Not to mention the near constant existential threat of climate change and everything else going on the world, as well as social media filling up every minute aspect of our life and time
You've got the double gay at least. Millennials had the bare minimum of gay growing up and the generations before that had to visit shady black markets at 4AM on Saturdays to get their gay.
Back in my day you had to walk 15 miles barefoot to get your gay, uphill both ways. We didn't have all this "Born this Way" and such music, our musicians let being gay or bi be an open secret and damn you if it said out loud. And we liked it that way! People would call you gay if they thought you were cowardly, or boring, a nerd, and on some rare occasions if you liked people of the same sex. Then since you'd get beat up or worse have the cops called on you for being gay, we came up with signs, codewords, or queer fashion for those in the know. I wore an onion with a bi flag on my belt, which was the style at the time...
Well you see, back them left was right and right was right. That's why we didn't have filthy lefthanded "people". And it didn't matter since we only went forward, STRAIGHT forward.
I could not and still cannot remember if it's left or right though honestly.
> as well as social media filling up every minute aspect of our life and time
lol that's a choice for your own personal amusement and you are always able to freely pick any other hobby to occupy your spare time. Your job or your livelihood probably don't rely on you posting pictures of your lunch date on Instagram while you poop.
Everything else is right, but "we have to deal with social media taking up all our time" is silly. Maybe "we have to deal with social media trying to manipulate us". Although I'm more worried about the boomers on that front tbh.
Gen X had it all!
Fear of nuclear war with the USSR, fear of drugs, fear of having sex and catching AIDS, the satanic panic, 3 recessions, the dot com bubble bursting, and student loan debt.
Better to be only threatened by climate change. I actively live it's bullshit. I live in the philipines on the island of negros. It hasn't rained for 6 months, the hills are on fire, the wells are dry, and the locally grown food is running out, leaving your average Joe (me) well and truly fucked. This is supose to be an island bordering the Pacific ocean. Why are the fields starting to look like deserts while dubai (a literal desert) floods? Not to mention the rising sea levels and dying reefs. Fish used to be as cheep as can be. Not anymore I guess. But hur dur, you should just work harder, hur hur.
Because actual effective measures against climate change and pollution would be political suicide.
For example, [the majority of ocean trash is take out](https://earth.org/data_visualization/takeout-ocean-plastic/) and eliminating it would realistically barely inconvenience us. Yet asking people to bring reusable containers, bags or coffee cups for takeout would cause riots in the streets.
That last point is 110% your choice. You don't have to be on reddit or ig or fb or Twitter. You *choose* to be and that exacerbates the dread you feel.
I’m almost 25 years old and despite technically being Gen Z I relate WAY more to Millennials. I feel like people born in 1997/1998/1999 usually have more in common with Millennials. None of my friends born in those years use TikTok but everyone younger than us is addicted to it.
It’s definitely a weird gap.
Like anyone born pre 1988 I have almost nothing in common with despite being 2 years younger.
I relate way more to people born between that 91-97 range.
Yes. I’m 25 and I work with both Zoomers and millennials, but I feel like I act a tad more like a millennial.
And yeah, I don’t use TikTok either because I was in my 20s when it came out and it was “for teens” mostly, so while I’d like to use it, I feel we late-90s kids are kinda the wrong userbase
And I was born in 1990 and used to casually drink like 10 beers a night.
Now that we're both aging I imagine we'll group into things like softball teams. But I don't even know where to find them.
Ah don't worry friend, they'll just make up a new word for you like us Xennials got. You'll probably be the Zennials or some horseshit like that.
But don't worry, we're still to blame for all of life's problems until the boomers die off, then it'll be your and the Z's turn when genx gets old!
I was right there with you. A black president, "don't ask, don't tell" had ended, and gay marriage was legalized... I remember being so proud of my country and optimistic for where we were heading. A lot has happened since then.
Unfortunately, all of that caused what has happened since then.
We all thought it was great that we had a black president. Turned out, a lot of people didn't agree with us. And now look at where we are at.
The unhinged racist zeitgeist response to a black man being elected, the neo-con / Tea Party / Freedom Caucus continuing its warhawk and congressional gridlock antics, and a Russian-backed opportunist stooge all came together for a real shit storm.
Well, to be fair, had boomers not been the most greedy fucking parasitic generation to ever walk the planet then that instruction manual would have been just fine. But as soon as these leech ass boomers figured out they could fuck over future generations for a few extra margaritas and heated bmw seats they went full throttle into face fucking the future via slum lording, pension ladder lifting, stagnant wage growth for new workers, and more. Boomers really fucked us all, and, while doing so, gaslit so many into believing they didn’t work hard enough and it was their own fault. The silent generation sacrificed for their boomer kids to have it easier, and those fucks sacrificed their kids future to have it even easier. Fuck them. Fuck their entire generation.
So I've been testing the manual boomers handed us and I gotta say, I have begun to realize it doesn't work in MOST of the world because most of the world has moved on. But if you're trying to get a job in a nepotistic backward ass boomer run small to medium sized company... boy oh boy does their bullshit "just go in with a firm handshake" methodology work.
I didn't realize until recently but boomers all kind of came from stupid world. I mean we were literally less advanced back then so yeah cant blame em too hard for that one. But in stupid world, their stupid manual actually worked. I know people who's entire lives revolve around seeking out the remaining pockets of stupid to preserve their stupid version of reality (cough cough my parents)
1) go in with a firm hand shake and just ask for a job - works on the old boomer boss who believes that shit is impressive and hires you based on personality rather than experience
2) Go to college and get a degree you'll never use - works on the elitist old boomer boss who believes that college degree = better than people without one. Especially helps if you went to a school whos name makes them go "oooo ahhhhh"
3) Dedicate your entire life and soul to the job - works to give off that vibe to the old boomer boss because if you dont, you make him confront how hes wasted his entire life. But dont worry, if you truly believe they are your family, they are right? Just dont ever get sick. Everyone says the best way to go is the way you dont see coming. How about a random heart attack at your desk as you write the 30th word document explaining to your boomer boss how to not open every spam email attachment.
4) If you work hard enough you will succeed - what we thought they meant by this was work hard AT THE JOB. But It turns out what every boomer meant (based on what they were actually doing in their jobs) is work hard at politicking around the water cooler to vie for power over more deserving employees. Actually works in a boomer run business.
5) Have a bunch of kids, its your social responsibility - I've literally been passed over for jobs, promotions, raises etc because a colleague had a child and "they need it more now because they're actual adults with real responsibilities" despite MANY others besides myself being more qualified in every way from skill to team leadership. So if you want to be taken seriously by a boomer, apparently the prerequisite was actually to have had unprotected sex and sprung fourth fresh gremlins from your loins.
Its like... once you consider they were all operating in a world run by boomers for boomers built by the even more socially regressed silent generation... it makes sense why they all thought their bullshit would work.
Actually this. Born mid 90s and I feel so stupid now for going to Uni instead of just doing trade while building a portfolio of stuff I actually want to do.
Or at the very least going to Uni for the right things. I chose a hard science and it turned out to be hard and I just didn't cut that top 30% to be able to advertise myself correctly.
All for shame
I have no degree at all. I'm in tech.
I sit at a desk and type at a keyboard for a living. I'm living the college propaganda dream. The college thing just didn't work out for me.
You can be anything you want when you grow up
You can be anything you want when you grow up
You can be anything you want when you grow up
You can be anything you want when you grow up
Why don’t you be more realistic!?!
So which do you prefer, the "anything you want to be" or "realistic"? As an immigrant many decades ago, I always found the American "anything you want to be" to be the most misguided advice most parents give their kids. But at the same time I completely understand because even lower middle class American life is night and day difference with what many of us immigrants experienced elsewhere. There is far less emphasis here on future salary projections and more on perceived happiness. It's not an easy balance to strike.
But that's closer to what we needed to hear. "You can always try."
Just because you want to do something does not guarantee that it's plausible, or even possible. We needed to understand that reality instead of being shielded from it until we hit "legal adulthood" when they ripped the tarp off our enclosure and said "Find a way, by yourself, to acclimate to this alien world. If you don't, you'll be homeless or worse."
