Heirs of entitlement

Excellent story from Yahoo News from the perspective of employers frustrated at the air of entitlement that the new crop of grads comes with.

Martha Irvine, AP National Writer, writes about "the entitlement generation."

Here's an excerpt because I couldn't make the link work:

Now, deserved or not, this latest generation is being pegged... as one with shockingly high expectations for salary, job flexibility and duties but little willingness to take on grunt work or remain loyal to a company.

"We're seeing an epidemic of people who are having a hard time making the transition to work — kids who had too much success early in life and who've become accustomed to instant gratification," says Dr. Mel Levine, a pediatrics professor at the University of North Carolina Medical School and author of a book on the topic called "Ready or Not, Here Life Comes."

While Levine also notes that today's twentysomethings are long on idealism and altruism, "many of the individuals we see are heavily committed to something we call 'fun.'"

He partly faults coddling parents and colleges for doing little to prepare students for the realities of adulthood and setting the course for what many disillusioned twentysomethings are increasingly calling their "quarter-life crisis."

Meanwhile, employers from corporate executives to restaurateurs and retailers are frustrated.

"It seems they want and expect everything that the 20- or 30-year veteran has the first week they're there," says Mike Amos, a Salt Lake City-based franchise consultant for Perkins Restaurants.

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Reminds me of the newly hired reporter at the Corpus Christi paper who popped his head into my office one day and said he was frustrated with his low-level story assignments. He'd been on the job only a few months.

"How do I get a column like yours?" the 22-year-old said.

My answer: "Become a better writer than everyone else in the newsroom. Win awards. Work like hell. Prove that your opinion is worth printing."

"So how long do you think it'll take me to become a columnist?" he says.

"Oh, 10 or 20 years should do it," I said, "depending on how good your writing is by then."

He wasn't happy with that answer.