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-Blackadder-
Jan 2, 2007

Game....Blouses.
I'm interested in hearing and talking about Tales of Great Transformational Change.

Millennials Are Setting New Records—for Living With Their Parents

Maybe it's just my perception and it's always been like this but it seems to me like our generation is struggling with the whole "getting your poo poo together" concept more than any other.

From Epic Failson to Follower of Dreams

So I'd like to hear from folks who have or know someone who has successfully pulled themselves out of this "life rut" and made the changes in their own lives that they've always wanted, what their journey was like and how they did it. It doesn't matter where they started. It could be going from living under a bridge to getting a job and apartment. It could be quitting World of Warcraft/Counter Strike/League of Legends, moving out of their parents basement, and finishing college. For the sake of completeness it could even be quitting the rat race and forming their own hippie commune. Success comes in many forms, all that's really required is that the person is following their dreams.

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adorai
Nov 2, 2002

10/27/04 Never forget
Grimey Drawer
The year was 2004. I knocked up my girlfriend and got kicked out of my parents basement. The shock of actually having to provide for my family made me work twice as hard at work and the promotions followed soon after.

photomikey
Dec 30, 2012
^^ Different story, same moral. I knew from a young age that I wasn't as good as everybody else and to compete I was going to have to work twice as hard. So I did. It paid off.

My $0.02 is that the millennials are the "special snowflake" generation, you were a fuckup and told you were special and you had your own special talents and that you should find something you loved and don't worry about the money. Sorry, that turned out to be bad advice. You're not the best at anything, you're solidly mediocre. Work harder, and if you look at what you love and there's no money in it, go do something else.

I agree with Adorai, being turned out on the street can make you resourceful and a hard worker.

Good judgement comes from wisdom. Wisdom comes from bad judgement. This generation is expected to have wisdom but was never given a chance to have bad judgement.

Pellisworth
Jun 20, 2005
There's nothing that magically makes millenials lazier and less motivated than any other generation or group of people. They were (rightly) told they needed a college degree to get a decent job, but their college costs are massively higher than their parents' and many of them graduated in the middle of a bad recession or its slow recovery.

Your parents got out of college, got a job and a mortgage. Millenials took on a mortgage worth of school loans and graduated into a lovely job market.

Evolving from basement goonlord to productive and independent members of society is a cool discussion but the argument that millenials are coddled and lazy is extremely tired and stupid.

I don't wanna derail your thread so if someone wants to discuss more at length, PM me.

-Blackadder-
Jan 2, 2007

Game....Blouses.

adorai posted:

The year was 2004. I knocked up my girlfriend and got kicked out of my parents basement. The shock of actually having to provide for my family made me work twice as hard at work and the promotions followed soon after.
Awesome! Can you go into more detail?

photomikey posted:

^^ Different story, same moral. I knew from a young age that I wasn't as good as everybody else and to compete I was going to have to work twice as hard. So I did. It paid off.

My $0.02 is that the millennials are the "special snowflake" generation, you were a fuckup and told you were special and you had your own special talents and that you should find something you loved and don't worry about the money. Sorry, that turned out to be bad advice. You're not the best at anything, you're solidly mediocre. Work harder, and if you look at what you love and there's no money in it, go do something else.

I agree with Adorai, being turned out on the street can make you resourceful and a hard worker.

Good judgement comes from wisdom. Wisdom comes from bad judgement. This generation is expected to have wisdom but was never given a chance to have bad judgement.
This is interesting. Was it really just a conscious choice based on a lack of coddling? Is there anything else you remember influencing your behavior?

Pellisworth posted:

There's nothing that magically makes millenials lazier and less motivated than any other generation or group of people. They were (rightly) told they needed a college degree to get a decent job, but their college costs are massively higher than their parents' and many of them graduated in the middle of a bad recession or its slow recovery.

Your parents got out of college, got a job and a mortgage. Millenials took on a mortgage worth of school loans and graduated into a lovely job market.

Evolving from basement goonlord to productive and independent members of society is a cool discussion but the argument that millenials are coddled and lazy is extremely tired and stupid.

I don't wanna derail your thread so if someone wants to discuss more at length, PM me.
Not at all! I wasn't trying to suggest that the impetus for the situation was "laziness".

I remember when this Time cover came out. There was a good discussion in D&D that went into detail about why this would be a much more accurate cover.

So, no worries about derailing the thread. While they are different topics, they're also related because if you want to completely understand about how someone got themselves out of life rut it may also be helpful to understand how they got in it in the first place, so I won't deter such a discussion.

