Millenials = End of the US

welsh

welsh

Junkmaster
Saw This last night and thought.

The "Millennials" Are Coming
Morley Safer On The New Generation Of American Workers
(CBS) This story was originally broadcast on Nov. 11, 2007. It was updated on May 23, 2008.

It's graduation time and once again we say "Stand back all bosses!" A new breed of American worker is about to attack everything you hold sacred: from giving orders, to your starched white shirt and tie. They are called, among other things, "millennials." There are about 80 million of them, born between 1980 and 1995, and they're rapidly taking over from the baby boomers who are now pushing 60.

They were raised by doting parents who told them they are special, played in little leagues with no winners or losers, or all winners. They are laden with trophies just for participating and they think your business-as-usual ethic is for the birds. And if you persist in the belief you can, take your job and shove it.
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scream.jpg


followed by-

"Oh is the US fucked now."

Followed by....

"Man are the Chinese going to beat the shit out of us.... "

Followed by...

"Maybe its time ot move to Europe. Because there's no way I got the patience for these assholes."

I mean.... this is what happens when you coddle children.

Seriously, the past 8 years of teaching has shown a progressive decline in student quality and work. My wife has law students working for her that can't write a decent letter.

(She, by the way, disagrees with me. She things this is great. But then she's a child of a decent Brazilian middle class- and that's a class that seriously spoils its kids).

As I see it, the only way we can avoid this in the US is -

(1) More immigrants- Got to increase competition for employment to make people work for it.
(2) Draft- send these kids to war and teach them some backbone.

On the positive side- if you have a decent work ethic, you can probably do well. It's all the other incompetents you got to watch out for.

Or maybe I'm just a bitter early X-Gen.
I expect that in a few years I'll be a grumpy old fuck.

(Note, I realize that my pessimism might upset or insult some of you youngsters to which I must say, with some sense of apology, as a soon to be grouchy old fucker... "go fuck yourselves, you little punks." :D )
 
<,,< Not all of us suck! :(

*Has a pin stating proudly that he is in fact a winner!*
 
Neamos said:
Can we be worse than baby-boomers? Can anything?
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We will not know that until one of us become president, but the babyboomers were aleast fighting for something when they were growing upp. And so have our generation...just look at the great fights we have had to face:

The fight to be just like 50 cent, The fight to get an increased allowance, The fight to get the perfect tan, The fight to get a credit card and cellphone and the fight to get a job at McDonalds

To be serious I do not think it will be such a huge problem. Most people learn work ethics when they get their first job or they get fired.
 
We will not know that until one of us become president, but the babyboomers were aleast fighting for something when they were growing upp.
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Didn't stop them from going dumb in the 80s
 
Exactly.

I mean, nothing excuses the 80's disgusting haircuts.
 
Neamos said:
Didn't stop them from going dumb in the 80s
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And the 60s... Oh yeah, can't forget about the 70s as well.

So replace 50 cent, credit cards cellphones with: Massive drug abuse, government sponsored spread of AIDs, "that hippy shit", and war. Sounds like the pot calling the kettle black to me.
 
I find it odd, to say the least, that being involved in a war is so often cited as something that makes people "superior."

Really, I'm quite certain that there were just as many do-nothings, spoiled brats, incompetents and just plain stupid people in the previous generations as there are in this one. A more pressing concern is that there are so few good-paying production jobs and far too many low-paying service jobs, since the U.S. long since started consuming far more than it produces.

Every generation thinks the one after it is worthless, and blames the one before it for all its problems.
 
Hopefully we won't be the generation that turns the surface of the Earth into an inhospitable wasteland of toxic ashes.

But if we are, eh.

I've had a good run.
 
Ok, so this is the old fart. Now granted I am not a baby boomer but an X-Gen.

Baby Boomers- generally fought the Vietnam War, Grew up during the Cold War. Survived the Oil Shocks, oversaw the growth of high technology and the birth of the information age. Came of Age during the Decade of Love and the Sexual Revolution (ah when drugs and sex were abundant!).

Then they got old, Voted for Reagan and fucked it all up.

X-Gens are now seeing their kids go off to college and having families, opening up business. They came of age smack damn in the midst of the Aids Epidemic which lead to the growth of the evengelical movement (a counter-movement to the Sexual revolution). Some found jesus, some got Greedy, some went Green. Growth of the Me generation, etc.

But you guys, you Millenials, I feel bad for you. A lot of you younger kids are coming to age during the War on Terror, following an administration that has justified its rule by playing to popular fears. You've seen the erosion and incapacity of the state (witness Katrina), the debacle in Iraq, and relative decline of the US and the relative growth of China (bad) and the growth of Europe (good). Russia has become an oil rich third world state.

But the advantage you have is that a lot of folks aren't fucking as much as they used. Or if they are, they are using more protection- so you've got an advantage- the baby boomers are dieing out, the X-gens are turning into real adults, and you guys get to play.

