99 thoughts on “a point of clarification”

1. Those 20somethings should spend a little time living on unemployment without a support network. Maybe they’ll work a little harder, be a little more appreciative, or at least just shut up.

2. The only thing I’ll note is you don’t have to work hard to succeed. That is, you don’t have to erode your entire nose on the grindstone every time out. I think you have to be passionate and creative, and perhaps willing to work hard. But if life hands you lemonade, you don’t pour in its lap and say, “Where the fuck are my lemons?!”

3. Maybe you’ve already thought of this, and maybe it’s less than relevant as your daughter’s only 5, but are you sure she isn’t bored by school already? Up until 6th grade I barely passed anything and I saw school as a huge waste of time. I specifically remember going to kindergarten at a nice suburban school and being shocked that my classmates needed to be taught the alphabet, when I already could write my full name correctly (it’s Polish, too), read, and do basic maths. Some standardized tests were my saving grace, and in 7th grade I found myself suddenly in advanced classes. Lo and behold, I wasn’t bored, and my GPA skyrocketed.

4. Speaking as a twentysomething who went to college, got his associates, and has still been struggling these last few years due to the economy (but not nearly as bad as my friends who ditched college in favor of a “manager” position at their dollar-something-above-minimum-wage jobs), I understood what you meant Wil. And I agree with it wholeheartedly.
   What I’ve found though is that my college education hasn’t (so far) meant a thing to anyone who’s hired me since I got the degree. What it /did/ do, was to focus me on one career path rather than just taking whatever work was available. And that has meant that each job I’ve gotten has given me experience that future employers have seen as being relevant to the position they’re trying to fill, and thus has kept periods of unemployment short (even if not as short as I’d have liked). It’s all in what you take out of it I suppose, but I still look at friends of mine who chose to take the easier path (going straight to work rather than going to school) and I’m grateful I stuck it out till I got the degree. Doesn’t mean I’m feeling at all inclined to go and get the next level degree anytime soon (I’ve never been a fan of organized education), but I’m grateful for the education I did get.

5. Or living on dwindling savings, due to your former employer lying to the state about why you were laid off, causing unemployment to be denied. That should shut them up real fast.

6. Yes! As a 25 year old, BA holding, unemployed, living-with-her-parents, desperate job seeker, I am constantly annoyed by people who complain about their jobs, especially if they don’t really have to do all that much to keep them.
   I’ve haven’t had a job for more than a 9 month span since I graduated in ’08, but I take what I can get. I know more than a fair share of twentysomethings that feel like they are entitled to so much more than what the world is giving to them, even though they refuse to work for it.
   If I were lucky enough to get a minimum wage job, I might hate it, but at least I’d be grateful for it, especially in this economic climate. It wouldn’t get me out of debt (or even out of my parents house), but at least it would be something.

7. I knew where you were coming from and wholeheartedly agree. But I’m 40 and my perspective may be skewed in that regard (“hey you kids! get off my lawn!”).
   And – off topic, but I’m lazy and don’t want to reply twice; regarding an earlier post, as a D&D player since 1980 (albeit a lot less frequently the last decade or two), that was a great trip down memory lane. Nice trolling of the lackeys.

8. As a single mother, high school drop out turned attorney—and then turned instructor of law at Middlesex Community College (Bedford, MA), let me concur that college is supposed to be hard.
   On another note, I recently I assigned a project for my students to find out all they could about me on-line. (I was trying to re-create an assignment a Fordham University Professor created to find information of Supreme Court Justice Scalia after he downplayed privacy rights). Out of all the information they could find about me, they were most focused on my “weird taste in music” noting my “Like” of MC Frontalot (Kids Today!). Regardless, I stand by my convictions!
   Since both you and Mr. Front will be at PAX East, any chance for encore presentation of Shellfish-Core Hip-Hop?

