Posted on 06/27/2005 6:36:38 AM PDT by GPBurdell
By MARTHA IRVINE, AP National WriterSun Jun 26, 4:43 PM ET
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."
___
On the Net:
Chester's site: http://www.generationwhy.com
Heyse's site: http://www.myguidewire.com/
___
Martha Irvine is a national writer specializing in coverage of people in their 20s and younger. She can be reached at mirvine(at)ap.org
Darn right. Loyalty is a two way street.
What you are not seeing is this: we won't be stepped on like our parents for our loyalty. If you treat us without the respect we feel we've earned, we'll go somewhere where our @$$ busting efforts will be appreciated. Respect is a two way street. Loyalty is not to be taken advantage of.
I'd rather have the 7% and let me invest it for myself - risks and all.
Okay, so according to your logic if all young people joined the armed forces the entitlement mentality would not exist among them.
And where do you think that'd leave the private sector of our economy in a few years, especially when the baby boomers join their parents "collecting" SS and Medicare off the backs of their own children and grandchildren?
Greedy geezers should STHU when it comes to any discussion of "entitlement mentality".
See post 40.
My Dad was laid off six months shy of being eligible for a company pension. This was back in the era when it took ten years to become vested in a company's pension plan. The bast**rds laid off my Dad after nine years, six months of service.
He filed a claim with the EEOC, but he lost at the hearing. The company claimed that they weren't just laying off "older workers", they were laying people off by projects. Those that worked for certain projects were eliminated, people of all ages.
Of course, if they wanted to get rid of someone, they banded them together in "Project ZZZ" and then that was their justification for a job massacre.
Young people, don't trust the big corporations. They'll use you up and spit you out. Wait till someone younger wants your job. Or someone's relatives. You may think you're riding high now. Wait till it comes your time to get knocked off the chart.
Exactly. That is why you always need a backup plan. Have some contacts so you can get another job quickly if you lose one.
You're paying 15.3%, the same as any self-employed person. On paper, your employer might be paying 7.65%, but that 7.65% is either cut from your potential pay or an increase in customers' prices (and the employer has more control over wages than over market prices).
Don't worry about your retirement years. When the boomers (regretfully, my generation) are finished destroying our economy, our freedom, and our culture, there won't be anything in this country left to retire from, or retire to.
"Baby boomers feel entitled to Social Security as-is, despite the certain knowledge that following generations not only won't get the same deal, but also that those same younger folks are being taxed for it on a blatantly fraudulent basis."
It's not very thoughtful of you to paint an entire group of millions with one brush. I'm 55 years old and have been working since I was 16 years old. I don't think I will ever get back what I paid in to SS. So who gets it? I would have been entirely happy not to participate in the Ponzi scheme. I didn't create SS and no one in my generation did.
I think you're just angry and want to blame someone.
The socialist geezers have no room to talk.
In following generations there is a huge outcry for reform of the SS system. The baby boomers, with their huge vote, are the guardians of the status quo. Even on here you can see the difference. One can't have the attitude of "I'm going to get mine and who cares about who follows" without accepting responsibility for it.
What industry are you in? These days, almost anyone can start their own company with virtually no capital, and most people with a capacity for hard work should.
Yes I cant agree more, the spoiled whining of the anti-Bush, anti-America bashers is so typical of the 60's generation. These folks are the apex of entitled and never had to compete for anything in society. These are the trust fund babies and limosine liberals that want to keep kids enslaved in government schools, while sending their lil angels to private academies...
Exactly.
I'm currently in Telecommunications (in a 'provisioning' position). I've been doing this type of work for about 6 or 7 years.. it's certainly not my main love in life.
BTTT
BTTT
Ping list for the discussion of the politics and social (and sometimes nostalgic) aspects that directly effects Generation Reagan / Generation-X (Those born from 1965-1981) including all the spending previous generations (i.e. The Baby Boomers) are doing that Gen-X and Y will end up paying for.
Freep mail me to be added or dropped. See my home page for details and previous articles.
If there's an "entitlement generation", it ain't young people. It's people now receiving, or soon to receive, Social Security.
bump
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