Generation Y Is No More Entitled Than The Baby Boomers Before Us

I am totally spoiled

By: Kim Kettner | Fri, 07/10/2009 - 11:42

I am a gen Y-er, and I definitely feel that our generation is loosing site of an important, positive value: hard work. My generation definitely feels entitled to a lot more than previous generations. (That is partially because the quality of life has been steadily improving in America.) I think we feel that in order to be successful, we must be innately talented or intelligent. For us, it started in school with an obsession with intelligence by our parents and teachers. We had Gifted and Talented classes and IQ tests starting in elementary school. I believe all this focus on innate intelligence instead of focusing on rewarding hard work is damaging to character.

Myself as an example: I was in some of those GT classes as a kid, and I thought I was pretty smart. When I got to college and didn't 'get' some assignments or concepts, I started to assume that, well, maybe I just wasn't that smart. It did not occur to me (initially) that 'getting it' doesn't always come naturally. That sometimes you just have to work a little harder to meet your goals.

Eventually, I learned my lesson. But I look at my younger brother, who has been bought every video game he has ever wanted, and who is on summer break from college without a job or agenda, and I think he might be ruining his life. He thinks he'll never be as successful as his parents because he's not not as smart as them, even though I've told him he's plenty smart enough. He thinks successful people don't work hard. He must really think that you're either entitled or you're not, and he does not see the value in working hard. He thinks people who put a lot of effort into things are dumb!

Not every gen Y-er thinks that putting in a lot of effort is a sign of stupidity, but to me it seems like a trend.

I think contributing to this mentality is the 'super-mom' effect: parents today are looked down upon if they don't do everything in their power to support the success of their kids and keep them happy. Didn't our grandparents beat their kids with belts when they got out of line? Weren't they lucky to get an orange for Christmas? (I'm thinking of my own grandparents and parents' stories here, so maybe I'm alone). If our grandparents were mean to our parents, it was tough. Today, our parents fret if they make their kids cry and they feel inadequate if they don't deliver the latest, greatest new toy for Christmas every year, whether it's a Tickle-Me-Elmo, or Wii (which one mother died trying to win in a radio content recently). This change of attitude in parenting must have had some kind of effect on the kids. It's probably not all bad, but I think it has left the gen Y-ers a little more spoiled than the previous generation.

Fair Enough

By: Human Jai Alaig... | Mon, 07/06/2009 - 22:37

I agree that the millenial level of entitlement will be more thoroughly revealed one way or the other a few years into the recession. But I think one employment trend or characteristic of us 20-something workers that needs to be understood as a variable is the job-hopping that is more common in our cohort than in previous generations (understand that I'm not making a value judgement about said job-hopping). I work at the same bank that a family member did when it was much smaller and had a narrower regional footprint, prior to it becoming the 20,000 person stress-tested "super-regional" it is today. When he was there, you committed to the organization...people were "career" employees (it helped that the stock was a Wall Street darling and allowed for a lot of people to retire very wealthy...so much for that, now), and they committed themselves to the organization, its growth, and its success (note that in banking, "growth" and "success" are not synonymous). People with a sense of entitlement didn't last long. But now, big banks like mine are often seen as just a stop along the way..."If things don't go my way here, I'll just hop to BoA, and if I'm not a VP after a couple years, I'll buff up the resume and try US Bank or BB&T...if I'm not making six figures after a while there, I'll try and be a commodities trader or go into institutional investments." What I'm noticing is that our generation (in finance and other "corporate" careers, anyway...I can't speak for journalism of course) clings to a pretty unrealistic career road map, and is very quick to hop back in the car and try the next exit down the road. The concept of "paying dues" is not popular. So I think your point is a good one, largely because as long as the recession's on, the next exit's closed and you're stuck. But when the job market starts to loosen up a little bit, I'm interested to see if the millenials take the opportunity to once again express their belief that they are better than their current job, whether or not they've actually proved it.

I know this isn't the main

By: Rachel Hills | Mon, 07/06/2009 - 18:45

I know this isn't the main point of your article, but I don't think it's altogether helpful or accurate to characterise evolutions such as flexible work hours (aka four-day weeks) as "unreasonable demands".

