Me: I just get so pissed off at the older generation.
Therapist: Why?
Me: Because when I grew up, we were force fed the idea that if you didn’t go to college you’d be flippin’ burgers.
Therapist: And?
Me: And now a lot of us have gone to college, have degrees, can’t get a damn job and then the same people call us entitled because we refuse to flip burgers!
Therapist: Touché indeed.
-Kirk P.
This article appears in Jun 19-25, 2014.
And best yet – when you decide to pick up that retail job on the side to help make ends meet or to get yourself pulled out of student loan debt – those same people (older generation) look down on you for it. That is the bullshit situation I find myself in right now. Such is life, I guess.
Are you sure the therapist said “T” and not “D”?
From the tone of your post I’d say you were destined for that van down by the river practically from birth.
Indeed.
The most entitled generation complaining about our entitlements….
typical.
http://cdn.memegenerator.net/instances/250…
I don’t think any generation would be accused of being entitled if they chose a good career over flipping burgers. There’s no lack of honor in taking a lower skilled job to pay bills until something better comes along in your field.
They are entitled if they choose having no job over flipping burgers.
When did you get the idea that a BA in history was going to get you a $100,000 a year job fresh out of university?
I flipped burgers on the road to my career. In fact, I learned some very valuable lessons in my 2 years flipping burgers:
1. Did you want fries with that? (excellent sales technique regardless of industry)
2. Clean as you go. (Just awesome advice)
3. Inspect what you Expect.
4. Teamwork.
If you need money; take the job. If you need experience; take the job. It is always better to hunt for a job when you already have one.
Job experience is sometimes just that … “JOB” experience. What you take from any job is entirely up to you. If the job sucks, you’re not doing a good job.
And if you’re flipping burgers, how can you afford a therapist.
force fed??? oh you tender little desert flower……
i never believed anything the ‘older generation’ told me. that’s the biological imperative of youth. whatever they tell you, go t’other way.
i washed dishes and washed old ladies hair as part time jobs in school. once out in the work force i kind of had to get a job, no matter what it was, because i wouldn’t ‘go home’ again. small matter of pride there. i would have starved to death if i had sat around waiting for a job ‘worthy’ of me. hahahahahahaha. just WORK for god’s sake.
Ob, if your college degree focused on what employers wanted instead of what you wanted, you would not be flipping burgers.
Why does it have to be a university degree? Where I worked, if you had a two year degree from NSCC in a certain field, your starting salary was $50g a year period. I watched with delight two very talented youngsters snag these plums – alas, they must toil for a pencil-necked boss who is so anal, it would take a tractor to pull a pin out of his clenched asshole. Life is, essentially, a series of trade offs.
As a member of the older generation, I think your posting is petulant, now be a good little flunky and get me a latte, use your arts degree as my coaster, peel me a grape, run my bath, detail my car and in the spare time you have shave my nutsack.
http://youtu.be/VO4XYoB49Lg
Well Op’s kinda right, I wasn’t force fed but I was led to believe that if i didn’t go to college then we’d grow up to be losers with no future. What they just didn’t tell you was if you wasted four years getting something useless like a bachelor of arts as your end degree, then that’d also be the case. You just learned the hard way was all!
I love when BOOMERS try to defend their generation by calling us entitled, when by every metric imaginable they had it much easier.
Want to go to University? Here’s the money. You won’t need much since tuition cost and cost of life is considerably low. Buy yourself a nice car while you’re at it. Oh you want to work? Here’s a low level entry job, but don’t worry, you’ll be able to raise a family and still have some left over for vacations. And you’ll eventually make your way to the top with no degree. And while we’re at it, here’s a huge pension, we’ll just mortgage your kids future and hope for the best.
Why can’t the Boomers just be grateful for the hark work their parents did to provide them with a never to be repeated opportunity?
Your parents built the ladder. You climbed it, and kicked it down once you got to the top, and it fell on our heads. Now we have to rebuild the ladder, while removing splinters from our heads.
^^^Where does a person “hark” work?
The Old Vic.
Nyuk nyuk nyuk.
I hark work all the time. Get with the times old fart.
Q) How does one get to the Old Vic?
A) Practice, of course. And sucking Sir Ian’s cock doesn’t hurt either.
When I didn’t have a steady/full income, I scrubbed shit from toilets. It was the work that was available at the time; there were no burger-flipping jobs as they were all taken by the university crowd…
BLINKERED PRAGMATISM OR, THE DEGRADATION OF THE UNIVERSITY DEGREE
“And not a lot of us have gone to college, have a degree, can’t get a damned job and then the same people call us entitled because we refuse to flip burgers.” Kirk P.
What is the issue here? The poster’s limited educational attainment is revealed in his confusing two only contingently related issues, that of his resentment against being called “entitled” after obtaining a university degree and refusing to flip burgers and, secondly, the degradation of the university degree itself. The poster fails to understand that, while there there is no direct cause-effect relation between the two, there is a contingent relationship which is traceable to his stupidity. Let me explain.
