Millennials are 1981 to 1996 age 22-37. Which by most accounts includes fresh college grads.



/e




Same reason as every generation. Lack of either education or experience. (which IS the same catch-22 every generation goes through). I'm right in the middle of the boomer birth dates, and I remember going through the same things. I even had an extra one... the military. I remember employment agencies telling me: "it's hard for ex military. The employers always have trouble with ex military".

There were tons of blue collar jobs available. The trick for white collar jobs has always been the same... there's a "certain type" of person that personnel departments, like to hire.

I never understood what that type was, until about 15 years ago.


Little story:

When I first moved here (quiet dead end street in suburbia). There was a bunch of HS and college kids that used to hang out at my next door neighbors. I guess their theory was, it was a lot harder to "get in trouble" on a quite dead end street.

Anyways... there was this one kid who struck me as be the "perfect employee". He dressed well, looked good, always smiled, was smart. At the time he was in HS he worked for clothing retailers. Other kids would keep losing jobs etc. He never did.
Anyway...he got some business college under his belt, and got a low level job at a bank branch. He did his normal "good employee" thing... and kept moving up. One day, he calls me and asks what should I do?
He had offers for very small town mayor or to go downtown Pittsburgh and work in one of the head banking buildings.

I told him... "skip the mayor job, town is too small... it won't matter on your resume. Take the downtown job at the banking offices, you'll be able to move up".

Now he's like 36-38 years old and is a vice president at the bank offices. Making great money, is married, has house and two kids so far.




The trick is to be that "certain type of person, that employers love to hire. Me, I'm not that type of person... After college, which didn't really matter to employers... I went to construction, and succeeded, and made lots of money as well.



This post was edited by Ghot on Oct 31 2019 05:25am

There's ALWAYS a relevant XKCD.

The thing with boomers is that they were the luckiest generation in a lot of subtle ways:

• Lot's of older "competiion" died during ww2.
  
• grew up and entered the workforce during the post-war boom period, reached safe positions before globalization started wrecking havoc on western societies from the 70s onward.
  
• benefited from the so-called "demographic dividend": they lived at a time when there were few older people to take care of, while also having fewer children than previous cohorts. this allowed them to live in a society with low taxes and high pensions/benefits.
  
• they made a lot of bad long-term political decisions: voted in the neoliberalism of the 80s and 90s, embraced globalization and enjoyed its early-stage benefits (cheaper TVs and toys) while disregarding its long-term risks (outsourcing of jobs, wages getting undercut, loss of intellectual property), environmental damage, fucked up foreign wars, a too high military budget, one-sided traffic policy (overreliance on roads/cars), and so on.
  
• ran up the deficit and prevented change at the ballot box when it became obvious that the previous model was no longer sustainable. by doing so, the boomers were able to shift the burden of their failed policies onto the next generations in order to keep up their own comfort/standard of living/privileges.

These points dont make the boomers sociopaths or bad people - it is only natural for any group of people to be selfish, and to be taking the special privileges and advantages they enjoy for granted. Nonetheless, their refusal to acknowledge that they quite clearly are history's assholes is really annoying.

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Oct 31 2019 09:49am

paid their way through college with zero debt working 12 hours a week at minimum wage.

i worked 15-30 hours each week all of my schooling, didn't make a dent in my debt lol.

This post was edited by thesnipa on Oct 31 2019 09:50am

Sorry, but no, that's not on the boomers. That's on a broken system which has emerged in the US (and to a lesser extent the UK) over the last couple of decades.
In continental Europe, you can still quite easily get through college with minimal debt. College debt is a country-specific problem, not a generational problem like the ones I listed.

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on Oct 31 2019 10:08am

who said it was "on the boomers"? not me.

that doesn't stop the boomers, who aren't directly responsible for inflation in college tuition, from calling millennials lazy and dropping anecdotes on how they "worked their way through school", with the direct implication that they worked harder than modern day students. the truth is not only is college harder now for a lot of people, but they work as many hours or more as their grandparents or parents did while in school. i personally didnt know a single person who didnt have a job junior/senior year, and thats when the classes become challenging.

college simply costs about 3x as much, and wages are BARELY on inflationary levels. boomers are dumb who think this way. unless you want to go to tech school while working a full time job, you can't pay off college while in it. and in any case, the boomers didnt work full time or go to tech school. its apples and oranges. neither of which the boomers can eat without fixodent.

This post was edited by thesnipa on Oct 31 2019 10:09am

Ah, I see. You were referring to the stupid stuff boomers are saying, while I was focusing on their stupid or disadvantageous actions.

One thing to keep in mind though is that college used to be more exclusive back then. Nowadays, when more than half of each age group goes to college, competition among them naturally increases: less wage prospects since the degrees are devalued by their sheer volume, more opportunity for colleges to raise tuition since there is more demand, more concentration of young people in college towns, driving up rents and depressing wages for typical side jobs, and so on.

Basically, two generations ago, once you made it to college, you had almost "made it". Nowadays, the wheat isnt sorted from the chaff before graduation and entry into the workforce.

Very true. when i read your post i mostly read it as a "stuff that went right for boomers that they didnt even cause" type post. lucky WW2 happened before they came around, lucky they worked in an economic boom, etc. i'd also add they were lucky to live in an era when almost anyone could go to college (compared to their parents and especially their grand parents) but they could also pay for it by waiting tables on the weekend. boomers were in the boom of state schools, dorms were built, admissions started to flood, etc. and many still have the mindset that anyone can work their way through school, then when challenged they go on to list a route that is nothing like theirs was. (aka tech school, 30-40 hours a week, etc).

yeah lol i worked a job during school at undergrad it covered housing and food and maybe some textbooks.
i was fortunate with summer and winter jobs to help make much more comparatively

prior generation a great bartending job would cover all of it

in my school the kid with the least debt (not including GI bill people) were the "resident advisers". aka dorm floor baby sitters. basically you're "at work" 24-7 including sleep time, and get to be a professional tattle tale for the pay of free room and a meal plan. no tuition, and as far as i know now actual money. just room and board.

they're also not allowed to fraternize with the people in their building, even though everyone is 18+. didn't stop the hot ginger from the girls floor above me from texting me at 1 am asking if i had any advil and if i could bring it to her room, immediately. she wasn't in pain, when i got there.