Whining "Entitlement Generation Kidployees" want Bennies without the Work!

Man, I've been waiting to stick my gnarly pink pigeon claws into this article all day. 

It's kids like the "entitlement generation" that make me think the draft is a good idea; let them get a taste of busting butt for pennies on the dollar, but also learn to think less about the self and more about the team - and for Pete's sake, learn some humility along the way.

Don't worry; ultimately I don't think reinstating the draft is a good idea (and I'd rather save the topic for another time), but when I look at my own work history compared to the worst of the worst kidployees, I get a tad cynical. 

Here's the straight dope: graduated from college (for which I paid half the cost), and started Army basic training a mere 2 months following graduation.  You want to know how much I made as a young college grad Army E-4, with a wife and infant daughter?  $13,000 a year, and on Monterey CA cost of living, to boot.  Yes, I volunteered for it - but on the flip side, there wasn't much demand in the civilian sector for yokels with BA's in History at the time.  11 years later, here I am with an Air Force commission and making about 5 times more than when I started - frankly, I think I'm doing okay now (still married, of course; and with a total of two minions now).      

Furthermore, I feel even more content with my current situation because I worked my [PIGEONED] off for it.  No one handed me entitlements or benefits; I had to dig foxholes, mop floors, get my arse kicked on a daily basis while trying to learn how to lead soldiers and airmen in peace and wartime, push myself farther mentally and physically than I ever thought a lazy bird such as myself could ever go, and overall learn how to deal with pretty despicable conditions.  I can agree with the statement in the below article that I didn't want to be some anonymous cog in a wheel, but the only person that was going to make that happen was me. 

I'm reasonably intelligent and optimistic enough to think the below article doesn't reflect the members of an entire age category - but I've unfortunately had the joy of dealing with the pick of the stereotypes.

And for those of you reveling in the stereotypical "me-me-me!" role, enough of the "Quarter-Life" crisis, self-esteem, touchy-feely crapola  - get out and work, you lazy sons of pigeons!

                                                               

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Evan Wayne thought he was prepared for anything during a recent interview for a job in radio sales. Then the interviewer hit the 24-year-old Chicagoan with this: "So, we call you guys the 'Entitlement Generation,'" the baby boomer executive said, expressing an oft-heard view of today's young work force. "You think you're entitled to everything."  Such labeling is, perhaps, a rite of passage for every crop of twentysomethings. In their day, baby boomers were rabble-rousing hippies, while Gen Xers were apathetic slackers.

Now, deserved or not, this latest generation is being pegged, too — as one with shockingly high expectations for salary, job flexibility and duties but little willingness to take on grunt work or remain loyal to a company.  "We're seeing an epidemic of people who are having a hard time making the transition to work — kids who had too much success early in life and who've become accustomed to instant gratification," says Dr. Mel Levine, a pediatrics professor at the University of North Carolina Medical School and author of a book on the topic called "Ready or Not, Here Life Comes."

While Levine also notes that today's twentysomethings are long on idealism and altruism, "many of the individuals we see are heavily committed to something we call 'fun.'"  He partly faults coddling parents and colleges for doing little to prepare students for the realities of adulthood and setting the course for what many disillusioned twentysomethings are increasingly calling their "quarter-life crisis."

Meanwhile, employers from corporate executives to restaurateurs and retailers are frustrated.  "It seems they want and expect everything that the 20- or 30-year veteran has the first week they're there," says Mike Amos, a Salt Lake City-based franchise consultant for Perkins Restaurants.  Just about any twentysomething will tell you they know someone like this, and may even have some of those high expectations themselves.

Wayne had this response for his interviewer at the radio station: "Maybe we WERE spoiled by your generation. But I think the word 'entitled' isn't necessarily the word," he said. "Do we think we're deserving if we're going to go out there and bust our ass for you? Yes."  He ended up getting the job — and, as he starts this month, is vowing to work hard.

Some experts who study young people think having some expectations, and setting limits with bosses, isn't necessarily negative.  "It's true they're not eager to bury themselves in a cubicle and take orders from bosses for the next 40 years, and why should they?" asks Jeffrey Arnett, a University of Maryland psychologist who's written a book on "emerging adulthood," the period between age 18 and 25. "They have a healthy skepticism of the commitment their employers have to them and the commitment they owe to their employers."

Many young people also want to avoid becoming just another cog who works for a faceless giant.  Anthony DeBetta, a 23-year-old New Yorker, works with other twentysomethings at a small marketing firm — and says the company's size makes him feel like he can make a difference.  "We have a vested interest in the growth of this firm," he says.

Elsewhere, Liz Ryan speculates that a more relaxed work environment at the company she runs — no set hours and "a lot of latitude in how our work gets done" — helps inspire her younger employees.  "Maybe twentysomethings have figured out something that boomers like me took two decades to piece together: namely, that there's more to life than by-the-book traditional career success," says Ryan, the 45-year-old CEO of a Colorado-based company called WorldWIT, an on and offline networking organization for professional women.

As much as some employers would like to resist the trend, a growing number are searching for ways to retain twentysomething employees — and to figure out what makes them tick.   "The manager who says I don't have time for that is going to be stuck on the endless turnover treadmill," says Eric Chester, a Colorado-based consultant who works with corporations to understand what he calls "kidployees," ages 16 to 24.

At Children's Memorial Hospital in Chicago, for instance, administrators have developed an internship with mentoring and more training for young nurses that has curbed turnover by more than 50 percent and increased job satisfaction.  Amos at Perkins Restaurants says small changes also have helped — loosening standards on piercings or allowing cooks to play music in the kitchen.

And Muvico, a company with movie theaters in a few Southern states, gives sporting goods and music gift certificates to young staffers who go beyond minimum duties. "If you just expect them to stand behind a register and smile, they're not going to do that unless you tell them why that's important and then recognize them for it," says John Spano, Muvico's human resources director.  Still others are focusing on getting twentysomethings more prepared.

Neil Heyse, an instructor at Pennsylvania's Villanova University, has started a company called MyGuidewire to provide career coaching for young people.  "It's a hot issue and I think it's getting hotter all the time," Heyse says of work readiness. "There's a great amount of anxiety beneath the surface."

Comments

[Stephanie]

Interesting... we've gone from a work ethic of trying to please the boss to now trying to please the employee.

[Why]

Why should we waste our lives slaving away at menial, meaningless work when we -know- it is better. The only people who are keeping it from being better are you old folks, the 'established experts'.

Not our fault you guys haven't really lived.