Topic: The Special Generation: Expectations of Entitlement and Unhappiness

[trapeze]

I read this essay and I thought, yeah, this pretty much explains why I have such a difficult time finding people to work (and I mean really work) for my company. The jobs that I offer just aren't "special" enough for the entitled.

I will quote the opening paragraphs but you really should read the whole thing (it has great stick figure illustrations and graphs with unicorns), especially the comments that follow it. For me, the comments are what were really eye-opening as regards "what we are up against."

Say hi to Lucy.

Lucy is part of Generation Y, the generation born between the late 1970s and the mid 1990s.  She's also part of a yuppie culture that makes up a large portion of Gen Y. 

I have a term for yuppies in the Gen Y age group—I call them Gen Y Protagonists & Special Yuppies, or GYPSYs.  A GYPSY is a unique brand of yuppie, one who thinks they are the main character of a very special story.

So Lucy's enjoying her GYPSY life, and she's very pleased to be Lucy.  Only issue is this one thing:

Lucy's kind of unhappy.

To get to the bottom of why, we need to define what makes someone happy or unhappy in the first place.  It comes down to a simple formula:

Happiness = Reality - Expectations

It's pretty straightforward—when the reality of someone's life is better than they had expected, they're happy.  When reality turns out to be worse than the expectations, they're unhappy.

To provide some context, let's start by bringing Lucy's parents into the discussion:

Lucy's parents were born in the 50s—they're Baby Boomers.  They were raised by Lucy's grandparents, members of the G.I. Generation, or "the Greatest Generation," who grew up during the Great Depression and fought in World War II, and were most definitely not GYPSYs.

Lucy's Depression Era grandparents were obsessed with economic security and raised her parents to build practical, secure careers.  They wanted her parents' careers to have greener grass than their own, and Lucy's parents were brought up to envision a prosperous and stable career for themselves.

I really can't go any further with the pull quote because at that point the illustrations become rather integral to the essay and I'm not going to cut an paste these into the article.

Anyway, read the essay and don't miss out on the comments (the bitching, the moaning, the groaning, the whining..."it's not my fault, it's those damned boomers."

[Libertas]

speSHel generation my bee-hind!   

I think Lucy and her ilk will look at that advice and see #2 & #3 being completely impossible for them to achieve!

I like how some commenters call BS on traditional forms of measuring acheivement (achievement, not happiness you emoting tools!  achievement leads to happiness if you let it, unicorn-fart sniffing fools!) and then come back and piss and moan about the high cost of education and this that and the other thing...do they listen to the inconsistencies they spew?  No, of course not, that would denote true intelligence and independent thinking.  So you're in six figure debt and your degree in Wymens Studies gave you the dead end career in retail sales you didn't want...whose fricken fault is that?  (Hint-It's yours dumbass!  Take some personal responsibility for being a moron!  Stop being a moron!!).

They can call generations whatever they want, it's just pop culture generalizations...you're either a fully functioning individual or you are not.  Strive to be the former not the latter!

Jeeeesh!

[Weisshaupt]

Everyone gets a participation award and a trophy.  We are all Winners. We will not Single out or Distinguish those with ability because it might make those without ability feel bad. Its doesn't matter what 3x4 equals as long as the child feels self-fuliflled while trying to figure it out.. I am my kids friend, not their parent! Its okay if I get divorced, its better my kids not be exposed to turbulence  kids! Raised by their mothers, kids don't have the objectivity yardstick fathers typically provide

The Left MADE this generation what it is, because the left thrives when there are lots of entitled narcissistic  sociopaths who refuse to take a job where their hands get dirty and isn't directly related to their personal dream.
Good Find trap!

[LadyVirginia]

Yes, good find.  I saw the "i'm special" beginning 30 years ago and it's only gotten worse.  There were people I knew buying houses within a couple of years of graduating college, they were buying expensive cars, going on nice vacations, etc.  I noticed that when we went shopping for our 1st house they were designing houses to "look" expensive.  Whole developments that from the outside looked like a "big" house and you'd walk in and they were no bigger than the old, post WWII "starter" houses.  But no one wanted starter houses.  They weren't starting "there". They wanted what their parents took years to get.  My parents didn't buy their first house until I was in high school and that was only because my grandmother left dad some money.  They bought used cars until I was in college and then  they bought their first "new" car. I had to live at home for college--couldn't afford it otherwise.

We were never hungry, we always lived in a house with a yard.  My mom shopped wisely so we were clothed well. We went on vacation--camping--we saw a lot of the country that way.