9. Wil, Wil, honestly there is no need to justify this.
   Technically I’d be in the target demographic the comment was directed at, but it didn’t offend me at all. You know why? Because my position is the result of the effort I put in, and the effort I didn’t put in when I should have.
   The sense of entitlement seems to permeate the majority of people right now. It’s common. That it’s common doesn’t make it any less deplorable, just more acceptable. Certainly doesn’t make it suck any less.
   I think what everyone needs to realise, once they step away from the false aggrandisement gleaned from having a Facebook account and a very average blog, is that they’re just not that exceptional. And even if they are, what right does it give them to simply breeze through life when so many have to work at it?
   Actually I liked the observation you made on Twitter, and I like the elaboration here. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with being given a kick up the ass now and then, no matter WHO it is that’s giving it. You never know, one of those faceless gray twentysomethings might look back the think “if it weren’t for things like that, I wouldn’t have been pushed to try harder” and appreciate the effort.
   If they don’t, well, that’s their problem not yours. And you shouldn’t worry about it.

10. I took it to mean what you thought it said. I’m also thinking if those people misunderstood your intent, perhaps they should have been paying attention to their comprehension classes in High School!
    Flame off.
    I’ve had to try and motivate students high school students at my PEG access station, and explain to them that they have a tremendous opportunity to use the facility, and actually train on equipment that they normally wouldn’t get to touch until Junior or Senior year in college. We’ve fortunate to have a school that trains in TV production, and they can use it to create their own videos for the web and beyond. But it’s disappointing that only 1 or 2 will follow up on the chance.
    Those that do, tend to excel and come back happy they took advantage of the opportunities. It’d be nice if more kids did follow through on it… but you can’t force people to be excited about a profession. If you want to learn, I’ll teach you. if not – there’s always a couch to sit on where you can watch what others are creating.

11. Looking around the university campus where I work right now, I agree that there’s a HUGE sense of entitlement — especially among the lower undergrads who don’t want to be taught how to do research, since Google is FAR better in their minds and then they are shocked to get less than passing grades on their poorly written papers like “Was Alexander the Great that Great,” “Violence back into the stone ages,” or “How Guam, the Philippines and Hawaii gained their independence as countries from the U.S.”
    WTF?!!?

12. As a fellow old man (mid-30’s), I couldn’t agree more. It really is the sense of entitlement that bugs me…although it’s not just limited to young people.

13. Okay, I hit Preview and my comment disappeared, so please forgive me if this is a repeat recap.
    First, I totally got the tweet and was in complete agreement with it. It’s your clarification which made me think twice. Although everything you said is certainly true, I think you need to remember that not everyone is as smart as you and your kids.
    There are a great many kids who, although they find high school difficult, are perfectly capable of learning a very decent paying trade…if only community colleges didn’t make it unnecessarily hard for them to do so.
    There is no reason someone who wants to be a Physical Therapist Assistant in Las Vegas should have to take a class in Nevada & U.S. constitutions. No reason, either, for our future plumbers, welders, a.c. repair people or med techs to have to write essays on literature or memorize historical events. I’m a voracious reader and history enthusiast, but I can easily understand how many students find that absolute fucking torture.
    These kids only want to go out and make a living. Schools should just teach them the tools of their trade and let them go out and get the hell on with it.
    The kids you overheard could very well have been exhibiting a revolting sense of entitlement. But, just maybe, they were wishing it were possible to just learn a trade at a reasonably priced community college or vocational school without being required to jump through unnecessary flaming hoops.

14. Couldn't those kids go to trade school? I know lots of people who went that route, and have satisfying careers as a result.

15. If there is one in their area that isn’t prohibitively expensive, sure. But there are way more community colleges and they are great for this, if they would just adjust their curriculum to be more practical.

16. I could not possibly agree more with your sentiment. The sense of entitlement seems so prevalent among “younglings” and the concept of working hard to achieve any level of personal success (whatever that means to you personally) seems lost. I applaud you, Old Man Wheaton, for voicing your opinion. Now, your avatar needs an update – waving a cane, in your rocking chair on the front porch.

17. To be fair, it’s pretty easy to be misunderstood when you’re limited to 140 characters. Lesser folk wouldn’t have even bothered posting this clarification.
    And as an older, non-traditional student in my last semester of undergrad, I share your indignity at the sense of entitlement twenty-somethings have. Sooner or later, these people are going to have to take responsibility for their own lives.

18. I took it as you meant it. If you’re going to be a slacker through school, don’t expect someone to pay you well when you get out into the Real World.