Clearly, the poster has gone to university in order to improve his job prospects. However, his stupidity precludes his understanding that this is not the reason one goes to university. One goes to university to follow a degree course which reflects one’s consuming interest in a particular area which may, or many not, result in increased job prospects. Such job prospects are, or should be, a completely secondary, even an irrelevant consideration. If one wants to increase one’s job prospects it would seem obvious – at least to some – that one should take vocational courses in a field where such job prospects exist. This is not, as the expression goes, “rocket science.”
The sad fact is that this is not the case. There are many – call them the “floaters” – who go to university for a variety of reasons, none of which have anything to do with their intellectual passions. This is because they have no intellectual passions. However, the consequence of their presence is malign. In effect it has led not only to the degradation of the university degree but to a generalized disdain for intellectual pursuits generally. One need only look at the previous comments on this thread to bear this out.
Not only does the poster’s stupidity preclude his understanding why one goes to university in the first place, his ignorance – always a faithful companion to stupidity – precludes his understanding the reason why he does not understand why one goes to university in the first place. What is that reason? It s so widespread in our culture that it is usually overlooked. It is called “blinkered pragmatism.”
There are varieties of pragmatism which are not blinkered but these are restricted to those practical pursuits which can be assessed in terms of their results, whether they “work,” whether or not they issue out into measurable consequences. Such practical pursuits can be valued, or not, on the basis of such a general pragmatism.
However it is when such pragmatism is applied to those areas which are not to be assessed in terms of whether or not they issue out into measurable results that such pragmatism becomes “blinkered,” when it doesn’t just assess but indeed distorts that which it presumes to judge. Briefly, such “blinkered pragmatism” consists of the application of inappropriate and destructive criteria such that it degrades not only the university liberal arts degree but debases the general intellectual climate of the culture itself.
Thank you for your patience and understanding.
A pleasure as always.
Cheerio!
Four boomers disliked your first comment, Jhey lol
Don’t like the hearing the truth, boomers?
And how do you know that they were boomers, MizzNyowie?
I’m totally sick of this ageist attitude – broad brush statements against a whole generation based on the time period they were born. Fuck off and get over yourself.
All I know is neither of my parents had post-secondary schooling (both had the opportunity, but neither were interested) and both made a buttload of coin with their high school diplomas. My dad is retired with some sweet ass pensions and my mom works a very well paying job. Before dad retired, he was making more than the average combined family income — almost twice as much as the average university graduate ends up making (with 10+ years experience).
So please spare me this diatribe all y’all boomers have about not having it easy. The only people working fast food jobs back when boomers were our age were those without high school diplomas.
#Breakfast Sandwich (PK’s work account)
1982 — 11 per cent total unemployment, 18.2 per cent unemployment for 15 to 24 age group
1992 — 11.2 per cent total unemployment, 17.2 per cent unemployment for 15 to 24 age group
2009 — 8.3 per cent total unemployment, 15.2 per cent unemployment for 15 to 24 age group
August 2011 — 7.3 per cent total unemployment, 17.2 per cent unemployment for 15 to 24 age group
Source: Statistics Canada
kitty, you do realize you are basing your belief of what life was like 40 years ago based on 2 people you know? and that you even stated that one of them made far more than most people?
not what anyone would consider a good example of an entire (huge) generation of folks.
here’s my example . male raised by single mom who works in a sewing machine factory. no money at all for university but he has a straight a ave in high school and works 2 after school jobs so he gets a scholarship and small bursury ( because they are poor) and goes to engineering at his local university while he lives at home, no car, takes the bus and continues to work part time. unfortunately he gets his gf pregnant for the second time (long story) and has to leave school in 2nd yr to do the right thing. takes a minimum wage job at a local hi-fi store in the basement stocking product and they live in a miserable tenement that is close enough to walk to work. he works hard, has ideas, and gradually works his way into better and better positions. works nights, write a company newsletter for customers, sets up a weekly radio q&a etc etc to succeed in the company. (always remember this is private enterprise, where effort can make a difference) this takes years. but this is how he started. no handouts. no golden escalator to success. he started out unpacking boxes and taking out the trash. now he is google-able in the industry and gets to go on middle eastern princes yachts. shit like that. but he worked like a sonofabitch to get there.
and those stats just posted are real. think about it. the biggest glut of young people looking for work at the same time. no way were there enough jobs available. thats why trudeau the elder had so many make work projects for us. it was like the dirty 30’s public works programs.
my boomer brother went to university and got an arts degree. then my husband got him a job glueing speaker boxes together. he was grateful for the nepotism.
golden escalator eh?
blame us for global warming for christs sake! thats legit.
I’m so tired of hearing boomers with their personal stories. Guess what? We’re talking about generational trends here, and all the statistics support this;
1. Average salaries to cost of life was much higher. Mortgages were considerably less, relative to purchasing power of an average family.
2. Cost of post secondary education was much cheaper. Not only was it cheaper, but it almost guaranteed you good employment regardless of what you studied.
4. Student loans had more money available. My dad could afford a car with the leftovers from his loans.
Stop trying to alleviate your guilt by blaming us. We work our asses off, have nothing to show for it, and will be paying your debts for 50 years. Entitled? Right, well considering you had everything handed to you, there was no reason to be entitled.
Hi Kirk!