I knew this was clickbait from the title. I clicked anyway. As someone who is not a millenial, and was in his 20's before most of these people were born, I call bullshit on this nonsense. So, I took a look at the author. Yeap called it... 50's guy with a career and money telling young people they suck. This guy makes a living writing about sports, and throws up a "humor" piece about "those damn kids these days, AMIRITE! LOL!"
I'm curious to see what some of you in your teens and twenty's think of this "humor" piece.
Honestly, I found this insulting. I'm sure Chris Erskine meant this to be somewhat humorous, but I pride myself on maintaining a sense of personal integrity, as all responsible adults should. The fact that I am in my twenties does not mean that I am unreliable, self-absorbed, or obnoxious. After working jobs where I have been the oldest person on staff and one where I was the youngest by twenty years, I've found that people in general are often lazy, unreliable, and take themselves too seriously. That being said, I can think of a lot of people I knew in college who could use more than a few of these specific suggestions. I do think a lot of privileged adult children in their twenties and early thirties are a special breed of morons compared to older generations. At least people that have managed to stay alive for a few decades have some common sense, emotional depth, and experience with adversity. They also find it easy to look down on people whose biggest disappointment in life so far has been a bad breakup, not getting into the college they wanted, or having mommy and daddy refuse to pay for their ridiculous lifestyle. While this really only describes the hipster scene of young urban professionals and wealthy children and college students, they are incredibly visible in popular culture and in major cities. The problem is that my generation is represented by these people in the media and popular culture, and it makes people think we're a bunch of insufferable twats. They're right; the people Erskine mocks in this article are annoying drags on society. I work in a retail store in Bulington, Vermont, a small town which has a disproportionately large population of these people and I see them every day. Rich college kids and some people in their late twenties and early thirties dressed in stupid clothes with stupid haircuts and entitled attitudes. I hate living here. I had to move back in with my parents for financial reasons five months ago and I have had difficulty making new friends two thousand miles away from where I used to live because I find so many of the people my age who live here insufferable, and the ones I don't are busy working two or more jobs to try to pay the inflated rents in the area. Rent is more expensive here on average than in Seattle, a city with twenty times the population of this little town because of wealthy parents from urban areas mindlessly paying inflated rents for their children who are in college or who have recently graduated. I think that the reality is that most young people today are seen by people born from 1955-1975 as too uninteresting and unmotivated to be bothered with, except as employees performing menial service, manual labor, and retail positions, and as a target for advertisers. While most young people are worth much more than all that, there is a small and highly visible portion of the population that is good for little else. However, at the very least that small, vapid group is a lot less focused on personal financial gain at the expense of others because they rely on their parents and friends for their living arrangements and lifestyles. That makes them instinctively more community-minded and collaborative, and I'd rather have that be the image of my generation than the later Baby Boomers and Generation X, who outsourced American jobs, forced national politics far to the right, and restored corporations to levels of power they haven't held in this country since the early 1900s. Only now, the corporations aren't really American anymore, and this isn't only an American problem, but a problem throughout the Western world. Their obnoxious children are just blowback. That was a lot more than I meant to write. Basically, I think this guy's kind of a jerk, but I can absolutely see where he's coming from. I'd be interested on what you think about what I've written since you said you were a member of an older generation.
I agree. I’m in retail, and there are a lot of people (not just millennials, but in every generation) who simply are entitled little shits. They seem to have no concept of how they affect other people, cannot stand the word “no” or even “it might take some time” . It’s a narrow segment of all generations and it’s weird to me how they’re so cacooned from the outside world that they assume everything is all about them. They can be late or absent and just ghost people without having to explain or even apologize for it.
It's not funny, because (a) it completely lacks wit, and (b) it's an example of "punching down". Punching down better be damn good comedy if you don't want to come off looking like a complete douchebag. (Even then, you still look like a douchebag, albeit a funny one.)