-Blackadder- fucked around with this message at 09:19 on Jun 28, 2016

Tony Montana
Aug 6, 2005

by FactsAreUseless

Pellisworth posted:

Evolving from basement goonlord to productive and independent members of society is a cool discussion but the argument that millenials are coddled and lazy is extremely tired and stupid.

gently caress you. You sound like a millennial that doesn't like the fact that the Facebook generation isn't nearly so cute anymore and a lot more useless than could be believed. Geez, a culture based around vapid social media combined with all the other horseshit we love to poo poo on (on these forums particularly) turned out a generation of dopey children with zero ambitions. Who coulda guessed it.

For the OP, your avatar is Blackadder which makes me think you're British. I can easily say out of all the cultures I've lived in, the English and English youth take indifference to another level. Americans can be brash, but at least the ones I've met have ideas (some of which seem crazy) they want to live by. We Australians love to drink and carry on like trash, but when the chips are down we've got strong ideas about what it is to be an adult (living at home with Mum and earning 50k a year working retail isn't one of them). But in England I felt a pervasive sense of 'meh', moreso than anywhere else. Even the Italians seemed to have more to strive for, despite being broke as gently caress.

I really like what the person said above about earning money. You keep running into this loving infuriating idea with millennials that their work needs to be amazing and they're just too good (or something) for doing many jobs. Sitting a desk and working (like a doctor, lawyer or engineer does) seems like some great failing.. you've got some lame desk job which is mundane and YAWN. Many aren't stupid enough to then follow up with 'so how do I become a fighter pilot/rockstar/astronaut' because they know that's actually out of reach.. but they still don't seem to make the connection that if they're not actually going to be a tennis pro then perhaps doing one of the 'lame mundane professions' is perhaps not quite so lame at all.

That's at the teenage level. There is a multiplier effect with time, so by the time someone with a brain got on with it gets to 30.. they're not doing the bitch work anymore, they're pulling down real coin and making serious plans. By 35 they're driving a BMW and living where they choose, with more disposable income than they know what to do with (and that's after putting away thousands a month in investments).

I think I've gotten through to my partners 14 year old son. He was all about photography and he's quite good, I like it too. But he said something the other day 'yeah photography is cool, but I can do that as a hobby. I want to earn coin when I finish. I'm thinking maybe commerce?'.

Now commerce is some boring poo poo, we can do better than that.. but let me tell you, mate, you are on the right track :)

MikeCrotch
Nov 5, 2011

I AM UNJUSTIFIABLY PROUD OF MY SPAGHETTI BOLOGNESE RECIPE

YES, IT IS AN INCREDIBLY SIMPLE DISH

NO, IT IS NOT NORMAL TO USE A PEPPERAMI INSTEAD OF MINCED MEAT

YES, THERE IS TOO MUCH SALT IN MY RECIPE

NO, I WON'T STOP SHARING IT

more like BOLLOCKnese

Tony Montana posted:

gently caress you. You sound like a millennial that doesn't like the fact that the Facebook generation isn't nearly so cute anymore and a lot more useless than could be believed. Geez, a culture based around vapid social media combined with all the other horseshit we love to poo poo on (on these forums particularly) turned out a generation of dopey children with zero ambitions. Who coulda guessed it.

For the OP, your avatar is Blackadder which makes me think you're British. I can easily say out of all the cultures I've lived in, the English and English youth take indifference to another level. Americans can be brash, but at least the ones I've met have ideas (some of which seem crazy) they want to live by. We Australians love to drink and carry on like trash, but when the chips are down we've got strong ideas about what it is to be an adult (living at home with Mum and earning 50k a year working retail isn't one of them). But in England I felt a pervasive sense of 'meh', moreso than anywhere else. Even the Italians seemed to have more to strive for, despite being broke as gently caress.

I really like what the person said above about earning money. You keep running into this loving infuriating idea with millennials that their work needs to be amazing and they're just too good (or something) for doing many jobs. Sitting a desk and working (like a doctor, lawyer or engineer does) seems like some great failing.. you've got some lame desk job which is mundane and YAWN. Many aren't stupid enough to then follow up with 'so how do I become a fighter pilot/rockstar/astronaut' because they know that's actually out of reach.. but they still don't seem to make the connection that if they're not actually going to be a tennis pro then perhaps doing one of the 'lame mundane professions' is perhaps not quite so lame at all.

That's at the teenage level. There is a multiplier effect with time, so by the time someone with a brain got on with it gets to 30.. they're not doing the bitch work anymore, they're pulling down real coin and making serious plans. By 35 they're driving a BMW and living where they choose, with more disposable income than they know what to do with (and that's after putting away thousands a month in investments).

I think I've gotten through to my partners 14 year old son. He was all about photography and he's quite good, I like it too. But he said something the other day 'yeah photography is cool, but I can do that as a hobby. I want to earn coin when I finish. I'm thinking maybe commerce?'.

