For The Millennials Who Are Sick And Tired Of Being Called Entitled

By

I am a recent college graduate. And like so many others just like me I am being slammed with titles like “entitled” or “snowflake” by all of you. I am sitting here, almost six months after graduating with my Bachelors Degree, having worked all through college, held professional internships and graduating with a good grade point average, jobless. Every day I log on to my social media and a select few of my friends, or online acquaintances you haven’t even graduated yet, will announce that they have accepted a full time position here or there for after the cross the stage. And to be honest this has me feeling a little robbed, as I’m sure so many of my counterparts do.

But here is the thing, you all told us our whole lives that if we worked hard, went to school, graduated college, held an internship or two through our years and managed to flip that tassel from one side to the other with a decent GPA, that we would indeed be able to find a good job, make some money and start living our lives on our terms. While I’m sure those who are excitedly announcing jobs, internships, or decisions to pursue grad school busted their asses in similar fashion, what about the rest of us?

Those of us who are quickly being shoved toward taking the minimum or just above minimum wage job, we could have gotten without the $100,000 piece of paper, are being belittle by all of you to be grateful for having a job at all. You are claiming we are “entitled”, that we shouldn’t expect anything that it all needs to be worked for. However, you definitely made sure we expected if we followed your advice that it would come to pass just as you had said.

I am honestly so happy for my fellow millennial adults who were lucky enough to hit the ground running with post grad jobs, but for the rest of us, those of us struggling, we aren’t entitled or being “snowflakes” for wanting what you told us would be ours if we listened to you. Because for most us this is our reality, we are being forced into jobs, yes jobs meaning multiple, that don’t require a degree, something we paid thousands of dollars for, and gave thousands of hours of our time to get, just to be able to live.

This isn’t some high school drop out believing that she deserves $15 an hour working at Micky D’s. These are the educated population, those who have the higher education, many who spent their free time working to pay off college, which despite what you may say, oh we did it too, is much harder with wages not rising as quickly as the cost of school, who have spent the time they don’t have working internships to gain “real” world experience to show future employers.

And yet, with all of that you are still saying we need to be thankful because we have a job at all even though we are four year grads, might I add many of us graduated in less then that, working along those same high school dropouts we are suppose to be inspiring to get back into school. Not a very inspiring picture, go spend your entire life savings, go in debt, do whatever it takes to get the degree, just land right back whre you started.

So please, stop slapping us with this title of “snowflake” or “entitlement” as we try to find ways to work through our frustration. Because we listen, we listened to your advice about working hard, going to school, gaining experience, making connections, we did it all, and so yes we turn around and might expect that what you said would be ours after all of that is really there.

But instead many of us our faced with a different reality, one that we don’t blame you for, but don’t say that we should expect anything when you are the ones, you raised our expectations in the first place. In this instance you are to blame for this “entitlement” you call it. You made us feel if we heeded the lessons you taught, we would be entitled to a better job than the ones we had to make movie money in high school. Don’t turn around and claim we shouldn’t feel this way, because you are the ones who entitled us to it.

Sincerely,

A Frustrated Post Grad