To earn lots of money, do what you love, or both?
Or perhaps to get a cushy job without the degrees & experience and thinking that showing up to work long enough, is enough to get you promoted.
This totally reminds me of a friend who is going through some awful things with her insubordinates and via our email conversation, I’m appalled at her employees’ lack of discipline, professionalism and general attitude.
A recent New York Times article caught my attention American Dream Is Elusive for New Generation, and some very insightful comments here.
For those of you who don’t want to click to another link, here are the key parts I’ll be opining upon:
$40,000 is not chump change
Mr. Nicholson, 24, a graduate of Colgate University, winner of a dean’s award for academic excellence, spent his mornings searching corporate Web sites for suitable job openings. When he found one, he mailed off a résumé and cover letter — four or five a week, week after week.
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.
Rather than waste early years in dead-end work, he reasoned, 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.
$40,000 is standard salary for an entry level job. Actually, it is better than standard entry, because I think $30,000 is the standard salary for what is considered “professional” white-collar work.
To put things into perspective, ~$30,000 is the average family income in North America.
But yes, I feel bad for him.
And yes, it sucks they’re entering a glut market.
….. but the job paid $40,000. So what if you’re a claims adjuster, and “on the bottom rungs of a career ladder”?
Everyone has to start somewhere, and you have so many years of your life to give away, to work up towards earning $75,000 or more.
Confident, or cocky?
Yet surveys show that the majority of the nation’s millennials remain confident, as Scott Nicholson is, that they will have satisfactory careers. They have a lot going for them.
“They are better educated than previous generations and they were raised by baby boomers who lavished a lot of attention on their children,” said Andrew Kohut, the Pew Research Center’s director. That helps to explain their persistent optimism, even as they struggle to succeed.
32% of unemployed Young Americans (18 – 29) are not seeking work (Source)
Who am I to talk right? I mean, you all know I went all of 2009 without working, guessing that I could hold out for better once the market picked up.
I, in the eyes of some (namely my family) was an unemployed freelancing BUM!
The difference however, is I had decent money saved, enough to see me through 1-2 extra years of unemployment, seeing as my expenses were also quite low.
Don’t get me wrong, because I also know when to give up & go into fight or flight mode.
Sometimes you just have to swallow your pride, roll up your sleeves and just freaking work.
If in 2010 I didn’t manage to land a single contract and was nearing desparation, I would have started looking hard, for work. Applying for permanent jobs, moving, switching industries or areas.. you name it.
I can totally understand how these graduates are way more optimistic about having a satisfactory career, and while everyone wants to encourage everyone else to follow their dreams — however sometimes you just aren’t going to get what you want even if you check of all the checkboxes and follow all the steps.
Sometimes it just doesn’t pan out.
Sometimes you just have to take the crappy jobs that SUCK and hate your life every morning you wake up to it, because you’re just waiting to grab a better opportunity around the corner, and be recognized for doing grunt work with professionalism & discipline.
Nobody who graduates from college, deserves a job that pays higher than $40,000.
Scratch that.
Nobody who graduates from college, deserves anything.
You don’t get things handed to you just because your parents (or you) managed to fork over the tuition required for a piece of official looking paper.
It puts you in a better position than others, but you still have to work for it.
(“Deserve” is a tricksy word with me.)
Here he is, saying he turned it down because it was just a claims adjusting position and not a high-falutin’ management job, but for goodness sakes, he was a POLITICAL SCIENCE MAJOR!
Note: Am not knocking political science itself, but it is unrealistic to expect the world on a platter when you are aiming for something that isn’t even related to what you studied.
First, if he wanted to get into a management job for a corporation right out of the gate, I would have probably chosen .. oh I don’t know, business as my major.
Second, not even business school graduates enter into management positions right away. Every one of my friends spent their formative career years working as a peon on the lowest rung of the ladder, and THEN they slowly moved up the food chain. Even now, some haven’t moved anywhere at all.
