Talkin' 'Bout My Generation

People try to put us d-down (Talkin' 'bout my generation)
Just because we get around (Talkin' 'bout my generation)
Things they do look awful c-c-cold (Talkin' 'bout my generation)
I hope I die before I get old (Talkin' 'bout my generation)

This is my generation
This is my generation, baby

-The Who "My Generation"

A friend living abroad and I were talking last week; we talked about our jobs, mostly with how disappointed she is with her job in Argentina. She asked me if the job situation in the United States was looking up. I said no, there were still no more jobs in the United States than when she left. We both came to the same conclusion, a kind of petulant indignation.

This wasn't what we were promised. This wasn't what I expected.

We were told if we worked hard, went to college and got a degree, we would get better-paying jobs. I could pursue a career in something I loved- or hopefully at least enjoyed.

I know. It's childish. Adulthood is never what we expect as teenagers, but I'm not talking about the shock of "the real world"- being responsible for living expenses, planning your future, etc. This is about the job market we were expecting to fall into after our education.

I've talked to other friends of mine, people I knew from high school and from college, many of whom have come to the same conclusion at some point since finishing their undergraduate or their postgraduate. It got me thinking about my generation and what we are facing coming into a recession. Despite the fact that about 69% of students graduating high school in the United States immediately go on to a 2 or 4-year institution, more are going on to graduate school to avoid the work force for a few years. Even those in what I always considered "safe" degree paths like engineering and computer science are choosing higher education over finding a job.

Those who don't go towards even higher education find themselves in a perilous position. I knew when I graduated in 2006 with a BA degree that I was not likely to fall right into a career the way my friends with business or engineering degrees did.

But I didn't expect it would be so hard to find a job of any ilk, and that was before the largest crash in 2008. Studies find that salaries for new graduates have dropped even further, but even the salaries they list for new graduates are higher than what I've found upon graduating. I'm talking the $23,000-24,000 range. In my career, I'll be lucky to see $40,000.

With so many unemployed in the United States, the entry level positions once reserved for those fresh-faced graduates are now taken by those who have been in the workforce longer. With a college degree we can't go back to the jobs we had during college; they tell us we are over-qualified.

That's where we sit -- somewhere between over-qualified for the bar-tending and waitress jobs we had, and too little experience for the industries we got our degrees to join.

So I have seen some trends amongst people my age, beyond just retreating to grad school to wait out the recession.

Bring on the debt
If the recession was supposed to teach us anything, it was the dangers of debt. Yet, my generation has been born into debt. I'm not talking about credit cards, racked up by frivolous spending. I'm talking about the tens of thousands of dollars that it costs to get that degree we so highly prized. When we can't find that decent-paying job after graduation, we let those student loans sit, and sit, and sit. And those credit cards become necessary to afford the gas, groceries, things we need until we finally get a job. Don't forget about those extra student loans for those who go back to postgraduate degrees. We expect debt, whether that's from a credit card, a student loan, or bills we just can't quite make this month.

So we expect debt, debt that will take us decades to pay off. We are numb to it. What's $3,000 in credit card bills when you have $70,000 dollars in student loans racking up interest? With $40,000 in debt from undergrad, why not add another degree and another $40,000 in loans?

A job is a job is a job
By joining the work force late, we are not going to be racking up the experience we need for a career we want. Saddled with debt, it becomes harder to think, "I could still get a job in" whatever field you wanted to go into. Take what you can get, pay aside, even benefits aside.


Delaying adulthood
We're staying in school longer. We're joining the workforce later and at lower wages. This means we're also holding out on those big purchases the U.S. economy hopes us to make- homes and cars. Many of us still rely in some way on our parents, at least those with parents still willing and able to help. We move back home, or the parents still help pay bills.

So here we have it, my generation in the job search. It's not that we're lazy. We have a lot to contribute. We just don't know where to go or how to get there.

When Do We Stop Playing Nice?

When is "playing nice" detrimental to us?

A friend of mine wrote a note listing all the things that really bothered her that she has spent years saying didn't bother her. She wrote about how bothered she is by the number of her friends marrying, by seeing photos of parties that she wasn't invited to, by writing off her nightmares as just bad dreams. I responded with a small list of my own.

How often do we tell people that something is ok when it really bothers us? It seems to me that women especially fall prey to these white lies. We are taught from a very young age to play nice. We have to be polite. If you don't have something nice to say, don't say anything at all.

These things sit on our chests for years. Is there something wrong or rude about saying "I don't like this" or "I don't want to do this"? I'll use an example. It really bothers me that one of my friends gripes on about how awful my boyfriend must be and what a louse he is because he doesn't have a job. I'm getting to a point of explosion because I can't tell her to just bugger off, and that she has no right to judge him. Doesn't she know there is a huge recession and even wait staff jobs are hard to find?

So do I just tell her to shut up because it's bothering me? Or do I keep quiet and listen to the "wisdom" of my elders (she is older than me)?

What does being polite get us anymore?

On The Media: The Susan Boyle Effect

If you didn't see Susan Boyle's performance on Britain's Got Talent, you might wonder why everyone in America is talking about it. It made every cable 24-hr network in the United States- but why? Why would an American audience care about a performance on a British talent show, especially when there are more pressing issues in the world.

This what is called a soft news story, or a human interest story. If you ever saw the movie Anchorman, it's exactly the story that Veronica is assigned early on in the film. The purpose of these stories, especially on days where the majority of the broadcast is violent and depressing, is to catch people's interest and be a fun, easy story to tell.

Whenever anyone pitches an idea for a story on broadcast or print news, his or her editor will ask, "Well, why should we care?" That is the question that tests the strength of the story, and even the soft must sustain it. I'll explain why this one did.

First of all, Britain's Got Talent is the parent of American Idol, both judged by the callous Simon Cowell. This is the first part of the "why we care"- Americans love to see the arrogant rebuked. Cowell is arrogant, cruel even, to those who have put blood, sweat, and tears into performing for him. For pop stars he seems this barrier necessary to cross to reach fame. American audiences cheered when Jennifer Hudson received an Oscar nod after Cowell had told her she just wasn't good enough to be a star.

The second part of "why we care" is Susan herself. She's not an American 18-year-old beauty, the kind that wins on American Idol. She's a 47-year-old woman, called "plain-looking" by one of the hosts on Britain's Got Talent. She says in her introduction on the show that she's not ever been married, or even kissed. She's not someone pegged to win.

But she has dreams. She wants to be like Elaine Paige, and furthermore (Americans love this part) she's got sass. She has a confidence. When Simon asks her how old she is she rolls her hips and says, "I'm 47- and that's just one side of me!" even as he rolls his eyes. She embodies that American spirit, reaching for that seemingly unachievable dream despite her odds.

We all love an underdog. It's a part of American culture dating back to winning our independence from Britain. So when she delivered "I Dreamed a Dream" Simon's jaw dropped and news was made. Even the teen-pop winners of American Idol never won him over so easily, and Americans fell quickly in love with the woman who toppled that staunch British critic.

There have been rumors that Susan was a plant on the show, someone who the producers knew could sing well and had her play the part of the dumpy woman. I don't think that's true. I think the producers recognized in her audition that this woman had the potential to connect with an audience in Britain and abroad. That's part of broadcasting- seeing the story in front of you.

Her sensation may not last past the week, but she got our attention for one day.