Photo courtesy Jordan McQueen Creative Commons via Unsplash.
“Fucking Millennials.”
That comment rings in my ears still, like a haunting. It’s Monday morning, 10:27 a.m., and you want to know where I am?
I’m standing in the middle of a frozen baseball field. There’s a three year old who has been calling “Raaaachel” since 8:30 a.m. this morning.
My boots have snow slowly seeping down into them, and I think I may have feeling still potentially left in one of my ears.
So, yes, it is Monday and I haven’t even started my real day, so let’s just call this my own little Millennial warm-up.
I will watch over the three year old, entertain and tend, then I will run—oh yes, I mean literally—from here after I’ve fixed him lunch, settled him in bed and passed him off to the next nanny who relieves me.
My day has just started.
I make it to my desk just after 1 p.m. and have enough time to scrape together necessary means to lead a class critique of peers.
I was now immersed in the next job, editor of a college media news source and student taking 16 credit hours.
“Do Millennials Make for Bad Employees?”
The headline is so elegantly splashed across my laptop screen.
Shit, I can’t escape this, I silently grimaced to myself.
On Nov. 30, The Atlantic wrote a piece on “the generation that has been called lazy, entitled, and narcissistic.”
This generation is us and we them. The preconceived negative notions of Millennials has grown to a state of preposterous proportions.
There’s a section in LinkedIn specifically for Human Resources, recruiters and hiring personnel on how to go about hiring Millennials. I’m not kidding.
Does my uncomfortability with this issue lie so heavily because I am a senior in my final showcase, doing interviews and moving toward securing a job, or because the Millennials in my life are so competent?
But why do we as a society feel the need to bash Millennials so hard?
“Fucking Millennials.”
I go back to the comment. The comment I overheard an older man say to another the coffee shop.
I was standing there—phone in hand, of course—waiting to order my boring black iced coffee. I should have skipped caffeine that day.
By 2030, Millennials will make up more than 70 percent of the work force, according to Mashable.com
Pew Research Center classified our generation as “radically diverse, economically stressed and politically liberal.”
Yet, do a Google search and perceptions and notions are far different. “Lazy,” “entitled,” “technology obsessed,” “narcissistic,” “unemployable” and the list tumbles on.
Are we really the generation only good for snapping selfies, slugging over-priced caffeinated beverages and walking around with our heads down glued to a screen in our palms?
Are we that much worse than the generation before us? Will things like SnapChat, Internet anonymity and listicle Buzzfeed articles really be the death to society and workforce?
But here’s an upshot before you head home to hang out with the fam for the holidays.
Although most don’t know or don’t want to talk about it, our generation has seen a 20 percent decrease in smoking than our parents’ generation. We value health typically more than previous generations, according to MonitoringTheFuture.org.
“For Millennials, wellness is a daily, active pursuit. They’re exercising more, eating smarter and smoking less than previous generations,” stated by Monitoring the Future.
Besides overall health we are the first generation of digital natives. Millennials have been at the front of pushing companies through technology innovation.
At 21, I have already been pimped out as the Millennial. I’ve helped run social media sites and fix WordPress disasters like typeface changes or “this red color is just hideous can we get a more pastel color?” for a few non-profits in the Salt Lake area.
Yes, we may have different habits, different lifestyles and upbringings but at the end of the day we are just here a generation trying to add to the workforce just like the ones before us.
