American Dream Is Elusive for Whiny, Entitled Members of New Generation

[ceejay74]

Sorry, couldn't resist rewriting the headline

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/07/bu...eneration.html

[dmontngrey]

I just couldn't read that whole article - nauseating! I can't believe that kid turned down a job that would allow him to get his foot in the door! This is a local story for me - I have a coworker who lives in the same town as the kid in the story. I started at my company just doing random office stuff - as a temp for 10.00/hr. When I came in here they asked me what I could do - I answered "Anything." I wasn't trying to be smart about it, that's just what I felt I could do. A few years later they handed me payroll without me having any experience. I knew my boss (at the time) was just trying to set me up to fail - but I thrived! I've been here 10 1/2 years now and all I had to do was TRY. You think I wanted to file papers after studying math and biology in college?

[disneysteve]

Pathetic. This is exactly what is wrong with the country today. People want their dream job and are unwilling to settle for anything less. I wonder how many "unemployed" people have turned down jobs the way this guy has.

"Over the last five months, only one job materialized. After several interviews, the Hanover Insurance Group in nearby Worcester offered to hire him as an associate claims adjuster, at $40,000 a year. But even before the formal offer, Mr. Nicholson had decided not to take the job.

he would hold out for a corporate position that would draw on his college training and put him, as he sees it, on the bottom rungs of a career ladder.

Scott Nicholson viewed the Hanover job as likely to stunt his career"

Stunt his career? Duh. You have no career, loser. You don't have a career until you have a JOB. He wants something that will put him on the bottom rungs of a career ladder. Seems to me that taking an adjuster job with a large insurance company would fit that description perfectly.

The parents are not innocent here either. They need to lay down the law and tell him that either he gets a job, any job, in the next 3-6 months or he moves out. Parents enabling their adult children and fully supporting them like this is disgusting.

[MonkeyMama]

2 thoughts:

1 - $40k was more than my starting salary out of college (for a prestigious job/career track).

2 - I would not have turned down a minimum wage job out of college, because I had bills to pay. Rent, insurance, etc.

My mom was just telling me that her friend has all 4 of her grown children living with her. Good lord! For the last decade or so people always ask my parents why they are so lucky that their children moved out so young and never came back. Um, because they never invited us to slack off in their house and do nothing? IT's really that simple.

If I were to face a hardship, I know my parents would be there for me. But there is no way in hell I'd be living in their house turning down a $40k job. I'd be out on my butt pretty fast, as I should.

[disneysteve]

Originally Posted by MonkeyMama

For the last decade or so people always ask my parents why they are so lucky that their children moved out so young and never came back. Um, because they never invited us to slack off in their house and do nothing? IT's really that simple.

What an amazing concept!

[ceejay74]

Yep, I mostly think it's up to the older family members to help the kid be more realistic. I mean, sure he's spoiled, but he's also just young and naive and thinks he's doing the right/best/smart thing. The parents need to tell him to get out there and work, stop comparing his starter job with his years-older brother who got a job in a much better market, stop following every little whim ["the sheen was gone" when military asked him to reapply--ridiculous!), and feel how it is to live on his own with a not-huge salary. (And I must add, in my household we are 36, 37 and 31, and none of us have cracked $50K in our jobs--and one of us is making far less than this kid was offered!)

[kork13]

That disgusts me. This kid is my age, graduated the same year I did. The idiot thinks he can step into a management job straight out of college with zero experience. It's the fault of his parents, and probably also the fault of his advisers/instructors in college for convincing him that he can do that. Well, let's not forget the brat's own ignorance/arrogance.

Oh, btw... Had he gone into the Marines, he'd have a salary of about the same $40k-$45k/year. I don't know who he thinks he's kidding. $40k/year in any entry-level job is great money, and an entry-level job is just that -- a starting point, where you get some initial experience in the workforce. Just because a job isn't in the particular field you're going for, you still show responsibility, the level/quality of your work, and so on. Those are transferable to ANY field, and this kid is too unprepared for life to realize that fact.

[GREENBACK]

Originally Posted by kork13

Had he gone into the Marines

Great point Kork. The little Brat has never had to earn his way up, so naturally he expects the world on a silver platter for a few good grades. Someone should have thrown water on his fire years ago.

[Joan.of.the.Arch]

Definitely had to read it with the headline you gave it, ceejay74.

I'm wondering why he even agreed to do the interview. Is he thinking that people will read it and decide maybe they should give him an interview for a much, much better job?

And do I understand correctly that he has moved out of his parents place and into his brother's place, but that his parents are paying his half of the rent? Maybe they think they are helping both sons that way.

[disneysteve]

Originally Posted by Joan.of.the.Arch

I'm wondering why he even agreed to do the interview.

These bozos truly believe that there is nothing at all wrong with they way they are living. They believe that they are doing the right thing. So they see nothing wrong with telling their story to the world.

[rob62521]

Loved the rewritten headline...certainly accurate!

It's amazing and downright scary how many think they are entitled to the same salary and bennies that their parents and grandparents have worked decades for. It's just like those folks who want instant gratification and buy on credit those luxury items...they would never save up for anything.

