<p>Look, it is slightly annoying that he turned down that job . But he learned his lesson.</p>
<p>I’m surprised that none of the parents here are questioning their parenting skills when raising this generation in the 1990s. Don’t get annoyed with these “entitled” kids, where do you think this “entitlement” comes from? Who gave out gold stars for a job well done?</p>
<p>I am just as frustrated as any other 20-somethings. My parents cannot seem to understand for that they had no problems obtaining employment in the early 1980s in the financial sector. They know that there are no jobs in their industry at the moment but they just don’t seem to get how frustrating and difficult it is to find anything these days. Especially for me as I was completely on my own in graduate school for the last 2 years and now am home.</p>
<p>Employers these days have their picks of tons of strong candidates and it all boils down to appropriate matches. I was lucky to get several interviews and 3 employers said that there was really no flaw in anything that I presented and it was just a question of having similar train of thought.</p>
<p>I had no idea that my peers had just as much experience as I have. I thought I had it made by having 3 solid internships! I even worked while in graduate school to update my resume and employers did appreciate that. All claimed that my resume was clearly impressive and that I had a lot of experience to share. It just sounded to me that there’s not <em>that</em> much more I can do.</p>
<p>There are days that I can literally SCREAM and my parents wouldn’t even think of letting me so! ARGH!</p>
<p>So, parents, let your kids rant and change your parenting style.</p>
<p>My kids all worked as soon as they could. Even my little guy has a job as a pet sitter/dog walker, plant caretaker. Everyone is working this summer. The older ones out of school do not have the income they would like to have. They cannot find the jobs they had hoped they would get. Yes, they have tried and are still trying. And most of thekkiids we know around here, privileged as they are, have found things to do even if it is not what they had envisioned. Honestly, when I graduated and got my first joo, though it sounded impressive, the pay was not much more than minimum wage. I was ever so strapped for money as were many of the kids I knew.</p>
<p>THe economy is such that many of the jobs that kids out of college generally get are being taken by more experienced workers who are laid off from their job. I think most parents get this. But none of us want to see our kids watching tv, doing nothing all day. I told my son when he was on unemployment, that this was not a vacation for him. He had to find a place to go and something to do, or I would find something for him and designate the hours. If he wanted to live in our house, he had to do something whether it was community service, studying, volunteer fireman, etc. Waiting for the plump berry to fall into an open mouth was not my idea of productively spending the time. </p>
<p>Most of us are well aware of the job problems and shortage of money and credit. We are suffering it as well.</p>
<p>^^Yes, I agree with what you say cpt. I worry for my kids having just experienced a prolonged layoff myself and just how difficult it was to secure a job after 30 years of working non-stop… but I also know the kids will do what they have to do. I know they want the independence. I know in the long run they have the ability and drive to do what they need to do to make that transition to independence. Will it be what they expected? Will it be what we expected for them? Hard to say but they will keep plugging at it that I know.</p>
<p>If you don’t realize that things have inexorably changed for the worse for America and especially its youth you are merely whistling past the graveyard while praying that your children will be an exception. Good luck with that.</p>
<p>Look, in America we believe in equal oppertunity for equally endowed individuals. By extension, we believe in that EVERYONE should be entitled to a job suited for his or her training. An eMBA grad DESERVES nothing less than an executive job at a corporation. It simply makes no sense for a MD to be mopping floors or a JD delivering mail. Doing so is not only economically inefficient (see underemployment), but also morally offending.</p>
<p>For those of you parents pushing a college grad to accept mediocre jobs, you are contributing to an economic slowdown: College educated young professionals are a rare resource and you are persuading them to waste their potential.</p>
<p>The kids in my generation simply do not believe someone with a degree from a good university should be doing unpaid internships or taking chump change. The average college grad earns 60k. Those from creme de la creme universities should accept nothing short of 60k a year starting out.</p>
<p>^^Was that post just some joke that I didn’t get or what?</p>
<p>Anyway, how many really achieve this “American Dream.” It’s never been a large portion of the population, and it still isn’t. 50% of the population is bound to be in the bottom 50%. 99% of the population is bound to be in the bottom 99%.</p>
<p>Even thought I think Scott made a bad move by turning down the $40,000 a year job, in two years he should have received at least several offers. The truth is that companies are in no hurry to hire anyone, even an inexpensive recent grad. </p>
<p>When I got my diploma back in 1977, a bleak recession year, it took me only a few weeks to be offered a job similar to the one Scott turned down. But it came with health insurance and a pension. Jobs like that are very hard to find nowadays. My current company makes the kids work as freelancers or “permalancers,” no benefits, and hires very few actual employees. Obviously there has been a cataclysmic change in the working world in the past 30 years. I don’t want to get too political, but I feel that the bad practices of American businesses since the Reagan era (greed is good, outsourcing jobs, concentrating wealth to the upper class) are harming all of us middle-class (or former middle-class) Americans. I know kids who are approaching their 30th birthday who have hopped around from one inadequate job to another, no benefits, no pensions, no hope for future career growth.</p>
<p>I*n 1987 I accepted a 40-hour job for $100 per week. $2.50 per hour. I look back and LAUGH at myself now. But at the time I thought I was queen of the world for landing a “real” job before graduation.