Honestly, from what I've seen in the last 8 years, student quality is in decline and their getting more insulted when their crap work gets crap grades. Sorry, dude, I'm all about the love, but its pretty tough love.
 
welsh said:
Honestly, from what I've seen in the last 8 years, student quality is in decline and their getting more insulted when their crap work gets crap grades. Sorry, dude, I'm all about the love, but its pretty tough love.
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the first "their" should be "they're".

living in a white middle-class suburban utopia has most definitely shown me that most of my fellow "millenials" are either arrogant fucks or clueless, absent-minded idiots. oh yeah, and there are a lot of kids turning into hopeless, self-destructive drug addicts. it's true that a lot of parents, even my own, try to teach their kids that they are always winners, and that only lets the kids down when they get a job and realize that they aren't worth much at all.

however, i do believe that using such a broad definition to capture an entire generation of children is little more than stereotyping, and that's never very accurate or useful. i personally think that there needs to be some sort of educational reform in this country. i also think that tax money needs to be prioritized, with war funds approaching the bottom of the list. my generation tends to assume that a high school education is "good enough", even though the overall quality of most high schools in the country is very poor. a lot of kids i know still don't seem to grasp basic grammar, spelling, or punctuation. most of the kids i went to school with ended up dropping out in order to get their G.E.D.s (with nothing more than the "get out of high school ASAP" mentality) and are now trying to make up for it by going to community colleges and working dead-end retail and office jobs, doomed to kicking themselves for not taking advantage of what they had in the first place - a goddamn brain.
 
Damn you all, Spelling Nazis!!!!

Ahemmm... So what if I got a C in spelling in 2nd grade.....

(point taken).
 
welsh said:
the relative growth of China (bad) and the growth of Europe (good).
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Could you elaborate on the ism behind this statement, and a comparision of Millenials between America, China and Europe?

I can't speak for all Millenials, but my early years in public elementary school were influenced by the Gulf War, and ended high school during the aftermath of 9/11. I wonder what it must be like to be a Millenial in the Middle East?

Some would call my age the "Be your own guru" generation. Or maybe "I'll believe in you if you believe in me" genners. I think we're the iGen.

Edit: Oooh, I like this one better; the "I won't should on you if you don't should on me, and for goodness sake don't should on yourself" generation.
 
(Note, I realize that my pessimism might upset or insult some of you youngsters to which I must say, with some sense of apology, as a soon to be grouchy old fucker... "go fuck yourselves, you little punks." Very Happy )
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I am young and i see this in my country as well. Of course, i was born in a totalitarian regime and grew up in a transition period after a revolution... but still. Stupid people abound. And student quality declines, schools and teachers are becoming more retarded. I mean they don't teach anything in schools these days. Man, i'm sure in 10-15 years my country will have to hire chinese people to maintain industrial production...
 
Yeah, all those dumb kids today! All they do in schools is smoke and drink and have Godless sex! Also, those dumb little fuckers just love to generalize everything. Christ, why is everyone (except me) retarded? In my days,
 
@Oz- No, I am not really comparing the millenials in these three countries, but I guess you could.

Most people in the US are worried about Chines- China's economy is moving, its people are hard working, and as a consequence its growing strong. While I don't have a problem with the Chinese, I do with their regime. I am not crazy about the idea of China becoming a great power or even a super power, but its moving in that direction.

Europe, on the other hand, seems to be rapidly replacing the US as the primary liberal power in the world. Democratic institutions, stronger state institutions, greater social equality, a fairly high standards of living. Its rapidly catching up or surpassing the US.

If there was a country or region that would surpass the US, I would hope its Europe and I believe in greater trans Atlantic cooperation.

In the US, we've pretty much lost our manufacturing sector because our government has consistently supported policies that promote the export of capital and industry abroad. The people who are supposed to provide the labor for the more sophisticated industries can't, at least according to the 60 minutes article, grow up. Worse, their priorities are highly selfish and immature. Bosses need to be counselors rather than managers? WTF? You have to be careful not to hurt their feelings? Jesus H Fucking Christ- you go into business, than business is your priority.

Take into consideration that these kids are still maturing and just entering the work place. How are they going to handle competition (inherent in a capitalist society)? Do they have the capacity to work hard and make sacrifices? What are their fundamental values?

So there are choices- does one aquire a better work ethic by spending their summer trying to make money mowing lawns to buy a car, or do they acquire better ethics by doing the cool thing and get (thanks to Mom and Dad), a chance to dig at Macchu Piccu? No shit, going to Peru would be cool and there is something to be learned about digging at an archeological site, but what about the ethics of hard work and earning money thorugh your sweat?

Don't get me wrong, I am not exactly blaming the kids, but the parents for this. We live in a society that bends over backwards to protect children. Children's safety is our first concern. And parents get a bit nuts.

Now we have Mom's calling a company's HR because their child's work evaluation was bad? What?

I had parents and former teachers contact me because I graded a student's paper badly. Ok, I reviewed. Sure enough the paper was crap and the grade reflected that. So... are we to replace honesty with our desire to protect children. And this is good how?

