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As a Gen X, I have to say: Grow up. Guess what: despite a CS degree from a fairly prestigious school, I started out my career sucking shit on the help desk and

As a Gen X, I have to say: Grow up. Guess what: despite a CS degree from a fairly prestigious school, I started out my career sucking shit on the help desk and fixing bugs in legacy code. You need to suck shit at the start of your career, learn, and advance. This also means living in a shithole apartment and eating Ramen instead of blowing your cash at da club or on a new car. It’s been that way since the industrial revolution. You are not special. You are not snowflakes. We cannot hold your hands. Work it out for yourselves, just like we did, and the boomers did before us.

ivraatiems 9y ago
This comment makes me think you didn't read the article. Do you understand how difficult it is to even get a job "sucking shit" right now? Do you understand that if you get that job, it doesn't pay as much as you got paid when you had it, because wages haven't risen with inflation? Do you understand the years of experience and massive student debt you'd have to get into to get the college degree to even get your foot in the door of this job with inferior wages and benefits to the job you got just out of school? > You need to suck shit at the start of your career, learn, and advance. It’s been that way since the industrial revolution. For many - perhaps most - millennials, there simply are no opportunities for advancement. There is no reward. People like me, who are software engineers and do well for themselves, are the exception. The arguments in the article are economic, and grounded in economic data and realities. Ignoring those systemic problems because you're doing just fine is just willful ignorance. > You are not special. You are not snowflakes. We cannot hold your hands. Work it out for yourselves, just like we did. Nobody's saying anyone's "special." The whole point of the article is that no millennial is getting what previous generations got - nobody is asking for special treatment. The ask is for treatment equivalent to what their parents got, the same treatment that you received. We can't "work it out for ourselves" when we have no power, no money, massive debt, poor wages, no benefits, no retirement plan, and no way out. We can't "work it out" when your generation - and those before you - are draining and then destroying the social safety nets that you relied on to get where you are. We don't deserve the privileges your generation had any more than you did. We deserve it exactly the same amount. Why do you blame us while you rescind them?
- tatersolid 9y ago
  The entire premise of the article is that millenials are “special”. There is near-zero difference between what a millennial faces and what I faced in the last “great depression” coming out of school in the early 1990s, post the 1988 crash. It took months or years to find a job, and you had to work your ass off when you found one to keep it. I had lots of debt. Boom and bust cycles are normal. Millenials are not special in being screwed by the timing of their birth.
  - ivraatiems 9y ago
    > The entire premise of the articles is that millenials are “special”. No, the premise is that millennials are normal people born into a society whose risk/reward/choice incentives are completely out of wack, and who face massive and untenable inequality created by the generations that came before them. If we are special, it's only because the actions of previous generations have made us so. Nobody is saying anywhere that we view ourselves as better or superior to other generations - almost the opposite; we're the same, yet, uniquely disadvantaged. > Boom and bust cycles are normal. Millennials are not special in being screwed by the timing of their birth. Except the most recent cycle (the 2007 recession) exacerbated these problems, and ten years later, for working-class millennials there's been no recovery whatsoever. The economy has recovered, the rich are getting richer, nobody at the bottom is doing any better than they were. Why's that? > There is zero difference between what a millennial faces and what I faced in the last “great depression” coming out of school in the early 1990s, post the 1988 crash. Again - did you read the article? There's a clear difference and they explain it quite well. It's not just about the ordinary economic cycle; it's about the way incentives have been perverted and restructuring of our economy and all its various parts have shifted all wealth to the wealthy and all burdens to those who are not. If you think this is just about some people being upset that 2007 happened, you're missing the bigger point: 2007 happened, but was happening before, and is still happening, and the problems are bigger than just "the markets aren't doing well this year." What I'm trying to get across is that what you did was hard when you did it, and is now almost impossible. Why should it get harder? What's good about people suffering more, and longer, than you did? Why is the generation getting hurt the one to blame for being in trouble when we didn't create any of the problems or systems screwing us? This is a data-driven, economic-realities based argument. Coming back with "well, toughen up and deal with it" is unhelpful - the way we're dealing with it is by pushing strongly for change.
heedlessly2 9y ago
for millennials specifically in CS, i'd argue that things are better now any other time in history. Many are getting $125k+ salaries in the Bay and Seattle. Of course, not everyone will work for a Big N. Even still, getting a $70k+ offer in CS is very common for a mediocre dev coming from a mediocre college with a mediocre gpa
- andrewjl 9y ago
  That may well be true, but those same millennials face higher rents and also higher state taxes (in the Bay, not Seattle obviously). They also missed out on the post-2008 stock market boom that the boomers 401k's got to ride.

