Twixters: twenty-somethings who just won't grow up

Xon · Post by **Xon** » 2005-01-26 11:12am

I can argee with this article. The cost of establishing your self is hidious.

I havent gotten a car or my driver's licence because I simply cant affort to. Not having a car I can drive is also a massive problem. Both of these make me nearly unemployable since it is rediciously hard to get any were via public transport if you are off the beaten path.

I'm planning on getting my licence soon, so if I do find a job which would support having a car, I can actually get one. But the chances of that happening...

I graduated from a relatively prestigious high school with solid B grades, all in hard subjects. That is worth exactly nothing beyond getting me into university. And my chosen field of study (computer science/IT) is nearly purly theoretical in uni, but all practical in the workplace.

Lets not get into the Computer Science course having only 3 optional/electives, everything else for a 3 year course are core units. all heavy units.

On top of that, that degree is near worthless for getting a job, either before or after graduation.

All I've gotten out of my high school graduation, is some work experiance with the company they outsourced their IT to. And thats probably only going to last to mid-febuary.

Jalinth · Post by **Jalinth** » 2005-01-26 11:17am

Marksist wrote:Whats wrong with waiting to have kids and get married? I don't want to be married with children at 22. That's a year and a half from now, and I couldn't imagine that, and I don't really think that's a bad thing, especially if I get a graduate degree.

I can understand at least getting out on your own by mid to late twenties, but, I don't have some huge rush to get married and have children until after I'm done with school and have started on my career.

For university, living with your folks saves you a ton of money. I ended up with rather weird circumstances - parents followed me out to the West Coast (retired and didn't want to endure any more 40 below winters). I knew it was likely, but really helped to avoid massive student loans and could get by on fairly minimal income.

You should get out on the house by your mid-twenties barring unusual circumstances (in mine - a sick parent) just for dignity sake. Marriage - depends. Sometimes 20 is the right age, sometimes 40 - sometimes never.

Main problem I have is the local house prices - absolutely insane given what your are getting. A very modest, 50 year-old house in a decent (but not wonderful) is north of $450K. Makes it hard to afford

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2005-01-26 12:34pm

Iceberg wrote:Predatory student loan terms combined with a shitty job market don't help either. What good is an education if you can't keep yourself from going default on your student loans because you can't get a job that pays more than 600 dollars a month!?

Then they should have gotten a better education. Honestly, it pisses me off when I see people who get a degree in History or something like that and then are genuinely surprised when they get out of school and can't find work. If that's what you want to do with your college years, that's your choice, but don't cry like a bitch when the inevitable happens afterwards.

Virtually all of my school classmates found work. One of my old System Design Engineering friends ended up working for Apple and is in a fucking VP position right now. Why? Because we actually chose our education based on the long view, not based some idiot criteria like "what will I find fulfilling".

As for the main subject matter, it is indeed quite difficult to get established today. What boomers conveniently forget is that in the "old days", it was quite common for peoples' parents to help them get started with their first home when they got married young. That is no small boost.

However, at the same time you do have a very self-absorbed generation that all too often neglects childbearing until long after their financial status would permit it, at which point they're so freakin' old that they can't handle it so they just dump their kids with daycare and try to resume the self-absorbed lives that they had become accustomed to.

Post by **Coyote** » 2005-01-26 12:40pm

The jobs that pay well can't afford (or won't afford) to hire people full time, who will expect good benefits. So the "high-paying" tech jobs are, as mentioned, being outsourced to temps. Lower pay, less benefits, and harder to repay that high-tech schooling.

Plus I think there may be aproblem at th eopposite end of the career spectrum-- older workers are finding it harder to retire. They lack the funds or they still have long lifespans to look forward to doing nothing. So they stick around longer no one gets promoted, opening up entry-level positions.

Plus there's the intangible, socio-psych stuff-- people of previous years who busted ass and swallowed their pride and got degrees they don't like so they could get 'Dilbert' jobs that suck the life out of them and make them miserable...

...now younger people decided that is not the way to go, and they get degrees they like in underwater basket weaving or whatever because they like it, not because it is a ticket to a fat job that no longer exists.

Rogue 9 · Post by **Rogue 9** » 2005-01-26 01:11pm

The jobs that pay well can't afford (or won't afford) to hire people full time, who will expect good benefits. So the "high-paying" tech jobs are, as mentioned, being outsourced to temps. Lower pay, less benefits, and harder to repay that high-tech schooling.

The same is true of at least some other relatively high-paying fields as well. The union wage for musicians in Louisville is $42.50 an hour per musician, minimum. This is something that makes most history majors' jaws hit the floor.

It's a wage that's cheerfully paid out by restaurant owners and event coordinators because they know that good live music will bring in customers in a city like that, and Louisville's not a particularly large city.