Third, just graduating from a college (Colgate or not), doesn’t guarantee jack. People who go to college have a higher chance of landing an awesome job and making money.. but this is by no means a set in stone rule. What going to college guarantees, is in the event you are pitted against someone with less of an education than you, in an all out, no holds barred interviewing death match, you have the slight edge.
But ultimately, experience will always win.
My parents will always bail me out
“I am beginning to realize that refusal is going to have repercussions,” he said. “My parents are subtly pointing out that beyond room and board, they are also paying other expenses for me, like my cellphone charges and the premiums on a life insurance policy.”
…
His brother in Boston lost his roommate, and early last month Scott moved into the empty bedroom, with his parents paying Scott’s share of the $2,000-a-month rent until the lease expires on Aug. 31.
*face palm*
You know what? I did move back in with my parents on one occasion for a project that was in their city. I am not ashamed to admit it, because the difference is I paid my way, helped out and covered all of my personal expenses as well.
This wasn’t even a “OMG look at me!” sort of situation, it is just what you do, and what is expected of you, as a working, contributing adult.
Sure, your parents can help cushion the blow a bit, but not when you are turning down $40,000 jobs because it isn’t exactly what you want!
Then again, if his parents can afford it, and want to help out — why not? I’m all for that.
Still, I have to wonder if this is just another situation of parents coddling their precious children financially, ill-preparing them for reality and telling them sunshine will burst out of unexpected places if they just believe it to be possible.
As the sayings go: You have to pay your dues sooner or later.
Now where’d I put my silver spoon?
“Scott has got to find somebody who knows someone,” the grandfather said, “someone who can get him to the head of the line.”
Scott Nicholson also has connections, of course, but no one in his network of family and friends has been able to steer him into marketing or finance or management training or any career-oriented opening at a big corporation, his goal. The jobs are simply not there.
….
It was in pursuit of a solid job that Scott applied to Hanover International’s management training program. Turned down for that, he was called back to interview for the lesser position in the claims department.
“I’m sitting with the manager, and he asked me how I had gotten interested in insurance. I mentioned Dave’s job in reinsurance, and the manager’s response was, ‘Oh, that is about 15 steps above the position you are interviewing for,’ ” Scott said, his eyes widening and his voice emotional.
In early January, a Marine Corps doctor noticed that he had suffered from childhood asthma. He was washed out. “They finally told me I could reapply if I wanted to,” Scott said. “But the sheen was gone.”
Tough break, man. Tough break.
If people who graduate have stellar connections, they are the lucky few. Many of us graduated without stellar connections (yeah, I am still in my 20s, so I am apparently lumped into this group as well), and sometimes you get a break and sometimes you don’t.
Turning down a job just because it isn’t a management position right off the bat, is just sheer lunacy.
So what if your first job is claims adjustment and not a manager of a department? You don’t have the bloody experience nor the credentials to apply to a management training program. Heck, how can you even be an effective manager if you’ve never worked in the industry as a peon before?
Know what’s missing in this article above? EXPERIENCE.
Even if you start out as a crappy, “low” paying claims adjuster, and then decide to leave in 3 years for another, shinier position, you have 3 solid years of corporate experience behind you.
If you are interested in working in the insurance industry, then get your foot in the door and show them that you know how to do the grunt work from the ground up — this will help you in later jobs, believe it or not.
Many managers and executives started on the lowest of all possible rungs, and they learned the entire business from end-to-end that way.
It helps them be a better manager or executive if they can remember what the problems and frustrations were like, of the people they are managing instead of guessing.
Wait, there’s more!
Like most of his classmates, Scott tries to get by on a shoestring and manages to earn enough in odd jobs to pay some expenses.
The jobs are catch as catch can. He and a friend recently put up a white wooden fence for a neighbor, embedding the posts in cement, a day’s work that brought Scott $125. He mows lawns and gardens for half a dozen clients in Grafton, some of them family friends.
And if Scott does not have a job by then? “I’ll do something temporary; I won’t go back home,” Scott said. “I’ll be a bartender or get work through a temp agency. I hope I don’t find myself in that position.”
Doesn’t earning $40,000 a year as a “lowly” claims adjuster in an industry he wanted to start out in anyway sound better and better by the second?
