Why Gen Y yuppies are unhappy

[Phanuthier]

Originally Posted by hulkrogan

The industrial Revolution.

WWI

WWII

"Oh no, retail is moving online and we are experiencing a slow shift to renewable energy!"

Man, these kids are screwed like no other kids in the history of the world.

Side tangent that has nothing to do with the topic, but renewable, biotech and online has actually changed the market. Look at how companies like Tesla are challenging the industry. Android apps companies startup cost are so low they dominate VC/angel so there are no hardware companies entering the market (the last successful one was Marvel like a decade a go) that even successful RF companies who are in 2nd round of funding are still seeing their funding cut. Not to mention the IPO babies of Zynga, et al have cause a housing spike of 50%.

[polak]

Really? You're going to compare pre-industrial revolution generations? Well then those f***ers that built the pyrimads really had a rough go too.

Wars are wars. They're unpredictable. Who is to say we don't have a world changing war in 20-30 years? Also their impact on jobs tends to be positive. It's not really the same sort of discussion.

[valo403]

Originally Posted by Phanuthier

Side tangent that has nothing to do with the topic, but renewable, biotech and online has actually changed the market. Look at how companies like Tesla are challenging the industry. Android apps companies startup cost are so low they dominate VC/angel so there are no hardware companies entering the market (the last successful one was Marvel like a decade a go) that even successful RF companies who are in 2nd round of funding are still seeing their funding cut. Not to mention the IPO babies of Zynga, et al have cause a housing spike of 50%.

For me the interesting part of the impact these companies has had is on the culture of the businesses that serve them, namely law firms and banks. These companies don't think the same way as the old guard clients, they approach things very differently and they expect that from the people they work with. Obviously there's less room for flexibility in law and finance, but it's been interesting to see firms position themselves to react to a changing market.

[SeeGeeWhy]

Two thoughts have come to mind for me here.

1. Lets be honest, these are the gripes of a class of people that tie their happiness directly to their work or financial health. That is a choice, and not everyone chooses to play that game. Not happy? Don't define your happiness based on your career expectations - maybe that's not what your life was meant to be about.

2. A HUGE problem - one that I feel has similarities to unnecessary unionization - that the massive lack of drive that professionals have for the creation of ANYTHING. The only thing that professionals seem to be concerned about creating now is their "career". This to me is a unionization of one, how "personal" our lives have become. Everything is so catered to the individual that we've forgotten the value of creating a life, or the value of being part of human kind as opposed to figuring out how to game corporate culture to the point where you can carve out a zero value add "career" in order to pay for whatever vapid material desires one has.

Economic growth is directly linked to production. North American and European economies are stale because we no longer create or produce, period. If the whiney ass GYPSYs want to live a life BEYOND their expectations, get to creating their own path and they'll both be massively satisfied as well as agents of change and opportunity for the rest of the tribe. That's what I think we need.

[SeeGeeWhy]

Don't you think that tuition prices should decrease if the degrees are no longer providing access to high paying jobs?

i.e.... demand will drop and so will price?

Or does the market look at this as a signal that they need even MORE education to stand out and earn those few high paying jobs that are available?

[chemgear]

Heh, I saw this going around in response:

http://aweinstein.kinja.com/####-you...itl-1333588443

1) These are weirdly contrived generational categories, too weird for such black-and-white reasoning. I’ve always thought myself more tail-end-of-Gen-X in temperament, age, and outlook. But '77-'79 is a sociologically ambiguous no-man's land, and we typically get lumped in with the millennials, especially when it comes to money matters.

2) Go ###### yourselves.

You have no idea about student debt, underemployment, life-long renting. “Stop feeling special” is some ####ty advice. I don’t feel special or entitled, just poor. The only thing that makes me special is I have more ballooning debt than you. I’ve tempered the hell out of my expectations of work, and I’ve exceeded those expectations crazily to have one interesting, exciting damned career that’s culminated in some leadership roles for national publications. And I’m still poor and in debt and worked beyond the point where it can be managed with my health and my desire to actually see the son I’m helping to raise.

[valo403]

Originally Posted by SeeGeeWhy

Don't you think that tuition prices should decrease if the degrees are no longer providing access to high paying jobs?

i.e.... demand will drop and so will price?

Or does the market look at this as a signal that they need even MORE education to stand out and earn those few high paying jobs that are available?

Degrees are required for more and more jobs than ever before, so demand certainly isn't dropping. I think your second thought is more accurate, people are pushing on into graduate programs in order to stand out, and taking on HUGE debt in the process, and finding that there aren't jobs after that either. Some of that is due to naivety, but schools have often obscured the reality of what lies beyond graduation and sold students a dream that was never going to happen.

[polak]

Nothing is funnier than talking to students after their first work term or co-op.

In class they learn high level management techniques that would normally be used by senior managment and above (hell some of the stuff I learned in certian classes couldn't be applied by anyone under VP level, literally company wide policy changes) and then they get into the workplace and realize that for the next few years they'll be pencil pushers working on piles of paper work and pushing through mundane, routine, day to day tasks and probably won't remember 90% of what they learned by the time they'll actually be in a position to apply it.

