Those Young Whippersnappers

I'm not really a part of Generation X or the new "Entitlement Generation", but I have seen this new entitlement attitude in my job lately. I'm glad to know that it's not a problem with my company's hiring process, rather a widespread shift in attitudes toward work.

I'm not that old, but I entered the workforce back in '97 in the middle of the tech boom. I worked for one of the big consulting companies and the expectation was that you would work long hours doing the lowest level grunt work. We were fairly well compensated for the level of work we were doing. We all knew that if you could make it through a few years, you could advance and move into more managerial roles. If you complained about the work or the hours, you probably weren't going to last very long.

In my current job, which is mostly project management within the company, I've seen people coming out of college wanting it all and wanting it right now. There's no long term attitude of "paying your dues." It's to be expected that those of us with a few more years of experience resent this attitude a bit.

Maybe those young whippersnappers are right and this new philosophy on employment will change the workplace. Most likely, we will see companies struggle with large turnover ratios and increased training expenses as the "I-want-it-all-now" workers bounce from job to job in search of greener grass.