We're not all entitled. Are we?
After reading this article in Dame Magazine about the entitled generation (my generation), I found myself annoyed, and admittedly, a bit defensive. And perhaps a bit guilty for having such high expectations of the "real world."
As a twenty-something one year out of college, and one year into my first "real world" job, I am still always trying to gain that extra tidbit of experience. I accept tedious proofreading assignments with a smile, because I know that I need to prove myself worthy of the little stuff before being trusted with the more thought-stimulating projects. And while I can't say I'm happy in my current position, or that I've even learned much beyond how to deal with office politics, I can say that I am lucky to have been offered my position in the first place during a time when a) the economy's not so hot and b) some of my other classmates were still scrounging around for work - or in some cases, because there were no other options, unpaid internships meant for those still in college.
I feel like while the younger generation may have different
perspectives about the work place than, say, our parents, and while some of us do indeed act (maybe overly so) like it, we can't all
be clumped into one category of being entitled.
Hmmm. Okay. I can see that. But my big issue with this whole "intergenerational clash" is that the seasoned professionals are unwilling to move along and change with the times, including crucial know-how in a technologically advanced age (managers who don't know how to use Excel? Yup - heard of 'em). We are already engaged in a generation where men and women are (or should be) treated equally in the workplace. And while, yes, we're still working on perfecting it (statistics show that for every dollar a man makes a woman makes only 3/4 of it), allowing our managers and executives to treat us (younger women) like they were treated does not help anyone. In fact, I'd say it moves us, as a soceity, backward."Younger women arrive at a new office pumped up on Suze Orman and you-go-girl self-empowerment, and are quickly deflated by the necessary drudgery of copying and collating. Older women, who have paid their dues dealing with sexism and grunt work for decades, are chagrined that younger women assume they can just show up and take over. Commence an intergenerational clash."
As a 43-year-old founder of a financial blog for women boldly mentions,
Wait - what rules? ...that younger women should expect to be treated poorly just like how some older women were when they were our age? You must be kidding.'I’m glad they have confidence, but boy do I wish they also had the savvy to realize that they can be pretty offensive to the veterans when they clearly don’t expect to play by the rules.'
I know that we have to start at the bottom and work our way up. But why is it that our eagerness to learn, so that we can make those moves, is being shunned? I would hope it's appreciated. "Dear Manager, I'd love it if you gave me something-anything!-to help me learn so I can become a better, more profitable employee to you." ...Where's the harm in that? There's also a fresh batch of college graduates every quarter waiting to apply to those bottom-of-the-barrel, coffee-fetching, copy-making jobs. So why not move everyone through the line?
It's 2008. I most definitely expect to work my ass off to move to next
levels and to be successful. And I will. And I'll even wear a broad
smile and designer jeans while doing so. But I have some expectations,
too, and refuse to let someone utterly take advantage me. You take on
internships for a reason - to me that's your stepping stone. Your first
glimpse into the "real world." But now, I have my degree, so yes, my
expectations have risen. There's no way you can get me to consent to
putting up with sexist, well-I-had-to-so-you-have-to bullshit from
executives who grew up in a completely different generation. We must
keep up with societal changes (We all use e-mail now, and feel naked
without our cell phones...right?), including those changes that imply that certain young people are graduating from college smarter than generations before, and that they are probably smarter than a lot of people already in the workforce.
Comments
... Opps.
Yes, this is an intergenerational conflict, but it not what the writer of the Dame Mag article claims it is. The problem is the older generation doesn't understand the younger generation can do so much more, and that they want to do so much more because they have the skills, etc. The younger generation doesn't understand that the older generation expects them to put in their dues before they can get the good assignments: they feel entitled because they have a fancy degree and were told by their parents that they could do anything they wanted.
So, yes, there is a sense of entitlement on the younger generation's part, but there is also a skewed perspective on what your job requires of you, and what is expected of you.
Justifying the anger of the older generation by saying they had to fight through grunt work, etc, to get where they are today is not exactly the most feminist argument I've ever seen. Working women have been fighting to make the workplace safer and more beneficial to women for decades, and not just because they wanted it better for them, but because they wanted it better for future workers. The problem is, of course, they're threatened by a 22 y/o fresh out of college who knows who to work 3 OSs, manually code web pages, dabble in graphic design, put together a decent article for the company newsletter, handle registration for events, control travel arrangements, AND copy, fax, print, and scan.
While you can blame some of it on technology, that's not always true. You can't make the generalization that every older woman is not good at computers while their younger counterparts are. I have met 50 y/o computer genii and 21 y/os who can't even find the on button. It's not an age gap that causes the differences in technology, it's the individual and whether they are willing to adapt to new technologies.
That financial blogger is a fucking idiot. Last time I checked, doing work above your pay grade, but in your skill level, was not "against the rules", it just makes people uncomfortable because you're willing to do more work for less pay, making them and their big salary disposable. Unless you're coming to work naked and doing that, I don't see a rule violation.
The only part of the article that is based on research you didn't quote is actually most accurate regarding our generation: Jean Twenge, a psychologist and professor at San Diego State University, explains the mentality of 20-somethings in the workforce in her book Generation Me as wildly ambitious, not great at taking criticism, hungry for praise, and constantly craving flexibility. In other words, all that self-esteem education has had the nasty side effect of making younger women seem too big for their Blahniks.
I've read it in multiple studies, so I knew to expect this coming into the workforce. But then again, I was a psych major.
I don't like Courtney Martin very much. She discounts a lot of things that don't coincide with her opinion. It's a side effect of writing for feministing.
I still heart you. :D