19. As a Mid-twentysomthing that used to be a homeless person, I agree with your tweet and this post. I had to work really hard to go from homeless to employed to college student. It drives me crazy when the 18-20 year old’s in my classes bitch about their jobs, parents, and homework. It frustrates me how little these kids appreciate what they have and they go on and on about they don’t have. I want to say “go live on the street for a few weeks and see how you feel about your life after that.” Honestly take responsibility for yourselves kids, nobody else is going to.
    Thanks for your post Wil.

20. Couldn’t those kids go to trade school? I know lots of people who went that route, and have satisfying careers as a result.

    There’s a terrific book by Matthew Crawford called Shop Class as Soul Craft that goes into the great satisfaction many people experience by working with their hands. Our culture values “knowledge work” so much that we forget that you need to be smart to be an electrician or mechanic. We tend to think of these folks as somehow less intelligent, yet most of us can’t even change our own oil, let alone do the much more difficult things mechanics are able to do. Best of all, plumbing work cannot be outsourced to India or China.
    Being out of work really sucks, and my heart goes out to folks who are having trouble making ends meet. I was there in 2008. The ugly business of this recession unfortunately includes the job market weeding out a lot of people who either don’t have particularly useful skills, or are chronically unemployable. Yet at the same time, enrollment in community colleges is through the roof. People are stepping up to that challenge to get a better education and that hard work is probably going to pay off big time for them. Here’s hoping!
    As for entitlement, I loved your tweet. Unless you have a genuine learning disability, school usually isn’t any harder than just showing up and doing the work. The “smart kids” always figured this out early in in their school careers — that tests and all that was actually pretty easy if they just did the frakking homework. The place where any of us can get “judgy” about that is in trying to dime-store psychoanalyze people as to why they weren’t as diligent as they ought to have been during school. Maybe their home life sucked. Maybe they were an undiagnosed dyslexic. It isn’t always simple. However, you pointing out the obvious relationship between basic past diligence and present lack of an awesome job (which even great jobs usually still require you to actually do something) is something that you’re (ahem) entitled to do.
    You are awesome, please carry on.

21. As a teacher of primarily juniors and seniors in high school, I can honestly say that students are looking for easy ways out – they lack resilience. It’s hard for them to see that that problem solving is critical and often messy. A great life won’t just land in their laps but they want it and don’t know the hard times that they will go through to get there. I had a girl in my class who kept telling me that I was a horrible teacher and didn’t know how to teach HER. Everyday I listened or read this very abusive language from her (she made no bones about it – that I was not professional). Finally I said to her, we have colored maps, read books, I have lectured, we made a powerpoint, watched a video. These all take different skills and learning capacities. When are you going to learn? But unfortunately, since I wasn’t serving it to her on a platter, she was unwilling to participate in the exchange. My students always ask me what my superpower would be. I always tell them that I wish that I could show them their future based on the decisions that they are making now.

22. I laughed so hard I peed a little. I feel EXACTLY the same way and it makes me feel SO much better that someone younger than I am by a few years is also put of by these 20somethings. I know MANY myself. They drop out of HS then bitch and moan about how much their crappy jobs suck. Well, DUH.
    Which is why I join you in a heartfelt GET OFF MY LAWN!
    oxoxo

23. Take it from someone who has gone 10 rounds with the college path. I have had a very hard time…quit going for a while, worked full time….have recently gone back, and am working on my teaching degree in hopes to obtain the privilege to teach at the college level one day. Somedays I just don’t think I’ll make it between the full time job, etc. but I know I have to keep on keeping on. Your writing is an inspiration behind my career choice, and I have you to thank. Maybe one day I will make it. And no, I am long past my teen and early 20 years, but I guess we are never too old too start again, huh?
    Have a good week, Wil.

24. I agree completely and appreciate your clarification. Even though I don’t know Wil personally, I think we all have a sense that he is a fair-minded, decent person (Hi Wil! I’m talking about you on your own website like your not in the virtual room!) My point was that this is a tricky issue in these times, and I know that people who want to be working really hard are not being given the opportunity to do so, while others are thinking they don’t have to work hard at all and deserve everything without earning it. I happen to know a few people who are really struggling now, and I feel they too often get lumped in with the “entitled” category.