To get a better job in the industry you want, you should have a job in the first place. Preferably not as a general labourer, if construction is not your deal.
Employers always feel better when you have a job when they’re trying to poach you, because it assures them that you have been vetted by another company to be a decent employee (or so they hope).
It also adds a level of sexiness to the hiring game: “Oooo we stole him from _______ & ______!”
If you are temporary bartender, they are likely going to read your resume and peg you as “the out-of-college bartender who applied for a clerk’s position”, rather than “the claims adjuster who knows a bit about the industry at its core, and wants to grow in it”.
Whaddabout working for yourself?
On the bright side, maybe he can set up a lawn mowing business.
Become an entrepreneur of some sort.
In times of true hardship, people can surprise you in the most unlikely ways, and I can only hope Scott will do that.
I think treating this more as an adventure, rather than being able to hop into a cushy job right away, would serve him best in this situation.
Don’t paint us all with the same brush, please
So readers of an older generation, please keep in mind that not all of us have this entitled attitude as painted in this New York Times (I’ll bet they did it on purpose).
Many of us have made the same mistakes, and can relate to what Scott is going through, but I daresay we are nothing like his current portrayal.
AND IF YOU THINK I’M HARSH….
“Of course, the work young men didn’t want to do back during the Depression was more like plowing and farming and, you know, smashing rocks with a hammer and stuff, not working as an associate claims adjuster for $40K a year in a suburb of Massachusetts, but you know, same diff.”
(Source)
So readers, what do you think?
(I’d especially love to hear from those of you who are going through something similar, to get another perspective)
Just a girl trying to find a balance between being a Shopaholic and a Saver.
I cleared $60,000 in 18 months earning $65,000 gross/year.
Now I am self-employed, and you can read more about 
Considering I'm making not much more than that, living in a VERY expensive city, and doing fine financially, I think he's an idiot who fails to grasp how the world works. There's a reason it's an entry-level job- it's because he's got no experience.
Admittedly, I got my current job because my boss at the last temp job I worked liked me and recommended me over a more experienced person from our group who was also applying. Yes, connections matter, but what mattered more is that I impressed him by working really hard and doing my best, despite the fact that most of what I was doing had nothing to do with my degree. (I have a master's and was running the switchboard for our building- not the most exciting job.)
I completely agree with just about every word you said about this article! I am 28 myself and have been working ever since the week after I graduated in 2004, because my dad was done helping pay for anything significant (though he did continue to help with my car insurance while I was making $11/hr at my first job out of college) and I also just felt that not having a job was NOT an option, which clearly this guy is perfectly comfortable with. My boyfriend, whose group of friends grew up in the suburbs of Chicago and have relatively upper middle class parents, has several friends who don't have jobs yet are claiming to be looking hard, and it just blows my mind that their parents are helping to support them despite the long lengths of time they've been looking. This guy in the NYT article had graduated 2 years ago and still has no job?!?! To me, that looks worse than being in an entry-level job and having 2 years of experience!! I hate to throw my generation under the bus, but really we're filled with a lot of kids just like this that do completely feel like they deserve something they haven't worked for, and are not savvy or hard working enough to pick up a job and move their way up the ladder. I may not have a crazy high salary because I work in academia (we're basically underpaid for our status), but in my short 5 years of working I've made my way up to a manager position despite being the youngest ones in our group in this level, and yet I'm not planning on stopping here! There's so many employees in the work place who are just uninterested in moving up, or have been comfortable in their positions so long that no one considers them for promotions, and I think it's a great opportunity for a young, ambitious person to really take a lead and show them that you're dedicated, but you can't get there by expecting anything up front or to instantly be a manager. It's absolutely crazy that people think they should be put up for an amazing position when there's tons of other people who worked harder to be there. This whole article just reasserts what I've already been thinking about a lot of the people in my age group! Obviously I'm all worked up, but don't even get me started on those enabling parents… lol
Well, I’m a bit sympathetic to Scott Nicholson, even though he is making the wrong choice. I don’t think he is turning down the job out of a sense of entitlement — he is trying to be ‘strategic’, but unfortunately this economic climate is precisely the wrong time to do it.
