We were flipping around post-football/pre-Amazing Race tonight and caught about 15 minutes of the 60. My signif was so turned off by this story about a so-called generation of soft, unambitious workers that he left the room. I watched because I'm the more naive of the two of us. I'm still hopeful that a show like 60 Minutes will give me interesting facts to back up its absurd allegations. I was wrong.
I have so much respect for real journalism that it pains me to watch someone like Morley Safer fall victim to a poorly conceptualized piece. Sure, the workforce is changing. Technology is changing. The opportunity to make money in ways our parents never imagined has emerged. Taking advantage of evolution and growth and exploring options doesn't make young workers lazy. It makes them smart. They've learned that given the chance to choose between tossing fifty years into a gig they hate in exchange for a gold watch and a retirement party or finding a career they truly adore, they're picking what's behind door number two.
Maybe these kids aren't moving back home because they're unambitious. Maybe they HAVE to move back home because starting salaries can be pitiful and college loans can swallow you whole. Maybe career counseling has failed to do more than post paper on a job board once a week. I'm not making excuses for my generation because I don't fall into this ridiculously nicknamed genre of younger adults. But as someone who has encountered her fair share of hard-working interns and entry level hires in the course of one of the most competitive/least compensatory industries around, I find the assertion that you have to patronize your employees in order to get them to perform imbecilic at best.
Speaking of downright dumb, Andy Rooney's rant was two minutes of my life I'll never get back. You don't even have to hear it. Just read the transcript. It's absolutely as incoherent as it seems.
This following 12 minutes of what's wrong with America's younger generation. Really?
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