25. *put OFF*

26. Hey Wil,
    All this talk about taking personal responsibility and there being consequences to our actions sounds like you are celebrating Ronald Reagan’s 100th birthday.
    LOL
    But I do agree that although it is possible for someone to do their best and still fail, those who don’t even strive and struggle should not be classified with those who really persevere and yet still get “sucker punched” by life.

27. “Continual staff rollovers, and a work force that has nothing worthwhile to strive for means lazy, dissatisfied workers.”
    And why are the staff in those minimum wage jobs rolling over? Because the people in those jobs who deserve and can get better-paying jobs do so, and they leave those jobs to work for those employers you mentioned who place a higher value on their higher-quality work.
    What on earth do you mean “nothing worthwhile to strive for”? They have a not-crappy job at not-minimum wage to strive for. So they can strive, do a good job, and get a better one. Or not.
    The training wage covers your first 500 hours of work, when you have no experience at any job, ever. Many employers don’t even use it. Work 500 hours total, and *any* job, then you get the minimum — no families are being supported on the training wage. Don’t like the minimum? Then do what you need to do — better education, better training, or better job performance — to get one that pays more than the minimum. If you can’t or won’t do that, others will.
    There are lazy workers. Nobody else made them lazy, Gordon Campbell didn’t make them lazy, they chose to be lazy all on their own. There are dissatisfied workers. They can either keep doing the thing that doesn’t satisfy them, or than figure out what they need to do in order to do something else, and do it. Is that sometimes harder than it should be? Sure. But whining “I deserve better, it’s not fair, I want more money but not actually do anything to get it” isn’t helping.
    Two way street. You say you won’t give the employer more than the minimum unless they pay you more than the minimum? Fine. Your employer has no reason to offer you more unless you demonstrate that you have more to offer. If one employer won’t, others will, and you should find one to work for. If one worker won’t, others will, and they’ll get promoted ahead of you. Yes, the minimum wage in BC is far too low, but that doesn’t promote worker laziness, it’s additional incentive to get off your ass and make yourself worth a job that pays more.

28. I’ve been pretty lucky with my kid. She spent 9 years going to night-school while working to get her GED. She did drop out of college some years later after a quarter, mostly because she’d let things get too far behind, based on the “too hard” thing. Okay, so she’s not the sharpest thing on the block — I didn’t have the opportunity to home-school her like I did my granddaughter (who’s on the honor roll for the second time, and has been on merit roll every other quarter since she started public school four years ago).
    Back to my daughter, yeah, she complains now and then, and she’s never had a $65K/year job, but she’s more or less been in the work force since she was 14 (summer jobs), and she’s basically been happy with that.
    As for people on minimum wage, BTDT. I get the “get off my lawn ya damn kids” gut-reaction, though, and appreciate your apology even though I must have missed the tweet. And you do have a point. Life isn’t easy. #getoverit

29. I teach some of those kids at a community college. In one summer school class, I had 2 single moms, each with 4 kids, each fleeing an abusive relationship. I also had a couple of late-teen/early-twenties kids whining about how hard they work and how they get so sick of giving their paycheck to all these single moms who keep having kids just to go on welfare. And oh, by the way, they are A students because they were A students in high school, so they deserved an A in my class. And they just *totally* don’t get why my class is so haaaaaaaaard. *hefty sigh* I totally get the irritation at some people’s sense of entitlement.

30. Wil, I love what you said & I totally agree with you. A lot of the time I feel old because I’m disgusted with my own generation. I just turned 27 & it sickens me when I hear about teenagers dropping out of school for no good reason. Life & society has changed so much since I was their age & it’s damn scary!

31. Whenever someone answers me with the expression, “but it’s hard, or too hard,” my response is, “yes it is. Now let’s do it.” We’re an instant society that wants everything now and with little effort, but like so many folks have pointed out here, usually good things require hard work.
    http://www.woodeg.wordpress.com

32. “What it /did/ do, was to focus me on one career path rather than just taking whatever work was available. And that has meant that each job I’ve gotten has given me experience that future employers have seen as being relevant to the position they’re trying to fill”
    This is huge and very close to what Wil and Warren say next about writing. Just like dead stories have parts that are reusable (thus valuable), so too is any experience in the field of your chosen career.
    Yeah, that job may have sucked, or didn’t go as planned, or there may have been a “personality conflict,” but that doesn’t mean when you leave it behind you that it was “time wasted.”
    That as long as it was in the ballpark of your career, it’ll have been valuable because it will have taught you SOMETHING that will make you better at what you most want to do in life.