See, I took the opposite tack myself and have regretted it.
When I first graduated in 1995, the economy was not great but it wasn’t as bad as it is now. However, I was so scared of not finding a job that I took practically the first one offered to me, which was to work in a rinkydink computer shop in an admin position for $20,000 a year. ($20k Canadian, which back in the day was like $15k US.)
Money is money, right? WRONG. You have to factor in other things, like opportunity cost. I wasted close to 2 years at a job that taught me very little and, worse, it besmirched my resume. It was very very difficult to move up to a better job. In theory, employers are only supposed to care about your skills; in reality, they care about your pedigree. In many fields, they have no real way of testing your skills, so they rely heavily on the reputation of your previous firm and the position you held.
Of course a bad job is not the end of the world, but I wouldn’t say leaping at any paying job is a good idea either. The money I earned at that job cost me more in the long run in terms of wasted opportunities and closed doors…
And of course, it goes without saying that 2010 is very different from 1995.
A great Bruce Cockburn quote: "Something worth having does not come without some kind of fight, got to kick at the darkness until it bleeds daylight". As a parent I have seen the difference in my children between when they receive things and when they earn things. The joy in earning is deep and profound, and builds on their self esteem and character. My children are entitled to the unconditional love of their parents, but not much else. They will need to define success on their terms, and it is our responsibility to help them get there. The path will include hard work, sacrifice, dues paying, and pain. There is no way this can be avoided. Shielding children from the pain of life cripples them.
I love this statement: My children are entitled to the unconditional love of their parents, but not much else.
I am a recent college grad , who is taking extra classes this summer AND is working at a big box store for a while. I make a decent amount ( 1.50 more than minimum wage), but its enough to pay my credit cards and my cell phone- and maybe pay half of my car insurance. He needs to get off his butt and find something. A job is better than no job
It sounds like I was very harsh on him, but honestly, sometimes you have to suck it up for little while before you get to your desired place in life. That’s what I was trying to say in my original comment. I don’t think that the American Dream is elusive, I hate the media sometimes because they act like the world is coming to an end because of this recession.
Honestly, people need to sit down and ask themselves what they want out of life. It shouldn’t cost an arm and a leg to reach your dreams. And this is where I believe minimalism comes in. I’m 27, and a couple of years ago I started to think about what was important to me. I do live in the U.S. and the American Dream to me is about having freedom, true freedom, and not having to work 30-50 years to pay off a mortgage.
btw I read several of those NY Times comments, I don’t believe that choosing a lower paying job would hurt him, my bf worked in a factory that made batteries in Colorado because it was the only job available in that small town, he took it, saved up, moved out of that small town in Colorado and now works as a programmer in Nebraska.
I honestly think that if more Americans,Australians, Swiss, English, Canadians (other people in the world,etc) practiced minimalism then more people would be happier, the world economy would be healthier, maybe companies would produce more quality items and we would become a less of a consumer society. We wouldn’t define ourselves by our labels, our jobs, our cars, but by our characters, how we treat people, how we live our life and our journey in life.
Also with minimalism a person could make it on 40k, probably not living in Massachusetts as the East Coast is expensive but in other cities in the U.S. you could have a nice quality of life on that amount.
To me, money is money. $40k a year is a good starting salary to earn while waiting for something to come along, especially when you don’t have any other prospects.
Consumerism IS what drives our markets however, and our GDP increases, because other countries spend more and consume more, therefore needing our goods more.
It’s a very fine balance I think.
Firstly, this kid is an idiot for not taking that job, but I can't blame him. Not because I think it was a bad job. Because his parents taught him wrong…they forgot to teach him:
1) to be responsible for himself
2) that something is better than nothing
3) hard work gets you where you want to go
4) to live within your means (your means…not your parents means)
I worked for 18 years (since I was 14) before staying home with my kids and going back to college. For me, even with the time off, I'll have enough work experience to get a higher paying job, though even I don't expect it since I'll be starting off in a new field. A new graduate with minimal, if any, job experience should be taught by their parents that they will be starting from the bottom in terms of jobs, income, housing, merchandise, etc. We didn't start out in this lifestyle…we earned it, worked for it. They only get it as long as they are children, then it's time to make their own lifestyle by earning it!
