You are partially right, but gainful employment isn't the end-all, be-all. I finished engineering without debt and with plenty of excellent experience, and had no problem finding a great job at a great company. Yet, I can sympathize with much of what the article talks about and see plenty of it in my peers, including those who graduated from engineering with me.

I happened to choose an interesting and well-paying career when I was 17 or so. I certainly don't think it was a choice I made because I was wise, but mostly because of luck and happenance. Most others, I think, did not get so lucky, and now they have to deal not only with that, but with economic policies firmly aligned against them.

The most interesting thing perhaps is how global this phenomenon is. You have the above quarterlife crisis in north america, you have rioting muslim youth France, rioting Greek youth in Greece, massive protests and instability in Iran, the so-called "Mileuristas" in Spain (that is, people living on 1000 euros a month), etc etc.

Dismissing all of this with a simple wave of the hand about the whining of young people shows a complete lack of understanding.

> the so-called "Mileuristas" in Spain (that is, people living on 1000 euros a month)

As a side note - is that considered an unlivable low wage?

Although I now have a comfy programmer job that pays a lot more than what I spend, I have for many years lived on less than 1000 Euros a month (sometimes significantly so, and in Vienna, Austria - which is probably more expansive than most of Spain).

Also, I'm pretty sure the Spanish parents of the current generation of late 20's/early 30's earned less on average than 1000 Euros a month (even adjusted to inflation) when they were their age.

The only similiarities between the Quarterlife Crisis people the article talks about and rioting muslims in France or protesters in Iran is that they are young and unhappy. The reasons for their discontent are completely different.

This is hardly a global phenomenon. You can maybe see a weaker version of it in other developed western countries. But even young people in Europe... well, they don't have the debt when graduating from college and they also don't have the "You're special!" sense of entitlement. At least not to the extent that suburbanite Americans do.

Maybe that proves it has nothing to do with "You're special" meme OR debt.

I'm 26 year old from central Europe. And these feelings are all to familiar with me - especially from observing what's going on with my peers.

What I see is that generation of our parents - the boomers took all and everything they could - it feels like they didn't leave anything to us. Except the task of cleaning up leftovers of their broken dreams. Picking up their debts - their broken pension system, etc.

It seems to me that boomers are "the entitled generation" and our generation will be know as - the useless generation. In my country the unemployment amongst young 20 - 30 is 30% of all unemployed - quite a lot well educated. Why? Because you can't get job without experience and vice versa. While boomers created system that educated us and hold positions of power while bitching how unfair the system is to their children.

To say I'm a computer engineer without debt and with good career prospects. But not enough income to support family solo - my GF is one of those educated young people who cant get work. Meaning we obviously aren't going to do anything about improving our demographic situation anytime soon.

So we either have the option of living blue collar class lifestyle (thus negating our effort in education) OR screwing over the society.

:)

> my GF is one of those educated young people who cant get work.

Can't get work, or won't accept work she considers beneath her, there's a big difference. I'm fairly sure finding a job as a waitress just about anywhere is rather easy.

Have you ever tried applying to somewhere considered 'low' when you have some questionably spectacular mentions on your resume? Most anywhere will at best consider you a joke and at worst suspect. You really have to dumb down your skills and experience if you're trying to move to a new location or get a temporary job for those with education/experience in a location that does not have the job areas your resume reflects. (against the rebuttal argument, 'you can always move' - no, you can't.)

There is always the charge leveled at the young and educated of being lazy and aloof when in the situation of not having a job yet with a nice resume but, well, it can still be hard. Even dropping items on a resume paints a picture of little experience and usually ends you up with a position that makes it more difficult to find a job elsewhere. Do you know how tired you get after a 16 hour manual labor job? You don't really feel that inclined to brush up on the latest ruby packages.

Yet someone almost always brings up the fact that they heard a story or they themselves found a job through some ingenious idea at marketing themselves or spectacular networking in an area that didn't know they needed their skills until they showed them and found a job. Well that doesn't work for everyone. Most places are just as boring and closed minded in their business practices as every one assumes, and never try something new unless forced (why do you think start-ups succeed so spectacularly otherwise?).

</rant>

Your entire rebuttal rant still hinges on the selfishness with that "what I want attitude". It doesn't matter what you want, it matters what you have to do to survive. If you have to trim your resume then you do it, if you have to take a job completely unrelated to what you have training in then you do it.

That's life, that's what every previous generation had to deal with and it's what your generation has to deal with and the discomfort is not caused by the situation, but but the false expectations educated youth seem to have about life being about what "they want". Poor uneducated youth don't have this problem, they've been in the real world and know life ain't fair and young people get shit on. That's just the world, nothings changed.

I can't say that your statement has no merit.

However, it's still kinda weird how modern communities educate such vast numbers of people in fields where careers don't even exist (eg. liberal arts, biochemistry, biology,... for my country).

There is always a possibility of being a craftsman or entrepreneur - but that is not for everybody (it takes a special personality to have a go at that).

As for being a waitress - what she is doing currently is not far from that - but it is not something a person would aspire to do for whole life. Especially if you were a good girl/boy and studied hard - but then got shafted. :)

I graduated in 2002 and got a "crappy" programming job for 38k. I mentioned I only made that to a friend who said she had worked for 30 years and never made that much money. A few years later I was unemployed for 6 months and I still made far more money that year than she did.

It's not that we can't get waitress just so much as it's a drop in the bucket. Heck, my unemployment check paid more than an entry level job for far less effort.

And programming is one of those area's where skill alone can land you really good money, but it's the exception, not the rule. It's just really fucking hard compared to what most people can do so like all things, skills bring money. The fact is most people work as unskilled labor. If you can learn to do a job sufficiently in a couple of months, you're an unskilled laborer.

For those people, numbers like 38k, 40k, and 50k sound absolutely fucking HUGE. People often work a decade or more to get numbers like that. Programmers really are just ridiculously spoiled.