Now commerce is some boring poo poo, we can do better than that.. but let me tell you, mate, you are on the right track :)

nice meltdown

Cobweb Heart
Mar 31, 2010

I need you to wear this. I need you to wear this all the time. It's office policy.
Millenials are dumb as dog poo poo!! Happy to rub myself off on your 14-year-olds, people!!!!

Gucci Loafers
May 20, 2006

Ask yourself, do you really want to talk to pair of really nice gaudy shoes?


There was time in my life were I paid for my haircuts in change I found under my parents couch. They didn't have any money either.

While it's not worst circumstance in the world I decided that I didn't care to live like that. A decade later I'm now another peon at a generic Fortune 500 Company in my own trendy downtown apartment. I'm in total agreement that millennials were codded way too much from "helicopter parents" but on the flip side the world isn't what it was decades ago especially for baby boomers were you could nearly always find a decent paying job with an affordable home no matter your profession.

If I had a son or daughter that was failing to launch I'd kick them out of the house but if we lived in San Francisco Or New York I might think twice.

Anne Whateley
Feb 11, 2007
:unsmith: i like nice words

Tony Montana posted:

I really like what the person said above about earning money. You keep running into this loving infuriating idea with millennials that their work needs to be amazing and they're just too good (or something) for doing many jobs. Sitting a desk and working (like a doctor, lawyer or engineer does) seems like some great failing.. you've got some lame desk job which is mundane and YAWN. Many aren't stupid enough to then follow up with 'so how do I become a fighter pilot/rockstar/astronaut' because they know that's actually out of reach.. but they still don't seem to make the connection that if they're not actually going to be a tennis pro then perhaps doing one of the 'lame mundane professions' is perhaps not quite so lame at all.

That's at the teenage level. There is a multiplier effect with time, so by the time someone with a brain got on with it gets to 30.. they're not doing the bitch work anymore, they're pulling down real coin and making serious plans. By 35 they're driving a BMW and living where they choose, with more disposable income than they know what to do with (and that's after putting away thousands a month in investments).
Not everyone has archives, please source your quotes from 2007

Tony Montana
Aug 6, 2005

by FactsAreUseless

MikeCrotch posted:

nice meltdown

So, this is another example. As teenagers are still in the 'fit in' stage, what is most important to them is appearing cool and non-nonchalant, because they don't have developed senses of self-worth and value themselves based on the opinions of others or their 'peers'. The problem is many modern teenagers don't grow out of this in their twenties, so you've got fully grown adults who still think the most important things in life are not to rock the boat and appear chill in front of their homies. This results in not being passionate or having much of an idea about anything.. which leads to somehow I blinked and now I'm 33 and I live at home with my parents. The idea that anyone that speaks with authority or experience is uncool and really the coolest people are those on the sidelines laughing at everyone trying so hard, is something that normally dies with high school.

Anne Whateley posted:

Not everyone has archives, please source your quotes from 2007

What? Is this about 2008 and the American crash? I'm Australian, we didn't have a crash. People that did real degrees in the US and worked hard to make themselves useful did ok, it was the crowds of people with business and art degrees with no real career planning that graduated and couldnt get a job. Don't do something nebulous and ill-defined at University, if you don't want to do STEM then there are other options but if you can't show me 10 ads in the paper for the job you're going to get when you finish then you should really reconsider your 'university education'.

Anne Whateley
Feb 11, 2007
:unsmith: i like nice words
Truly, the problem with the job market is there aren't enough lawyers and kids who want to be lawyers.

Tony Montana
Aug 6, 2005

by FactsAreUseless
Nice strawman.. Perhaps stop whining to mum about how the world is hard and get on with it?

Anne Whateley
Feb 11, 2007
:unsmith: i like nice words

Tony Montana posted:

You keep running into this loving infuriating idea with millennials that their work needs to be amazing and they're just too good (or something) for doing many jobs. Sitting a desk and working (like a doctor, lawyer or engineer does) seems like some great failing

Tony Montana posted:

The idea that anyone that speaks with authority or experience is uncool
Just to be clear that's definitely not what's happening here

Tony Montana
Aug 6, 2005

by FactsAreUseless
Why don't you actually write something of substance and have a discussion rather than making allusions and snarky comments like a little bitch?

Anne Whateley
Feb 11, 2007
:unsmith: i like nice words
As a millennial, I can't help it, obviously. Do you suppose your generation is what's causing you to talk out of your rear end and throw around insults instead of addressing my point or backing up your ludicrous claims?

Anyway, OP, I had internships and did everything you're supposed to do in college, but I graduated in 2008, so sucked for me. After I got out, I was unemployed and then became a barista. It was bad and not fun, and I made very little money and had a gross housing situation. Then I got a job I has applied for that was decent, but "independent contractor" poo poo so no benefits. About a year later, I applied to a real job that was also baller and got that. Now I'm pretty comfortable, I have my own apartment in NYC, and I do some cool stuff at work. I was lucky that my rough times were more of a "paying your dues" early 20s thing and not more long-term like a lot of people.