Rather, they're something that workers of all ages can benefit from to spend more time with their families, work on personal projects, or do other work with a greater social benefit - for example, I know a couple of Gen Ys who do paid work 2-3 days per week to subsidise unpaid work on climate change.

That's not to say that these choices don't come with costs - less money, for an obvious example - I don't see trading money for work life balance as a sign of entitlement so much as a creative questioning of the status quo.

It's also interesting to consider how much Gen Y's particular interest in this sort of flexibility stems from the difficulty of finding stimulating fulltime (as opposed to stimulating part-time) work, even in a good economy.

Good Point

By: Jessica Grose | Mon, 07/06/2009 - 15:39

Human Jai Alaight Reel, you make good points, but I also want to note that you were working in the banking industry, which may have colored your perspective. I graduated in 2004, and was going into journalism (obviously). At my first job, everyone around me was working hard for incredibly meager pay--and sometimes no pay at all. The people I knew who went into banking after graduation were not like you: most of them went into it because they wanted to make a ton of money, not because they had any interest in finance or wanted to put in the hours. I'm sure the truth about our generation's level of innate entitlement will be more clear a few more years into this recession.

I can attest to the parents getting too involved

By: WSLers | Mon, 07/06/2009 - 15:36

with their kids jobs thing firsthand. I was working at a Barnes & Noble and took part in no less then 4 interviews where the parent(s) of the college grad interviewee demanded to sit in and refused to leave. The sick thing was that the kids weren't the least bit embarrassed, in fact they were as shocked as the parents when the parents were asked to leave.

I Halfway Disagree

By: Human Jai Alaig... | Mon, 07/06/2009 - 15:08

The point that the mid-00's was a hot job market which put the bargaining power in the hands of the job seeker is true enough, and I think Ms. Grose is correct in saying that such a circumstance is naturally going to lead to those applicants demanding perks and allowances that they otherwise wouldn't. To a point. I came into the job market during the mid-00's and entered the banking industry (commercial banking, not I-banking). When I was hired, I made modest salary demands, which were met, and that was it. My way of thinking regarding one's job, which is informed almost wholly by my parents, is that you don't demand "what the market will bear," but instead you enter with some humility and recognize that people with no experience and no track record shouldn't make extravagant demands, even if an employer will give them to you. Better to earn them with your performance - you also get looked on more favorably by senior management if you come in with a "head-down, work hard" attitude rather than as "that kid who stuck us up for 90 grand a year." I was definitely in the minority with this attitude - many of my co-applicants, raised in the "everybody deserves an award, everyone is special" generation, came in with me getting paid a lot more. Most of them aren't with the company anymore - their entitled attitudes (and resultant lack of production) and high salaries made them easy targets for a bank looking to cut back in these capital-sucking, write-down happy times.

So when Ms. Grose says "In the mid-aughts, people of all ages were being entitled and demanding of their employers because they could be," instead of doing so because of indulgent parenting, I think what she's missing is that the indulgent parenting produced a generation of kids who eagerly and without any prior introspection used economic circumstances to demand rewards that they didn't really deserve. So the mid-00 money and benefits grab didn't have "everything to do with the economy," just about half.

And I'll tell you - now that some of the millenials are being forced to actually work hard to keep their jobs rather than make plan off the easy credit boom like they did a few years ago, you're seeing a huge generational difference in the older workers who are putting in long hours and working with a sense of urgency as opposed to members of my generation who continue to stroll in late and leave at 5 on the dot. Maybe B-schools ought to make the story of the sword of Damocles required reading for a while.

Media and Generational stories

By: geml | Mon, 07/06/2009 - 14:14

I think the story that did the most damage to Gen Y's in the work place was one on NPR about two years back, which talked about parents calling the employer to discuss their (adult) children's salary and benefits package. That may only have happened three times in actuality, but most of us could easily imagine it happening -- many parents of Gen Y can easily imagine making the call.

I grew up in Pittsburgh in the late 1980's and came of age in the early 1990's, so I know all about being young a tough economy. And GenYs have my sympathy. And no matter that other generations have endured this before you (many of whom went on to do well, others less so), it is still new to each generation that is facing it for the first time.