The Millenials

I saw a story on “60 Minutes” this past Sunday about Millenials and their relationship to the current workforce.  The Millenials are defined as the age group born between 1980-1995.  The story talked about how this group of people grew up never experiencing failure, always being told yes and constantly being coddled by their parents.  Now that they are entering the workforce or are on the edge of entering it they are taking the attitude of “if you don’t like me or my work or my personality I’ll just go somewhere else with my talents.”  The story struck a nerve with me because I see this attitude pervade this age group everyday and didn’t think anyone else noticed it until seeing this story.  I am a member of Generation X, the preceding group born roughly between 1965-1975, and I have to say that the attitude of the Millenials is a joke.  However, it’s not really their fault because their parents were scared into raising a generation of kids by a bunch of TV experts who said coddle rather than discipline or teach success and failure.  It’s not surprising that these people think the world owes them a favor because that’s how they were brought up.  In their childhood, these kids didn’t have winners and losers in, say, little league.  Instead it was about the experience of playing the game.  How this teaches kids disappointment and how to deal with it is beyond me.  How do they possibly function in society?  We all know examples of people in this age group who have a sense of entitlement around them and who feel they are untouchable.  If you tell them no they just flip you off and say I don’t have to deal with you because they don’t know how to take criticism or direction.  They just want to move on to the next thing.  The story went on to say that many companies have brought in different experts to help their human resource departments deal with and understand these people.  Are they kidding?  Whatever happened to the days of if you don’t like this job then quit? The attitude of this latest generational group just represents how society is slowly eroding from what it used to be.  Nobody thinks they have to answer for themselves anymore.  This is in turn leads to a lack of accountability and responsibility and you get to where we are in society today.  And it’s slowly becoming a not so good place.  It’s all about coddling.  The Milleneials aren’t all to blame but if they represent the long term future that is truly scary.