Tony Montana
Aug 6, 2005

by FactsAreUseless
What was your major? You didn't seem to mention it..

ProperGanderPusher
Jan 13, 2012




For what it's worth, I work at one of those boring square office jobs and my elders give me constant grief for "selling out" and not going into academia like I wanted to as an idiot undergrad. Make up your minds, olds.

Anne Whateley
Feb 11, 2007
:unsmith: i like nice words
Since you ask, English and history.

literally this big
Jan 10, 2007



Here comes
the Squirtle Squad!
Lazy, entitled millennial checking in to say that everyone needs to shut the gently caress up about my generation. There have always been, and always will be, people complaining about "kids these days and their [insert thing that younger generation grew up with, but older generation did not have]," and how it's ruined everything. It used to be rock n roll, or jazz, or TV, or video games, or whatever. This has literally happened since the dawn of civilization. Now it's social media. Tomorrow it'll be something else. I guarantee you that 40 years from now there'll be some shithead millennial complaining about how they "graduated from college in the middle of the Great Recession of '08, where you had actually work really hard to find a decent paying job and make ends meet. Not like today's kids, who are lazy and entitled and have everything handed to them."

Myself, I graduated college two years ago with a degree in Political Science. It's my passion, and I'm glad I pursued it. I have since found work in my field, mainly elections and campaigning, but also in city government. I mention this because my work largely consists of trying to get people motivated, active within their community, and engaged with what's going on in the world. If my work has taught me anything, it's that people who complain and point fingers and lay blame (see: Tony Montoya ITT) are best ignored since they really have no idea what they're talking about, and have nothing to contribute to any possible discussion or solution.

I'm really not sure if I or my generation has it any better or worse than the last few in US or world history. Of course, we're objectively better off than previous generations, since now we've got better medicine, more food, better hygiene, a higher standard of living, etc. than ever before. Very few places on earth are doing worse today than they were, say, 50 years ago. But do we have as many opportunities to improve our lives as our parents did? Do we have to suffer longer and work harder to find those opportunities? Is our future brighter than that of previous generations? I honestly can't give you an accurate answer (hint: nobody can, short of maybe a professor of sociology or a Pew Research Center poll analyst or something).

That being said, lumping people together into arbitrary groupings (in this case generations) is usually a bad idea. Every person is different, and thinks differently, and does things differently. Thinking that every person around the world age 18-34 acts and behaves the same way just because they're "millennials" is absurd. I think it comes from a weird "us versus them" mentality. Regardless of its origins, it's usually inaccurate and incredibly toxic in its effect.

If I had to guess, I don't think my generation is any more entitled, or lazy, or unmotivated than any previous generation. The only thing that separates us from previous generations are our environment, and our situation. If we truly are so lazy, entitled, etc. it's because we live in a time and place that encourages us to be so, not because the Millennial Hivemind decided one day to start smoking weed and stop showing up to work on time, just to piss off the older folk.

Hope this is in the vein of what you were looking for, OP.

literally this big fucked around with this message at 05:56 on Jun 29, 2016

photomikey
Dec 30, 2012

literally this big posted:

There have always been, and always will be, people complaining about "kids these days and their [insert thing]
And, graduating straight out of high school (and college), it has always been hard to get a good job. The paradox of needing experience to get experience has always existed. In times of good economy (like, for instance, now) it is somewhat easier to get a job and in times of bad economy it has been somewhat harder to get a job. That was no different in 2008 than it was in 2001, 1991, 1980, 1974, and so on.

Blurred
Aug 26, 2004

WELL I WONNER WHAT IT'S LIIIIIKE TO BE A GOOD POSTER
My first piece of advice would be to not listen to dickheads like Tony Montana. I too come from Australia, and in his "advice" I see the same kind of petty, small-minded, casually-xenophobic, suburban, small-c conservatism that made me leave the country in the first place. It's the mentality of an aspirational class of people who take pleasure getting an AmEx card (Visa isn't quite aspirational enough), buying as many banal consumer items with it as possible (big screen TVs, culturally-barren package holidays, dinners at overpriced Italian restaurants etc.) and then patting oneself on the back for "working hard" and paying it back. It's a mentality of valueless, self-righteous entitlement, fostered by 6 years of education in some mediocre, fee-paying Anglican school, the prevailing ethos shat out by 11 years of the most miserable, uninspired tory government to ever grace God's good Earth, and the irredeemably foreshortened perspective that only a lifetime ensconced in the soul-crushing banality of Australian suburbia could ever engender. It's a world of self-imposed exile from non-materialistic values, where children with active artistic interests are lauded for dropping them in favour of "earning coin" and where driving a BMW at the age of 35 is mentioned - with oblivious sincerity - as a major life-goal worthy of serious pursuit. These are grim, miserable people, who find virtue in living grim, miserable lives, and who deride anyone who has chosen to live differently as "dopey children" - the vacuity of their own lives is proof enough that they are not worth listening to.