My father was the son of a man who quit school and went to work at 14.  My father earned a Ph.d. Quite an achievement back then.  Now, not so much. We knew hard work. Unfortunately, I've seen the infection of  the special generation spread back to those who should know better (some of my family). I think they thought the younger ones were getting more by doing less and they jumped on that bandwagon. 

My kids were raised with the idea that you work hard.  Sometimes it pays off and sometimes it doesn't. They had jobs as kids. My oldest graduated with kids who had never had a job until they graduated from college.

I tell my kids that, yes, there will be some who seem to get ahead of you and achieve more but in the end nothing gets done without hard work.

 

[Weisshaupt]

My kids were raised with the idea that you work hard.  Sometimes it pays off and sometimes it doesn't.

Hard work always pays off for me, even if in the end there isn't any real material  benefit--  still being able to look myself in the eye in the mirror each morning and know I did my best is what has always counted for me.  Hard work is its own reward

[LadyVirginia]

My kids were raised with the idea that you work hard.  Sometimes it pays off and sometimes it doesn't.

Hard work always pays off for me, even if in the end there isn't any real material  benefit--  still being able to look myself in the eye in the mirror each morning and know I did my best is what has always counted for me.  Hard work is its own reward

I agree.  That's what my kids know.  I meant it in that sentence more in terms you don't always get a "pay off" from that particular job (a salary increase, promotion). 

I have one kid who always seems to have more than one job going at a time.  She's talked herself into a job more than once.  Now I have another who seems to be on the same path.  In fact, she was just telling me the other day that she's finding some of her college friends have no idea how to look for a job. Fortunately, the ones she's hanging out with seem to get it.  They all have knocked on doors around campus to get campus jobs (and got them--her roommate got a job usually given to seniors which means she'll probably have this job for all 4 years) while the others are at a lost still just looking at the campus postings for the in-demand jobs lining up with dozens of others for an interview.

[trapeze]

Okay, so now there is a "reply" to the original article. It is about what you might expect. It's pretty obvious where the whole OWS stuff got its support from when you read crap like this and all of the dozens/hundreds of "yeah, what he said" comments that follow it...

A bunch of you people on Facebook and Twitter keep sharing a Huff Po stick-figure thing about how Gen Y is unhappy because they’re unrealistic delusional ingrates.

You know, this thing.

If you wrote that, or you liked that, carefully consider these thoughts:

1) These are weirdly contrived generational categories, too weird for such black-and-white reasoning. I’ve always thought myself more tail-end-of-Gen-X in temperament, age, and outlook. But '77-'79 is a sociologically ambiguous no-man's land, and we typically get lumped in with the millennials, especially when it comes to money matters.

2) Go f**k yourselves.

You have no idea about student debt, underemployment, life-long renting. “Stop feeling special” is some sh*tty advice. I don’t feel special or entitled, just poor. The only thing that makes me special is I have more ballooning debt than you. I’ve tempered the hell out of my expectations of work, and I’ve exceeded those expectations crazily to have one interesting, exciting damned career that’s culminated in some leadership roles for national publications. And I’m still poor and in debt and worked beyond the point where it can be managed with my health and my desire to actually see the son I’m helping to raise.

Younger journos see me as a success story and ask my advice, and I feel like a fraud, because I’m doing what I love, and it makes me completely miserable and exhausts me.

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?” Our status in this Big Financial Game had sucked my basic humanity towards my child away for a minute. If I wish for something better, is that me simply being entitled and delusional?

There *are* delusions at play here, but they are not our generation's. They play out as two contradictory lectures that we are told, simultaneously, by our monied elders:

1) This is AMERICA. Everybody does better than their parents!

2) This is AMERICA. Suck it up and quit bitching that you're not as well-off as your parents!

The comments start with a guy telling the author to stop whining and grow a set...

A generation that grew up with soccer games that weren't scored because we wanted everyone to feel like a winner. A generation that went to school with sliding scale grades that allowed everyone to pass every class. A generation that had rich parents flooding them with cash so that the children of the poor and the middle class couldn't possibly stay generationally current and thus form myriads of sub-cultures, many of which were not particularly pro-successful development into adulthood.

The same generation that went to college at the biggest name school they could get into (whether they could afford it or not, was not allowed in the decision matrix), and took degrees that were non-commercially viable because that was what fulfilled them. Tolerated a vast amount of PC crap being added to their degree paths that furthered their debt, but didn't add to their commercial appeal.

And then the OWSers start to pile onto this guy as if he is the devil...

