ElecEngineer
Confused about dryer sheets
- Joined
- Apr 5, 2013
- Messages
- 1
I have to say I finally found a thread that I wanted to respond bad enough to create an account. I've been a lurker around here for a couple of years now.
GenY person here. I think that it is somewhat more difficult for my generation to get ahead but I think it is the doing of most of my peers parents. They don't have a clear understanding that the labor market has changed and the days of "just go get a job" are over. Well at least in the sense of traditional good jobs. However, the majority of it comes from my generation living a life of being coddled and thinking that certain jobs are menial and below them.
I'm 25 and DW and I now have an income that would put us in the top 5% of filers. Very blessed and thankful for what we have but my road of hard work started MUCH earlier than nearly all my peers. I specifically remember being driven around the last week that I was 15, walking in every fast food/retail place in town trying to find a job. I eventually ended up in a fast food position and worked it through high school. My dad "bought" me a car and taught me about credit as I had to make payments to purchase it from him, pay the insurance, gas, and my portion of the cell phone bill. At $5.50/hr this left very little blow money for me. This was a very different lifestyle than all of my friends in high school experienced as most parents purchased them cars and only about 10% of my class had PT jobs. I never got to go to "the party" because I always had to work weekends. I remember a classmate telling me to "just quit, he's not going to take your car away." I explained to him that he would take it apart piece by piece and sell it for scrap before he would let me drive one mile without paying him for it. Just a different way of being raised I suppose.
It was also made very clear to me from a young age that college was not something that would be paid for by my parents and I was expected to pay my own way. (Neither of my parents graduated HS but dad joined the military and eventually opened up a successful small business). I worked my tail off taking every free ACT/SAT test prep class my school offered and applying for every 3rd party scholarship I could find. I eventually received a full tuition scholarship to a state school but I still had to work 24-32 hrs a week to pay room/board. I didn't have an oppurtunity to "find myself" as the scholarship was only for 8 semesters so I chose a reasonable major.
I ended up getting married in college at 21 and I had another person that I was responsible for. DW helped by working and I sold plasma for extra cash. Two people living together can always live cheaper than separately. I graduated college very near the bottom of the recession and I was thankful to earn a job upon graduation. It wasn't the job of my dreams but I had a family to support. It actually taught me very important skills that allowed me to springboard into my much more lucrative career now. We always seem to end up where we NEED to be rather than where we WANT to be.
Most of my highschool and college classmates that graduated in the recession and had never had a boss in their lives. They did/do not know how to conduct themselves in an interview or in an environment with professionals. They are still looked at as a child instead of a grown adult, because nothing in their lives has made them into adults yet. I type all this out to say that the American dream is NOT dead, but I think it takes a little more work to make it. I would say that of my classmates on 20% are in careers. The others may be working but mom/dad are still supporting them in some way.
Sorry for the long post.
GenY person here. I think that it is somewhat more difficult for my generation to get ahead but I think it is the doing of most of my peers parents. They don't have a clear understanding that the labor market has changed and the days of "just go get a job" are over. Well at least in the sense of traditional good jobs. However, the majority of it comes from my generation living a life of being coddled and thinking that certain jobs are menial and below them.
I'm 25 and DW and I now have an income that would put us in the top 5% of filers. Very blessed and thankful for what we have but my road of hard work started MUCH earlier than nearly all my peers. I specifically remember being driven around the last week that I was 15, walking in every fast food/retail place in town trying to find a job. I eventually ended up in a fast food position and worked it through high school. My dad "bought" me a car and taught me about credit as I had to make payments to purchase it from him, pay the insurance, gas, and my portion of the cell phone bill. At $5.50/hr this left very little blow money for me. This was a very different lifestyle than all of my friends in high school experienced as most parents purchased them cars and only about 10% of my class had PT jobs. I never got to go to "the party" because I always had to work weekends. I remember a classmate telling me to "just quit, he's not going to take your car away." I explained to him that he would take it apart piece by piece and sell it for scrap before he would let me drive one mile without paying him for it. Just a different way of being raised I suppose.
It was also made very clear to me from a young age that college was not something that would be paid for by my parents and I was expected to pay my own way. (Neither of my parents graduated HS but dad joined the military and eventually opened up a successful small business). I worked my tail off taking every free ACT/SAT test prep class my school offered and applying for every 3rd party scholarship I could find. I eventually received a full tuition scholarship to a state school but I still had to work 24-32 hrs a week to pay room/board. I didn't have an oppurtunity to "find myself" as the scholarship was only for 8 semesters so I chose a reasonable major.
I ended up getting married in college at 21 and I had another person that I was responsible for. DW helped by working and I sold plasma for extra cash. Two people living together can always live cheaper than separately. I graduated college very near the bottom of the recession and I was thankful to earn a job upon graduation. It wasn't the job of my dreams but I had a family to support. It actually taught me very important skills that allowed me to springboard into my much more lucrative career now. We always seem to end up where we NEED to be rather than where we WANT to be.
Most of my highschool and college classmates that graduated in the recession and had never had a boss in their lives. They did/do not know how to conduct themselves in an interview or in an environment with professionals. They are still looked at as a child instead of a grown adult, because nothing in their lives has made them into adults yet. I type all this out to say that the American dream is NOT dead, but I think it takes a little more work to make it. I would say that of my classmates on 20% are in careers. The others may be working but mom/dad are still supporting them in some way.
Sorry for the long post.