Out of your Parents Basement: Tell me about going from Goon to Great

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Out of your Parents Basement: Tell me about going from Goon to Great

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.

# ¿ Jun 28, 2016 06:59

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 12:02

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.

# ¿ Jun 29, 2016 07:21

photomikey: Dec 30, 2012

Pistol Packin Poet posted:

I read an article about the "Quarter Life Crisis" that a lot of "millennials" are going through these days and I really hope I don't make a mistake regret with a potential career change.

I read this book in 2000 or so, and while it didn't help with any concrete suggestions, it did make me feel better that I wasn't alone in my frustration. Namely that from age 5-18 you are shepherded from grade to grade, onto college where you're shepherded along again for another 4-6 years, college "career placement" eventually gets you a job, and after 1-2 years of that there is an overwhelming "what's next" feeling, because you've never made a directional decision for yourself.

# ¿ Jul 6, 2016 14:07

photomikey: Dec 30, 2012

If you graduated high school, and even if you didn't, you can go to a community college even if you had a 0.0 GPA. If you can get better grades at a community college, you can use that to transfer into a 4-year school. This might not get you into Harvard, but whatever state you live in it'd get you into the "University of (your state here)".

# ¿ Jul 8, 2016 16:16

photomikey: Dec 30, 2012

Abu Dave posted:

That's still a pretty big ask of people who work for minimum wage or just barely over. It's rough and possible but that turns a 4 year degree into what, a 8?

It's a shame online degrees had such a bad stigma associated to them, because they could've been the perfect answer to all of this.

15 credit hours of community college is a stretch for people making minimum wage? Forgive my Gen X entitlement here, but college is supposed to be a stretch. I know that we love to laud these 1% cases of people living in lux apartments driving a Jag going to UC Santa Cruz, but for almost everybody... being poor and going to college go hand-in-hand. I think it makes your college experience better. I think the guy eating ramen noodles and taking the bus learns more at college than the guy driving the Jag to Santa Cruz. I think my generation's gripe with the millennials is that it seems like the millennial manta is that nothing should be hard. No. It's being hard that makes it worthwhile.

# ¿ Jul 9, 2016 01:17

photomikey: Dec 30, 2012

Richlove posted:

To summarize: People care about what you can "do," not just what you look like on paper. If you want to go from Goon to Great, get off your rear end and go "do" something constructive.

Quoting this in case anyone needed a TL; DR.

Going from goon to great in a work sense is not unlike going from goon to great in a physical fitness sense. You are 300 lbs and you want to be 185. You don't just decide one day to be 185... You decide one day that 300 isn't your game anymore, and you try to be 299. You decide one day you want to be a doctor, you don't just become a doctor... you buy an MCAT study book. You don't read the whole thing - just the first chapter. Then the next day... the next chapter. Fast forward several years and you're a doctor. Regardless of what "privilege" you started with, or didn't.

# ¿ Aug 22, 2016 03:17

photomikey: Dec 30, 2012

ElectricNeonPanda posted:

After graduation I just spent time at home on the internet and playing games not really knowing what to do or where to loving go.

I wonder if the proliferation of gaming and internet has to do with this feeling.

I mean, I graduated high school in '95 and BBSes were a thing, but it was not limitless like the internet is. And gaming was Super Mario, which it's not like you could spend weeks or months doing. It took an hour to beat the game, and after a while you just got bored of it. There was cable TV, but even that had its limits.

Rewind 15 years to 1980 and there's no significant cable, no internet, no video games... Computers existed, but it's not like you could kill time on one. Certainly not weeks or months, probably not even hours.

If you didn't know what to do after graduation, you couldn't just sit at home and kill a year. You'd just stare a hole in the loving wall for two days and eventually get up and do SOMETHING just to stymie the boredom.

# ¿ Aug 28, 2016 05:30

photomikey: Dec 30, 2012

For more fun, add in confusion about why you got kicked off foodstamps because you couldn't "prove" you were looking for work, when you were actually busy... not looking for work.

# ¿ Aug 31, 2016 21:51

photomikey: Dec 30, 2012

In case you were looking for a quorum, I think you should seek help and from reading your post, it's not that hard to see.

# ¿ Sep 2, 2016 01:38

photomikey: Dec 30, 2012

chemosh6969 posted:

You should read up some if you think the economy was more functional in the past. There was a recession in the 80s that's much worse than what we've seen this century.

But what do I know, I'm just old and have life experience.

Read the last four pages. When you graduated from college you had no debt and your graduation gift was a $50k/yr job with a bow wrapped around it. You didn't put in any effort and one day your lovely apartment turned into a four bedroom house. Now you're vice president (you didn't earn it, it was handed to you, you were lucky) and totally incompetent and just holding that spot full so that some poor mistreated millennial can't get a job.

Also, don't lie about the 80's, they've read about how great it was.

# ¿ Sep 5, 2016 22:01

photomikey: Dec 30, 2012

Azuth0667 posted:

I'm confused here are you legitimately angry or making fun of people?

I was spewing the crap I expected the angry underemployed to start spewing. 2016 is a hard time to get a job straight out of school. So was 2008, 2005, 2000, 1995, 1985, 1980.... there was never a good time to get a first job. They always want to hand you a broom and have you do poo poo they won't do. That's life.

# ¿ Sep 6, 2016 04:53

photomikey: Dec 30, 2012

Yes... yes, that was GORDON's point. Good reading! Now pass the bong to your right.

# ¿ Sep 15, 2016 21:29

photomikey: Dec 30, 2012

How low does your self esteem have to be to write a story about how you finished grad school and were doing postdoc work in a technology field and you got a great gig by "dumb luck"? Like... they could have picked the guy cooking fries at McD's or the guy boozing on the street corner or the guy with the graduate degree in an engineering field, and... man, crazy luck, it was you!

# ¿ Sep 22, 2016 04:14

photomikey: Dec 30, 2012

chemosh6969 posted:

I still see this where I work now, with parents writing essays for their kid to try and get scholarships.

My first grader, for the 100th day of school, made a project with 100 objects. She made a poop emoji out of chocolate chips, glued them to a paper, and drew a toilet next to them. It took her a solid couple hours and she was super proud of it. I stopped in to the classroom today, and looked at the wall where all of the projects hung. I am clearly the only one with the audacity to let my kid do it themselves. Some of that poo poo looked like a corporate presentation.

# ¿ Mar 4, 2017 08:18

photomikey: Dec 30, 2012

Forceholy, was there one thing that pushed you over the edge to change? What was it? What was the feeling associated with it?

# ¿ May 10, 2017 22:55

photomikey: Dec 30, 2012

IRQ posted:

Try living around San Francisco, DC, or NYC.

Try living in about a thousand other American cities.

# ¿ May 31, 2017 08:20

photomikey: Dec 30, 2012

You ever read a long story full of accusations and wish there was some way you could find out the other side of that story? That's me right now.

# ¿ Jul 18, 2017 05:23

photomikey: Dec 30, 2012

Did you ever make up with your adopted family?

# ¿ Aug 22, 2017 22:59

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 12:02

photomikey: Dec 30, 2012

Dennis McClaren posted:

So after a complete turn-around in my life, I finally made it out of there!

And yet, you're going back!

Good job. Great story. You should be proud.

# ¿ Aug 30, 2017 18:54

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Out of your Parents Basement: Tell me about going from Goon to Great