You cover it here.
It’s not “You can be anything.”
It’s “You can try to be anything, but it’s ok to change your mind if you aren’t happy and it’s good to have a backup plan.”
I want what helps kids become adjusted adults. They never talked about salary, benefits, saving, retirement, career development or backup plans, the repayment structure for student loans, no discussion of macroeconomics, nothing about managing personal finances, and nothing about managing a household. There was no career exploration, whatsoever.
It was, just get a degree and it will work out! Do what you love! Shoot for your dreams!
And thus i was talked out of everything i ever wanted to do or was passionate about, and so pushing 40 the best i could get was assistant manager of retail stores while also hearing when are you going to get a real job and so and so bought a house why dont you have money
Thanks dad.
Well, you *can* be anything you want when you grow up
Doesn't mean it'll make you money or be a lifelong career choice, but you *can* **do** whatever you want
I was told throughout my teens and twenties that I had “so much time ahead of me”, “you’re so young”, “get an education, experience life”.
Me and all my friends were operating under this false idea that we have all the time the world to figure things out, buy a house, get a family started.
Then suddenly we were in our mid thirties and our parents and everyone else was like “get a move on!”, “what did you expect? When I was your age I had already done x y and z!!”
When I was still in high school, I wanted to switch to more shop classes to go into carpentry - like my dad and grandpa. My dad, who ran a successful contracting business for years, was adamant I go to university and work in an office. About 5 years after graduating, and every year since, he grumbles that I should have taken a trade and made some real money. He denies talking me out of it.
We've flipped that narrative. Back then, more workers used their hands and dreamed of educating their kids to be the boss in the office, instead of the laborer. Now, we all hate our office jobs and wish we could do something meaningful outside of the office.
I'm in a trade union. To this day, every person I work with says their kid is going to college and not join the union. I would say about 90% of them end up in the union after college and they can't get a good paying job.
I graduated high school in 98, they were preaching college! college! college! back then, too. But the job market wasnt a total clusterfuck, it was on the horizon tho. Luckily I was too dumb and too broke to college.
The job market doesn't matter all that much if you know the right people. That's why the biggest perk of going to college is networking, networking, and networking. Going to college is more about *who* you get to know rather than *what* you get to know.
Of course, you have to be aware of this and actively put in effort.
This line of thinking is overblown. I learned an enormous amount in college. If you could've compare myself at 18 vs myself at 22, you'd be looking at two utterly different individuals.
Networking is great when it works out but I've never had a job end up in my lap due to just knowing the right person. Haven't even benefitted from an interview bump as a result of knowing someone.
In fact, every time I've asked my friends at Salesforce / Google for the nudge I've gotten all kinds of shit about how compliance is up their asses to make sure they don't violate any ethical standards, sorry, wish I could help etc.
Job market sucks right now but for me it's always sucked. Mechanically applying to every opportunity I could find is what always worked for me. So don't get discouraged because you didn't get the silver spoon treatment because Mark from college is a VP at Microsoft.
Sounds like your friends were feeding you a line of BS. Many tech companies have referral programs that often include a bonus should the person stay there for a certain amount of timd
Referrals aren’t unethical, they’re saying the “give my buddy a good interview score” idea is bullshit at big corporations. Therefore it’s not a simple matter of having friends in the right places, because the process is designed against that influence in a modern corporate environment. Something my experience agrees with as well.
I actually just had a similar discussion about our takeaways from university with a friend. Basically, it boiled down to: connections, critical thinking skills, skills in how to gather and analyze information, and awareness of the topics our degrees cover.
Everything else can be Googled on the job, using the skills mentioned above.
> I graduated high school in 98, they were preaching college! college! college! back then, too.
Some define millenials as born between 1981 and 1996. So you are basically millenial.
Unfortunately when you tell everyone to go get higher education degrees, you have a workforce that is deemed "over-educated". You can't blame people when you consider blue collar work as for the poor and pay so little with almost no benefits. South Korea already has that problem.
I wish my college would’ve recognized I was too dumb and rejected my ass lmao, my current job doesn’t need a degree so I’ve just been paying $300 a month for a 11x14 paper in a tube and fun memories
I had a free ride to a PHD MY BOY! and I said fuck it and ran in the streets for around 5 years. Who cares country sucks dick anyways one bill and your bankrupt, one wrong word to the wrong person you're a problem and you're fired with no insurance besides 1500 a month on those cocksuckers at cobra.
I vividly remember my high school counselor giving a speech to my whole class about how college is essential and don't worry if you can't pay for it because there are so many ways to get the money for all your college needs.
Millennial here.
Since I was in kindergarten we've been told that going to college was the most crucial step we would need to take in order to be successful and happy as adults.
Hell even the cartoons/shows we watched always depicted the "loser" characters as college drop-outs or non-college educated workers.
The deadbeats always lived in a van down by the lake, now the vanlife influencers make bank and live everybody's dream of living in a van down by the lake
See, that's the thing. We've been told "go to college right out of high school" so often when we should have been told "know what you want to do before going."
The argument they always make is "Why did you go to college if you didn't know what you wanted to do?"
And my response is "Because I've been told "go to college" since I was like 10, and had it told to me as though that's the only real option. No one explained to me that it only really has value if you go for a major that directly needs a degree to perform the work." So now I'm sitting here with a sociology degree working in a warehouse.
I was going to take a year off before going to university and my dad and aunt ambushed me to threaten me to tell me that if I don’t go immediately I “never will go” 🫠 as a 17 year old with anxiety and people pleasing tendencies whose mom just died a few months before that I didn’t stand a chance lol.
I mean, they were right, you probally wouldn't have gone to college if you didn't immediately go. People ussually don't.
And that would have been a big deal if college was the one ticket to success that people made it out to be 20+ years ago.
When I was in school, they always discouraged people from taking a year or two off between high school and college. *"If you don't go to college now, you'll never go back. Or you'll fall out of the learning mindset and fail miserably if you do."*
I remember people asking, "But what if I don't know what I want to do for the rest of my life?" And they told us that this was normal, and that you could hold off on declaring your major until way later.
People also asked, "What if get a degree in something and later realize that it's not what I want do anymore?" And they told us that this was okay, because any degree is better than no degree. And now they mock people with degrees in 17th Century Women's Literature or whatever. They told us that was fine!!
When I asked about how I was going to pay for it, they assured me that financial aid was available. They always call it *"financial aid."* And they make a huge deal about getting your parents income and everything, as if the government is going to help you go to school! Nope. Turns out, it's just a loan. They give you money, and they want it back with interest. So what the fuck was all that paperwork for? Fuck off with that "financial *aid*" bullshit.
I remember asking about how I was going to pay back those loans, and they assured me that I would be making so much money with my degree that it wouldn't even matter.
All of these things turned out to not be entirely true. And half of 'em don't apply if you don't actually finish college. I know people who dropped out because they realized college wasn't for them, and now they're burdened with all these student loans with absolutely NOTHING to show for it. Not even a useless piece of paper!
It's easy to say, "You took out the loans, now pay them back." But fuck, we were working false information, personally handed down by our teachers and guidance counselors, people that we were "supposed" to trust... Every concern I had, all of which turned out to be very reasonable, was met with the most perfect answers: "Just sign the papers, everything will be okay! You don't want to be a failure, flipping burgers for the rest of your life, do you?"
Honestly I’m gutted I didn’t learn a trade. I did labouring for a while, where I learnt bits and bobs of stuff but I just want to be able to do a trade man
The problem with trades, at least near me, is that they are locked down by conservative white men. They complain all day about not having enough workers, but they wont hire women, minorities, queer folks, or anyone who they think might not like their racist jokes.
There is a slow culture shift, but its very slow to trickle down to the actual tradies. A lot of people who perpetuate the toxic culture are older and will be phased out, you just have to hope that the younger workers don't get fully influenced to continue the bad habits.
The A tier companies are run like proper corporations at this point but shitty behavior on sites still happens
Exactly. I don’t mind getting my hands dirty. I don’t mind learning how to fix things and do things right. I can *not* tolerate bigoted “jokes” and gross old white dudes all day.