How do I know all this? Because I spent the first 26 years of my life in exactly this environment. I grew up in the eastern suburbs of Melbourne, where people have made a Faustian pact to give away culture and the potential for meaningful self-determination in exchange for shopping centres, parched front lawns and an endless parade of creature comforts. All of my friends from school (including myself) went to university to study Commerce, IT, Accounting or Law - I can only think of one from my group of friends who went onto study anything different. What's more, I think that we (certainly I) did so more or less unthinkingly - middle-class school boys just went on to study these things, there wasn't much scope for alternative choices. So I muddled my way through a largely useless and completely unfulfilling business degree, then worked in a couple of tedious office jobs that made me miserable just to think about them. During this time I was living at home with my parents, because rents in Melbourne (to say nothing of the property prices!) are insane, unless you want to live an hour from anywhere worth being. But I stuck at it for a while because prevailing wisdom suggested that that's what people are supposed to do in life, and that to hope for anything better was sheer childish naivete. Eventually, I decided that I needed to get away for one last break before submitting myself to the inescapable drudgery of a lifetime of work and taking things seriously, so I decided, without much planning or expectation, to move to Prague to teach English for a year. It was about 3 days from the initial inkling of an idea to buying the plane tickets. Six years later, I am still here, and I can say - without any hesitation - that it was the best decision I've ever made. Here I have a good, relatively well-paying job that I enjoy doing: nameIy, I work with a radio service which broadcasts news to nations with unfree media. Working here with journalists who sacrifice so much on a daily basis to deliver important information to underprivileged parts of the world also makes me feel - however vicariously - that I'm doing something worthwhile. I have a great quality of life here, with many great friends from all over the world, and a number of hobbies that I never would have even dreamed of pursuing in Australia. In short, by ignoring the kind of unthinking, petite-bourgeoisie moralising offered by unthinking, petite-bourgeoisie moralisers like Tony Montana, I actually found myself happy.

I don't offer this information to brag about how good my life is, to suggest that I have anything resembling a perfect life, or even to suggest that my attitude to life is worth emulating, I'm merely using it as a corrective to the kind of advice typically offered by miserable, unfulfilled people about how miserable and unfulfilling life "in the real world" should be. Virtually none of the things I have now were planned, nor did I have to work myself into the ground to get them. I just decided, after leaving Australia, to pursue what made me feel like I was living a worthwhile life, and everything just kind of fell into place subsequently. I still needed to work for it, of course, but it feels much less like hard work now that I'm doing something I actually enjoy. Was I just lucky? Perhaps. But sometimes you need to put yourself into a new situation where it is possible for luck to actually have an effect. If I had stayed in Australia, and pursued the life that I expected to have but never really wanted, then all the luck in the world probably would have failed to make me happy.

My second piece of advice, then (and I offer this with the caveat that anyone who tells you how to live your life is typically less interested in helping you than they are in lending justification to the decisions they've already made in their own life), is that if you're unhappy with what you're doing, and don't see a future for yourself on your current path, then just do something - anything! - to break the circuit. Do it without expectations: just follow the brighter path. People put so much focus on destinations - on the expectation that they will finally be happy once conditions x, y and z are fulfilled - without realizing that life is actually nothing but paths, with nary a stable destination in sight. As soon as you feel like you've settled somewhere, there's another decision to be made, and off you go forging a new road yet again. This is a function of something known in psychological circles as the "Hedonic Treadmill", which suggests that the fulfillment of any given wishes can only make you happy for a short time before your happiness levels inevitably revert to baseline: there is never an "I've made it" moment, you have to keep moving somewhere. At the risk of sounding trite, there is so much emphasis placed on delayed gratification - I will be happy at point y if only I do this at point x - that people sometimes forget to be happy in the present moment. Everything they do is just preparation for a future happiness that may never arrive. Why not put more stock in doing what makes you feel fulfilled now, rather than presuming that fulfillment is something that can only be achieved after so many years of needless self-sacrifice?

