Because they’re not the entitled Slackoisie. Because they say so.
1. We play by our own rules.
2. We don’t take the first answer given to us.
3. We don’t care about getting into trouble.
4. We’re willing to work for nothing if it means being happy… Despite being in debt.
5. We know how to beat the system.
6. We’re always trying to change the game.
7. We have social media on our side.
8. We like a good fight.
9. We don’t care about the perks.
10. We hate that “old boys club” sh*t.
11. We’re not about climbing the ladder, we’re about circumventing it.
12. We ask for what we want rather than implying it.
13. We’re not afraid to quit if we don’t like what’s going on.
14. We’re not on that suit and tie.
15. We’d rather start work at 10 and finish at 10.
16. We’ve got youth on our side.
17. We don’t have a chip on our shoulders.
18. We know technology a hell of a lot better.
19. We’re more educated, by the book and the street.
20. We’re not interested in office politics.
21 . We have less to lose and everything to gain.
22. We don’t pursue the paycheck, we pursue the passion.
23. We have that “f*ck you” attitude.
24. We are trying to beat the system, not just work with it.
25. We don’t have to go to college to get ahead.
26. We’re getting married later and working younger.
27. We’re listening to our women.
28. We want freedom more than anything else.
29. We would rather die a slow death than sit in cubicles.
30. We know they need us more than we need them.
31. We distribute the news, not the other way around.
32. We don’t care as much about profit as we do the product.
33. We’re willing to listen to one another.
34. We understand whom we’re talking to.
35. We don’t do drug tests.
36. We’re open to any gender, sexual orientation and race.
37. We know what makes us happy.
38. We know what doesn’t make us happy.
39. We learned from our parents mistakes.
40. We’ve defined them, they haven’t defined us.
41. We’d rather travel and be poor than be rich and never see the world.
42. We don’t take life too seriously.
43. We understand we’re all going to die someday.
44. We’d rather have experiences than bank statements.
45. We refuse to hate what we do.
46. We know there’s always a better way.
47. We want careers, not jobs.
48. We have passion.
49. We have morals.
50. We have each other.
My fave is the introductory line, “They tell us we’re lazy, then ask us for a loan.” You have to first have money before you can give someone a loan. It doesn’t count if the people asking for the loan were the ones who gave you the money in the first place. Now pause the game and lift up your feet so mommy can vacuum the rug.
Discover more from Simple Justice
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Rather than coming off cutting-edge or avant garde or whatever they’re aiming for, this reads like ad copy from a commercial for e-widgets.com from 1998 or so… the days before the dotcom bubble burst.
I was amazed he made it all the way to 50 without getting bored. My alt title was “50 Shades of Cheetos,” but I was afraid younger readers will misconstrue it as old guy sex stories.
“44. We’d rather have experiences than bank statements.” Fuck that guy.
And seriously? “28. We want freedom more than anything else” – people my age keep using that word “freedom”, but I do not think it means what they think it means.
I found this interesting.
Sexist much? Except it’s written by a woman, and she doesn’t realize what she wrote?
The best part of the whole thing is the author’s bio at the bottom. It makes it somehow perfect.
It really is perfect:
Oh yeah, loved that part. Especially after all that bragging about understanding technology, etc., and then reading “unable to pass Calc 1, she chose to study the beautiful and honorable art of advertising.” Oh, and advertising. Right. Way to be a rebel, dude!
And when she failed at everything else she decided to become a writer.
Now this just irritates me–it implies that “successful writer” is a fallback that any idiot can manage. No, it isn’t. It takes a lot of persistence and work at improving one’s craft to be a good writer. As for the rest of
it, anyone who says “they’d rather be broke than bored” has never been actually poor.
But this wasn’t clear by context?
That would depend on not just the context of the article, but the context of the reader.
The “experience of the world” I bring to the article tells me that the writer has confused “being blue-collar/lower-middle class” with “poor”. I know “Millenials” who are scraping by paycheck-to-paycheck in minimum-wage jobs who would be utterly delighted to work in a cubicle for a decent paycheck, and would far rather be bored than have to choose between paying the rent or paying for their medicine.
However, I can see that if one were young, had grown up in a comfortable middle-class or better home, and one’s only experience of “poverty” was being a college student on a limited budget, one might romanticize turning one’s back on unpleasant jobs. Or something.
The article is also stupid with over- and under-generalization; both “my generation all do X” and the implied “no other generation does X”, both of which are wrong.
It’s more difficult for those who are unfamiliar with the Slackoisie. But it’s a big internet. I can’t account for the sensibilities of all readers. Some just won’t get it. Much as it makes me sad, there is no way to change that.
Please, if you think that this is representative of millenials because it was written by one, you are falling prey to the same trap as the author. I am a millenial and none of this garbage applies to me. Whoever wrote that article is an idiot.
I love the #NotAllMillennials reaction. No really, I do.
Although having sat through more than a few senior corporate managers blathering on about “quality” and how the company is “like a family” and how “we’ve all got to pull together as a team” and “manage through change” to “achieve our vision”… Lauren Martin’s article is just the entry-level mirror image of the same BS. They kinda deserve each other.
Except senior managers know they’re spewing crap (except HR, which never learns).
Don’t let the myths surrounding the intergenerational transfer of knowledge confuse you. Relax, wedged in between arthritic cynicism and not looking forward to doing this weekends household chores is an undiscovered playground of madness and delight.
I don’t know…but who amongst you would not enjoy the merriment of a conversation with this specimen of “independence”?
She may not be able to see the kink potential of the pencil skirt just yet but hey she has probably never been to the opera either.
She seriously seems to like lists however, god only knows why but bless her heart. Go check out Lauren’s other “list articles” up there under the esteemed one’s link to whatever publication that is he stumbled upon. (Who knows if he stumbled. Perhaps, the esteemed one has a stealth contract with the NYT Sunday Inserts to field test authors?)
Anyway, you are all missing the point, Lauren might have what it takes to do what you only dreamed of in your youth.
In fact I can see her pulling off drinking a Saturday morning PBR with her grandfather while he tinkers around in the barn, then stoping by her folks house for a homemade lunch at noon to pick up her laundry, before heading to her aunt’s house later in the afternoon to get stoned with her in the garden while sitting on a rock and venting while she watches her aunt do all the work, and then kicking it back at a backyard party that night with her ME peers talking about menstrual sex in-between bitching about what assholes her parents can be and suckers they are while bullshiting about the merits of the bottle of whiskey she is passing around.
All is not lost. I reckon if a select few of the back page readers of SJ crashed their party we could have them listening to the tunes on our iPods in an hour or so while they gleefully fetch us beer and when they are done worshiping the quality and craftsmanship that went into 1970’s all brass dugouts my guess is we will be smoking their weed too.
There is nothing like the look in the eyes of folks in their twenties (who had a “sheltered” upbringing) when they see the slight wear in something functional that was well made out metal that is older then they are. It’s like magic but not nearly as fun as the bewildered looks you get when they ask what you “used to do” for a living and you tell them what you still do for a living and why.
P.S. Stop picking on the children esteemed one.
It’s the “for a living” thing that gets them all confused.
What I read is much ME … ME … ME. Nothing about giving. I read about knowledge but not about wisdom.
That’s the defining feature of the entitled Slackoisie.
23. We have that “f*ck you” attitude.
Censoring that particular word is at odds with the point of writing it. Fuck.
Good point.