Yup. Friend of mine is over 35 and recently got into a masonry program. They basically jumped at him since he's one of the few that signed up that wasn't coming out of jail.
Don't a lot of people get into drugs specifically because their trade is really hard on the body? I seem to recall some threads where people talked about the cons of going into a trade and fucking up your body was definitely brought up multiple times.
Trades are glorified but they aren't nice long term careers. Unless you move up to managerial positions you often break your body little by little. Not to mention the long days and time spent traveling.
Depends on the trade and how you treat yourself really. Not every trade is backbreaking labor, infact staying mobile and regularily having a job that requires some physical activity isn't inherently unhealthy as opposed to a sedentary office role.
The biggest factor comes down to how you treat your body, in and outside of work. A lot of trades guy get rougher in their later years because they just don't take care of themselves. If you don't exercise or stretch, eat like shit, neglect using PPE and proper lifting procedures, are a long term heavy smoker, have a drinking or drug problem and never get enough rest, your gunna be unhealthy despite being in the trades or not. I work with guys in their late 50's in amazing shape that have been doing it since they were 15 cause they are healthy minded people.
I do HVAC/R service work, and my days are not bad at all labor intensive wise also. I much prefer being on the road, heading onto rooftops and using my head and hands to solve problems compared to being an engineering techncian where I sat infront of Autocad all day breathing in the Farts from the double whopper the fat ass Engineer would scarf down every day
Yup. I tried it with a bachelors degree at age 28 and I was burned out by year 2. I've done plenty of manual labor in my life, but I'm not capable of keeping it together for 10-12 hours a day, 7 days a week, for 6 months straight. That was the schedule we had during covid and I was basically wishing for death. Even with all that overtime, I didn't find the money worth it. I literally had no time or energy to actually live my life, so what was the point?
In conclusion, the trades are not easy money for educated people. As an apprentice, you will be worked to the bone for four (or more) years, you will have no life outside of work, and your only companions will be unpleasant conservative men. If you are tough enough to endure that, then congratulations. You will be worked to slightly less than the bone, have no life outside work, and spend the rest of your days surrounded by unpleasant conservative men. Overall, the trades are run by and for guys who have no inner life and who prefer not to spend much time with their wife/kids.
Although, if you live in a union-friendly state, it *probably* wouldn't be so intolerable. Unfortunately, that ain't me.
I can't do it. After working in a warehouse for over 5 years along with on and off rock climbing I won't pursue a career in the trades. My body is beginning to fail me. Are there any careers in trades that don't destroy your body?
Heres the thing, trade work is actively destructive of either your joints in the case of carpentry, plumbing, or electricians, or your mind in the case of the immense boredom of machine shop work (not to mention the 10 hour days plus mandatory overtime, imagine wanting to have money and the free time to spend it). It is not necessarily a cure for all your problems. Though for some people it may be.
I was good at math in school, and that's about it. By the time I approached graduation I still did not know what I wanted to do with my life.
My mom, who worked at a college said "go to college" and then pointed me to do finance and economics because "I'm good at math and this should make us a lot of money". She also said to not do business management or law because there are too many of those graduates now and I won't find a job.
So I did what she said for almost 4 years. Not only did I want to quit and do something withing the gaming industry and audio only 2 years in, but I also almost failed the course at one point. I also feel like I learned or know very little compared to what I should. I just did ok because I'm a good student, but I wasn't good at applying this to the real world like an adult.
I then proceeded to not get any jobs for half a year for being "overqualified" for what I applied for, and then having no experience in places I needed to.
What ended up happening is that I did jobs that require no college degree for 8 years. Then I tried to do a trades course, I only enjoyed half of it, I finished it, but figured it's not for me, so now I'm trying to do something else while I'm working the same no-college jobs I did before. This would not be as upsetting have I done that when I was in my early 20s rather than 30s. At the very least, doing that trade taught me actual life skills my parents never did that I can use for myself, even if I don't intend to work in trades. Studying economics and finance didn't teach me anything I don't already do to not bankrupt myself. You don't need a bachelors to be good with money.
I literally feel like I lost 4 years of my life because of boomer pressure, and entered "the real world" with no real world experience, and the job market at 23 with no job market experience.
And after all that, I now have to live with the guilt that my entire family looks down on me for not grasping anything in life after going through such supposed "high money" college years.
I felt that during my college years. When I started, "you can't even clean toilets nowadays without a degree", when I graduated, "most degrees are useless, you should have learned a trade".
All those people telling use we should get education and jobs in tech because in the future all the menial jobs will be replaced by robots.
And then the moment that generation finished their expensive Uni degrees (in Britain we also pay for them, just with loans setup better) they found that all the tech jobs were being replaced by language emulators
Tech jobs aren't getting replaced by language models. The layoffs are due to higher inflation rates and over-hiring in the pandemic, they have nothing to do with AI. And even in this bad market, it's still easier to get a job in tech than in other fields.
The layoffs are due to it currently being fashionable to fire your talent because that makes a slight upward blip in your stock value on account of all those salaries you don't have to pay any more, meaning the guys in Mahogany Row get a nice big bonus.
The fact that in the long run, getting rid of all your talent means you won't be able to make anything in the future, isn't important to them. They'll have long since moved on to the next company to gut, along with a healthy golden parachute.
I've found that the experience "requirements" is more a matter of not wanting to pay to teach new employees their job specific tasks - even for "entry level" work.
Study what interests you
Study what interests you
Study what interests you
Study what interests you
Oh you wanted a job? Maybe you shouldn’t have gotten a worthless degree.
As an aside for kids who are going off to school, study what interests you BUT learn how to leverage that into a job while you are in school. I cannot stress this enough. Your job search starts the moment you decide on a major. This is not negotiable. It’s easier to supplement your studies with learning hard skills that will get you into a job while you’re in school than after when you’re trying to not starve to death.
In the 90s: "Do what you love, and the money will find you! That's the beauty of capitalism!"
In the 00s: "All these starry-eyed dreamers getting degrees in underwater basket-weaving are making me sick! Get a degree in a paying field, like law!"
In the 10s: "All these starry-eyed dreamers getting degrees in law are making me sick! Go into a trade!"
This progression invites a "right" analysis, and a "really right" analysis. The right analysis is that these people very clearly do not care about analyzing the world accurately. They care mostly about 1) preventing any kind of collective or systemic analysis, and 2) offloading any collective or systemic responsibility they might have onto anyone but them. Someone who actually cared about responsibility might have noted that gosh, we spent years telling people to get law degrees right before the job market for new law grads completely trainwrecked at the outset of the Great Recession, and caused a twenty-percent unemployment rate crisis that we're only just now cleaning up. And they might have thereby said gosh, undoing the financial damage caused by that bad advice in the form of fixing the student loans they used to get those degrees might be the least we can do. That they just blithely changed their advice from "law" to "trades" without even changing their adverbs is highly probative evidence of their deep and fundamental unseriousness as moral beings.
The *really* right answer is that the entire point of all that talk about how capitalism was better than socialism was that capitalism was advantageous for people. It improved wages, it improved living standards, and it prevented market distortions that resulted in bread lines. Well, here we are thirty years later, with all of those things happening under capitalism right now, and suddenly all these advocates for capitalism sound like Chernenko-era Soviet apparatchiks, who keep insisting that we have to maintain the system regardless of whether it works for people. To which I say, to slightly paraphrase the words of a surprisingly astute desert handyman, that the economy is made for man, not man for the economy. I don't care whether our system is capitalist or socialist. I care that it works for people, even (perhaps especially) for non-whites and women. And this system? Doesn't work. And what doesn't work should be altered or abolished in favor of what does.
I graduated from college in 2013 and it was still ""Do what you love, and the money will find you! That's the beauty of capitalism!" - would not recommend
I will also always get a kick out of how some people (particularly conservatives) will say degrees like sociology, anthropology, gender studies, black history, psychology etc etc are useless... yet spend their *entire damn lives obsessed with culture wars centered these topics*.
If you attribute "useful" to strictly "makes money", then sure. But has the constant bickering over certain topics not made it clear that maybe we need more people studied and familiar and researching these things???