The problem is that you can consider yourself lucky to have a 12 hour work week and it's usually all nights on the weekend. Despite the high rate of pay, being a musician for hire is the ultimate in temp work; you're hired for a time span measured in single-digit hours unless you're lucky enough to land a regular gig somewhere. Needless to say, you don't get a benefits package in employment of this nature. I can support my needs apart from tuition on this sort of work now, but of course I wouldn't be able to support more than just my very basic needs for more than a couple months doing it if I was out on my own as of today. The best shot for a career in music that a musician has is a teaching position or job with a large city orchestra. (Given how many orchestras are on strike or have been on strike in the past few years, though, the second is looking more shaky by the year. There's a reason why I'm getting an education degree, despite some opinions that I don't have the temperament for it.) My instrument (string bass) is sufficiently in demand that I'm more likely to get into an orchestra than most, but in general, prospects are down.

Post by **Coyote** » 2005-01-26 01:20pm

heh... music majors have a future after all!

I knew as a History major I'd be a low-income dog, probably ending up as a teacher, but hell it was my choice. Sure I occassionally rail against the under-appreciation of the Humanities but that's the way the cookie crumbles.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2005-01-26 01:20pm

Coyote wrote:The jobs that pay well can't afford (or won't afford) to hire people full time, who will expect good benefits. So the "high-paying" tech jobs are, as mentioned, being outsourced to temps. Lower pay, less benefits, and harder to repay that high-tech schooling.

Precisely which high-paying tech jobs are being outsourced to temps? I can't think of one off-hand that requires real skill and would ordinarily pay high wages but which you'd just ship off to some temp somewhere.

Plus I think there may be aproblem at th eopposite end of the career spectrum-- older workers are finding it harder to retire. They lack the funds or they still have long lifespans to look forward to doing nothing. So they stick around longer no one gets promoted, opening up entry-level positions.

This might explain twixters who can't find work despite having a good education (a much smaller group than they believe, since there are lot of people with bullshit degrees who think they have a good education but really don't), but it wouldn't explain those who simply decide they don't want to have kids even though they could afford it if they wanted to.

Plus there's the intangible, socio-psych stuff-- people of previous years who busted ass and swallowed their pride and got degrees they don't like so they could get 'Dilbert' jobs that suck the life out of them and make them miserable...

...now younger people decided that is not the way to go, and they get degrees they like in underwater basket weaving or whatever because they like it, not because it is a ticket to a fat job that no longer exists.

Pointless hand-waving artsy-fartsy bullshit. If you don't want a job that pays a real salary, don't cry when you blew all of your college money getting a degree that won't land you one.

Captain Cyran · Post by **Captain Cyran** » 2005-01-26 01:36pm

Coyote wrote:heh... music majors have a future after all!

I knew as a History major I'd be a low-income dog, probably ending up as a teacher, but hell it was my choice. Sure I occassionally rail against the under-appreciation of the Humanities but that's the way the cookie crumbles.

As an English major, I know how you feel. And that's about how I look at it too.

Guardsman Bass · Post by **Guardsman Bass** » 2005-01-26 01:53pm

When I was visiting the University of Virginia with my uncle, he told me the admissions officer had (while not in public speaking mode) told him that if you weren't getting a degree in business, economics, math, the sciences, or engineering, your future job prospects would be in how well you learned how to write getting your degree.

Captain Cyran · Post by **Captain Cyran** » 2005-01-26 01:56pm

Guardsman Bass wrote:When I was visiting the University of Virginia with my uncle, he told me the admissions officer had (while not in public speaking mode) told him that if you weren't getting a degree in business, economics, math, the sciences, or engineering, your future job prospects would be in how well you learned how to write getting your degree.

My college is less blatant then that. They just require their English majors to take a minor. So sad... Oh well, as Virginia says, at least I'm gonna be pretty damn good at writing.

Post by **Coyote** » 2005-01-26 02:08pm

Darth Wong wrote:
Coyote wrote:...So the "high-paying" tech jobs are, as mentioned, being outsourced to temps...
Precisely which high-paying tech jobs are being outsourced to temps?

My reaction to the comment made by ggs-- he's in Australia rather than the US so I don't know if the same trend applies.

ggs wrote:All I've gotten out of my high school graduation, is some work experiance with the company they outsourced their IT to. And thats probably only going to last to mid-febuary.

I'm more inclined to lend weight to my comment about older workers hanging onto their jobs instead of retiring, though.

Darth Wong wrote:This might explain twixters who can't find work despite having a good education (a much smaller group than they believe, since there are lot of people with bullshit degrees who think they have a good education but really don't), but it wouldn't explain those who simply decide they don't want to have kids even though they could afford it if they wanted to.

That would be th eones who simply enjoy the lack of responsibility and live as "Twixters" (dumb name) by choice. The article briefly compared the two cultures of these twentysomethings-- those who enjoy the shiftless life and those for whom it is a desperate scramble.

People who do bust ass to get an Engineering or similar degree are more focused on the prize and have a more definite plan of where they want to be in the future, and they've accepted that a certain income level is amust for that to come true. They're going to work their way into it no matter what.