ivraatiems 9y ago

This comment makes me think you didn't read the article. Do you understand how difficult it is to even get a job "sucking shit" right now? Do you understand that if you get that job, it doesn't pay as much as you got paid when you had it, because wages haven't risen with inflation? Do you understand the years of experience and massive student debt you'd have to get into to get the college degree to even get your foot in the door of this job with inferior wages and benefits to the job you got just out of school? > You need to suck shit at the start of your career, learn, and advance. It’s been that way since the industrial revolution. For many - perhaps most - millennials, there simply are no opportunities for advancement. There is no reward. People like me, who are software engineers and do well for themselves, are the exception. The arguments in the article are economic, and grounded in economic data and realities. Ignoring those systemic problems because you're doing just fine is just willful ignorance. > You are not special. You are not snowflakes. We cannot hold your hands. Work it out for yourselves, just like we did. Nobody's saying anyone's "special." The whole point of the article is that no millennial is getting what previous generations got - nobody is asking for special treatment. The ask is for treatment equivalent to what their parents got, the same treatment that you received. We can't "work it out for ourselves" when we have no power, no money, massive debt, poor wages, no benefits, no retirement plan, and no way out. We can't "work it out" when your generation - and those before you - are draining and then destroying the social safety nets that you relied on to get where you are. We don't deserve the privileges your generation had any more than you did. We deserve it exactly the same amount. Why do you blame us while you rescind them?

tatersolid 9y ago
The entire premise of the article is that millenials are “special”. There is near-zero difference between what a millennial faces and what I faced in the last “great depression” coming out of school in the early 1990s, post the 1988 crash. It took months or years to find a job, and you had to work your ass off when you found one to keep it. I had lots of debt. Boom and bust cycles are normal. Millenials are not special in being screwed by the timing of their birth.
- ivraatiems 9y ago
  > The entire premise of the articles is that millenials are “special”. No, the premise is that millennials are normal people born into a society whose risk/reward/choice incentives are completely out of wack, and who face massive and untenable inequality created by the generations that came before them. If we are special, it's only because the actions of previous generations have made us so. Nobody is saying anywhere that we view ourselves as better or superior to other generations - almost the opposite; we're the same, yet, uniquely disadvantaged. > Boom and bust cycles are normal. Millennials are not special in being screwed by the timing of their birth. Except the most recent cycle (the 2007 recession) exacerbated these problems, and ten years later, for working-class millennials there's been no recovery whatsoever. The economy has recovered, the rich are getting richer, nobody at the bottom is doing any better than they were. Why's that? > There is zero difference between what a millennial faces and what I faced in the last “great depression” coming out of school in the early 1990s, post the 1988 crash. Again - did you read the article? There's a clear difference and they explain it quite well. It's not just about the ordinary economic cycle; it's about the way incentives have been perverted and restructuring of our economy and all its various parts have shifted all wealth to the wealthy and all burdens to those who are not. If you think this is just about some people being upset that 2007 happened, you're missing the bigger point: 2007 happened, but was happening before, and is still happening, and the problems are bigger than just "the markets aren't doing well this year." What I'm trying to get across is that what you did was hard when you did it, and is now almost impossible. Why should it get harder? What's good about people suffering more, and longer, than you did? Why is the generation getting hurt the one to blame for being in trouble when we didn't create any of the problems or systems screwing us? This is a data-driven, economic-realities based argument. Coming back with "well, toughen up and deal with it" is unhelpful - the way we're dealing with it is by pushing strongly for change.

heedlessly2 9y ago

for millennials specifically in CS, i'd argue that things are better now any other time in history. Many are getting $125k+ salaries in the Bay and Seattle. Of course, not everyone will work for a Big N. Even still, getting a $70k+ offer in CS is very common for a mediocre dev coming from a mediocre college with a mediocre gpa

andrewjl 9y ago
That may well be true, but those same millennials face higher rents and also higher state taxes (in the Bay, not Seattle obviously). They also missed out on the post-2008 stock market boom that the boomers 401k's got to ride.