Generation Y

[Generation Y: Photo by: Ali by Riyadh : ). Licence CC]

Older generations seem to take pride into working 50+ hours a week. For us, the younger generations, it’s insane. We study for 4-5 years to get a degree and 2 years to finish grad school. Then, we will spend the next 30 years of our lives working a job we hate. Our adult life routine consists of waking up every day early to show up at the office only to be trapped in a cubicle, staring at a screen and sitting there from 9 am to 5 pm. You’ll probably get yelled at by your boss and told what to do constantly as if you were their slave. The time to go home arrives after looking at that clock every five minutes throughout the day. You do the usual: eat, watch TV and go to bed early in order to do the same thing again the next day. The weekend you have been waiting for since Monday arrives. Better make these two days count because work will suck the life out of you for five days straight.

That’s what you will do for the rest of your life until you eventually retire by the time you’re 40 or 50. Sadly, it will be the time where you get to be free and do everything you have wanted to do when you were younger, but you were tied to your job and couldn’t. We have never seen someone say “I wish I would have spent more time in my job” in their deathbed. Instead, we see them regret not living life more.

Studies show that millennials wish to work to live, not live to work. They want to be happy in their jobs working on something they enjoy. Yet, the world doesn’t let it happen. Graduating with a student loan debt of more than $50k and living with a terrible job market is nothing but frightening. You’ll be the engineering major working a terrible commission-based sales job or a minimum wage call center job.

We are the generation that has to live with our parents at 23 years old because of economic misfortunes. We carry a huge student loan debt on our shoulders, waiting for that employer to call us back after the interview. Can we even buy a house with that huge debt following us for the rest of our lives? That’s not the scariest part, though. Living to work is our biggest fear because it destroys the hope of doing something you like and getting paid. 

And what do the older generations say? That we are “lazy” and “entitled.” Really? We are lazy because you expect us to have 5 years of experience after we graduate in order to hire us? You replaced the entry level job we are supposed to have after we go from undergraduate to unemployed with the unpaid internship. You had it easy back then, didn’t you? College was affordable, and you could easily get hired with little to no experience after graduating. Now, you are enjoying retirement with that pension; something that we might even never get to have because of the horrible economy. You’re basically sitting there talking like you had it worse, but the truth is, the millennials have to work more. Please, explain the point of making money if you don’t have time to enjoy it because you spend every single hour working.

We are the generation that dreads getting that diploma because the sad reality will destroy our dreams and goals.