Isn't this irresponsible? What about the inevitable obligations of adult life? Am I just a big man-child living a life of delusion, and who will be crushed once the responsibilities of adulthood finally begin to set in? No. Another piece of advice: these obligations have a way of finding you, without you ever needing to go to the trouble of seeking them out. I'm in a long term relationship now, with a girl a met at a time when I would have been just as happy to have spent a few years playing the field. Marriage and kids are around the corner. We have a mortgage on a great place near the centre of the city, and recently finished some major reconstruction. If you had told me four years ago that I'd be in this situation now, then I would have laughed at you: these things could not have been further from my mind. Yet these "adult" things happened - naturally, organically - without any need to put any parts of my life on hold in expectation of them. They are not millstones around my neck, but pleasant things that I welcomed because everything else in my life was going smoothly. So if you feel bad because you don't yet have the accoutrements of adult life, then don't worry: they'll come on their own, whether you're ready or not. In the meantime, do anything that might help you to feel more accomplished, and don't fall prey to the petty blandishments of those who wear their myriad obligations as a badge of honour. Greatness may require obligation and suffering, but that doesn't make self-imposed obligation and suffering inherently virtuous or worthwhile. Just do something that is likely to fulfill you, the rest will follow.

Blurred fucked around with this message at 17:18 on Jun 29, 2016

Schiavona
Oct 8, 2008

Tony Montana posted:

What? Is this about 2008 and the American crash? I'm Australian, we didn't have a crash. People that did real degrees in the US and worked hard to make themselves useful did ok, it was the crowds of people with business and art degrees with no real career planning that graduated and couldnt get a job. Don't do something nebulous and ill-defined at University, if you don't want to do STEM then there are other options but if you can't show me 10 ads in the paper for the job you're going to get when you finish then you should really reconsider your 'university education'.

The trolling was pretty good but this was a little too far

Tony Montana
Aug 6, 2005

by FactsAreUseless
I'm right here and will respond a bit later, but I'm busy working at my job right now. I'm looking forward to it though :)

First up we've got the English and History major that found it hard to find work. Not because these fields have always been hard to find work in, not because in the modern age many of the functions of English majors (publishing, academia) are changing dramatically.. it's because this poor little snowflake graduated in 2008! Oh no! I'm sure this guy was about to be the next blockbuster novelist, but the drat world conspired to bring him down.

Then we've got the guy that had to move across the world to teach English, after doing a business degree and probably working in administration and becoming dissatisfied with his life. Did he look at other options? Perhaps re-educate in something that isn't as broad as 'business' so there is some more direction to his career and life? Nope, that all sounds too much like hard work. I'll go and teach English overseas, where I have no family around me, no long term friends and start an entirely different life. Futhermore, I'm superior to those drones back in Australia working their 9-5s. Those fools are all just chasing bullshit they never questioned, while I'm here in Prauge as an English teacher.

It's all right here in black and white. It's a sense of superiority, a sense of being special in some way. A disrespect for those who came before. These people actually believe they know better, and knew better all along. We are the chumps, working our mundane jobs and earning our stupid degrees.

The problem for them is now my generation (born in the 80s) now does the hiring, and we're sick of it.

edit: just for those that don't come from Melbourne, the Eastern suburbs are the expensive ones. You've literally got a snotty little rich kid that didn't do anything meaningful at Uni, falling on his face. Personally, I love it. I'm not from Melbourne at all, I'm from Adelaide, but now I live in Camberwell (Melbourne Eastern suburbs). You appreciate it differently when you earned it. It's what I said in my first post, coming from such a place of privilidge that they feel entitled to consider people like me as crass and beneath them, while it's their parents that enabled them to even think this way in the first place. They haven't done a drat thing in their lives on their own to justify it.

Tony Montana fucked around with this message at 04:15 on Jun 30, 2016

N. Senada
May 17, 2011

My kidneys are busted
I don't know what your circumstances/aspirations/ambitions are OP, but I would suggest trying service work out for awhile. The AmeriCorps VISTA program gives you enough money to survive for a year and potentially get involved in a field that you might have an inkling for.

The first time I felt successful was when I shifted into work helping other people. I don't make any money but I like waking up knowing that my job is supposed to be helping others.

N. Senada fucked around with this message at 03:54 on Jun 30, 2016

Anne Whateley
Feb 11, 2007
:unsmith: i like nice words

Tony Montana posted:

.
my generation (born in the 80s)
one of us, one of us

logical phalluses
Mar 18, 2009

The living look upon the corpse with their eyesight,
But without eyesight lingers a different living and looks
curiously on the corpse.
I like it when people complaining about Millennials turn out to themselves be Millennials.

Tony Montana what do you think people aspired to before the ascent of capitalism?

Tony Montana
Aug 6, 2005

by FactsAreUseless
You can probably write a cool paper about it with Anne Whateley if you like.

I was born in 1980, are you telling me I would have had to be born in the 70s to not be a Millennial? Everyone from birth to 40 years old is now an Millennial? I think that is stretching it a long way and we all know exactly who we are talking about.