33. I retweeted you that day. Only one of my employees quit. Good riddance.

34. Hmmm… so I’m not the only one to get attacked for having told people to get a life.

35. It’s okay Wil. I’m a twentysomething and I can vouch that most people my age are brats. But then, I am actually going to college and will be graduating in June.

36. My husband and I were having a conversation regarding ‘job bitchin’ the other day. I complain about my job and I realize and understand that I really have no obvious reason to do so. I’ve been in my industry for a couple of decades so I know my job quite well, I get a very nice salary, and I work for a great company. So I have not one reason to complain about my job and yet I do. What I’ve realized is that I want to buy my time back. I want to be able to have the freedom to simplify and downsize my life and not be beholden to someone else to make them wealthy, while I collect my fraction of the take. This insight comes with my college education, my hard work and growing weary of doing the same thing day after day. So with that said, the plan is in place to choose to make a change, after all that’s all we have; that ability to make choices.
    All that aside, I find it amazing the power of words and our individual interpretation.

37. Actually, that is a very valid point which we have seriously also considered. Her teacher hasn’t brought up any talks of “gifted” classes or anything, and we’re not really looking to jump her ahead, but she’s definitely a bright one. She knows more about dinosaurs and nature than many adults, and is picking up reading and writing and math VERY quickly. My husband and my sister both were antsy and bored in their early years as well, but we REALLY want our daughter to pick up all the basics FIRST, before we get ahead of ourselves. Thanks for the input, though! Seriously! 🙂

38. I get that kids around the 20 something feel that the world owes them a living, we have all been there right? But, we are now in an age where we are struggling through economic difficulties, having the upper edge is the difference between flipping a burger or having career opportunities that can set you up for life.
    Offending people can sometimes be the catalyst to get them off their butts and to look further than the next weekend. I realize that opportunities are not there for everyone, however, if you have the time to be morally outraged by something that has been ‘Twittered’ you clearly have the opportunity to access unlimited knowledge from the world wide web.

39. I used to tutor at a community college. Whenever I had a student come to me for help and then complain that their class or their homework was “too hard”, I would just tell them, “If it wasn’t hard, it wouldn’t be school.”
    Also, overheard in my the historical geology course a friend of mine is taking, after the class was assigned to find a newspaper article that had to do with geology and write a one-page paper about it, the response of one of the students in class was that the assignment was “too much work.”
    So, you know, I understand completely the point of view that students who aren’t willing to even put forth the effort to do their homework, probably aren’t going to be willing to put forth the effort it takes to get and keep a good job that pays enough to, oh, live on. Becuase you can’t live on minimum wage, no matter what some of the politicians say. I’ve been there, and I know.
    Elaine

40. I realize it has been largely all said here, but since you took flack for it, let me add my voice to the list of people who see nothing wrong with what you said, and agree with you wholeheartedly. As a high school teacher, I am constantly amazed at the sense of entitlement that some young people have. Is it worse today? Maybe, I’m not sure, but it is certainly out there. I am constantly at war with students who think they can skip the work, but somehow still deserve an A.

41. I hate it when young people who are obviously smart are bloody lazy, arrogant, and just don’t even try. On the other hand you get these awe inspiring people who weren’t born with great intelligence but persist and persist and persist and follow their passions until they find success. If the smart stuck-up kids squander their talents and end up in a bad place, I say hell, they deserve it. Give the opportunities to the people who actually put some effort into life.

