Today at work we were talking about the Yelp employee who was recently fired for her email to the CEO, which started me on a rant about a group that I call the “over-privileged millennials” (OPMs for short).
I’m terrified of these people for many reasons.
1. They are our future. And not in that high school valedictorian “we are the future” bullshit that everyone spews every June while they’re dressed in those ridiculously overpriced, highly flammable, super shiny, ugly as sin grandma-looking nightgowns with the cardboard hats and tassels that every 18-year old hangs from their rearview mirror in their car. No, our honest to God future. Folks, some day, these people will be taking care of us when we can no longer pee by ourselves.
2. The level of stupidity they exhibit may be contagious. I’m not sure about this, but when my children go off to college, will the stupidity of these OPM’s infect my own offspring? I worry about these things. When they leave their college campuses, will they infect the rest of us? Maybe some of us are protected because we have already found the cure (common sense and a job).
3. They’re just plain scary.
Back to the Yelp employee who was upset about her overpaid minimum wage job that most (normal) people would be happy to have. She’s college educated. Has a degree in English Literature. Which is about as useful as a degree in transgendered hippopotamus studies I would guess. So, she takes her (worthless) degree and moves to what is probably THE MOST expensive area in California – the San Francisco Bay Area. She lands a job that pays more than minimum wage (minimum wage in 2016 is $10/hr here in California) and, according to her, offers amazing benefits and free food. But she can’t take that free food home with her, which is so not cool. Bad Yelp! No (free) donut!
This leads me to wonder, was Ms. Disgruntled Yelp Employee one of the many students I’ve recently read about who can’t handle the pressures of college life? Like the students at Oberlin College who were under the constant stress for the improper preparation of the General Tsao chicken in the University dining hall. I can’t even imagine. No. Really. I can’t imagine this being a serious issue in my life. If this is what you view as a symbol of racism, General Tsao chicken, I beg of you to stop using up valuable oxygen.
What’s coming out of our schools seems to be more coddling than culture. More sissifying than studying. Students are complaining that annoying things like homework, study groups, and lectures are getting in the way of more important things like social advocacy, protesting, and rioting. How can we, as parents, possibly expect our children to do the very things we are paying for? How can we expect our kids to get an education, learn valuable job skills, and become productive members of society when there are things that are far more important for these OPMs to do? Like demand that the school change its name, or start using gender-neutral pronouns like xe, xem, and xyr, or make a truly authentic Thai dish at the cafeteria?
So we end up with employees like the girl at Yelp. With expectations that life will hand her diamonds, pissed off when she realizes she’s given a lump of coal. What she doesn’t understand is that 99% of us are given that lump of coal right out of high school or college. The difference between the OPM’s and the rest of us is that the rest of us realize that if we put in some blood, sweat, and tears, some time, and a lot of hard work, that coal can become a diamond.
No, that diamond isn’t going to be perfect, or wrapped in a Tiffany’s box, but it will be ours, imperfections and all.
Ramblings In My Head 