It should be noted that if one does a linear regression on a graph of frequency of divorce vs. frequency of graphing things in marriage, the correlation coefficient is r = 0.87, where 5 graphs per day in a relationship leads, ultimately, to a messy divorce involving multiple lawyers, blunt character assassinations, and the sacrificing of many small animals. I am declining to post the graph in order to maximize my odds of that never happening.
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We just got back from seeing a matinee showing of The Hobbit, Lemurita and I. It was fun. She only jumped and said “Ew” twice, once when she spilled Orange Crush on herself.
Lemurita and I both felt that the giant eagles totally Roc’ed.
Hackerboy and Cruel Wife stayed at home and played Lego Harry Potter.
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h/t to The Dude for passing on this pic of the day.
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Warning: RANT AHEAD
This has been in my “to-do” box for some time. It’s a mention of how life has been… unfair… to Gen Y’ers. See, apparently someone along the way promised them puppies, unicorns, moonbeams, Hope and Charge, and all of the perks to be found at Big Rock Candy Mountain.
American Dream Fades for Generation Y Professionals
Eighteen months and two busted jobs later, the daughter of a retired physician and a former editor at Vogue circled back to upstate New York and hunkered down at a small legal office that pays about one-quarter of her former $165,000 salary.
Hey, life is hard. I was laid off a day after our honeymoon ended, eight months later moved across country away from family and friends, and found/took a job making peanuts after losing most everything we had. If she was making $165,ooo a year, why the hell doesn’t she have a huge savings account stuffed with dough?
Generation Y professionals entering the workforce are finding careers that once were gateways to high pay and upwardly mobile lives turning into detours and dead ends. Average incomes for individuals ages 25 to 34 have fallen 8 percent, double the adult population’s total drop, since the recession began in December 2007. Their unemployment rate remains stuck one-half to 1 percentage point above the national figure.
So, life gives you some hard knocks and just years later the conclusion is that the American Dream has faded?
Geez, grow some… brains. Wherever did the American Dream promise success?
“This generation will be permanently depressed and will be on a lower path of income for probably all of their life — and at least the next 10 years,” says Rutgers professor Cliff Zukin, a senior research fellow at the university’s John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development. Professionals who start out in jobs other than their first choice tend to stay on the alternative path, earning less than they would have otherwise while becoming less likely to start over again later in preferred fields, Zukin says.
Guess what? The world is populated by people who to a huge extent have lives that weren’t their first choice.
“I had a lot of faith in the system, the mythology that if you work really hard you can achieve anything, and the stock market always goes up,” says 2009 law school graduate Elizabeth Hallock, 33. “It was pretty naïve on my part.”
Yes, yes it was.
“It’s a generation that had really high expectations, in some part driven by the way they were raised by their boomer parents,” she says. “Yet in the past five years they have had reality slammed in their face by the employment situation.”
The legacy given by boomer parents has been comprised mostly of piss-poor assessment of reality.
Too many GenY-ers have had smoke blown up their bum all their life by their parents and schools. “They’re special. They’re angels. Everyone wins, nobody loses. Everyone has an opportunity.”
Combine that with a decreasing economy, everyone’s hurting. Even the later generation professionals like my wife. Security clearance, 25+ years working DoD contracts, MBA degree, and the job offers that come in are ludicrously low. Too many professionals unemployed, employers have the edge in finding employees, and wages are going down as a result. She’s got a number of contingent offers and are crossing fingers (again).
Trying to figure out how to get your minions to hold still long enough to get the dump truck suspended over them…
Oh, and glad you’re getting quality time with Lemurita!
I saw a job posting a while back that looked like an interesting job but they were offering such a small compensation for it I snorted. I cannot imagine anyone even remotely contemplating the position because the skillset they were asking for was about $30K underpaid. It will eventually level out but until then people will stick tight where they are.
Good luck to your wife – it is plain fact that the job market these days utterly sucks. Probably Bush’s fault.
So, life isn’t a bowl of green bud and it’s someone else’s fault.
Speaking of correllation and causation…….
I wonder what percentage of people ask “How much of what happens to me could be because of something I can change?”
Probably not a lot.
I see lots of mentions of busted careers in the legal profession. Law schools made zillions of dollars pumping out zillions of legal-eagle wannabes in an already dreadfully over-saturated profession over the last 10 years. One of the education bubbles Glen Reynolds has been banging on about for quite some time. Welcome to Barry Obumbles’ permanently depressed economy kiddos! This is what you voted for…twice. Now you’re gonna get it good and hard.
Glad ya’ll liked The Hobbit. I did too, although I wasn’t a fan of all the changes / additions. Radagast was…well, let’s not talk about him.
And this is why I am telling my kids to learn trades. College isn’t what it used to be.
Someone should have told them the world isn’t made of participation trophies and purple pens.
Engineering and other useful degrees are still valuable, if you learn and don’t just skate by.
It’s PHD’s in gender studies that are useless.
Cripes, how am I supposed to boycott this stupid blog if you don’t post anything?
You’ll just have to boycott less frequently or make up the quantity with quality trolling. That would be refreshing.