Loomer
Dec 19, 2007

A Very Special Hell
Number one piece of advice: Find a marketable skill you vaguely enjoy, if there is one, and market it. If it doesn't show dividends within a few months, find another skill, market it. If you have no skills, go get some. Strangling hobos should get you enough XP to put a few points into them.

If there really aren't any, then tough luck, time to take up a hobby while working a job you hate like a lot of people do.

EDIT:
Things that are skills: Knowing how to write the good words to a level you can work for a magazine, plumbing, electronics, coding, interior design, hairdressing, cosmetics, gardening and landscape design, sound mixing, IT
Things that are not skills: Mad ukelele kicks, knowing how to write the good words but not to a level that gets steady employment, art (it is, but good luck expecting to get paid), masturbation, not bathing, and general Gooniness.

Loomer fucked around with this message at 05:53 on Jun 30, 2016

Anne Whateley
Feb 11, 2007
:unsmith: i like nice words

Tony Montana posted:

I was born in 1980, are you telling me I would have had to be born in the 70s to not be a Millennial? Everyone from birth to 40 years old is now an Millennial?
1980 was 36 years ago. Poor guy, you should have majored in STEM

literally this big
Jan 10, 2007



Here comes
the Squirtle Squad!

Tony Montana posted:

I was born in 1980, are you telling me I would have had to be born in the 70s to not be a Millennial? Everyone from birth to 40 years old is now an Millennial?

Being born in 1980, you are either 35 or 36 years old. The Pew Research Center defines a millennial as someone between the ages of 19 and 35. Others have a broader definitions and wider age ranges. And since "generations" are wholly social constructs, and you closely associate yourself with others born in the 1980s...

You are literally a millennial.

That being said,

Tony Montana posted:

It's all right here in black and white. It's a sense of superiority, a sense of being special in some way. A disrespect for those who came before. These people actually believe they know better, and knew better all along. We are the chumps, working our mundane jobs and earning our stupid degrees.
At first I thought you were actually a sad, desperate narcissist, trying to prove how cool you are or something. Now it's pretty clear that you're just.. pretending to be one? Why?

TapTheForwardAssist
Apr 9, 2007

Pretty Little Lyres
Born 1980, I majored in Latin American studies and people asked "what on earth are you going to do with that?" and I joined the Marines. Got out and went to grad school on the GI Bill for Middle Eastern studies, got a stressful but good paying job in DC for five years, now working for a green energy firm doing African development. So ymmv but vague liberal arts degrees combined with serious writing and research skills (including a buttload of serious Wikipedia editing which was insanely useful for my DC job) certainly ended up working out for me.

Loomer
Dec 19, 2007

A Very Special Hell
Liberal arts degrees are worthwhile. On their own they usually don't have great job prospects but so long as people actually take them seriously, they teach a lot of good skills. Not to mention opening up post-grad routes later.

Morning Bell
Feb 23, 2006

Illegal Hen

Blurred posted:

I too come from Australia, and in his "advice" I see the same kind of petty, small-minded, casually-xenophobic, suburban, small-c conservatism that made me leave the country in the first place.

I am also from Australia and this post is spot on. Also bitching about "The Millennials" is really lazy and boring and it would be cool if we stopped this petty bullshit.

For example I was super obese and sad all the time when I was much younger, and I was bitter about everything and played lots of computer games because it was easier than dealing with problems. But then I joined a gym and worked out a lot and ate well and learned to cook, and then after a year or two I felt alright and now like a decade on I am a really happy person because I gained a "I can improve and learn stuff always" worldview and also known what it's like to be sad/fat/etc so can empathize and not take poo poo for granted. Please work out regularly, it will make you happier.

But yes job poo poo is hard in this day and age especially if your interests lie outside of a lucrative field like STEM. But there is more to life than work. I know plenty of genuinely happy people who sling coffee or push paper at an office for a day-ob, and work on meaningful poo poo outside the 9-5 - like art or writing or music or volunteering or do a sport seriously or whatever the hell gives them meaning. Gross oversimplification, I know, but life can be cool and fun even if your job is not (though this is coming from an Australian perspective - I hear poo poo is way harder on the other side of the pond). But yea, sometimes you have to try lots of different things, and put lots of effort into each thing, for a lot of time, before you find something that clicks. Don't half-rear end poo poo. Also travelling and working in a different country can really shake up your mind - I did that for a couple of years and it was the best.

Lampsacus
Oct 21, 2008

Don't try do it all at once. You'll fail and beat yourself up. Practice radicial self love. There is no time table, just a way forward.

GORDON
Jan 1, 2006

by Fluffdaddy
I think "expectations" are a big problem. I've watched for decades the idea that one MUST go to college, one MUST have a job at a desk in front of a computer being clever and creative, and one MUST have all the creature comforts to which their parents made them accustomed right out of the gate, or it isn't worth pursuing.