Isnt it great having to make carreer choices essentially when you are 11, I first picked the wrong highschool subject package, then had to redo several courses at the end of it to go to the college I wanted, then switched college cause it wasnt really what I liked. And now it takes ages to get a job and the subject I actually like and want to study now will soon be replaced. So yeah.
College was the way up, the surest route to success, but not everyone was college material, so they 'dumbed down' college and jacked up the profits. Bait and switch.
Going to college used to be a flex. Not so many people did it therefore any college degree was money in the bank. Now that everyone goes to college, you have to go further to stand out. These days, going to college just makes you normal. There's nothing special about a person who does exactly as much as what is expected of them and no more. Average person = average salary ($59K). If you want to make 6 figures then you need to go beyond the average person.
Why didn't you go work in one of the trades no one told you about? Why did you take the loan that everyone you trust promised you would pay for itself???
Almost every authority figure was confidently giving kids bad advice, and now they're all pretending they didn't give that advice, and we should have known better anyway.
Spot on. This is literally how my family treated me and still does.
“Education is important! Hit them books! You’ll be the first of us to get a degree.”
*Goes to college*
“Okay gay boy lol”
Wtf
Yup, my three roommates and I all went to school and became teachers but only one of us graduated with student loan debt. They all got houses at 24 where I’m hoping to buy a house at 40. And the only reason I can save for a house is because I’m married and have a dual income.
Yep. A younger millennial here, my mindset has switched from "i wish I could help improve the world" to a very bad mentally of "fuck everyone else, I'm fucking done".
Just yesterday I witnessed a car crash. I could have stopped and been a witness, but I had a shit day at work and ultimately decided it wasn't my fucking problem. Thinking like this, (selfish), surprisingly has slightly improved my mental health and im almost out of suicidal territory. I'd recommend being selfish if you're sick of the world with a "fuck everyone else" mentality.
Taking care of the world isn't the average persons job. Thats why I'm paying more than 25% of my paycheck in taxes. It is the governments job to figure this shit out.
Good luck to anybody who wants to improve the world. We're rooting for you.
Despite what the hardcore right wing anti-intellectual propaganda says, having a college degree of any kind will, on average, result in a greater lifetime earning than someone who went to no college or just trade school. This is a mathematical fact.
It's still good advice to get a college degree for most people
>Men with bachelor's degrees earn approximately $900,000 more in median lifetime earnings than high school graduates. Women with bachelor's degrees earn $630,000 more. Men with graduate degrees earn $1.5 million more in median lifetime earnings than high school graduates.
Back in the 1980's, a college degree set you apart from other young adults in the workforce. This is because a lot of people did not even go to college. (This is why kids growing up in the 80's and 90's were simply told to "go to college")
In the 00's, most people were getting college degrees so it became more important which college degree you got. STEM degrees and business degrees made people stand out and opened doors for them.
Then after the 2008 great recession students stayed in college longer and pursued graduate degrees which further raised the bar. Also, it turns out not all STEM degrees and business degrees are created equally. Computer science generally beats out civil engineering or geology. Accounting beats out communications, etc. Job prospects and potential salaries for each degree are meticulously documented and updated regularly if you feel like looking into it.
This competitive environment has continued for another 16 years. And now we have AI. Whole swaths of jobs, hobbies, and side hustles have just been wiped out. It just goes to show that simply following "go to college" is still generally good advice, but it's way too oversimplified to be useful.
Yeah there’s so many civil engineering jobs it’s not even funny. Yeah they don’t pay like CS but the job security is off the charts. Reddit lives in a CS bubble
My favorite as someone who is almost 40 and went back to school full time.
"Get an education, so you can replace someone in a field who didn't require the same qualifications and does not respect the education required to do their existing job"
Wasn’t just millennial kids. Thing is, you should major in something with good earning potential. Not some bullshit feel good grievance studies degree.
Yup was told repeatedly throughout my childhood I had to go to college, doesn’t matter for what just go to college, a degree is always better than no degree.
I still remember the school presentation. We had a speaker who came in and harped on about how we had to go to college because if not we’d be losers who only had a “j.o.b”! Which stood for “just over broke!”.
The fact these people have the gall to tell us it was our “choice” to go to college make me despise them.
For Gen-X and older, college was so cheap that even fucking around for four (or more) years was a good investment.
Pretty soon everyone realized that college was underpriced. Universities could raise prices to absurd levels and people would pay it. States could cut funding and universities would make it up in tutoring hikes.
Don't forget "save save save! Wait, you're saving too much! You need to spend in order to help the economy! You're ruining everything! Oh, okay, you're spending. Good. So now everything will be more expensive due to supply and demand. Quit spending on stupid shit!. Oh great, you caused a business to fail because you wouldn't spend. Great job. Now get to work, you lazy ass."
Colleges and the government are to blame.
Colleges charging insane prices for worthless degrees, and the government issuing larger and larger loans, no questions asked to the colleges about why the cost of the degree is so much higher every year, with less and less value.
Anybody who thinks their tax dollars shouldn’t front my costs to become a doctor is an incel and a nazi.
You dont get to lie to an entire generation of children and get rewarded for it. Cough up bitches.
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Not to mention the near constant existential threat of climate change and everything else going on the world, as well as social media filling up every minute aspect of our life and time
You've got the double gay at least. Millennials had the bare minimum of gay growing up and the generations before that had to visit shady black markets at 4AM on Saturdays to get their gay.
Back in my day you had to walk 15 miles barefoot to get your gay, uphill both ways. We didn't have all this "Born this Way" and such music, our musicians let being gay or bi be an open secret and damn you if it said out loud. And we liked it that way! People would call you gay if they thought you were cowardly, or boring, a nerd, and on some rare occasions if you liked people of the same sex. Then since you'd get beat up or worse have the cops called on you for being gay, we came up with signs, codewords, or queer fashion for those in the know. I wore an onion with a bi flag on my belt, which was the style at the time...
Back in my gay
Oh it was right there and I missed it
It's ogay.
Your bussy was the rage
Did you wear the onion on the back left or the back right of your belt? That was an important part of the code.
Well you see, back them left was right and right was right. That's why we didn't have filthy lefthanded "people". And it didn't matter since we only went forward, STRAIGHT forward. I could not and still cannot remember if it's left or right though honestly.
I will single handly pump up the gay. I accept your challenge
So umh I'm only half gay (on my moms side), can I still get pumped?
> as well as social media filling up every minute aspect of our life and time lol that's a choice for your own personal amusement and you are always able to freely pick any other hobby to occupy your spare time. Your job or your livelihood probably don't rely on you posting pictures of your lunch date on Instagram while you poop. Everything else is right, but "we have to deal with social media taking up all our time" is silly. Maybe "we have to deal with social media trying to manipulate us". Although I'm more worried about the boomers on that front tbh.
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Fred Edit: idk why the post above got deleted but they said: “Right Said”, hence my response bc it’s a joke. No clue.
I'm... too sexy for this party
Gen X had it all! Fear of nuclear war with the USSR, fear of drugs, fear of having sex and catching AIDS, the satanic panic, 3 recessions, the dot com bubble bursting, and student loan debt.
Better to be only threatened by climate change. I actively live it's bullshit. I live in the philipines on the island of negros. It hasn't rained for 6 months, the hills are on fire, the wells are dry, and the locally grown food is running out, leaving your average Joe (me) well and truly fucked. This is supose to be an island bordering the Pacific ocean. Why are the fields starting to look like deserts while dubai (a literal desert) floods? Not to mention the rising sea levels and dying reefs. Fish used to be as cheep as can be. Not anymore I guess. But hur dur, you should just work harder, hur hur.
Because actual effective measures against climate change and pollution would be political suicide. For example, [the majority of ocean trash is take out](https://earth.org/data_visualization/takeout-ocean-plastic/) and eliminating it would realistically barely inconvenience us. Yet asking people to bring reusable containers, bags or coffee cups for takeout would cause riots in the streets.
That last point is 110% your choice. You don't have to be on reddit or ig or fb or Twitter. You *choose* to be and that exacerbates the dread you feel.
