Is the IHOP Girl a Spoiled Brat?

KJ, your fury over the New York Times Magazine essay by the high school girl slumming it as an IHOP waitress seems to have hit a nerve: Our commenters tend to agree with you that she’s a spoiled brat, the emblem of an entitled generation who won’t get their hands dirty. I read the essay entirely differently. To me, it was a humble admission from a young girl stuck in a generation of kids who feel like they’ll never get a decent job, or a break. A summer job is a sign of future promise. Making 35 calls and getting no answer is depressing. So she tries something else, and then has to come to terms with the fact that she has no saleable skills. It’s a bummer to realize at 18 that all this nice learning you’ve done amounts to nothing if you can’t hold a glass straight.

Tags: IHOP girl, New York Times lives essay waitress

Hanna Rosin Double X co- editor, reporter, prefer my friends live.

Comments

I agree with Hannah

By: you know it is | Thu, 07/16/2009 - 16:30

I agree with the people who didn't see any condescension or contempt on the IHOP girl's part. It didn't come across that way to me either.

But then, since I don't come from a working class background, maybe that's a factor in me not seeing it that way.

why the hate, ladies?

By: kate1981 | Wed, 07/15/2009 - 20:08

I have to confess, I also found the anger directed at the girl kind of bizarre. I didn't at all read her piece as a story about "why I was too good for the job" -if anything, this young woman seemed to be have a keen sense of why she didn't *deserve* the job. Here were all the other people who actually might need work, getting turned away, while she was making a disaster of a situation in a job she didn't actually need. People have repeatedly said, "Maybe she wouldn't thought differently if she'd needed it," but it's not actually her fault she doesn't need the job. There are absolutely self-entitled upper-middle-class 18 year olds, but just by virtue of being upper middle class and 18 doesn't make her one of them.

Our commenters tend to agree with you that she’s a spoiled brat

By: chibbs2000 | Wed, 07/15/2009 - 13:14

I suggest you re-read the comments posted after KJ's article. Seems to me the majority were sympathetic to the young writer and had a hard time understanding where KJ's anger towards her was coming from.

She just couldn't waitress

By: clutzycook | Wed, 07/15/2009 - 06:23

I tried being a waitress about 10 years ago when I was about this girl's age. It was at a mom-n-pop ice cream/hamburger joint near my hometown. The pay was lousy, the tips were virtually nonexistent and I sucked at the job. Big time. I was still in training one night when I accidentally rang up a customer on the wrong ticket. Of course, I didn't realize this until the next customer came up and I rang him up using the previous customer's ticket. They never gave me another shift. I ended up washing dishes in a nursing home for the rest of the summer. Let's face it, not everyone can be a waitress. Admitting that she stunk at the job doesn't make her a spoiled, entitled example of our generation, it makes her an honest individual.

Working class and former working class commentors...

By: akwoman | Wed, 07/15/2009 - 02:40

I strongly suspect those of you with the most negative views about the young woman's article grew up in a working class household. I did, and as I read the article I could instantly feel the resentment about her poor work ethic and disapproval of her condescending attitude welling up, despite myself.

But then I just remembered that this is a very young girl who is a product of chance just like any of us were at that age. And everyone voicing such strong disapproval of this girl would do well to remember that she is fortunate enough to have choices that many of us didn't have. I can honestly say that I would have quit my crappy waitressing job many times, if there had been just about any other option to pay the bills and pay for my education.

So all of my fellow working class and former working class ladies: cut the girl some slack...

besides you know that pulling yourself up by your bootstraps and making something out of nothing is a WAY better story to tell...

People may have different

By: Fatima | Wed, 07/15/2009 - 01:10

People may have different opinion as to what spoiled brat is.The syndrome is characterized by "excessive, self-centered, and immature behavior". It includes lack of consideration for other people, recurrent temper tantrums, an inability to handle the delay of gratification, demands for having one's own way, obstructiveness, and manipulation.Anyway, have you heard about Women's Conference 2009 ? Granted, Women's Conference 2009 sounds incredibly vague, but rest assured, it is real and it is slated for Oct. 26th, at the Long Beach Convention Center in Long Beach, California.The event was put on and organized by First Lady of California, Maria Shriver. For those that would like to take part in the conference, a trip to the Women's Conference 2009 might be worth a cheap payday loan.

