through.

I tell my kids that the majority of what is taught in school is bullsh|t, but it is something they must/will do because if they do not they will have to answer to me. I tell them that the most important parts of school aren't remembering why some old dead guy crossed the Delaware. The most important things are learning how to solve problems and think for themselves. I tell them the controlling, idiotic teachers they are dealing with now are just like the controlling, idiotic bosses and coworkers they will be dealing with when they enter the job market so they better get used to it.

I teach them to take responsibility for their own screw-ups and short comings and the importance of remaining focused and humble when they are the hero of the moment.

It sounds as though some kids get the sugar and spice version. Now that you know the truth adjust accordingly and get on with it!

On those "Entitled" Twenty-Somethings

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