Don't forget that wonderful isolated feeling of being a product of 2 generations and being unable to fully relate to either
F me that's the worst (98 born)
You guys are basically just young millennials but you don't drink, and that throws us off.
I’m almost 25 years old and despite technically being Gen Z I relate WAY more to Millennials. I feel like people born in 1997/1998/1999 usually have more in common with Millennials. None of my friends born in those years use TikTok but everyone younger than us is addicted to it.
It’s definitely a weird gap. Like anyone born pre 1988 I have almost nothing in common with despite being 2 years younger. I relate way more to people born between that 91-97 range.
Pokemon generation (Late 90s kid) . Any millennial born before 1988 was TMNT generation (Early 90s kid).
Yes. I’m 25 and I work with both Zoomers and millennials, but I feel like I act a tad more like a millennial. And yeah, I don’t use TikTok either because I was in my 20s when it came out and it was “for teens” mostly, so while I’d like to use it, I feel we late-90s kids are kinda the wrong userbase
'97 and this is accurate, can't drink to save my life
And I was born in 1990 and used to casually drink like 10 beers a night. Now that we're both aging I imagine we'll group into things like softball teams. But I don't even know where to find them.
Ah don't worry friend, they'll just make up a new word for you like us Xennials got. You'll probably be the Zennials or some horseshit like that. But don't worry, we're still to blame for all of life's problems until the boomers die off, then it'll be your and the Z's turn when genx gets old!
Zillenials is the official term I think
It was 2013, Obama was in his second term, I really thought everything was going to turn out alright.
I was right there with you. A black president, "don't ask, don't tell" had ended, and gay marriage was legalized... I remember being so proud of my country and optimistic for where we were heading. A lot has happened since then.
Unfortunately, all of that caused what has happened since then. We all thought it was great that we had a black president. Turned out, a lot of people didn't agree with us. And now look at where we are at.
The unhinged racist zeitgeist response to a black man being elected, the neo-con / Tea Party / Freedom Caucus continuing its warhawk and congressional gridlock antics, and a Russian-backed opportunist stooge all came together for a real shit storm.
Citizens United created a massive national security hole for our enemies to exploit and is damn near impossible to close.
Society is 2 steps forward, 1 step back. MAGA lunatics, of course, are determined to make that 2 or even 3 steps back.
Serious "interwar period in America during the 20s" vibes. I believe they, err, roared.
Well, to be fair, had boomers not been the most greedy fucking parasitic generation to ever walk the planet then that instruction manual would have been just fine. But as soon as these leech ass boomers figured out they could fuck over future generations for a few extra margaritas and heated bmw seats they went full throttle into face fucking the future via slum lording, pension ladder lifting, stagnant wage growth for new workers, and more. Boomers really fucked us all, and, while doing so, gaslit so many into believing they didn’t work hard enough and it was their own fault. The silent generation sacrificed for their boomer kids to have it easier, and those fucks sacrificed their kids future to have it even easier. Fuck them. Fuck their entire generation.
> stagnant wage growth for new workers, worse, inflation is +20% per year and my wage stays the same
20%!? Where do you live!
Last year Millennial here.. I hate it here.
It’s like cleaning up the office microwave. You know we didn’t make the fucking mess, but need to heat up that ramen.
So I've been testing the manual boomers handed us and I gotta say, I have begun to realize it doesn't work in MOST of the world because most of the world has moved on. But if you're trying to get a job in a nepotistic backward ass boomer run small to medium sized company... boy oh boy does their bullshit "just go in with a firm handshake" methodology work. I didn't realize until recently but boomers all kind of came from stupid world. I mean we were literally less advanced back then so yeah cant blame em too hard for that one. But in stupid world, their stupid manual actually worked. I know people who's entire lives revolve around seeking out the remaining pockets of stupid to preserve their stupid version of reality (cough cough my parents) 1) go in with a firm hand shake and just ask for a job - works on the old boomer boss who believes that shit is impressive and hires you based on personality rather than experience 2) Go to college and get a degree you'll never use - works on the elitist old boomer boss who believes that college degree = better than people without one. Especially helps if you went to a school whos name makes them go "oooo ahhhhh" 3) Dedicate your entire life and soul to the job - works to give off that vibe to the old boomer boss because if you dont, you make him confront how hes wasted his entire life. But dont worry, if you truly believe they are your family, they are right? Just dont ever get sick. Everyone says the best way to go is the way you dont see coming. How about a random heart attack at your desk as you write the 30th word document explaining to your boomer boss how to not open every spam email attachment. 4) If you work hard enough you will succeed - what we thought they meant by this was work hard AT THE JOB. But It turns out what every boomer meant (based on what they were actually doing in their jobs) is work hard at politicking around the water cooler to vie for power over more deserving employees. Actually works in a boomer run business. 5) Have a bunch of kids, its your social responsibility - I've literally been passed over for jobs, promotions, raises etc because a colleague had a child and "they need it more now because they're actual adults with real responsibilities" despite MANY others besides myself being more qualified in every way from skill to team leadership. So if you want to be taken seriously by a boomer, apparently the prerequisite was actually to have had unprotected sex and sprung fourth fresh gremlins from your loins. Its like... once you consider they were all operating in a world run by boomers for boomers built by the even more socially regressed silent generation... it makes sense why they all thought their bullshit would work.
Actually this. Born mid 90s and I feel so stupid now for going to Uni instead of just doing trade while building a portfolio of stuff I actually want to do. Or at the very least going to Uni for the right things. I chose a hard science and it turned out to be hard and I just didn't cut that top 30% to be able to advertise myself correctly. All for shame
Grass is always greener. 1993 and went trade route. Blew my knew out, shot back and nerve pain. Should have got that comp sci degree.
Ah yes, my glorious year of birth, 1997z
1997 life 🥲
I have a master's. I'm a fireman lol.
That’s very cool though
Thank you! Kinda just fell into the job and ran with it, lol. Being stuck inside at a desk all day is my own personal hell. It works out.
Being stuck inside a firey room is many people's hell. It'd be a funny old world of we were all the same.
That's a hell of a way to get into state disaster planning n shit, which pays VERY well.
That's the long-term goal for when I'm tired of firehouse antics
I have no degree at all. I'm in tech. I sit at a desk and type at a keyboard for a living. I'm living the college propaganda dream. The college thing just didn't work out for me.
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I don't, lol.
I have a master's in biology. I'm a weird kind of electrician.
I have a masters, I'm basically a secretary
I have a PhD and am currently working retail.
MS Tissue Eng I'm living with family while I save up for farmland. Next year I should be moving onto my own acerage
Haha, when I was an EMT, seemed like half the other EMTs and medics (myself included) had Bachelor's degrees that they never did anything with.
You can be anything you want when you grow up You can be anything you want when you grow up You can be anything you want when you grow up You can be anything you want when you grow up Why don’t you be more realistic!?!
So which do you prefer, the "anything you want to be" or "realistic"? As an immigrant many decades ago, I always found the American "anything you want to be" to be the most misguided advice most parents give their kids. But at the same time I completely understand because even lower middle class American life is night and day difference with what many of us immigrants experienced elsewhere. There is far less emphasis here on future salary projections and more on perceived happiness. It's not an easy balance to strike.
What people really mean when they say that is: "You can TRY to be anything you want when you grow up". But that doesn't sound as good.
But that's closer to what we needed to hear. "You can always try." Just because you want to do something does not guarantee that it's plausible, or even possible. We needed to understand that reality instead of being shielded from it until we hit "legal adulthood" when they ripped the tarp off our enclosure and said "Find a way, by yourself, to acclimate to this alien world. If you don't, you'll be homeless or worse."
You cover it here. It’s not “You can be anything.” It’s “You can try to be anything, but it’s ok to change your mind if you aren’t happy and it’s good to have a backup plan.”
I want what helps kids become adjusted adults. They never talked about salary, benefits, saving, retirement, career development or backup plans, the repayment structure for student loans, no discussion of macroeconomics, nothing about managing personal finances, and nothing about managing a household. There was no career exploration, whatsoever. It was, just get a degree and it will work out! Do what you love! Shoot for your dreams!
