Why aren’t more young people out there fighting for a better world? That’s what I’ve been wondering as of late. Are we doomed to live in a world of declining wages and opportunities and crushing debt, merely because too many of us have accepted that’s the way it should be.
Depending on whoo you ask...yes.
I saw this article on Business Insider that a lot of my friends are posting around social media, calling it “the burn of the century.”
www.businessinsider.com/...
The gist of it is as follows. Stefanie Williams had a great job at 22. She lost it in the recession and the only opportunities in her field were unpaid. So she became a hostess, than a waitress and worked long hours, before eventually making $60k and getting signed to a talent agency and becoming a screenwriter.
Her diatribe here calls out a girl who got fired for (stupidly) bitching about her low pay on social media. In it she basically tells the girl to shut up and accept her low pay job and notes that she has expensive tastes (like the bourbon she posts on Instagram) and maybe should budget better. It complains that she acts entitled and should not act entitled. That she should take a second job or work a job she might not want in order to “learn the value of hard work.” Then she waxes poetic on her experience, but not in a negative way. She PRIDES herself with having to take a job waitressing after losing her first office job due to the financial crisis. Nothing wrong with that, but never does she recognize that fact that she never should have had to. It wasn’t a situation of her own creation.
...after I put in the hours, made the sacrifices and sucked up my pride in order to make ends meet and figure out what I wanted to do and how to do it. I gave up holidays with my family in order to work extra shifts and make the good tips. I put up with people making rude comments, assuming I was just a wanna-be actress, assuming I didn’t go to college, all to make money. I lived with my mother, my first roommate, and then moved in with two others soon after because living in New York by yourself is a luxury, not an affordable option. I commuted 40 minutes each way each day at first, sometimes missing the late night train and having to sit in Penn Station for an extra hour or two waiting to get home. I dealt with the pitying looks of my former classmates or their parents when they would see me at the hostess stand or walking into the service station in my heels, laughing to myself knowing their child was addicted to coke and hating their “amazing” job. I paid my dues. I did what I had to do in order to survive, with the help of my family. I was gracious and thankful and worked as hard as I could even if it was a job that sometimes made me question my worth. And I was successful because of that.
There she implies that getting screwed by Wall Street gamblers and fat cat CEOs instituting a former of slavery called “unpaid internships” is why she was successful. She doesn’t fault the system, she credits it...for giving her a work ethic.
Then she goes off on Jane.
you are a young, white, English speaking woman with a degree and a family who I would assume is helping you out at the moment, and you are asking for handouts from strangers while you sit on your ass looking for cushy jobs you are not entitled to while you complain about the establishment, probably from a nice laptop.
To you, that is more acceptable than taking a job in a restaurant, or a coffee shop, or a fast food place. And that’s the trouble with not just your outlook, but the outlook of so many people your age. You think it is somehow more impressive to ask strangers for money by writing some “witty” open letter than it is to put on your big girl pants and take a job you might be embarrassed by in order to make ends meet.
…
The issue is that this girl doesn’t think working a second job or getting roommates should be something she has to do in order to get ahead after three months of an entry level job in the most expensive city in the country. She believes Yelp should cover the cost of the financial decisions she’s made which include living alone and accepting that salary, two options that any sane person would never make. She believes she deserves these things that most of us would call luxuries. You expected to get what you thought you deserved rather than expected to work for what you had to earn. And that’s the problem entirely.
But this piece is making the rounds on social media, and everyone loves it, even some folks I know who claim to support Sanders.
Some Tweets I found in support of Williams:
Jane’s letter, for all its relative privilege, reflects documented economic issues that continue to hold millions of Millennials back from starting their lives. One of the most significant issues here is stagnant wages that are woefully insufficient for the escalating cost of living in cities that offer Millennials the broadest job markets. When one considers this, it doesn’t seem remotely unreasonable for someone in Jane’s position to ask her boss for a higher wage that’s in line with the exorbitant expenses of San Francisco, especially since Jane also cites the fiscal struggles of several of her coworkers. This is far from an isolated problem.
But my concern is this. Have you been so browbeaten to believe that the struggles we have, student loans, low wages, etc. are just natural and instead of there’s nothing to be done about it, there’s nothing we SHOULD do about it.
I am extremely skeptical of the Sanders revolution and the ability of progressives to put together a large enough coalition and a large enough mandate to make huge changes to allow the Stefanies and Talia Janes of the world to make a good wage and live a comfortable life.
I’m skeptical because I think we don’t believe we deserve it. I’m skeptical because I think the Stefanie Williams of the world will come out in droves in the general election and paint Sanders as the candidate of the entitled...and even those who got screwed will back up that argument, believing that they “worked hard.”
If this campaign is between Williams and Jane, I don’t see anyway Jane wins. In a nation of people who have worked hard and gotten screwed for decades, it’s hard to feel bad for recent college graduates who complain about their low pay or student loan debt.
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