Recently I sat in on a Harassment and Discrimination seminar
at work, and kept hearing something that really bothered me. The person doing
the training kept referring to people younger than her as the Me Me Me
Generation (which I am a part of) and talking about how we are all entitled and
expect shit to just work out for us without working for it. Excuse me? I keep
seeing the articles online, and in Time Magazine about how we’re all a bunch of
entitled assholes that just expect to walk into the working world making $100K
a year and not really do anything. This really does bother me. No one person I
know has ever expected that. We may all want it, but know that it’s not really
feasible in our 20’s right out of school.
I graduated from college in 2006- which was right at the
beginning of the Recession. I got my first job within a few weeks of
graduating, and was laid off three months later. Three months! I was 22 and
jobless. What the hell? I was told my entire childhood by every adult I came
into contact with that if I stayed in school and made good grades that I would
get into college, and get a great job. So guess what I did? Stayed in school
and went to college! No one prepared me for corporate buy-outs. I didn’t blame
the president, governor or mayor. I got another job. It wasn’t my dream job,
but it paid a little more and provided great experience and benefits. I slowly
started realizing that the ways of our parents and grandparents were over. Gone
were the days of working at the same company for 30 years, and then getting a
great retirement party and a watch with the company logo on it. These days it
was up to ME to make shit happen.
Now I am 30 years old, and working the fourth job that I’ve
had since college. I’ve never been fired, and have only been laid off once. I
am making exactly what my father was making when he was 30… but that was in
1989. Do you think times have changed, and prices have gone up since 1989? Just
a bit. This “Me Me Me” generation that people love to loathe is doing more with
less. We are paying more in taxes, we have more debt than any other generation
(because you know, we just had to go
to college if we were ever going to make it in this world), and we also weathered
the Great Recession- which was caused by our parent’s generation being a bunch
of greedy assholes and being stupid with money. I work with a lot of people
that are in their 50’s and 60’s that probably make at least twice as much as I
do, but sometimes I think I work twice as hard as they do. Since I am younger,
I constantly feel the need to prove myself. I volunteer for projects that no
one else will and work later than most people here. The words “that isn’t my
job” have never left this mouth and never will. If my boss asks me to refill
his stapler, you best believe that will be the most filled up stapler he's ever had.
The Me Me Me Generation is also putting off marriage and
kids because we do want to prove ourselves to the world. We’re also smarter in
realizing that kids are freaking expensive. I can’t afford one on my salary, so
it makes sense to wait a few years before taking on that expense. Plus, I have
a whole world to teach manners to! There’s no time for kids! We are
volunteering more as well. I volunteer a lot in my city, and am part of my
local Junior League. Do you know who I see working at the food banks and
Habitat for Humanity projects? Twenty and thirty year olds. We are the ones
rebuilding our communities. We are the ones that are so tired of seeing people
we love not have the same rights as us just because of their sexual orientation,
gender, race or religion. We are the ones coming up with solutions to the
climate change that our parents ignored for thirty years.