[CaptainCrunch]

The situations aren't too different from older generations to now, but I think that the preperation from an educational standpoint may have shifted.

No matter if you have a Bachelors degree or masters degree, all it guaranteed you is a long shot at a job in your chosen career path, and even if you got that job, your entry level job didn't pay well, you were basically shoveling sh%t at a lower pay then anyone else in the organization that you worked with, but if you worked hard and got noticed you'd move up the pay and position ladder. But for those first few years, you realized that your job was a pretty big priority.

You come out of university now and an entry level job with a degree is probably in the 40 to 50 k range, starter houses are in the 300's. Cars are in the 18 to 20k range.

When I graduated from university you were probably luck to make 24k per year. A house was in the small 100's and a car was 8 to 12 k. The situation really hasn't changed that much, we came out burdened with heavy student loans.

I think that the failure point is with the people teaching this generation and raising their expectations to an incredible level. Your coming out with a dgree, your going to be making 6 figures in a couple of years. Somewhere along the way companies and teachers started pushing work life balance almost like a recruiting tool. That was never pushed in my old persons day.

Students now are getting a shock to their system when they exit the education system. Organizations don't care all that much about entry level positions, especially with the universities flooding the markets with people from different fields. If you go in and they break you, they don't care there's another group of grads coming out. Company owners are getting that shock with people leaving at 5 or earlier in the day whether their work is done or not. People walking through the doors at 8:30 or 9:00pm.

At the end of the day, the same pressures were on us, and our parents (especially if they went to uni) and our grandparents, this generation is no different. I will argue that their outlook to early career is different, and that might work against them when dealing with the generations that believed that they could put the whole work life balance off for a few years til their career was security.

Again young people suck.

Death to Hipsters.

[blankall]

Originally Posted by polak

Nothing is funnier than talking to students after their first work term or co-op.

In class they learn high level management techniques that would normally be used by senior managment and above (hell some of the stuff I learned in certian classes couldn't be applied by anyone under VP level, literally company wide policy changes) and then they get into the workplace and realize that for the next few years they'll be pencil pushers working on piles of paper work and pushing through mundane, routine, day to day tasks and probably won't remember 90% of what they learned by the time they'll actually be in a position to apply it.

Sounds like law.

I had a friend who got top marks to work in a big corporate firm. This took countless hours in the library to get there. His first task invovled 12 hour days, 7 days/week in a filing room by himself going through boxes and boxes of papers. He had to pull out every paper that mentioned the name of one of the employees of his client....he was told they would not be hiring him back a few months later. The other articling student, who happened to have a family member who was a partner, was hired back. So was the hot woman; she, however, had to put up with 50-60 year old men acting totally inappropriate around her on a regular basis. She was let go once it became clear she wanted to get married and start a family.

Did I mention that baby boomers are also horribly corrupt and nepotic and sleazy in their hiring practices.

[Mr.Coffee]

this entire "debate" is a fruitless exercise with no real point at the end of the day. Sweeping generalizations don't matter. There are stereotypes in all shapes and colours, but it doesn't apply to any particular person, nor is it really all that relevant.

I think generational debates are so useless but do find the comments hilarious. Just a bunch of old people and young people blaming each other for things that are such grossly large societal issues with a billion inputs into the perceived problems and people speaking without a base context. As if the problems that exist are any particular person's fault.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by blankall

Sounds like law.

I had a friend who got top marks to work in a big corporate firm. This took countless hours in the library to get there. His first task invovled 12 hour days, 7 days/week in a filing room by himself going through boxes and boxes of papers. He had to pull out every paper that mentioned the name of one of the employees of his client....he was told they would not be hiring him back a few months later. The other articling student, who happened to have a family member who was a partner, was hired back. So was the hot woman; she, however, had to put up with 50-60 year old men acting totally inappropriate around her on a regular basis. She was let go once it became clear she wanted to get married and start a family.

Did I mention that baby boomers are also horribly corrupt and nepotic and sleazy in their hiring practices.

John Grisham is that you?

I thought that was the Law industry. They woo you. Beat the crap out of you, and if you survive for a few years they move you from lawnboy to lawyer.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by Mr.Coffee

this entire "debate" is a fruitless exercise with no real point at the end of the day. Sweeping generalizations don't matter. There are stereotypes in all shapes and colours, but it doesn't apply to any particular person, nor is it really all that relevant.

I think generational debates are so useless but do find the comments hilarious. Just a bunch of old people and young people blaming each other for things that are such grossly large societal issues with a billion inputs into the perceived problems and people speaking without a base context. As if the problems that exist are any particular person's fault.

ok , guys, that's it, shut down all internet forums a coffee machine is onto us.

Generational debates are useless.

Yeah, lets order some of those fabric garbage bins, back up the trucks. Lets see if we can sell some of these virtual office cubes.

