My mother taught me that people who read the Daily News on the subway moved their lips while reading. I get it home delivered in the Bay Area, and they’ve just started some special Bay Area pages a few days a week. But they are not global yet - ever try a recipe which requires some obscure ingredient only available from some small grocery in Brooklyn?
But, but being poor, illiterate and incarcerated is a lifestyle too! 
I didn’t see that exactly. But I do agree that he never should have started training to become a Marine if he didn’t have the utmost reverence for the Corps. It’s that kind of organization.
I don’t think it has anything to do with reverence for jarheads, and everything to do with the fact that this kid has some picture perfect idea of how he wants life to go for him and is totally unwilling to work for any of it. You mean I can’t just go sign up and leave? Suddenly the draw of the military was less appealing than it once was.
My bet is that his disappointment had nothing to do with medical conditions and really he’s just upset at anyone who hasn’t given him exactly what he wants. His attitude is not indicative of an entire generation, only the spoiled rich ones.
Uh, no, but since your own disability clearly has something to do with your brain, I’ll cut you some slack.
I have no sympathy for him because when he was told ‘your childhood history of asthma makes you ineligible for service in the military, but you can appeal this decision and a lot of people do,’ his reaction was along the lines of ‘aw, gee, it’s not special anymore. I don’t wanna.’
So, if you could stop projecting your own neuroses onto me, Anacephaly Man, that’d be great.
Bullshit. He completed college, and was recognized by the Dean’s office for academic excellence. Does that sound like “lazy”? Really? I would say “lazy” woudl get you passing grades, at MOST. He sounds like a kid with every advantage, who has taken advantage of his advantages. I’m not sure he made a mistake turning down the $40K a year insurance job. But he is kinda naive … picked a REALLY stupid degree, unless he wanted to go into teaching.
ooh. big words. you certainly didn’t pick them up from your time with Gomer Pyle.
You know what I think? I think he didn’t want the job and made up an excuse to not take it, and he didn’t want to go into the military and made up an excuse to not go. If he doesn’t want it, fine, let him do what he wants. I imagine he’s being pressured by his folks to do all kinds of shit he has no interest in doing. He probably doesn’t even give a shit about PoliSci.
(My take based on attending college with plenty of kids just like him.)
Yeah, but that’s not what happened. They gave him the option to reapply which probably means (basing this on my experience trying to join a different service) they told him “We need lots of paperwork from the doctor that treated you and it’s going to take a while to get it sorted out”, which isn’t exactly “GTFO stupid cripple”.
I wonder how Hanover Insurance feels about this article? If I was the hiring manager then I’d feel a little irked about it all.
All in all, I kinda feel bad for the kid in that the article will probably haunt him for a bit.
They covered this subject precisely one year ago in this article. It seems to be a favourite topic.
OTOH his reaction that “the shine was off” would be suggestive that his temperament would not be a good fit with the Marines anyway, so both he and the Corps saved one another from wasting time.
I’m beginning to go with olivesmarch4th’s speculation that he may feel he has to be seen as trying to do certain things, but his heart is not really in those. The not-very-motivated attempt at a commission and the rejection of the $40K job because he considered it dead-end (and the family’s apparent endorsement thereof) do both create an impression that he indeed just may be telling the truth, and want to to wait for what would still be an entry job BUT that carries with it some measure of prestige and a clear advancement path (and maybe even willing to take less pay; a 2d Lt. makes $33K/yr) . Good luck with that plan, dude, great if you can make it work but don’t count on it.
All in all I must agree with those who wonder, what IS the story the Times is trying to tell here? What’s their point? To see if they can provoke a whole bunch of bloggers to scream at the subject of the report? Or what?
Here’s the part in the article that I thought most sad:
Well, umm, this is really the problem now. Why not encourage the grandson to believe in the US system, and do some basic work in getting a job. Be the force in creating a decent system here. He apparently has had all the graces of life in being able to go forth and get up in life by the balls, but, well, what’s missing?
Because it’s not easy ass peasy? What about the ol’ American Git up and go? It says alot that grandpa would rather his progeny bail out on the country than man up and try to make it better. Sheeeeeeeeesh.
It’s not the kid’s responsibility to find his own job. The father should have put in some time rubbing elbows and buying drinks at the Shriners/Masons/Knights of Columbus until he found the kid a high ranking supervisory position through connections.
