Comments on: The luckiest. http://antimeria.com/blog/news/the-luckiest a complete impediment to understanding Tue, 18 Oct 2011 20:36:29 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.2 By: Scott http://antimeria.com/blog/news/the-luckiest/comment-page-1#comment-1164 Scott Thu, 04 Mar 2010 19:29:19 +0000 http://antimeria.com/blog/?p=1750#comment-1164 re [1]: I'm not sure if this is just a byproduct of where we were educated, but i see the same thing. In this case i wonder if the survey results--our gen wants jobs "tailored to their interests" along with hella money--actually record two separate populations. It's not like people start working at a nonprofit with the expectation that they'll be paid anything more than servants' wages. The big money's corporate, and often evil, and everyone knows this. The Atlantic article is all around fantastic, but i couldn't help but cringe at the tone of that section. It's really easy to say "i don't understand why that generation can't enjoy their jobs" when you're a tenured professor of psychology, or a writer at the Atlantic. Most of us grew up in households where our parents generally <i>hated</i> their jobs, and most of us don't want to wind up just as miserable as they turned out to be. There's this generational disconnect where older folks think that it's psychotic that we don't embark on the path of greatest dollars, and use up quite a bit of their complaint capital in making up excuses for why we don't think exactly like them. That particular section seems to conclude that we could get out of the recession of only those durn kids had a better work ethic, after first telling us the myriad ways in which we're fucked sideways by the recession. The choice of example people (that first guy--wth?) seems to reflect the article's fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of recession. In the magic land of long form journalism, unemployment isn't due to hiring freezes, but lack of applicants. The reason that yesterday's employed graduate couldn't find a job today isn't because he wasn't socialized to be sufficiently humble. Like you said, it's luck--or lack thereof. This isn't what the article meant, but we've been trained to "disconnect performance from reward" because we've seen that bad things (layoffs) happen to good people for no good reason whatsoever. We're 'fatalistic' because we don't accept the lie that if we're humble hard workers who do well in school, we're guaranteed a magic job at the end. That's the boomer myth and this article perpetuates it. aaand re [2]: The first thing i was told in grad school was that my success had nothing to do with intelligence, and everything to do with how willing i was to bust my balls and get work done. Geo employers don't really care about the topic of your MS thesis--the fact that you got it generally indicates that you'll be a busy little bee in some godforsaken Texas oilfield. re [1]: I’m not sure if this is just a byproduct of where we were educated, but i see the same thing. In this case i wonder if the survey results–our gen wants jobs “tailored to their interests” along with hella money–actually record two separate populations. It’s not like people start working at a nonprofit with the expectation that they’ll be paid anything more than servants’ wages. The big money’s corporate, and often evil, and everyone knows this.

The Atlantic article is all around fantastic, but i couldn’t help but cringe at the tone of that section. It’s really easy to say “i don’t understand why that generation can’t enjoy their jobs” when you’re a tenured professor of psychology, or a writer at the Atlantic. Most of us grew up in households where our parents generally hated their jobs, and most of us don’t want to wind up just as miserable as they turned out to be.

There’s this generational disconnect where older folks think that it’s psychotic that we don’t embark on the path of greatest dollars, and use up quite a bit of their complaint capital in making up excuses for why we don’t think exactly like them. That particular section seems to conclude that we could get out of the recession of only those durn kids had a better work ethic, after first telling us the myriad ways in which we’re fucked sideways by the recession. The choice of example people (that first guy–wth?) seems to reflect the article’s fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of recession. In the magic land of long form journalism, unemployment isn’t due to hiring freezes, but lack of applicants. The reason that yesterday’s employed graduate couldn’t find a job today isn’t because he wasn’t socialized to be sufficiently humble. Like you said, it’s luck–or lack thereof.

This isn’t what the article meant, but we’ve been trained to “disconnect performance from reward” because we’ve seen that bad things (layoffs) happen to good people for no good reason whatsoever. We’re ‘fatalistic’ because we don’t accept the lie that if we’re humble hard workers who do well in school, we’re guaranteed a magic job at the end. That’s the boomer myth and this article perpetuates it.

aaand re [2]: The first thing i was told in grad school was that my success had nothing to do with intelligence, and everything to do with how willing i was to bust my balls and get work done. Geo employers don’t really care about the topic of your MS thesis–the fact that you got it generally indicates that you’ll be a busy little bee in some godforsaken Texas oilfield.

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