Hear hear!

By: LK | Tue, 07/14/2009 - 18:58

Hanna, I agree with you-- I myself was definitely in the minority of those who commented on KJ's article who didn't see this girl's story as one of a "brat" who needed some sense wacked into her.

I really do feel what struck me the most about this debate is that many see the article as a story of all gen-Y-ers in the workforce right now (as in: those who have already graduated from college, even have graduated from grad-school, etc) as opposed to this example which involves a girl just now leaving the world of high school. It's apples and oranges in my mind. There was nothing "at stake" for this girl in losing her job... and there didn't REALLY need to be. Summer jobs for kids her age are meant to be learning experiences, teaching lessons that will aid them later in life. And you know what? I bet she DID learn from her experience. How many of us can say more about our summer jobs?

I think what is so "troubling" for many about this article is that it is about waitressing-- something so tied to class identity, hard work, and many women's struggle. I had an experience as a high schooler that sounds very similar to this girl's-- I ended up quiting my long-ago summer job after an embarrassing mere one month of summer-- but I was a clerk at a video store. Somehow I doubt my story would have caused the same outrage.

Hmph.

By: vyreque | Tue, 07/14/2009 - 18:04

"Damn kids today blah blah blah... back in my day blah blah blah!" That's all conversations like this ever turn into. While we're at it, let's also make the requisite class-warfare comments ("I had to waitress so I could EAT, unlike that suburbanite princess!") and some regionalist snobbery too ("Oh, she's in Texas. Being in NY, of course we know better!")

Next, let's talk about religion and politics while we wait for the baby boomers to die out (or at least retire) and loosen up the job market.

Geez.

Oh, btw, I don't think the Dallas teen was so bad nor do I think KJ was totally off the deep end, but I'm almost exactly between Jacobs and KJ in age, region, and class-background, so that could be why.

Hit the pavement

By: akgirl | Tue, 07/14/2009 - 16:25

Sometimes it's not the calling, it's the showing up in person. I worked for two years (25 hours a week) as a grocery store cashier in high school, all year, not just summers. When I wanted to see who was hiring, I dressed up, brushed my hair, and used my best handwriting on applications. I was hired at a grocery store at the same time several other high schoolers were. (Not the case I realize in the Times article.) I found out later that I was paid fifty cents more an hour than all of them from the beginning because of the respect and interest I showed in the job. Hired in August, none of my hiree cohort were still there at Christmas.

I think the problem with the article isn't the author is a brat who doesn't want to get her hands dirty. The problem is, in my opinion, that she doesn't think that this job has anything to teach her that actually applies to anything in which she's interested. Therein lies the problem with most people, not just Gen Y. There are life lessons to be gained in almost all work and situations- you just have to accept that you might be learning a lesson you didn't expect or that you will apply differently in the future.

10 years later (can it really be?), I'm not a grocery store clerk. Or a hotel desk clerk. Or an English tutor. Or a nanny. Or any of the other low-wage tasks I worked to save for college or to put myself through college. I am the solo pastor of a medium-sized urban church. I never think about UPC codes or rain checks, except when I need them for my own groceries. However, almost daily, I think about the fact that many 80-90 year-old widowers have never grocery shopped until their wives die and they may need someone to go with them the first few times. I think about the fact that a grocery clerk may be the only person to chat with a lonely person (unless someone else calls or goes to see them). I remember how much it means to people to have someone remember their name or preferences.

Sometimes you have to go the extra mile and put a face with your name. Sometimes you have to accept that it's just a bad day, but it too will pass. Sometimes you have to grit your teeth and know that the lessons you are learning won't seem applicable until 10 years later and then you'll be grateful for the experience.

Woman who threatened to spit on me because I couldn't offer a refund as a cashier... people who didn't trust me to count change when the power went out... man who assumed I was stupid because I was a cashier and yelled everything at me... man who proposed to me... former WW2 pin-up girl I helped find powder for her itchy "down there"... woman who sought a refund for a rose bush she tried to grow in the box... all of you... I salute you... you made me better at what I do now.