Short version: "I have sh*tty politics and am boring. Everything I say is a cliche based on my sh*tty politics and mistaken view of just who the article is about, and my mistaken view of how things are in general."

I never played such soccer games, never had sliding scale grades, didn't have rich parents, and I don't know anyone who did. I went to a state school and I have a professional job, but I have a mountain of debt, and because of it I may not ever have kids or own a house. You can take your tired half-baked generalizations and shove them up your ass.

   

And it just goes on and on and on from there.

[Weisshaupt]

Okay, so now there is a "reply" to the original article. It is about what you might expect. It's pretty obvious where the whole OWS stuff got its support from when you read crap like this and all of the dozens/hundreds of "yeah, what he said" comments that follow it...

Ok lookie. he is doing a job he Loves.  That is why you don't get paid much for it sport. Jobs you hate (or at least dislike) pay more. Trust me.  And I just love how these people act as if someone forced them into debt  (other than the debt the Dems have heaped upon them in IOUs to the treasury to pay for the programs these kids support) 

Come on. To get a college loan, you, as a person having passed the age of consent, sign the frigging form.  Did it not occur to you that paying of 80K in debt might be hard if you only expect to earn 30K a year?  But but but.. I am entitled to a 4 year long party called college, but no, I bear no personal responsibility for getting myself into debt . I was tricked! I am a victim! Someone else has to pay!

There *are* delusions at play here, but they are not our generation's. They play out as two contradictory lectures that we are told, simultaneously, by our monied elders:

1) This is AMERICA. Everybody does better than their parents!

2) This is AMERICA. Suck it up and quit bitching that you're not as well-off as your parents!

so if you accept either "delusion" and act upon it incurring debt you can't pay, its your "monied elder's" fault?

Here let me correct them for you

1) This is America - no matter how bad things get, if you keep trying and expending a huge amount of effort locating opportunities you can still find the opportunity to do better than your parents - in time, and probably not before you are 45.
2)  This is America. If you choose instead to sit around and wait for everything to be handed to you on a silver platter, make stupid choices that set you back and simply  don't handle your money wisely via deferred gratification and chosing a career path that has a good chance of providing a good income, instead of giving you "happiness" and a "job you love", your life as far as material wealth goes,  is likely to be worse than your parents. 

[trapeze]

So I'm thinking that if all of these OWS types get so frickin' pissed off when someone criticizes them for their unrealistic expectations they are really going to come unglued when they realize that the Social Security music is about to stop and they are nowhere near an unoccupied chair.

If they believe that they are chumps for their parents now, they are in for a very rude awakening when that ride stops unexpectedly.

Invest in Kleenex because there is going to be a whole lot of weeping.

[Weisshaupt]

So I'm thinking that if all of these OWS types get so frickin' pissed off when someone criticizes them for their unrealistic expectations they are really going to come unglued when they realize that the Social Security music is about to stop and they are nowhere near an unoccupied chair.

If they believe that they are chumps for their parents now, they are in for a very rude awakening when that ride stops unexpectedly.

Invest in Kleenex because there is going to be a whole lot of weeping.

The sad thing is there are millions of good, high paying jobs that are going unfilled - because they involve working outside, getting dirty or working with your hands.  Welding. Machining. Fixing .  Some are 70K a year + training.  And they can't fill the positions.  These jobs aren't glamorous. They don't let you pretend to be saving the world ( I am a Journalist - I report only what advances my cause!)  or doing anything terribly awe-inspiring or noble.  Many of them are Rural and involve travel, so you can't live in the oh-so-exciting city and visit the hot spots with all of your friends every weekend. You are unlikely to "Love your job" when your job involves you being away from family and friends,  outside in really hot or really cold temperatures,  lifting heavy stuff and doing repetitive tasks. You, might, however, be able to pay off that loan you took out to have a 6-8 year party in school and do a  thesis on underwater basket weaving and how it embodies the patriarchal racist structure of  American Society.

This guy even complains about how today's  economy doesn't offer the same opportunities.. it didn't in the 30s either. Maybe kids then bitched that much, but I doubt it.  No one was dumb enough to do that to their kids.  He doesn't even acknowledge that much of today's crappy economy is a direct result of a society in which fewer productive  people are supporting   and ever growing class of non-productive ( and yes, that includes Social Security) - a society in which the society itself has put itself in debt up to its eyeballs ( yeah kid, now tack on your share of the National Debt)  and that "Productivity" measured by GDP means nothing  when a large portion of it is borrowed money paid to people for producing nothing of value.