1. There is nothing wrong with being an ordinary person with an ordinary job.
2. Almost no one starts out with 30 years of success under their belt.... your first apartment will be lovely.
3. Be a plumber. Be an electrician. Be an HVAC person. Your fingernails will be dirty, but your work will always be in demand, you'll charge $100/hour for your time with 3 years of experience, and you wont have crushing college debt.

CommieGIR
Aug 22, 2006

The blue glow is a feature, not a bug


Pillbug
"The next generation is so lazy" - Repeat ad infinitum

GORDON posted:

I think "expectations" are a big problem. I've watched for decades the idea that one MUST go to college, one MUST have a job at a desk in front of a computer being clever and creative, and one MUST have all the creature comforts to which their parents made them accustomed right out of the gate, or it isn't worth pursuing.

1. There is nothing wrong with being an ordinary person with an ordinary job.
2. Almost no one starts out with 30 years of success under their belt.... your first apartment will be lovely.
3. Be a plumber. Be an electrician. Be an HVAC person. Your fingernails will be dirty, but your work will always be in demand, you'll charge $100/hour for your time with 3 years of experience, and you wont have crushing college debt.

While I'm all for blue collar jobs, the problem is there is less Middle Class that can afford to pay for these services. And crushing college debt shouldn't even be a thing, that's the overwhelming issue.

The Phlegmatist
Nov 24, 2003

GORDON posted:

I think "expectations" are a big problem. I've watched for decades the idea that one MUST go to college, one MUST have a job at a desk in front of a computer being clever and creative, and one MUST have all the creature comforts to which their parents made them accustomed right out of the gate, or it isn't worth pursuing.

1. There is nothing wrong with being an ordinary person with an ordinary job.
2. Almost no one starts out with 30 years of success under their belt.... your first apartment will be lovely.
3. Be a plumber. Be an electrician. Be an HVAC person. Your fingernails will be dirty, but your work will always be in demand, you'll charge $100/hour for your time with 3 years of experience, and you wont have crushing college debt.

this is the truth

Millenials posting on SA were sold a bill of goods that doesn't stack up in our current economy. The answer is most likely not to bitch about it on the internet, but to go get your HVAC cert.

psst you can stop paying down your college loans. nobody gets mad. you didn't hear this from me though okay.

Lord Ephraim
Feb 22, 2008

That's one way to get ahead in life, but nothing beats an axe to the face.
I graduated from school in 2007 with a poo poo degree and a dead job market. Spent 6 years making 9 dollars an hour while living at my parents until I sucked enough dick to find someone who hooked me up with a good paying job enough to move out. Been living a decent life ever since. I'd probably be on the street right now if I didn't get lucky finding a contact into a job field that I enjoy. My family dies young and all of my close friends ended up joining the Navy/Marines/Air Force.

Kiss some rear end, suck some dick, work for free, do anything! Something to get people to know you are a really hard working person and pray you find someone to notice you.

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adorai
Nov 2, 2002

10/27/04 Never forget
Grimey Drawer

literally this big posted:

Being born in 1980, you are either 35 or 36 years old. The Pew Research Center defines a millennial as someone between the ages of 19 and 35. Others have a broader definitions and wider age ranges. And since "generations" are wholly social constructs, and you closely associate yourself with others born in the 1980s...
born in 1982 to 2004 defines millennials. The new moniker was coined because it would be begin with the first class to graduate high school in the new millennium. Previously it was called "generation Y" or "generation why".

You are right though, it's not a scientific term with a static meaning, so you can group whoever you want into your generation. For me, I'll stick with the angst and malaise that defined everyone I knew growing up and call myself a member of Gen X. Either way, it doesn't matter. The problems of today's twenty somethings can really be traced back to them being told that A) everyone is a winner in their own way and B) if you go to college you will get a good job. Both were lies but they didn't figure it out until it was too late. I don't know anyone with a hard science degree that feels they are significantly underemployed, but plenty of english, history, and political science majors that are. There are just too many of them, and they all thought they would be different and better and that the degree would get them a job no matter what, so why not study what they love? This is all heavily divergent from the original question of the thread though.

-Blackadder- posted:

Awesome! Can you go into more detail?
Everyone is different here, so the specifics of my situation aren't really that important. What is important is that I didn't have a choice but to succeed. When I was living in my parents basement, there was never a day that I had to worry about being hungry. I never had to worry about not having a roof over my head. I made a lot more choices based on immediate gratification in those days. When I was forced out on my own, I stopped loving around at work as much -- getting fired would have been far more terrible than it would have when I had the safety net of my parents. Instead of surfing SA for half my workday I started looking for ways to improve existing business processes. At the time, I was just a schmuck with a lovely job, so very few of my suggestions went anywhere, but the effort involved was noticed and did result in raises and promotions.

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