Every time someone prescribes negative attributes to one particular generation of a population, they end up looking foolish before they've finished speaking/writing. This was more excusable many years ago, before the information age gave us the hindsight to realize how fruitless it was to repeat the same mistake over and over. I'm not offended or upset. I couldn't care any less what some guy in LA has to say on the matter. The only thing this is, to me, is a reminder to avoid becoming a sour old man. And that's not terribly easy.
Alright let's go. Let's do this old man. • Just once, I will try eating without texting. The worst offenders I see doing both of these things: baby boomers. Baby boomers are THE WORST with phones. Most millenials I know (myself included) got snapped at if they used their phones at the table. My mom has done that to me PHONE IN HAND. what??? WHAT??? see above re: phones and boomers Most low income jobs go to adults. Teens make up 24% of the hourly work force. Also, when are teens supposed to have time for work on top of increasingly more demanding curriculums and the expectations of extracurriculars. Language changes and I am scared of change. Electricity is the devil and Thomas Edison was a witch. fuck cilantro (ok that's just me) Just once, I will try driving without texting.
• I will learn all my siblings' names (even the younger ones).
• If my first-born is a boy, I promise not to name him Uber.
I will not use pepper spray to season a burrito.
• At holiday dinners, I will leave my phone in my room.
• In high school or college, I will get a part-time job. Even if it's beneath me.
• I promise not to misuse the word "literally." As in "I am literally dying of hunger" or "You are literally being so rude."
I will not consider the cilantro on my taco to be a vegetable.
Her name is Roberta - but we just call her Uber."If my first-born is a boy, I promise not to name him Uber.
That's where he lost me. Why not promise not to name your baby girl Uber. Why does-not-naming-Uber only apply to boys. The definition of Uber is: "denoting an outstanding or supreme example of a particular kind of person or thing."
Considering this is the first point: the author sure thinks he's entitled to an awful lot. Here's my favorite one, a sure sign the author didn't enter the work force in the last twenty years: I had a coworker give one day's notice, as in "today is my last day." Why? Because the company's policy was to walk people out the door as soon as they put in notice. He was concerned his health care benefits would end before his next job was ready to pick them up. The author here seems stuck in the 1950s.I am entitled to nothing.
If I hate my new job, I will not fake my own death. I will give a full two weeks' notice like grown-ups usually do.
Except... A cheap college education. A job right out of high school if you did not go to college. Affordable housing. Affordable health care, mostly paid for by your employers. A job that paid enough for one parent to stay home and raise the kids. Pensions. The ability to retire at 65 after spending 40 years working and not saving like your kids. Public works programs that enriched society as a whole. But the Millennials are the entitled ones, right?I am entitled to nothing.
I was thinking the author was saying "I'm entitled to: Not wait. My time is more important than yours. Have my message heard, even if others don't want to listen. Have my family focus on me at dinner. Feel superior over others. You should accept that I may laugh at you. Receive thank you notes. You will hand write them. Define what is and is not a good use of some else's time. Receive phone calls from my children." Looking through the list again, the "don't text me important stuff" one is annoying. The problem is I call my mom to tell her something, and before I've finished the rounds with everyone else she's posted it on Facebook. By the time I've called siblings, they already know and now I'm the bad guy because they found out on Facebook of all places. Complaining about texting is just the new "you should have told me in person."
This was the reason that I once gave six weeks notice when leaving a job. They walked me out, and paid me six week's worth of pay - plus my accrued holidays. I was willing to work out the six weeks, but I kinda suspected they would do exactly what they did.Because the company's policy was to walk people out the door as soon as they put in notice.
The two week notice was a courtesy to the company so that they can prepare for your exit and give them enough time to hire or promote a replacement. If the company treats you like dirt, however, why are we as employees being held to a standard that the employer won't honor? This guy is a freelancer who has been writing for at least a decade according to the timeline of his books. When was the last time this guy worked a 'real' job? Welcome to dealing with the Baby Boomers.The author here seems stuck in the 1950s.