Buzz
Buzz Blog
Many still are... saw a bunch of them along the Va Beach boardwalk this weekend....
The folks in the Armed Forces don't have an entitlement mentality.
Most of 'em grew up poor and learned early on that if you want something, you better work for it. The brats of the EG had too much material stuff thrown at them, instead of tough love which is what they needed.
Or maybe some of the so-called "entitlement generation" are just not going to take the same crap that our parents took. My mom has been a dedicated employee for 32 years at the same company. Has a perfect record. Never takes her full allotment of vacation or sick time. Her bosses treat her like crap. They have no respect for her. They treat her like a dog. Maybe we're just sick of being taken for granted. Maybe we want a boss that will give us respect (after we've earned it). But we don't want to wait 30 or 40 years - and still not have it.
It's an interesting concept and this anecdotal evidence as cited does make one say "hmmm". But to call ANY one generation in America an 'entitlement' generation well.. that's absolute pabulum.
As the observant Robert J. Samuelson noted in a column in the Washington Post from March, we're a nation of 'Welfare Junkies'/"Entitlement Junkies". The finger can be pointed squarely at each succesive generation in America, probably since the days of Woodrow Wilson that has increasingly voted itself public largesse.
That having been said, my generation (post 1976 -- probably earlier than that really) don't understand that they aren't going to start out their adult existance with everything their parents had and worked hard for over many, many years.
If the latest generation has grown to feel entitled to cell phones, a great paying job and whatever else -- they've learned from example.
Healthy skepticism? That's an understatement. Employers in the past couple of decades have made it quite clear that they have no commitment to their employees. With a piece of capital equipment the company at least has to keep it on the books for a few years. They don't even feel that much loyalty to their employees. If the company sees all employment as essentially day labor, fine. But don't expect the employees to give the employee 100% of their life under those terms.
The real "Entitlement Generation" is the baby boomers, who clearly have no problem with feeling entitled to spend both their parents' and childrens' wealth, while assuming no responsibility whatsoever to pull the apple cart off the train tracks.
GENERATION E
If you want to see entitlement, look no further than senior citizen's who paid $ 1,000 into SS and now get that much out per month, and it's still not enough for them.
You can expect their respect, but only if you earn it, and you can't expect loyalty to a job or employer - watching the way their parents have been treated has trained them to look out for number one.
Of course, these are mostly blue collar or lower middle class kids, their patents aren't buying them ANY BMWs.
"They have a healthy skepticism of the commitment their employers have to them and the commitment they owe to their employers."
I think this is a significant point. Why would anyone be more than nominally loyal to an employer who has no loyalty. Yes folks, the latest crop of twenty-somethings can be motivated just as their parents could.
What motivates people has not changed.
At my office, the talk is that anyone who is just getting out of college would be a fool to work for a large corporation.
If you're going to work hard, you might as well have your own business and reap the rewards of your efforts.
This leaves corporations with the bottom half of the labor pool. Couldn't happen to a nicer bunch....
I have yet to see anything good from the baby boomer generation.
If the young feel entitled, who taught that to them? I think the parents of the WWII generation started it with Social Security, TVA, and other government programs of FDR, then continued on with that socialist idea with the LBJ "Great Society".
Okay you young people out there. What are your thoughts on investment accounts for younger workers as a part of saving Social Security. Like it, hate it, no use for it?
Gen X ping.
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.
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".
The socialist geezers have no room to talk.
If there's an "entitlement generation", it ain't young people. It's people now receiving, or soon to receive, Social Security.