42. Wil –
    I know you wrote this sometime ago, but after reading it, I am compelled to respond.
    I teach high school and with a minority of my students (10 – 20%) they have this sense of entitlement. They think that their friends will “hook them up” with a house, a car, and their lives will be as easy as they find them now.
    I run the risk of displaying a “getoffmylawn” attitude, but I truly don’t remember thinking this way that I felt I was due all of these things. I blame myself for not taking advantage of the opportunities that were in front of me (i.e. not applying for scholarships so I wouldn’t have to work full time for my college degrees), but I didn’t think the world owed me anything.
    What aggravates me as a teacher is I really try to teach them these life lessons. However, I think I’m becoming as irrelevant as the adults in my teenage world were to me. I wished I listened to them more closely and I wish my students would listen to me know.
    I guess experience is the best teacher, but I don’t want to hear the whining when I tried to get them the skills toward a better paying job than mine.
    PB

43. While I can agree with that sentiment in theory, in practice, I found that nobody really gave a shit if you were good at math or science; if anything, it was just another reason for assholes to push you into the mud and treat you like shit, which I got tired of around 7th grade. To me, laying low and feigning ignorance seemed like a good solution at the time, and was a much better alternative than committing assault or being embarrassed as fuck by my dad when he’d run off to a kid’s house to chew out their parents (and you can guess how well that shit turned out the next day).
    Just some perspective.

44. I wish I had finished school. I had a lot of issues,bullying which caused severe anxiety amongst other things, that made it damn near impossible to do anything other than just survive.
    I wish I had been strong enough to finish school, get the education I wanted and have a job I actually like.
    I wish.

45. I work with a couple of drop outs and people who really CHOSE not to use their brains for the simplest of things. We are all struggling, minimum wagers and pros. But if some one CHOSES not to help themselves they totally deserve what life hands them… with fries. And you know what gets me most? They are the very same people who beg to be called off.
    Is there some kind of special algorythim (rithym)(I’m tired my spelling sucks sorry)that will ever be able to fully explain how that can possibly make any logical sense?

46. Perspective is not something alien to me. I struggled with severe clinical depression from 15-18, the most important years of high school and perhaps some of the supposedly best years of your life. The last thing on my mind was getting good grades.
    Those were mitigating circumstances, but I figured that life goes on, you can’t dwell on those things. Perspective is definitely useful and provides comfort, but there is a danger of using it as an excuse either consciously or subconsciously to give up or be lazy (I’m definitely not implying anything to your case, it’s just coming from my own experiences).

47. Totally agree.

48. Thank you “Old Man Wheaton” for your entirely appropriate words. Speaking as an “old man” myself (I circled the sun for the 43rd time only a week or so ago) I see the attitudes of a lot of the twentysomethings worrysome.
    I can also speak to the experience of being one of those “dumb kids”. Way back in the mists of time (ok, the eighties) I graduated from high school with no real ambition other than a desire to consume massive quantities of grain alcohol and have as much sex as the females of the species would allow me to have. I actually found high school a little too easy and accordingly, didn’t take it terribly seriously.
    I was more into music than academics and thought I’d become a musician or somesuch. However, it turned out I wasn’t as talented as I needed to be and that idea fizzled. I banged around at university for a year or two, doing poorly I might add. University isn’t the easy ride high school was.
    So, after failing out of nearly every course I took I returned to the real world and had to find a job. I had enough of an affinity for computers to get a job selling them and eventually repairing them. It didn’t pay a great deal but it was fun for a while.
    Count seventeen years later and I was earning little more than I did when I started. It wasn’t minimum wage, but it wasn’t much better than that either. I found myself unemployed to boot which was a bit of a blessing in disguise although it didn’t feel like it at the time.
    You see, I had no degree or certification that said I knew how to do the job I had held for the last seventeen years. Combine that with being “too old” for computers and I was having a hard time finding new work. It seems IT is a little like Logan’s Run; somewhere around 35 the little red light on our palm lights up.
    I had two choices, more low pay, dead-end work, or start over and take education seriously. I opted for the latter and returned to college to get the sciences I ignored in high school and then enrolled in Medical Lab Technology Sciences.
    I’m having a great time learning new things and looking forward to graduating and doubling my previous salary right out of the gate. If I’d taken my education seriously some twenty or so years ago, I’d probably be at a position to be hiring the kids who will be graduating with me.
    I’m just glad I’m still young enough to have learned this lesson. I just wish I could borrow the Enterprise long enough to slingshot around the sun, jump back twenty years, and smack some sense into that smug little git I used to be.

49. “get off my lawn and go back to school”
    Beautiful.

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