Sometimes the best thing a parent can do is cut their children loose and tell them they are on their own!
Sometimes parents baby their children much too far.
Love it. My first year of marriage, our income was 40K great in 2000, next year 14k, plus a baby, an apprenticeship in a different trade, 10 years later we are breaking 160k, together, I work 9 months a year, teacher, stay home with kids during the summer. That year we made 14k, I would have scrubbed potties for 20k, let alone sit in an air conditioned office for 40K. BTW, we raised a baby, bought property and stayed out of debt, and bought a vehicle for cash on 14K. When life gives you an opportunity, jump on it!!!!!
Amen!
These kids definitely need a reality check. I graduated from a top 10 law school in May. A week after graduation I was offered a job in house at a major technology company making $40k, which I was happy to accept. It's not in my ideal location, I will be making far less than the $160k that my peers who have law firm jobs will make or even the $55k I made before I went to law school, but it's an interesting job with a great company that I know has advancement potential. Plus, it's a lot more than the $0 that my unemployed classmates are making! Everyone has to start somewhere, and I'm looking forward to starting my new job next month.
I’m happy to see you take lemons and make lemonade. I hope things work out for you.
For me, I am of the same mindset: Give it a shot and see where it goes.
I try not to be tied to what my expectations are, and to be flexible without being a chump.
Well, I, too, H A T E the trigger word “deserve.” If I ever find myself saying it, I think REALLY hard about the context, then correct myself, if need be.
People with a sense of entitlement makes me physically ill.
The older I get before I have children (in my early 30s now), the more I see and think and “know” perhaps not what I WILL do as a parent (after all, one only has plans until the real flesh and blood baby arrives), but rather what I will NOT do. This latter category includes hovering, doting, over babying, and basically being a “helicopter parent,” as they’re so unflatteringly, yet aptly, called. I believe in providing for my (future) child, spiritually, emotionally, and physically. And of course we should protect our child from serious physical and emotional harm. BUT– just like people who keep spotless, germ-free homes and whose immune systems later suffer, NOT teaching your child that life isn’t always fair, or that stories don’t always have happy endings, and that things aren’t always easy, and that sometimes, even when we’ve done the RIGHT thing, out best of the best, it still may not come out the way we had hoped, is setting him or her up for more failure than you ever would have prevented.
Something I’ve been working on for a few years is my handling of situations. I really adore this statement: You cannot control what happens to you; you can only control how you HANDLE things that happen. But this takes WORK. Expecting everything to be cotton candy fluffy clouds sunny because even when it “rained” your parents were able to turn off the figurative “rain” is unrealistic and dangerous. There will be sun. There will be rain. Heck, there will be tsunamis and tornadoes! The best thing we can do is prepare as much as humanly possible, and have a plan in place. Be proactive in all things. Life happens. That’s just how it is.
So if you’ve gone to college and have gotten good grades, awesome! I salute you! Frame that diploma, get the bumper sticker. But if a high-paying job hasn’t magically appeared on your doorstep (especially after months of searching), you may have to make your own way, or take a brief side trip.
I love that statement! “You cannot control what happens to you; you can only control how you handle things that happen.”
Thank you.
I’m a little bit torn on this one, largely because of personal experience. On one hand, I’d love to believe that he should put in his time, pay his dues as it were, etc. and that would be better than no experience. On the other, that’s certainly not how it worked out for me (and yes, I was a political science major).
I started out with the equivalent of the State Department (so in my field). It was NOT a glamourous job- it was overnight shifts, it was low down on the totem pole, you had no life, and virtually no one knew you actually existed. But I wanted to get my foot in the door, and so I sucked it up and did the job. Really well, I might add.