Get Mavis to order a so long and fair well cake.

Can someone sign these vitual severance checks so I can hand them out?

Shut it down, shut it all down, fill it with concrete and salt the earth.

[19Yzerman19]

Blankall's summary is absolutely nothing like Biglaw in Calgary for what it's worth. Toronto is still somewhat like that.

[bizaro86]

Originally Posted by valo403

Degrees are required for more and more jobs than ever before, so demand certainly isn't dropping. I think your second thought is more accurate, people are pushing on into graduate programs in order to stand out, and taking on HUGE debt in the process, and finding that there aren't jobs after that either. Some of that is due to naivety, but schools have often obscured the reality of what lies beyond graduation and sold students a dream that was never going to happen.

I think it would be reasonable for University's to be required to have someone survey their former students and publish an average income three years after graduating for each type of degree/major.

Then if someone decides to take Bachelors of Personal Fulfillment, that's fine, but at least someone warned them in black and white what the economic outcome is likely to be. So many times you see advertisments talking about how students will learn "critical thinking" etc in a program and how valuable a skill that is. Maybe so, but I bet some would make different choices if they understood they would make 3x more if they went to SAIT and became an electrician.

[blankall]

Originally Posted by 19Yzerman19

Blankall's summary is absolutely nothing like Biglaw in Calgary for what it's worth. Toronto is still somewhat like that.

Depends on the economy really. I was in Vancouver the year of the financial meltdown. Calgary is a different situation in that they need lots of warm bodies. They'll actually actively headhunt young people and pursue people they want for the long term.

Both Vancouver and Toronto seem to be all about keeping old white guys in as comfortable of living conditions possible for as long as possible. Calgary will join the rest of North America the next time the oil industry is interupted in any way. I do know lots of people in Calgary who were hired because of who their parents were. I know of two women who's firms found them new positions at other firms after their affairs with their managing partners were exposed. One ended up keeping the child. I'm sure there are lots more I don't know about.

[blankall]

Originally Posted by bizaro86

I think it would be reasonable for University's to be required to have someone survey their former students and publish an average income three years after graduating for each type of degree/major.

Then if someone decides to take Bachelors of Personal Fulfillment, that's fine, but at least someone warned them in black and white what the economic outcome is likely to be. So many times you see advertisments talking about how students will learn "critical thinking" etc in a program and how valuable a skill that is. Maybe so, but I bet some would make different choices if they understood they would make 3x more if they went to SAIT and became an electrician.

Canada is one of the few countries in the world where Universities do not co-ordinate with the federal government over how many students they have in each faculty. In Scandinavian countries and Switzerland the government takes active control over how many students are allowed into each and every program. They have virtually no youth unemployment as a result.

[Mr.Coffee]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

ok , guys, that's it, shut down all internet forums a coffee machine is onto us.

Generational debates are useless.

Yeah, lets order some of those fabric garbage bins, back up the trucks. Lets see if we can sell some of these virtual office cubes.

Get Mavis to order a so long and fair well cake.

Can someone sign these vitual severance checks so I can hand them out?

Shut it down, shut it all down, fill it with concrete and salt the earth.

except that's not really what I said or implied but okay. You really love your "in my day" threads and telling them whippersnappers how it is eh?

[19Yzerman19]

Originally Posted by blankall

Depends on the economy really. I was in Vancouver the year of the financial meltdown. Calgary is a different situation in that they need lots of warm bodies. They'll actually actively headhunt young people and pursue people they want for the long term.

It has far less to do with the economy than the bar culture here. There's an entirely different recruiting strategy that involves hiring fewer people to begin with and keeping a greater percentage of them. I.e. we'll hire 12 students and hire back 11 rather than hiring 20 and hiring back 10. We hire back about 90% of our articling students (that's actually a conservative estimate). Consequently, new recruits are treated as if they're full fledged members of the firm as soon as they're hired as summer students (basically interns) rather than when they get their legs under them as associates - the assumption is that if you're summering here you're probably going to be here in 5 years as a junior. At least until you go in house, or whatever.

I do know lots of people in Calgary who were hired because of who their parents were. I know of two women who's firms found them new positions at other firms after their affairs with their managing partners were exposed. One ended up keeping the child. I'm sure there are lots more I don't know about.

That's just good business though. If your pop is in a position to ship legal work to the firm that's worth $1,000,000 per year, paying you $100,000 is a no-brainer. As for the other thing, in Calgary biglaw, people don't really get fired, people... ahem... find new opportunities. It just looks better on the firm when it appears that an associate voluntarily left rather than was fired. "We don't employ people who aren't competent or trustworthy lawyers" is the message. So yeah, damn right the firm will find them somewhere to land.

[PsYcNeT]

Originally Posted by Mr.Coffee

except that's not really what I said or implied but okay. You really love your "in my day" threads and telling them whippersnappers how it is eh?

CC used to be a pretty chill poster back in the day, but he definitely gets more curmudgeonly as time passes.

Male menopause perhaps?