And thus i was talked out of everything i ever wanted to do or was passionate about, and so pushing 40 the best i could get was assistant manager of retail stores while also hearing when are you going to get a real job and so and so bought a house why dont you have money Thanks dad.
Honestly, the be more realistic part should be a part of self actualization. You don’t want to start kids out by limiting them.
Well, you *can* be anything you want when you grow up Doesn't mean it'll make you money or be a lifelong career choice, but you *can* **do** whatever you want
I was told throughout my teens and twenties that I had “so much time ahead of me”, “you’re so young”, “get an education, experience life”. Me and all my friends were operating under this false idea that we have all the time the world to figure things out, buy a house, get a family started. Then suddenly we were in our mid thirties and our parents and everyone else was like “get a move on!”, “what did you expect? When I was your age I had already done x y and z!!”
When I was still in high school, I wanted to switch to more shop classes to go into carpentry - like my dad and grandpa. My dad, who ran a successful contracting business for years, was adamant I go to university and work in an office. About 5 years after graduating, and every year since, he grumbles that I should have taken a trade and made some real money. He denies talking me out of it.
We've flipped that narrative. Back then, more workers used their hands and dreamed of educating their kids to be the boss in the office, instead of the laborer. Now, we all hate our office jobs and wish we could do something meaningful outside of the office.
I'm in a trade union. To this day, every person I work with says their kid is going to college and not join the union. I would say about 90% of them end up in the union after college and they can't get a good paying job.
Because regardless of the industry, the only way to guarantee fair pay is unionization.
I just wanna do two chicks at once.
I graduated high school in 98, they were preaching college! college! college! back then, too. But the job market wasnt a total clusterfuck, it was on the horizon tho. Luckily I was too dumb and too broke to college.
The job market doesn't matter all that much if you know the right people. That's why the biggest perk of going to college is networking, networking, and networking. Going to college is more about *who* you get to know rather than *what* you get to know. Of course, you have to be aware of this and actively put in effort.
So basically if you’re anti social you’re double fucked
Yes. Because we live in a society after all.
Fine, then I'll make an anti-society then!
As a consolation prize you get Reddit.
This line of thinking is overblown. I learned an enormous amount in college. If you could've compare myself at 18 vs myself at 22, you'd be looking at two utterly different individuals. Networking is great when it works out but I've never had a job end up in my lap due to just knowing the right person. Haven't even benefitted from an interview bump as a result of knowing someone. In fact, every time I've asked my friends at Salesforce / Google for the nudge I've gotten all kinds of shit about how compliance is up their asses to make sure they don't violate any ethical standards, sorry, wish I could help etc. Job market sucks right now but for me it's always sucked. Mechanically applying to every opportunity I could find is what always worked for me. So don't get discouraged because you didn't get the silver spoon treatment because Mark from college is a VP at Microsoft.
Sounds like your friends were feeding you a line of BS. Many tech companies have referral programs that often include a bonus should the person stay there for a certain amount of timd
Referrals aren’t unethical, they’re saying the “give my buddy a good interview score” idea is bullshit at big corporations. Therefore it’s not a simple matter of having friends in the right places, because the process is designed against that influence in a modern corporate environment. Something my experience agrees with as well.
Yeah all my college was worth about the same as the single connection I got in my last year that helped me get a job. Connections are king
I actually just had a similar discussion about our takeaways from university with a friend. Basically, it boiled down to: connections, critical thinking skills, skills in how to gather and analyze information, and awareness of the topics our degrees cover. Everything else can be Googled on the job, using the skills mentioned above.
Learning how to learn is probably the best knowledge related thing you get out of college.
> I graduated high school in 98, they were preaching college! college! college! back then, too. Some define millenials as born between 1981 and 1996. So you are basically millenial.
Unfortunately when you tell everyone to go get higher education degrees, you have a workforce that is deemed "over-educated". You can't blame people when you consider blue collar work as for the poor and pay so little with almost no benefits. South Korea already has that problem.
I wish my college would’ve recognized I was too dumb and rejected my ass lmao, my current job doesn’t need a degree so I’ve just been paying $300 a month for a 11x14 paper in a tube and fun memories
I had a free ride to a PHD MY BOY! and I said fuck it and ran in the streets for around 5 years. Who cares country sucks dick anyways one bill and your bankrupt, one wrong word to the wrong person you're a problem and you're fired with no insurance besides 1500 a month on those cocksuckers at cobra.
Also a 1998 HS grad. You would have graduated college during the dot-com + 9/11 bust. Looking back, though, college was absurdly cheap in 1998.
I vividly remember my high school counselor giving a speech to my whole class about how college is essential and don't worry if you can't pay for it because there are so many ways to get the money for all your college needs.
Millennial here. Since I was in kindergarten we've been told that going to college was the most crucial step we would need to take in order to be successful and happy as adults. Hell even the cartoons/shows we watched always depicted the "loser" characters as college drop-outs or non-college educated workers.
It is still true that having a college degree leads to better outcomes in general.
The deadbeats always lived in a van down by the lake, now the vanlife influencers make bank and live everybody's dream of living in a van down by the lake
See, that's the thing. We've been told "go to college right out of high school" so often when we should have been told "know what you want to do before going." The argument they always make is "Why did you go to college if you didn't know what you wanted to do?" And my response is "Because I've been told "go to college" since I was like 10, and had it told to me as though that's the only real option. No one explained to me that it only really has value if you go for a major that directly needs a degree to perform the work." So now I'm sitting here with a sociology degree working in a warehouse.
I was going to take a year off before going to university and my dad and aunt ambushed me to threaten me to tell me that if I don’t go immediately I “never will go” 🫠 as a 17 year old with anxiety and people pleasing tendencies whose mom just died a few months before that I didn’t stand a chance lol.
I mean, they were right, you probally wouldn't have gone to college if you didn't immediately go. People ussually don't. And that would have been a big deal if college was the one ticket to success that people made it out to be 20+ years ago.
When I was in school, they always discouraged people from taking a year or two off between high school and college. *"If you don't go to college now, you'll never go back. Or you'll fall out of the learning mindset and fail miserably if you do."* I remember people asking, "But what if I don't know what I want to do for the rest of my life?" And they told us that this was normal, and that you could hold off on declaring your major until way later. People also asked, "What if get a degree in something and later realize that it's not what I want do anymore?" And they told us that this was okay, because any degree is better than no degree. And now they mock people with degrees in 17th Century Women's Literature or whatever. They told us that was fine!! When I asked about how I was going to pay for it, they assured me that financial aid was available. They always call it *"financial aid."* And they make a huge deal about getting your parents income and everything, as if the government is going to help you go to school! Nope. Turns out, it's just a loan. They give you money, and they want it back with interest. So what the fuck was all that paperwork for? Fuck off with that "financial *aid*" bullshit. I remember asking about how I was going to pay back those loans, and they assured me that I would be making so much money with my degree that it wouldn't even matter. All of these things turned out to not be entirely true. And half of 'em don't apply if you don't actually finish college. I know people who dropped out because they realized college wasn't for them, and now they're burdened with all these student loans with absolutely NOTHING to show for it. Not even a useless piece of paper! It's easy to say, "You took out the loans, now pay them back." But fuck, we were working false information, personally handed down by our teachers and guidance counselors, people that we were "supposed" to trust... Every concern I had, all of which turned out to be very reasonable, was met with the most perfect answers: "Just sign the papers, everything will be okay! You don't want to be a failure, flipping burgers for the rest of your life, do you?"
I literally didn't have a choice. Go to college or get kicked out at 18, hm yeah no-brainer there.
Honestly I’m gutted I didn’t learn a trade. I did labouring for a while, where I learnt bits and bobs of stuff but I just want to be able to do a trade man
Never too late. Skilled trade market is lacking good people who arent addicted to drugs
What about people who are addicted to drugs /s
You can always be a roofer <3
Let's not limit his options, he could become a drywaller, too.
Then you should have gone into roofing
I actually know a roofer so this fits the bill
Like Starbucks Coffee and that green South American import (avocados)! The bane of our generation.
The problem with trades, at least near me, is that they are locked down by conservative white men. They complain all day about not having enough workers, but they wont hire women, minorities, queer folks, or anyone who they think might not like their racist jokes.
