They'll have to put their soccer participation trophies up on E-bay

Considering that my generation, X, is arguably the suckiest generation ever, it's noteworthy that the Yers found a way to be even worse than us in this particular regard.

 

I'm not sure this is entirerly a new phenom.

I worked at one publishing house--this is about 20 years ago-where we'd have bets on when the new receptionist, usually a 20 something young woman with a post-grad degree in Chaucer, would start complaining that she deserved to be Editorial Director.

I think the record was three days.

 

how would seeing mom/dad lose their job make someone have a sense of entitlement?

 

This describes my 30-year-old bother-in-law to a tee:

“A lot of people are taking a little less,” he explains. “I’m not ready to concede.”

Some career experts believe it’s that kind of mentality that hurts many Gen Yers because they aren’t willing to start small and pay their dues.

It pisses me off. He had a job, thought he was "better than that," moved home — again — took a new job at the bottom of the heap, was fired and is back home and unemployed again.

 

I know it's a typo but "bother-in-law" is a good term.

 

My thoughts exactly.

I have never in my life thought I was better than a job I was doing, but that is because I knew the jobs that I had would fire me in a minute and find someone from the hundreds of applicants that they had for each and every spot.

I had a boss at the paper I worked at tell me that he felt I walked around the newsroom with a sense of entitlement and I told him it was quite the opposite. I told him I walked around in a constant state of fear of who was going to be the next person to blow their top in the office, which was the reason I was as quiet as I was.

 

Yeah, that's a real accurate presentation of her situation. Present her as a whiny, slacking bitch.

And who were the ones who told us that education was key, that a college degree would open doors, blah, blah, blah?

Maybe the sense of disillusionment stems not from an unwillingness to work one's way up but rather from the utter inability to get the <b> opportunity </b> to work one's way up.