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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Monday, July 4, 2005

Younger workers want it all, now

By Martha Irvine
Associated Press

CHICAGO — Evan Wayne thought he was prepared for anything during a recent interview for a job in radio sales.

Evan Wayne, 24, spent part of last month relaxing while between jobs. A member of the so-called "entitlement generation," Wayne says he plans to work hard when he starts his new job at a radio station.

Kathy Willens • Associated Press

Then the interviewer hit the 24-year-old Chicagoan with this: "So, we call you guys the 'Entitlement Generation,' " the baby boomer executive said, expressing a frequently heard view of today's young workforce. "You think you're entitled to everything."

Such labeling is, perhaps, a rite of passage for every crop of twentysomethings. In their day, baby boomers were rabble-rousing hippies, while Gen Xers were apathetic slackers.

Now, deserved or not, this latest generation is being pegged, too — 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 "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 disillusioned twentysomethings are increasingly calling their "quarter-life crisis."

Meanwhile, employers 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 franchise consultant for Perkins Restaurants.

Just about any twentysomething will tell you they know someone like this, and may even have some of those high expectations themselves.

Wayne had this response for his interviewer at the radio station: "Maybe we WERE spoiled by your generation. But I think the word 'entitled' isn't necessarily the word," he said. "Do we think we're deserving if we're going to go out there and bust our ass for you? Yes."

He ended up getting the job — and, as he gets ready for his first day, is vowing to work hard.

Some experts who study young people think having some expectations, and setting limits with bosses, isn't necessarily negative.

"It's true they're not eager to bury themselves in a cubicle and take orders from bosses for the next 40 years, and why should they?" asks Jeffrey Arnett, a University of Maryland psychologist who has written a book on "emerging adulthood," the period between ages 18 and 25. "They have a healthy skepticism of the commitment their employers have to them and the commitment they owe to their employers."

Many young people also want to avoid becoming another cog working for a faceless giant.

Anthony DeBetta, a 23-year-old New Yorker, works with other twentysomethings at a small marketing firm — and says the company's size makes him feel like he can make a difference.

"We have a vested interest in the growth of this firm," he says.

Elsewhere, Liz Ryan speculates that a more relaxed work environment at the networking company she runs for professional women — no set hours and "a lot of latitude in how our work gets done" — helps inspire her younger employees.

"Maybe twentysomethings have figured out something that boomers like me took two decades to piece together: namely, that there's more to life than by-the-book traditional career success," says Ryan, who is 45.

As much as some employers would like to resist the trend, a growing number are searching for ways to retain twentysomething employees — and to figure out what makes them tick.

"The manager who says I don't have time for that is going to be stuck on the endless turnover treadmill," says Eric Chester, a consultant who works with corporations to understand what he calls "kidployees," ages 16 to 24.

At Children's Memorial Hospital in Chicago, for instance, administrators have developed an internship with mentoring and more training for young nurses that has curbed turnover by more than 50 percent and increased job satisfaction.

Neil Heyse, an instructor at Pennsylvania's Villanova University, has started MyGuidewire, which provides career coaching for young people.

"It's a hot issue and I think it's getting hotter all the time," Heyse says of work readiness. "There's a great amount of anxiety beneath the surface."