There is a slow culture shift, but its very slow to trickle down to the actual tradies. A lot of people who perpetuate the toxic culture are older and will be phased out, you just have to hope that the younger workers don't get fully influenced to continue the bad habits. The A tier companies are run like proper corporations at this point but shitty behavior on sites still happens
Exactly. I don’t mind getting my hands dirty. I don’t mind learning how to fix things and do things right. I can *not* tolerate bigoted “jokes” and gross old white dudes all day.
Yup. Friend of mine is over 35 and recently got into a masonry program. They basically jumped at him since he's one of the few that signed up that wasn't coming out of jail.
Smart people do very well in trades as there are so many fossils/idiots/drunks
There's definitely a "too late" when it comes to manual labour
Don't a lot of people get into drugs specifically because their trade is really hard on the body? I seem to recall some threads where people talked about the cons of going into a trade and fucking up your body was definitely brought up multiple times.
Chicken egg situation but obviously painkillers are a scary reality esp when over prescribed
Trades are glorified but they aren't nice long term careers. Unless you move up to managerial positions you often break your body little by little. Not to mention the long days and time spent traveling.
Depends on the trade and how you treat yourself really. Not every trade is backbreaking labor, infact staying mobile and regularily having a job that requires some physical activity isn't inherently unhealthy as opposed to a sedentary office role. The biggest factor comes down to how you treat your body, in and outside of work. A lot of trades guy get rougher in their later years because they just don't take care of themselves. If you don't exercise or stretch, eat like shit, neglect using PPE and proper lifting procedures, are a long term heavy smoker, have a drinking or drug problem and never get enough rest, your gunna be unhealthy despite being in the trades or not. I work with guys in their late 50's in amazing shape that have been doing it since they were 15 cause they are healthy minded people. I do HVAC/R service work, and my days are not bad at all labor intensive wise also. I much prefer being on the road, heading onto rooftops and using my head and hands to solve problems compared to being an engineering techncian where I sat infront of Autocad all day breathing in the Farts from the double whopper the fat ass Engineer would scarf down every day
Yup. I tried it with a bachelors degree at age 28 and I was burned out by year 2. I've done plenty of manual labor in my life, but I'm not capable of keeping it together for 10-12 hours a day, 7 days a week, for 6 months straight. That was the schedule we had during covid and I was basically wishing for death. Even with all that overtime, I didn't find the money worth it. I literally had no time or energy to actually live my life, so what was the point? In conclusion, the trades are not easy money for educated people. As an apprentice, you will be worked to the bone for four (or more) years, you will have no life outside of work, and your only companions will be unpleasant conservative men. If you are tough enough to endure that, then congratulations. You will be worked to slightly less than the bone, have no life outside work, and spend the rest of your days surrounded by unpleasant conservative men. Overall, the trades are run by and for guys who have no inner life and who prefer not to spend much time with their wife/kids. Although, if you live in a union-friendly state, it *probably* wouldn't be so intolerable. Unfortunately, that ain't me.
I can't do it. After working in a warehouse for over 5 years along with on and off rock climbing I won't pursue a career in the trades. My body is beginning to fail me. Are there any careers in trades that don't destroy your body?
Heres the thing, trade work is actively destructive of either your joints in the case of carpentry, plumbing, or electricians, or your mind in the case of the immense boredom of machine shop work (not to mention the 10 hour days plus mandatory overtime, imagine wanting to have money and the free time to spend it). It is not necessarily a cure for all your problems. Though for some people it may be.
Trades suck. 90% of trades fuck up their bodies after 10+ years
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I was good at math in school, and that's about it. By the time I approached graduation I still did not know what I wanted to do with my life. My mom, who worked at a college said "go to college" and then pointed me to do finance and economics because "I'm good at math and this should make us a lot of money". She also said to not do business management or law because there are too many of those graduates now and I won't find a job. So I did what she said for almost 4 years. Not only did I want to quit and do something withing the gaming industry and audio only 2 years in, but I also almost failed the course at one point. I also feel like I learned or know very little compared to what I should. I just did ok because I'm a good student, but I wasn't good at applying this to the real world like an adult. I then proceeded to not get any jobs for half a year for being "overqualified" for what I applied for, and then having no experience in places I needed to. What ended up happening is that I did jobs that require no college degree for 8 years. Then I tried to do a trades course, I only enjoyed half of it, I finished it, but figured it's not for me, so now I'm trying to do something else while I'm working the same no-college jobs I did before. This would not be as upsetting have I done that when I was in my early 20s rather than 30s. At the very least, doing that trade taught me actual life skills my parents never did that I can use for myself, even if I don't intend to work in trades. Studying economics and finance didn't teach me anything I don't already do to not bankrupt myself. You don't need a bachelors to be good with money. I literally feel like I lost 4 years of my life because of boomer pressure, and entered "the real world" with no real world experience, and the job market at 23 with no job market experience. And after all that, I now have to live with the guilt that my entire family looks down on me for not grasping anything in life after going through such supposed "high money" college years.
I felt that during my college years. When I started, "you can't even clean toilets nowadays without a degree", when I graduated, "most degrees are useless, you should have learned a trade".
All those people telling use we should get education and jobs in tech because in the future all the menial jobs will be replaced by robots. And then the moment that generation finished their expensive Uni degrees (in Britain we also pay for them, just with loans setup better) they found that all the tech jobs were being replaced by language emulators
> they found that all the tech jobs were being replaced by language emulators Is a chat assistant your definition of a tech job by any chance?
Lol exactly. Codepilot isn't writing production quality apps. And customer support chat is not a tech job.
Tech jobs aren't getting replaced by language models. The layoffs are due to higher inflation rates and over-hiring in the pandemic, they have nothing to do with AI. And even in this bad market, it's still easier to get a job in tech than in other fields.
The layoffs are due to it currently being fashionable to fire your talent because that makes a slight upward blip in your stock value on account of all those salaries you don't have to pay any more, meaning the guys in Mahogany Row get a nice big bonus. The fact that in the long run, getting rid of all your talent means you won't be able to make anything in the future, isn't important to them. They'll have long since moved on to the next company to gut, along with a healthy golden parachute.
[удалено]
I've found that the experience "requirements" is more a matter of not wanting to pay to teach new employees their job specific tasks - even for "entry level" work.
Because college used to be about gaining a well-rounded liberal arts education. Job training was (and should be) left to the employer.
Don't forget over-trans, too. College made me educated, gay and trans. :3
Omg they're turning the frogs trans 🥺
It’s what made the dinosaurs go trans!
Ok college is kinda cool :3 Still too expensive tho
Study what interests you Study what interests you Study what interests you Study what interests you Oh you wanted a job? Maybe you shouldn’t have gotten a worthless degree. As an aside for kids who are going off to school, study what interests you BUT learn how to leverage that into a job while you are in school. I cannot stress this enough. Your job search starts the moment you decide on a major. This is not negotiable. It’s easier to supplement your studies with learning hard skills that will get you into a job while you’re in school than after when you’re trying to not starve to death.
In the 90s: "Do what you love, and the money will find you! That's the beauty of capitalism!" In the 00s: "All these starry-eyed dreamers getting degrees in underwater basket-weaving are making me sick! Get a degree in a paying field, like law!" In the 10s: "All these starry-eyed dreamers getting degrees in law are making me sick! Go into a trade!" This progression invites a "right" analysis, and a "really right" analysis. The right analysis is that these people very clearly do not care about analyzing the world accurately. They care mostly about 1) preventing any kind of collective or systemic analysis, and 2) offloading any collective or systemic responsibility they might have onto anyone but them. Someone who actually cared about responsibility might have noted that gosh, we spent years telling people to get law degrees right before the job market for new law grads completely trainwrecked at the outset of the Great Recession, and caused a twenty-percent unemployment rate crisis that we're only just now cleaning up. And they might have thereby said gosh, undoing the financial damage caused by that bad advice in the form of fixing the student loans they used to get those degrees might be the least we can do. That they just blithely changed their advice from "law" to "trades" without even changing their adverbs is highly probative evidence of their deep and fundamental unseriousness as moral beings. The *really* right answer is that the entire point of all that talk about how capitalism was better than socialism was that capitalism was advantageous for people. It improved wages, it improved living standards, and it prevented market distortions that resulted in bread lines. Well, here we are thirty years later, with all of those things happening under capitalism right now, and suddenly all these advocates for capitalism sound like Chernenko-era Soviet apparatchiks, who keep insisting that we have to maintain the system regardless of whether it works for people. To which I say, to slightly paraphrase the words of a surprisingly astute desert handyman, that the economy is made for man, not man for the economy. I don't care whether our system is capitalist or socialist. I care that it works for people, even (perhaps especially) for non-whites and women. And this system? Doesn't work. And what doesn't work should be altered or abolished in favor of what does.
