Memo to Millennials – You suck
I happened to catch a 60 Minutes segment last night detailing a generation of Americans known as “Millennials.” I had never heard that term before, but apparently it translates roughly to “entitled, coddled, self-centered punks.” According to this report, this new generation is going to, like, totally change the way the world works. You know, because life is hard and it’s totally reasonable to change things around to make it more comfortable for them.
It starts in childhood, when they play youth sports and get trophies just for showing up. Because the pain of not winning tee-ball is apparently too psychologically scarring for kids to handle anymore. It gets progressively worse, and reaches the point of parents bitching out college professors for deigning to give little Connor or Savannah anything less than an ‘A’ in class. Yes, this really happens.
And it gets worse still once these insulated little worms get jobs. One company featured in the segment, Zappos.com, coddles their employees with parties and nap rooms. I was reminded of all the dot coms in the late ’90s that were totally gonna change the way business was run. Thing is, most of those companies are gone now. It’s real easy to be loose and wacky when you are making money. Once real competition and financial struggles show up, watch that shit fly out the window.
A few thoughts occurred to me while watching this nauseating segment, which I will now share:
- I didn’t think it was possible, but we may finally have a generation of kids even more self-absorbed and detached from reality than the Baby Boomers.
- I can only pray that there enough Millennials who actually have a clue how the world works to prevent the rest of the mooks from totally sinking this country.
- As terrible as it was for my generation to be raised by parents who were either too busy to be more involved in our lives or who simply didn’t care, watching all these helicopter parents in action is much, much worse.
- These kids are in for a rude awakening at some point in their lives. The rest of the world is not interested in cutting us a break, and as even more of the globe competes for the same jobs and resources as we do, workers who do not grasp the concept of real competition will be left in the dust.
- Anyone in the Millennial generation who does have a real work ethic seems poised to succeed quite nicely.
- Finally, to any Millennial reading this who is tempted to have their mommy leave an angry comment because I was mean to them – you are not a unique and special little snowflake. Deal with it.
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clever-title
I’m not sure if they mentioned it on 60 Minutes (BTW, when
did you become a member of the AARP generation?), but there
was a cover article in Fortune a few months ago that notes this crap doesn’t end
in college. They profile parents who follow kids to their
interview and first day on the job. If somebody showed up on
my team with his mother on the first day, he’d be known as
“momma’s boy” for the rest of his time there.
Garrison Keillor put it pretty well:
A Harris Interactive poll of Generation Y’s feelings about work shows 92 percent want a “flexible work schedule,” 96 percent want a job that “requires creativity,” and 97 percent want a job that “allows me to have an impact on the world.”
All I can say is, Wow. Good luck. And now you know why we need illegal immigrants to do the inflexible uncreative stuff that simply needs doing right now. We’ve raised a generation of young people who want to be writers. Whassup? That’s whassup, dude.
In the workplace, the young sit studiously at their screens observing videos of animals doing hilarious things on YouTube. Cats walk into glass doors and fall down, horses in parades relax their bowels and let loose amazing quantities of flop, and meanwhile the old guy in the office down the hall thinks maybe he should start saving tinfoil.
PhillipJFry.
Hey Douchebag,
Didn’t it ever occur to you that it was the parents that ruined the children?
“It starts in childhood, when they play youth sports and get trophies just for showing up. Because the pain of not winning tee-ball is apparently too psychologically scarring for kids to handle anymore. It gets progressively worse, and reaches the point of parents bitching out college professors for deigning to give little Connor or Savannah anything less than an ‘A’ in class. Yes, this really happens.”
Children don’t always fuck themselves up on their own, in case you haven’t noticed.
Also, hasn’t it ever occured to you to THINK about something, EVEN AFTER YOU WROTE IT DOWN?
What the fuck is wrong with people these days?
Steve
Phillip your the douche. Parents teach their kids to be respectful and not be idiot. But sadly kids like to rebel like the assholes they are. This next generation is a piece of shit and I’m a part of it. I fucking hate my generation already. All we seem to do is blame the baby boomers and never take any responsibility for ANY of our actions. On top of that, we are all eco freaks and stupid hippies. I hate my generation. FUCK.
Marlene
I totally agree with you. As a person who works with a disproportionate number of Millennials I can say that they are in for a very rude awakening when they realize how little the world cares about them and that they are not all going to be rich and famous.
They are so ignorant about the simplest things that it stuns me. How can these kids have been raised in the information age and know so little?
I don't like what the Boomers did to the planet, but it makes me laugh when I hear Millennials puff themselves up as the saviors to this ecological nightmare when in truth they are only as eco-friendly as the bounds of their convenience. They are not any more willing than any other generation to do what it would take to actually make a difference in our sustainability on this planet. This has been born out in study after study where they flatly say that they will do for the planet whatever won't directly affect the way they live their lives. I'm almost glad that they are too stupid to understand how that statement tips their hand and shows them for who they are. Just another generation of humans.