The Idled Young Americans

I work for a giant corporate behemoth, I just so happen to love my job. :)

> You complain about people just wanting to exist and live and enjoy time with their friends and family? And that they don't have grand dreams of starting a business, running it, doing a bunch of shit that's secondary to their actual interests?

The thing is, they don't even think that far ahead.

If they wanted to live the standard "get a job, get married, get a house" sort of thing, I can understand that, but so many young adults aren't even thinking that far into the future.

> Not everyone can be a special snowflake, and that's fine. Some people want to work a 9 to 5 job and then head home to cook dinner with their loved ones. In the past that's been possible, but increasingly for our generation it's becoming harder and harder. And that's a societal failure.

Bullshit at the last part. Those of us with passion are pushing the envelope every day. We will continue to automate and refine and improve efficiency. It is not a societal failure, society is changing.

Go back 120 years. "Some people just want to work the field, go inside to their wife and kids, and relax. Not go to the city, start work in a factory and claw their way up to management."

Go back thousands of years.

"Some people don't want to have to settle down on a farm and work a field, they just want to migrate with the herds like they have always done."

Those who have ambition forever change society itself.

I attribute this to changes in "higher" education. High school isn't about academics most places for most people; And college isn't either. High school for most people most places is about socializing and being a place for busy parents to send their kids for the work day. College is just a place to put off getting a job, and a place to party and continue socializing.

Their is a myth in college that "C's get degrees" and all you need is "a piece of paper." Students believe that as long as they have a degree in anything they'll be able to get a good job. So they select the easiest degree that matches their interests and abilities. Of course, not all degrees are equally as valuable to employers. And there's only so much demand for various specialties. But most students aren't familiar with the BLS statistics on which jobs are in demand now, how much they pay on average, what the jobs associated with various degrees entailed, and what the predicted outlook is for various professions. They just assume that a degree, any degree, is all they need and riches await. So they graduate to discover that numerous peers also pursued their easy "soft" degree in college, got average grades, and are now competing for the same jobs. The employers can't tell one applicant from another when they're all so average, so they just pick one and the rest go to work as waiters, taxi drivers, gas station attendants, etc.

In short: we're producing far more graduates in certain fields than the market requires; and far less in other fields than the market demands. And we can't really expect this to change until we start educating students in high school and college about how many jobs are available in various fields, and what they pay. We need to also work to defeat the myth that everyone "needs" a college education and that all you need is a degree, any degree, to get a good job. Some people aren't cut out for college and would be happier earning great money as an electrician, or machinist, mechanic, plumber, etc. And those who are a good fit for college would be more effective if they selected more quantitative degrees which match their interests and abilities. In other words, those who do college should not look at it as a time to put off going to work, or a time to party--they should look at it as the few precious years they have to prepare themselves as best they can to get a good job...take the hardest classes they can, expand their horizons, and distinguish themselves from their peers (do undergraduate research, do more than required, get better grades than required, diversify, etc.).

The other element is that our peer group plays the victim a lot. They don't own their own lives, happiness, or success. Granted, this is a broad statement, but many of them really place the blame for things on others. They blame someone else (the government, evil corporations, etc) for their lack of a job. They blame others for their inability to follow their dreams or carry out big aspirations (like your friend).

The truth is that for all of us, we need to take responsibility for making our lives what we want them to be. We can't blame others for not telling us how worthless a Film & TV degree is, or for not giving us a great job, or for not supporting our brilliant venture.

In short, I've blathered on at length when your post did an excellent job of succinctly saying the same thing. Thank you for your comment.

Yes and no.

I would argue that being a productive citizen that has much to give to others (kindness, companionship, food, money, etc.) is the fundamental mark of adulthood. I am blessed to live/work in a world where I can do that very well without horrendous scrambling, due to a successful and enlightened employer.

If such is a good thing, is not offering good employment under highly civilized working conditions to many adults an achievement worth great accolades?

I, for one, agree with him because that's what I've observed: numerous 20-somethings working at dead-end, menial jobs after graduation because they didn't adequately prepare for something more demanding. And many of them aren't thrilled to be merely subsisting. They want more, but they don't know how to get it, and they don't really own the responsibility for doing so anyway.

Somehow at some point they got the mistaken impression that if they got a degree they'd graduate, and be instantly awarded with that six-figure 9-5 job. And they'd live happily ever after.

So yeah, for that group they're a little disappointed to graduate and discover that the median income of someone with a bachelor's degree (as I recall) is $40,000/yr. And if they have an especially common degree and especially mediocre academic performance perhaps they can't even get that job. Oh, and they are surprised to discover they have to work their butts off to find ANY job, and then that most jobs are just "work" not "play."

I have no aspiration to necessarily work for a start-up or work 60 hours a week. But I do have a plan, and I do take responsibility for making my life what I want it to be. I have goals and aspirations and a long-term plan how to accomplish them. Most of our peers do not.

My hope is to be able to make a decent living (say $50,000/yr) working 25-30 hours a week so I can spend lots of time on my own interests and with my family. So I didn't hear him saying that we all have to want to work for start-ups or work 60 hours a week or anything. He was merely pointing out that many of our peers don't know what they want, or how to get it on top of being unemployed or underemployed...and they blame others for their situation rather than taking responsibility for their life.

We don't have an aversion to training, but when someone has supposedly 8+ years of development experience and cannot answer simple questions, well, on to the next candidate.

I personally do always look for potential, I believe it is the most important aspect when hiring. But potential means having a drive to learn independently. I really do understand why a lot of employers are just saying "screw it" and not hiring anyone who isn't on Stack Overflow, or has a tech blog, or some sort of presence that said "I am passionate about this field."

(I'd be doomed by that metric, I don't have a github or Stack Overflow account! I'm on this site and /r/programming, however I do have a somewhat maintained tech blog.)

> As for knowing how malloc works: fewer and fewer universities are even touching C. It's all C++ or, better yet, Java (no need to understand memory management _at all_ in that case). The only guys left that are into reimplementing malloc are the minority of Computer Science or Computer Engineering graduates that are into embedded work or HA scenarios.

Ugh I know. My college still teaches native, and in fact the majority of the curriculum (last time I checked, its been a few years) was native, but they are unfortunately the exception to a general trend.

The thing is, managed languages are pretty damn nice for teaching software engineering principles in, but bad for hands on "this is how it works" explaining.

Covering how the JVM or CLR does stuff on a PowerPoint slide isn't the same thing as having students write an allocator. Which sort of sucks when they go on the job and have to write an allocator!