*</p>
<p>wow- I didnt have a high school diploma ( but I had a GED and a really nice interview suit) & I landed a job in 1980 working for an ins co making $750 a month & I didn’t even have to type :D</p>
<p>He sounds like one of the pioneers that died in the woods. It was the hard chargers that built this country. There are several hundred million American dreams out there over the next 234 years - none of them spoon fed.</p>
This depends on how you define it, of course. I’ve never loved this banal phrase, but I’ve really come to hate it in recent years, precisely because the bar has been continually raised so as to define the “Dream” in terms that, by definition, only a minority could ever achieve. It used to mean simply a dream of independence (appropriately enough, this week): the ability to work with dignity, pull one’s weight in society, and maintain a respectable home for one’s children. Remember the scene in “It’s a Wonderful Life” where George and Mary dedicate the Martinis’ new house? That was what the “American Dream” meant when I was a kid–not getting rich, but getting out of dire poverty.</p>
<p>Jason, do you think that a CEO DESERVES to get millions a year in salaries and bonuses while firing employees and outsourcing american jobs to “save” his company.</p>
<p>Jeesh I’ve thought for 25 years that the “e” in my eMBA stood for “evening”, wow how cool to know that people might think it stands for “executive”! Oh but then Jason has been joshing in his/her posts, right?</p>
<p>STATISTICALLY SPEAKING, CEO’s deserve multiple millions depending on how much value he adds to the company. If a CEO adds $10 million in profit every year, why the hell doesnt he deserve at least $5 million? (In American, 75% of profits are used to pay income. So ideally, we would like the CEO to take home $7.5 million.)</p>
<p>Best example to back case: Steve Jobs. He deserves every cent of his $60million + salary. Why? He has added so much to society (where would we be without iphone’s and ipods?!?!?!?!?). Hell if it was up to me, Steve Jobs would get much more money.</p>
<p>@ other previous posters. Never once did i mention the “American dream.” Please do not try to read more indepth than what i am truly saying. I mentioned the concept of oppertune equality for equally endowned individuals. Nothing less, nothing more.</p>
<p>eMBA rankings: EXECUTIVE MBA rankings. Please… kids in my generation look so often at rankings of schools that it is really quite fruitless to challenge us at these topics.</p>
I’m curious. What metrics would be used to determine that a particular CEO has added $10 million in profit in a given year? Or is it simply that he is in charge and therefore any increase in profit under his leadership is credited to him?</p>
<p>^^^^ Economists have measured everything from happiness( 1 happy marriage= being single and earning $100k), to how much more government workers make compared to private sector workers controlled for race, income, education, and gender.</p>
<p>There is a statistical test that controls factors such as these. I cannot recall what its called but it was heavily used in the Freakonomics books. Im sure variables can be controlled and adjusted accordingly.</p>
<p>While not perfect (you can’t say this CEO is 10% better than that one), it should give a rough estimation of how much value the CEO adds.</p>
<p>If i am wrong, im sure some economist somewhere has already invented a test for this.</p>
<p>Yeah, as a recent grad struggling to find a job (any job), who is seeing many of my smart, talented, accomplished friends also struggling, I agree with this. The original article had some truth to it…they just chose a REALLY, REALLY bad example. Obviously, this kid shouldn’t have turned down a $40,000 a year job. Most recent grads I know would love to be making nearly that much, if they have jobs at all. But it is a hard time out there, and even jobs at Starbucks are not easy to get (especially if they think you’ll be moving on as soon as they can – being a college grad can actually hurt in that kind of position). Entry-level jobs, even pretty crappy ones, are getting eaten up by people with more experience.</p>