This gets a bit extreme. When I was a kid, I spent my summers upstate New York by a lake. I worked around the house, and in the afternoon played. I swam in the lake, went fishing, jumped off cliffs, explored old Indian bural grounds, among caves, in a creek bed, and through the backyards of neighbors in every direction for about a mile. I didn't come home till Mom called supper, and then we went out and played until it was too dark to see. It was awesome.

These days a parent has to know where their kids are every minute. They must know where their kids are, what their doing. If they don't, they are negligent and are likely to get investigated by child services. If their kid breaks an arm because they fell out of a tree, they are blamed for failing to care for their kids.

My Mom didn't have any idea where I was most of the day when I was a kid during the summer. Now, she'd either be a nervous wreck or held negligent by her peers and child services.

Why? Fear that something might happen. An overwhelming sense that parents must be 100% responsible for their children. Paranoia that bad things will happen.

We live in a society where competition has been eased out, but when you do that, you lose sense of what is merit. In the process you created spoiled children who grow up to be spoiled adults.

I compare this to what I see in Brazil and Asia. Wealthy or middle class spoil and dot over their kids. When their kids grow up, they remain spoiled and selfish individuals with little in the way of character.

The kids I respect are the ones who struggle and worked to get an education, to earn money and make something of themselves.

We all want our parents to love us, but I think parents have to recognize the difference between loving a child and spoiling a child.

American kids, and especially American guys, have to reclaim a sense of identity that has been lost. We grew up on ideals of hard work, individualism, perserverence, intellectual curiousity and personal toughness - values that reflect a highly individualistic society. My Mom's generation grew up in the Great Depression and taught values of hard work and dedication, commitment and perserverence.

I worry that by spoiling our children, by embracing our fears and paranoia, and by failing to teach our kids the virtues of hard work and competition, we may be preparing ourselves and our children for a word in which they are no longer competitive.
 
Eh, I am one of those who agree its partially the parents fault. How can a parent who was fucking off, having un-protected "free love", getting drugged out on a daily basis, have any authoirty to tell their kids not to do the same things. I believe this is one of the major reasons why kids are so fucked up.

Second the educational institution of america is in the crapper. I am sure I am not the only one who had to waste extra time (more stress dividing it between working and studying), money (same problem), and focus on subjects that I have taken years before in elementary and highschool.

See the thing is our kids are not getting people who work with them to find out what they are good at and what they are not good at. Education isn't "fun" or interesting. Its all about paperwork and how teachers have to follow curriculum instead of teaching in a way that best helps the students to learn.

Tests for example are bullshit. Most of it ends up being a day before cram session and memorization play. Tests in no way show how much information a student has actually been ingrained/retained as opposed to "I'll get this stuff in my head and then end up forgetting it later). This is why most grads don't remember half the shit they learned in highschool and college.

Oh yeah and all those extra general ed clases you gotta take in highschool and are forced into in college, that costs money. Books, course hours, extra money requires a student to work more therefore devoting less time to their academic pursuits. But that is quite ok for the fucking government fatcats and their corporate lackeys.

Also extra classes means extra time needed for those bullshit classes instead of devoting 100% of a graduates time on his/her major.

I think there are a shitload of problems with this country but they arn't going to change soon. With parents mindessly saying college is the way to earn more money (college by no means guarantees you a job, unless thorugh an internship which means, no money), we have a scoiety that continues to support a flawed higher educational system. If we are to truly fix that, we need to start working with our children and figuring out what their passion is for. I mean look at some of our most important civic professions: Police, Fire Fighters, Doctors, Nurses, Lawyers(well mebbe not "wink"), etc. All these jobs require a passion, not years upon years of retarded general education classes.
 
With parents mindessly saying college is the way to earn more money (college by no means guarantees you a job, unless thorugh an internship which means, no money), we have a scoiety that continues to support a flawed higher educational system.
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In my country it's no college, no money! A lot of highschool kids go to college in my country after they graduate (30%-40%). College is almost free ( i mean, it IS free for 70% of the students) but it also sucks as quality...
 
Mom and Dad are Both Baby Boomers (1961) and I'm one of those oh-so feared "Milenials." That's funny, you say we're spoiled. Maybe that's so in your country, I'm no middle-class, but you wanna know the truth?

Our fathers had it easy.

They lived in the time where Oil was cheap as a bottle of fuckin' water. Where there was no China to skin off our goddamn back, just the commie losers from Russia with nukes that never were launched. There were less people in their times, so there was less competition against them. Today, oil is fuckin' expensive, the world has increased 3x in population thanks to the Baby Boomers, there is just... too many fucking people. Too many people wanting to work, too much traffic in the streets, too much crime. We're stocked up on crazy here, pal. In your times, you said your mother didn't know where you were. My brother's life was about the same, he is probrably a X-gen, too. But today? Today we have to be watched all the times, because it's SO FUCKING VIOLENT AND DANGEROUS out there that WE. CAN'T. GET. OUT. OF. OUR. FUCKING. HOUSES!! Do you understand how annoying and despairing is that? It's HORRIBLE!!
 
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