The Young Labeled 'Entitlement Generation'

[cynatnite]

CHICAGO - Evan Wayne thought he was prepared for anything during a recent interview for a job in radio sales. Then the interviewer hit the 24-year-old Chicagoan with this: "So, we call you guys the 'Entitlement Generation,'" the baby boomer executive said, expressing an oft-heard view of today's young work force. "You think you're entitled to everything."

Such labeling is, perhaps, a rite of passage for every crop of twentysomethings. In their day, baby boomers were rabble-rousing hippies, while Gen Xers were apathetic slackers.

Now, deserved or not, this latest generation is being pegged, too — as one with shockingly high expectations for salary, job flexibility and duties but little willingness to take on grunt work or remain loyal to a company.

"We're seeing an epidemic of people who are having a hard time making the transition to work — kids who had too much success early in life and who've become accustomed to instant gratification," says Dr. Mel Levine, a pediatrics professor at the University of North Carolina Medical School and author of a book on the topic called "Ready or Not, Here Life Comes."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/the_entitlement_generation

[aden_nak]

1. Silly me, thinking I'm entitled to a living wage and health care.

My generation is growing up by burying the American Dream, and we're part of the Entitlement Generation? People that disconnected from the reality of the situation, an early-mid-twenties worker competing for mediocre jobs with people who've been working above that very same job for 10+ years, have no business handing out labels.