I'm sure there's something to that, and I'm not part of the generation that's getting maligned in that article, but I think the problems are more complex and varied than just a simple blanket "kids these days don't want to work." Some? Sure. All, even most? I'm not so sure.
One thing as an adult that I have come to question is the real usefulness of a college degree. When I was growing up (I'm Generation X) we were told time and again by the generation that taught us, as well as our parents, that we HAD to go to college. That that getting that college degree was going to prevent us from having to work in fast food or retail jobs. Unfortunately, for myriad reasons, including the fact that many of those of the generation that taught us that told us college was a priority, a necessity even, are holding on to their jobs well past what used to be considered a normal retirement age, there is a shortage of the more "desirable" jobs. Many boomers have a death grip on their jobs, leaving the following generations to now be expected to gratefully take the kinds of jobs they were told for 12 to 16 years that getting a college degree would exempt them from.
I'm not saying that someone with a college degree should think they are above service or other non-white collar work, but as someone who has been struggling with finding full time employment for the past few years, I can tell you that in my experience having a college degree seems to make ME look like a less desirable candidate for many of the "less desirable" jobs I've tried to get (again I'm putting "desirable" reference to the jobs in quotes to stress that I'm not saying that's how I view them), because I'm considered over-qualified because I have a BA (in theatre!). I've held some decent jobs since college, and my last was the best paying job I'd ever had, but not a one required a college degree. And to make sure someone does come in here and parse out how
this job and
that job requires a degree, I'm not saying a college degree is completely useless for everyone, but I think the hardline my generation was sold about how necessary it was has turned out to not ring quite so true.
And yes, I get that college is
supposed be about more that preparing you to be a worker bee, but again, that's not how it was sold to me or most people I know of my generation.
I also think that article is really misrepresenting how unemployment actually works. You're not going to work a job for a few months, get fired and then collect unemployment for 99 weeks. And I don't think anyone is collecting unemployment that long anymore, since all the extended benefit programs have expired. Again, there are certainly people who might be able to game the system, but not to the extent that this article suggests (50%? Really?).
In a way I kind of think that article was a bad one to use to make the point. That's not a slam against our tiny cupcake, but one of his other entries is titled, "Susan Rice, Coonery Buffoonery?" for Christ's sake!
So I guess my point is that even if this IS a wildly entitled generation we're talking about, it didn't happen in a vacuum and often times the people "tsk tsking" about the problem of the younger generations had a hand in creating the problem.
Updated On: 12/2/12 at 09:06 PM
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