Yet, on the news last night when the world news had a story on whether unemployment should be extended, one charter school administrator said she can't find a job, even at McDonalds, because there are none. The school she worked at closed and she was williing to work at McDonalds...I think she understands that some employment is better than none. She's concerned she's going to lose the house without a job...any job!

[maat55]

Sounds like the little bird was nudged out of the nest.

[geojen]

As a member of this "new generation," I find your title insulting and ridiculous. Anyone can find any member of any current living generation and find slackers with entitled attitudes and write articles about them. I realize the boomer generation generally regards itself as the best thing since sliced bread, but I'm sure they have their share of losers, just like gen x and the millenials, and yes, even the greatest generation had it's share of duds. Geesh.

Every generation likes to turn it's collective nose up at the new generation. This is nothing new.

[Joan.of.the.Arch]

I didn't understand that title to even be referring to the whole generation. I thought it referred to the only the whiny, entitled members of that generation.

However, yes, I did look at my own generation as long as 37 years ago and think about how selfish we were. I was in high school from 1973-1977 and I remember thinking how awful things could be when my whiny, entitled generation came to be in charge. And of course I did not really mean every single person was that way.

[EconoMutt]

It's funny how our definitions change.

A first job used to mean working from the bottom and doing anything you were asked to do.
Not telling your boss what you will and will not do.

I have a college education and can remember packing boxes at the end of the month so our company could make the shipment quota. No way would you see a college grad do that today.

A first home used to mean a 950 sq ft fixer upper. If you were lucky, the window air conditioner you had in the bedroom would not blow a fuse during the hottest time of the year.
My realtor tells me that a starter home for anyone under 30 is 2000 sq ft, granite counter tops, stainless steel appliances etc. Nothing less is acceptable.

[EEinNJ]

Being on the tail end of the Boomer generation myself, I find a lot of the comments here sanctimonious, and I agree with Geojen. Many of the students and recent grads I know are having a tough time- including some bright kids from top schools. It's one thing if you need a survival job (the young man in this story obviously didn't), it's quite another to make a bad choice that sacrifices both your long term potential and your happiness for the sake of a paycheck. I know people who've done that, and ended up stuck in underemployment for years.

I've always advised recent grads to choose their first jobs wisely, because it's easy to get type-cast and hard to change industries and jobs. I base that on my own experience- graduating during a tech recession and having a hard time finding work, I took the first offer I got after multiple rejections. My degree is in electronics, but I paid my dues in a below average paying, hot, dirty, noisy bearing factory for 2 years. It took years after that to work my way into a good paying permanent position.

[Joan.of.the.Arch]

The guy in the story is doing odd jobs such as lawn mowing. But is he putting something like that on a resume for the job he really wants? This young many has been out of school two years. Which might more characterize him as someone not to hire for the job he wants? Having been unemployed for two years? Or having been in a different insurance job than he wanted and at "only" $40K?

[jIM_Ohio]

Originally Posted by geojen

As a member of this "new generation," I find your title insulting and ridiculous. Anyone can find any member of any current living generation and find slackers with entitled attitudes and write articles about them. I realize the boomer generation generally regards itself as the best thing since sliced bread, but I'm sure they have their share of losers, just like gen x and the millenials, and yes, even the greatest generation had it's share of duds. Geesh.

Every generation likes to turn it's collective nose up at the new generation. This is nothing new.

I am probably a gen X or gen Y, not sure...

it is clear to me that the young people brought in have a different expectation level than what I started with.

They expect company cars, expense accounts, high salaries and similar. I went to school with 25 fraternity brothers, and while some of us were lazy, others were duds, and few even partied like it was 1999 back in 1992, I can assure you NONE of us felt we were entitled to anything. We created opportunities for ourselves, dealt with the curves life threw at us, and in general most are quite successful.

It is new in that when it was boomers, those people are rightfully called the best generation ever. We have an internet, we can type in english (not German or Japanese) and in general the world is at peace. That was not true when the boomers were born or raised.

Boomers had no college degree- none of my 4 grandparents went to college. They raised a combined 9 kids and led a modest but enriched life (they valued people more than possessions). Sometime since then there was a transfer to a possession based attitude (I need this thing, this thing and this thing).

I know one of my grandfathers walked to work, took his lunch with him everyday and worked as an engineer (without a degree) for various employers. Tell anyone today to do that and they are labeled an environment freak, not a hard worker.

[ea1776]

He is living in a 100% FANTASY world. He believes he is going to find something that doesn't exist. There are 2 reasons he won't get the job he is fantasizing about:

1. He isn't qualified.
2. He has a major attitude problem and feels he is so entitled. That sort of thing doesn't sit well with the great minds & spirits that run this country, and people pick up on it so quickly. There are no handouts, you have to EARN things in life.

If he was really ambitious, take the 40k job, live frugally, save, start a small business on weekends, read books on topics of interest, network, and continue searching for what you "really want" in spare time off of work.

What a joke.

[ea1776]

Originally Posted by ceejay74

["the sheen was gone" when military asked him to reapply--ridiculous!)

Does this sound like someone who could survive in a tough job? Newsflash! Jobs that pay a lot usually do so because they are DIFFICULT and/or require special skills. Too bad he didn't re-apply to the Marines, because IMHO, that is exactly the place he belongs. No determination. No guts. No risk tolerance. and a whole lot of growing up to do.