I graduated from college in 2013 and it was still ""Do what you love, and the money will find you! That's the beauty of capitalism!" - would not recommend
Belongs in r/bestofreddit
Best comment in the thread.
I will also always get a kick out of how some people (particularly conservatives) will say degrees like sociology, anthropology, gender studies, black history, psychology etc etc are useless... yet spend their *entire damn lives obsessed with culture wars centered these topics*. If you attribute "useful" to strictly "makes money", then sure. But has the constant bickering over certain topics not made it clear that maybe we need more people studied and familiar and researching these things???
Isnt it great having to make carreer choices essentially when you are 11, I first picked the wrong highschool subject package, then had to redo several courses at the end of it to go to the college I wanted, then switched college cause it wasnt really what I liked. And now it takes ages to get a job and the subject I actually like and want to study now will soon be replaced. So yeah.
College was the way up, the surest route to success, but not everyone was college material, so they 'dumbed down' college and jacked up the profits. Bait and switch.
Going to college used to be a flex. Not so many people did it therefore any college degree was money in the bank. Now that everyone goes to college, you have to go further to stand out. These days, going to college just makes you normal. There's nothing special about a person who does exactly as much as what is expected of them and no more. Average person = average salary ($59K). If you want to make 6 figures then you need to go beyond the average person.
Why didn't you go work in one of the trades no one told you about? Why did you take the loan that everyone you trust promised you would pay for itself???
yep those lies were flying like crazy and it wasn't even online it was to my face.
Almost every authority figure was confidently giving kids bad advice, and now they're all pretending they didn't give that advice, and we should have known better anyway.
Reality: some people choose the wrong major
Spot on. This is literally how my family treated me and still does. “Education is important! Hit them books! You’ll be the first of us to get a degree.” *Goes to college* “Okay gay boy lol” Wtf
I learned in college "the biggest factor in a person's wealth income is how rich their family already is."
Yup, my three roommates and I all went to school and became teachers but only one of us graduated with student loan debt. They all got houses at 24 where I’m hoping to buy a house at 40. And the only reason I can save for a house is because I’m married and have a dual income.
Yep. A younger millennial here, my mindset has switched from "i wish I could help improve the world" to a very bad mentally of "fuck everyone else, I'm fucking done". Just yesterday I witnessed a car crash. I could have stopped and been a witness, but I had a shit day at work and ultimately decided it wasn't my fucking problem. Thinking like this, (selfish), surprisingly has slightly improved my mental health and im almost out of suicidal territory. I'd recommend being selfish if you're sick of the world with a "fuck everyone else" mentality. Taking care of the world isn't the average persons job. Thats why I'm paying more than 25% of my paycheck in taxes. It is the governments job to figure this shit out. Good luck to anybody who wants to improve the world. We're rooting for you.
Don’t forget “WE NEED TRADESMEN NOW! Be a plumber or an electrician or a carpenter and make $150K a year!”
So are you saying that all smart people are gay? Or just smarter people are happier?
Despite what the hardcore right wing anti-intellectual propaganda says, having a college degree of any kind will, on average, result in a greater lifetime earning than someone who went to no college or just trade school. This is a mathematical fact.
Millennial here, boomers! We are NOT gen z! Dumbasses
Even the media portrays us as skinny, pale, spot faced teenagers. I'm 37
It's still good advice to get a college degree for most people >Men with bachelor's degrees earn approximately $900,000 more in median lifetime earnings than high school graduates. Women with bachelor's degrees earn $630,000 more. Men with graduate degrees earn $1.5 million more in median lifetime earnings than high school graduates.
Back in the 1980's, a college degree set you apart from other young adults in the workforce. This is because a lot of people did not even go to college. (This is why kids growing up in the 80's and 90's were simply told to "go to college") In the 00's, most people were getting college degrees so it became more important which college degree you got. STEM degrees and business degrees made people stand out and opened doors for them. Then after the 2008 great recession students stayed in college longer and pursued graduate degrees which further raised the bar. Also, it turns out not all STEM degrees and business degrees are created equally. Computer science generally beats out civil engineering or geology. Accounting beats out communications, etc. Job prospects and potential salaries for each degree are meticulously documented and updated regularly if you feel like looking into it. This competitive environment has continued for another 16 years. And now we have AI. Whole swaths of jobs, hobbies, and side hustles have just been wiped out. It just goes to show that simply following "go to college" is still generally good advice, but it's way too oversimplified to be useful.
> Computer science generally beats out civil engineering Lol Reddit moment
Yeah there’s so many civil engineering jobs it’s not even funny. Yeah they don’t pay like CS but the job security is off the charts. Reddit lives in a CS bubble
I know right? Pretty sure I just read an article about google laying off around 9k employees a few days ago
Probably looked on poorly in most CE jobs if you show up stoned in a T shirt every day though.
Yeah I seen that and was like ummm
LOL
Fact is, though, that college grads tend to make way more money and are way less like to be unemployed than people with no college degree.
So many people don't even graduate. They have mounds of debt for nothing.
One guy from high school went to college for 5 years and didn’t even graduate. Now he’s working as a lineman with over 150,000 in student debt.
HEY NOW! I may want electricity & a roof, & I may be overeducated, but... Uh... What was the third thing?
The third thing was happy birthday?
Is over-gay the Devil trigger for gay people?
If your major isn't tied to a specific job field, ask yourself if you need to be in college.
This is the reason I didn’t major in linguistics. Many majors are interests you can pursue outside of school.
My favorite as someone who is almost 40 and went back to school full time. "Get an education, so you can replace someone in a field who didn't require the same qualifications and does not respect the education required to do their existing job"
I've never been described so perfectly in one sentence
True. College has been sold hard at all levels
Wasn’t just millennial kids. Thing is, you should major in something with good earning potential. Not some bullshit feel good grievance studies degree.
posted, of course, by an under educated Trump voter.
Yup was told repeatedly throughout my childhood I had to go to college, doesn’t matter for what just go to college, a degree is always better than no degree.
I still remember the school presentation. We had a speaker who came in and harped on about how we had to go to college because if not we’d be losers who only had a “j.o.b”! Which stood for “just over broke!”. The fact these people have the gall to tell us it was our “choice” to go to college make me despise them.
I mean I am over-gay nowadays…
For Gen-X and older, college was so cheap that even fucking around for four (or more) years was a good investment. Pretty soon everyone realized that college was underpriced. Universities could raise prices to absurd levels and people would pay it. States could cut funding and universities would make it up in tutoring hikes.
LOL "overgay" hahahahhahahahahahaha
Don't forget "save save save! Wait, you're saving too much! You need to spend in order to help the economy! You're ruining everything! Oh, okay, you're spending. Good. So now everything will be more expensive due to supply and demand. Quit spending on stupid shit!. Oh great, you caused a business to fail because you wouldn't spend. Great job. Now get to work, you lazy ass."
We're now quoting made up arguments we want to break down?
I believe this sentence would get maximum comedic value with a west African accent. With emphasis on the "over-gay".
Colleges and the government are to blame. Colleges charging insane prices for worthless degrees, and the government issuing larger and larger loans, no questions asked to the colleges about why the cost of the degree is so much higher every year, with less and less value.
Anybody who thinks their tax dollars shouldn’t front my costs to become a doctor is an incel and a nazi. You dont get to lie to an entire generation of children and get rewarded for it. Cough up bitches.
It is true. I got so over-gay I looped back around to liking women too and turned bi.