A Generation of Veruca Salts
My friend and Ricochet Member Maura Pennington has more keen insights on the Millennial generation in her latest for Forbes.com. Having been spoiled by the booming '90s and refusing to lower our high expectations of what we deserve, we're pretty much a generation of Veruca Salts:
Our generation grew up with the Clinton era surplus. We have expectations of certain creature comforts whether they seem incongruous or not. So we shop around for the right yoga instructor because we deserve the best. We are still in the mode of resume-packing extracurriculars.
The excessive accessories, however, are an indication of a larger trend. A huge segment of this generation not only expects an unreasonable standard of living, but they also expect the government to provide such a standard for every last citizen. They believe that health care coverage is a right, even though a right should not come at the expense of other people’s liberty, including the liberty not to participate in economic activity.
They believe that the wealthy must pay more than their fair share because it is just, as if all successful people are swimming in their money like Scrooge McDuck. They believe that education mandates are a productive use of resources, despite all evidence to the contrary and years of failing schools. They want everyone to go to college even as the bubble of tuition inflates with every federal loan. They like to listen to publicly funded radio because quality entertainment should be subsidized (doesn’t look like Michael Bay will be getting his handout any time soon).
The list of demands goes on. And, just as some of my peers hardly bat an eye at paying for someone else to clean their messes, most of them rarely understand the cost of all these government services. The idea of cutting funding ignites a burning anger within them. It doesn’t matter what might be cut, it’s just the very idea that we might have to live with less. We’ve never had to live with less in our entire lives. Why start now?
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Feb '11
Re: A Generation of Veruca Salts
As an employer with friends who are employers, I can tell you from what I've seen and heard the work ethic of this generation is non-existent... · Nov 21 at 7:45pm
Edited on Nov 21 at 07:45 pm
As an employer in a highly technical field I've found that members of this generation who come from less privileged backgrounds (e.g. non-elite schools), who have had to work hard already (e.g. studied the hard sciences) tend to be just fine as far as work-ethic and self-reliance goes. The vocal others, much less so. Unless you're in the top 5% a liberal arts degree does not prepare you for the future, without a "hard" advanced degree following. Also, you can tell a lot about someone from their web presence, their "Likes", and what social networks they are in...
Noisy outliers tend to gather inordinate attention. I suspect that's true in the case of the Millenials. Nevertheless, we still need to ridicule and rebut the OWS mind-set, because the media and the Democrats are trying to make the outliers the bandwagon, and "reset" the center of the distribution curve.
Jun '10
Re: A Generation of Veruca Salts
Instugator
Samwise Gamgee: Time to accept it and do some hard manual labor. If you can find it. · Nov 21 at 6:52pm
Edited on Nov 21 at 09:21 pm
Go North Central young man. · Nov 22 at 5:19am
Do you have a number I can fax my resume' to Uncle Instugator? I have a very extensive skill set and, as opposed to our occupy friends, I take regular showers.....
Will work for oil...
Re: A Generation of Veruca Salts
Samwise Gamgee
Instugator
Samwise Gamgee: Time to accept it and do some hard manual labor. If you can find it. · Nov 21 at 6:52pm
Edited on Nov 21 at 09:21 pm
Go North Central young man. · Nov 22 at 5:19am
Do you have a number I can fax my resume' to Uncle Instugator? I have a very extensive skill set and, as opposed to our occupy friends, I take regular showers.....
Will work for oil... · Nov 22 at 10:17am
One of my younger brothers who is about to graduate from college with a degree in Chemistry has applied to a few chemistry PhD programs. But I just saw that his Facebook status reads, "Applying to jobs in the North Dakota oil fields. #backupplans"
Those kids in the sciences are a pragmatic bunch.
Oct '11
Re: A Generation of Veruca Salts
Re: Generations and generalizations. I have multiple degrees from elite universities. Many of the people I am speaking about went to these elite universities and now live in urban centers. These were the same people who ate Ramen to get by. To be sure, there are some people who are shall we say immensely spoiled (at one Ivy in particularly do I remember that), but I would say that again these are generally the exception and not the norm. In the 50s most people did come home and have babies. In the 10s, most well educated people are not greedy and out of touch with reality. Furthermore, if this is limited to elites, some of the elite people did in fact work very hard. To get professional degrees from top schools does require a great deal of personal sacrifice from most people who are not legacies. For them to want more than to clean counter tops is not unreasonable or irrational.
Aug '10
Re: A Generation of Veruca Salts
Samwise Gamgee
Instugator
Samwise Gamgee: Time to accept it and do some hard manual labor. If you can find it. · Nov 21 at 6:52pm
Edited on Nov 21 at 09:21 pm
Go North Central young man. · Nov 22 at 5:19am
Do you have a number I can fax my resume' to Uncle Instugator? I have a very extensive skill set and, as opposed to our occupy friends, I take regular showers.....
Will work for oil... · Nov 22 at 10:17am
I would start with Craigslist then look at the oil firms up there, Chesapeak? Dress warm.
However, I can attest to the truism of ND, "40 below keeps the riff raff away."
Jul '11
Re: A Generation of Veruca Salts
To assume that a college degree is both a guarantor of employment and creates the expectation that there will be employment is laughable in the extreme. It has always been laughable, except for the more recent batch of grads, apparently. Having worked at a college, and at my 2nd job there, part-time, supervising workstudy students in the library, the students fell into 2 groups: Workers, and slackers. The workers came from families that ran their own businesses, for example, and these students were always on time, looked for work to do (even in the easiest workstudy gig at the college, manning a desk at the library), and engaged patrons to actively help them find what they were looking for. The slackers, well, they didn't do much other than play online games at the desk, text their friends, watch movies on their own laptops, and basically killed time until their shift was done.
The unchallenged student is much like an unchallenged adult. The status quo becomes the goal, rather than forming an aspiration to become something better than you were, or who you are right now. Unfortunately, we have condoned and encouraged this mediocrity of mind and spirit.