I’m not going to tar-and-feather this kid quite yet. Assuming that his support does really run out on Aug. 31 (as the article seems to indicate), he just made a calculated decision that he’d rather do temp work or odd jobs than work in a position he hates (although why he applied for the position, then, I don’t know.) It may be naive. It may be stupid. So what? He’s young enough where he can afford to make these sorts of fuck-ups with little consequence. I can completely sympathize with his position, although I came from a family whose parents’ household income was barely a third of his family’s. If he truly sees no use or career path with the insurance claim adjusting position, what’s wrong with that? I’ve done similar actions myself, in a soft post-Internet bubble economy, and am absolutely thankful I didn’t accept the job offers in a field I had no interest in. I took temp jobs until I was able to get back into my field of expertise (actually, started my own business). This sounds like it might be this kid’s plan, getting into something more up his alley. Nothing wrong with it. Christ, if he were the same age with kids to support and debts up the wazoo, sure, fine, you can bitch at him. But he’s not. He can afford to take a chance.
It is all relative. If you’ve analyzed the market and determined there is a reasonable chance that you could find a $60k a year job with better career prospects, then yes, $40k a year is low paying. For specific qualifications and specific industries $40k a year is low paying. I’d consider it low paying for my industry as a starting salary - it is difficult to say for certain because I started my career in a different country with a very different market and pay scale, but I could foresee myself turning down a $40k offer straight out of college in the United States if (a) there was a reasonable chance of finding something better soon and (b) my current financial position wasn’t too dire.
I’m currently 30, so I don’t fit into exactly the same age category as the other posters who share my view.
I also agree with those who wonder why the heck this is a news story. This kid comes from an upper middle class background. He has all the resources he needs to be picky about employment. I’m not saying he has analyzed the situation correctly - he may have completely misread the market, or overestimated his value, or have naive views about career paths - but this is a question of lousy strategy, not a question about ethics.
To hell with the reverence; a sense of commitment would suffice. This pie chart shows where the Corps’ officers come from. Only the 24% who are OCC don’t have to show some sort of interest in being commissioned while they are still in college. Some Poly-sci graduate showing up on their doorstep saying, “I can’t find a job; take me in.” isn’t going to interest them too much. Being a small service, the USMC can afford to be picky that way.
And no, Rumor, I don’t genuflect to jarheads. Being ex-Navy I would find it difficult to do so. I just don’t get my information about Marines from a 50-year old sit-com.
Obviously the family is well off. Grandfather a retired stock broker, Father the GM of a manufacturing company. Probability wise, he’s probably better off trying to start higher up the ladder.
From the NYTimes article: In a recent study, she found that those who graduated from college during the severe early ’80s recession earned up to 30 percent less in their first three years than new graduates who landed their first jobs in a strong economy. Even 15 years later, their annual pay was 8 to 10 percent less.
Certainly that’s true of my experience. I didn’t have the luxury of waiting for good jobs but took whatever and then worked my way up. In investment banking, I was easily a couple if not 5 years behind the new university grads that were recruited as part of the trainee program. It eventually evened off but those kids definately were way ahead of me for those first say 5-7 years. And they made a shitload more money than I did before we were parity in the experience more or less leveled off the pay and expectations.
I don’t know this young man or his family but he does live in the same general area as me in Metrowest Boston. 40K is a very low professional salary here even for a new college grad. I got more than that 14 years ago and it got boosted 15% after a few months by an HR salary consultant because my higher one was still deemed inappropriate. This is one of the highest cost of living areas in the country so throw out your median national income numbers. They don’t apply to this situation.
You can survive on that obviously as a single person if you have to but you might still have to live at home or share a crappy apartment and you may not choose to given other options by your family. Sure, he doesn’t have to live there but that is where the job is and his family is as well. He can always pack up and move to North Dakota if the shit ever hits the fan. I hear they have low unemployment and a very low cost of living or he could just work there for a year and buy a mansion in Detroit free and clear.
This means an awful lot coming from an unemployed 40 something who lives in his parents’ home and doesn’t work, living off the parents’ investment portfolio.
About the Times pieces…well, the Times does plenty of fluff pieces. This just serves to confirm the older generations’ bias that the “kids these days” don’t work hard. 20 years ago this kid would have had his fast tracked job - hell, maybe even 7 years ago. It’s just that simple.