I kept a serious eye out for different opportunities, and pounced on them. There was a lot of interest- until they found out my position. Then it was like a giant door slammed shut. [ For those familiar with government, it was an “AS” or administrative, position, and the opportunities were “EC”, or economics and social sciences, or “FS”, foreign service]. No way, no how, were they going to hire someone who worked on the overnight shift in the basement.
I actually wound up in my (much better) current position because the manager was completely out of options and facing the prospect of a year without staff. She had previously been given my details, but tossed them aside because of my AS designation. When she was desperate, she went back and actually looked- and apparently kicked herself for not going through my CV sooner. My previous volunteer jobs and extracurricular activities made me a really good fit.
Does “my generation” need to suck it up and lower their expectations? Yes.
Is there a place for “paying your dues”? Definitely.
Will doing the above get you that job you covet? Maybe not- it depends on the industry, the person, and frankly, the circumstances.
See but you had the opportunity for the job and you took it.
You took what was in your field (he wants to go into insurance, but is a poli sci major), and even though he was offered a $40k job in the industry he wanted, he wanted to be a manager right away.
Every person’s situation is different, and you were lucky in a way, just as I was lucky to have fallen into my job as well.
I do agree that being labelled as a certain category makes it harder, but you’re also talking about the public sector, not the private. I know the government can be really picky and by-the-book if you don’t have the right designations and so on, and I find it less so in the private sector.
It is tricky, you’re right.
I have quite the opposite problem. I am currently getting my Master's in Healthcare Administration (basically an MBA for healthcare) and there are so many students that are in my classes that have honest to goodness never had a job! It kills me! I've been working since I was 15 (I'm now 24). I graduated undergrad with a B.S. in biology and found a pitiful, low-paying job as a chemist. Worked there for a couple of years and decided that it wasn't for me, but I started working on my MHA first. For the first year of my program I continued to work full time as a chemist and went to school full time.
I recently started an internship at a hospital that will lead to a full time job when I graduate if I want it, but I'm thinking of applying to a fast-track CEO internship within the same hospital system. My mom thinks I'm being greedy for applying to the fast-track CEO program because I have a guaranteed job when I graduate. Sometimes parents just don't understand! My mother told me it was stupid for me to go to grad school because I already had a job (which I didn't like and could not advance in) and she doesn't understand me wanting to advance in my career.
Thoughts?
Oh my goodness GO FOR IT! 🙂 The fast-track CEO internship sounds amazing. I don’t think it’s greedy to apply for a job you want (shoot for the stars), if you think you can get it.
Honestly, go for it. If it is REALLY what you want, then go for it. If you don’t think it’s for you, then stick with the guaranteed job.
At least you have an experience that you can use for the future rather than saying you’re going to sling coffee in the meantime while waiting for something better to pop up.
The difference between you and him by the way, is you have very real prospects and true leads to get into what you want. Just wanted to point that out.
I don't think you're greedy, in this day and age you need to make a ton of money to live a comfortable lifestyle and if you want to have money in old age. Cost of Living is going up everywhere all over the world. I get you on parents not always understanding, my folks can be like that sometimes. You're not greedy, you're intelligent. Go for it.
This is a great post, very enlightening. Ultimately I feel the responsibility lies with the parents. Growing up, both sets of my divorced parents struggled financially. They made their mistakes, just like we all do, but there was a distinct difference – one set had help from my grandparents, the other did not, they weathered the consequences and pulled themselves out with honest hard work and frugality. You can guess which set is STILL struggling financially. The financial lessons I learned during my childhood have proved to be the same lessons I hear echoed throughout blogs, books and newspaper/magazine articles: work hard. always pay yourself first. don't spend money you don't have. And of course – be thankful.
I remember being 24 and getting a job offer for $40,000 and being so thrilled I was crying. I make double that now, less than four years later, but my mentality hasn't slipped an inch – I still know exactly how fortunate I am to have that money. It makes me so sad to know that not everyone was brought up with the same wisdom.
That is true that in the beginning, parents should REALLY push strong money values onto their kids, instead of letting them find out silly mistakes like bank fees and credit card rates on their own.
After instilling those kinds of values, then I think it’s the kid that has to take over around the age of 18 or even younger.
All I can say is what an idiot for not taking the $40,000 a year job. It might not pay for everything cost of living wise but, this is where you learn to live without things. Not to mention his parents are paying for most of his rent, phone and etc. I have never asked my parents to pay for anything for me. If I was offered a $40,000 a year job I would definately take it. I have a friend who was working and got laid off I am sure he would love $40,000 a year it would be better than doing what he is doing right now which is working in the service industry since his unemployment was running out and he has a family to support.
I was really shocked when I read the article.
I live in Nebraska its not the most exciting place in the world but I moved here because the west coast is suffering. And guess what, I've had 3 jobs since I've moved here, I'm currently at my third job. Its easy finding a job here and the cost of living is very affordable. I don't plan on living here forever, but its not a bad place to ride out the recession.
The NY Times is full of crap…sometimes. They focus on new yorkers, that don't want to make any type of change, they don't want to downsize, they don't want to relocate, they are just hoping that things get better, well things aren't really getting better. The recession isn't getting any better, I'd rather live in Nebraska than starve.
The American Dream means different things to different people. To me its not about having kids, a car, and a house with a 30 year mortgage. I'm 27 and I don't want kids, I don't want to work at a mortgage for 30 years, I don't want any of that. To different people it means different things. I think that guy in the NY TImes is a big baby.
Oh no its a dead end job, yea well I've had jobs I didn't like until I moved on to other things. Sometimes you have to suck it up and then find a better job later down the line. That's life. 40,000K yea I might not stay at that job forever but I'd take it to help me out in a recession.
I do agree that the NY times is really out of touch sometimes, but I think that’s what causes blog fodder and controversy.
Wow…this is truly a sense of entitlement!
WOW. This post totally resonates – I've recently met a lot of younger people who are literally skipping lunch so they can have ramen for dinner – all because they won't take *A* job (whatever job) to get by until they find something suitable. And by suitable I mean suitable to their actual talents and not what they think they should be doing/making.
It kind of boggles my mind. I don’t get how they won’t take ANY job that comes by. Money is money, and if I were in that position, I daresay I wouldn’t be as picky.
That, and you don’t really know what your talents are until you try. I had no idea I loved what I am doing now, until I took the job. I probably would’ve ended up somewhere else, had it not been for the opportunity.
I remember reading this article and shaking my head in disappointment. Having attended a prestigious university, I recall that many of my classmates were like Mr. Nicholson — they felt that having had a degree from a top-10 college ENTITLED them to six-figure jobs right out of school. Many of them ended up like Mr. Nicholson, turning down job offers that many would kill for, bumming off parents only to go back to grad school to try to get higher-paying jobs afterwards.
I personally am glad that my parents are hard-working people who taught me to be grateful for everything I have, and actually threatened to cut me off when I couldn't find a job in the first few months out of college. I finally decided to suck it up and sign up with a temp agency. From there, I worked myself up…very slowly. My first two jobs had NOTHING to do with what I studied in school and I was pretty miserable (and I was paid little). However, I took advantage of every professional connection I could make and I MADE opportunities for myself (ie, studying up on subjects that interested me in my spare time, asking to take on projects that were outside my official responsibilities). Eventually I was able to build enough experience and professional references to find a job that suited me and paid very well, in a city that is touted by many as, "If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere."
The entitlement generation really disappoints me and I hate to read stories like this.
I love that you worked your way up to where you are at now. It kind of just makes me wonder why you wouldn’t take a job if you need the money.
And I don’t mean need as in your parents can foot the bill in the meantime.. more like NEED to start paying for yourself as a fully grown adult who has had everything handed to you.
Maybe I am a little too late to comment on this, but give me a break! The parents are crazy to support him at all–he needs to make his own living at that age. I have not stopped working for the last 15+ years [started in high school] and would not even have the nerve to think that my hard working parents that provided for me while I was growing up, would be bailing me out of anything! I worked any job that I could find while I was in college and then took the first job that came my way because I had bills to pay–that's the reality!
*high fives*
I agree