I'd hazard a guess, only a guess, that those with good educations that cannot find work (supposing that they're looking rather than enjoying the time) probably are limiting themselves to a geographical location for some reason. They'd get a good career if they were willing to move but for some reason they won't. But as I said-- that's a guess.

Pointless hand-waving artsy-fartsy bullshit. If you don't want a job that pays a real salary, don't cry when you blew all of your college money getting a degree that won't land you one.

Again-- those that want the career bad enough are doing it, and shouldn't be crying. Those of us who chose to do what we liked rather than be Engineers, Technicians, or whatever either accept it or lead miserable lives.

Sometimes people do make decisions based on personal feelings-- not everyone is driven by hard-headed logic. If they're happy with that and openly understand that they're not going to be living the fat life, no problem.

I would not want your life. No offense, but what you do does not appeal to me. I'm glad you dig it, I know you sure as hell wouldn't want mine either. I know I'd be a lot better off financially if I did what you did, but I'm just not motivated enough to discipline myself for that.

Post by **Coyote** » 2005-01-26 02:14pm

Guardsman Bass wrote:When I was visiting the University of Virginia with my uncle, he told me the admissions officer had (while not in public speaking mode) told him that if you weren't getting a degree in business, economics, math, the sciences, or engineering, your future job prospects would be in how well you learned how to write getting your degree.

Yup. All the fields I dislike immensely-- and most of them at some point have something to do with calculating numbers. I struggled like a drowning man through even the slowest, most bone-headed math courses the whole time I grew up, reduced to tears as a child during homework over the frustration. By the time I graduated High School I was so far behind the norm I basically gave up and accepted a D as a mark of success.

Any calculations in the 10's value beyond simple addition and subtraction and I need to concentrate hard for it. 100's value on up and I need paper or a calculator.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2005-01-26 02:17pm

If you can't or won't do math, be a plumber. Those guys make good money.

Post by **Coyote** » 2005-01-26 02:24pm

Only those who are close to me get to revel in the glory that is my butt crack.

Guardsman Bass · Post by **Guardsman Bass** » 2005-01-26 05:27pm

Again-- those that want the career bad enough are doing it, and shouldn't be crying. Those of us who chose to do what we liked rather than be Engineers, Technicians, or whatever either accept it or lead miserable lives.

Sometimes people do make decisions based on personal feelings-- not everyone is driven by hard-headed logic. If they're happy with that and openly understand that they're not going to be living the fat life, no problem.

Don't you see, though- THAT'S the problem: most of them want to "search the path of enlightenment" AND make good money. I doubt most of them DO understand that they won't exactly be top-rate job material upon graduation.

aerius · Post by **aerius** » 2005-01-26 05:41pm

Guardsman Bass wrote:Don't you see, though- THAT'S the problem: most of them want to "search the path of enlightenment" AND make good money. I doubt most of them DO understand that they won't exactly be top-rate job material upon graduation.

That is indeed a problem, it's pretty rare to get a fun satisfying job that pays well. I figured out at a pretty early age that if I wanted to make decent money I'd likely be doing a job that more or less sucks, and if I wanted to follow my dreams and try to be a car magazine writer I'd be dead broke.

Knife · Post by **Knife** » 2005-01-26 05:58pm

Another note, I see alot of the 'younger' folks here saying they are not ready for marrage nor ready yet for a family.

While a mininum amount of resources ARE needed, its not like a set line in the sand. One moment you are not ready, the next you are.

Family in itself is a learning experience. No matter how long you stay single, or childless, you'll never be ready. They only time your ready is after you've done it.

Kerneth · Post by **Kerneth** » 2005-01-26 06:39pm

I've had this conversation with a number of my friends/acquaintances:

Them: "What are you majoring in?"
Me: "Public Administration." (polite term for government cubicle-meat)
Them: "Why? It sounds boring."
Me: "Excellent job prospects, decent salary, job security, and awesome retirement benefits."
Them: "Are the classes fun?"
Me: "Some of the stuff is interesting, some isn't. What are you majoring in?"
Them: "Oh, I'm a fine arts major. I love all my classes."
Me: "What are you going to do when you get out of college?"
Them: "Oh, I'll be an artist."

Sorry, call me old-fashioned (because it's accurate) but I can't imagine going to college to get a degree to "be an artist". I just can't help but think that these people are going to get out of college, and find out to their horror that they're good artists, but not great artists--and there's just not a lot of money in being a merely 'good' artist.

On the other hand, my own major has gotten me reactions of scorn and horror from a number of people, so I guess it's largely a matter of personal preference.

As for things like "marriage" and "starting a family", once again, I'm old-fashioned--I can't imagine getting married and starting a family unless I am pretty confident I can support them. Right now, as a customer service peon/student, I can't do that.

Bob the Gunslinger · Post by **Bob the Gunslinger** » 2005-01-26 06:48pm

Darth Wong wrote:If you can't or won't do math, be a plumber. Those guys make good money.

I majored in math and couldn't get anything other than temp employment or shitty part time jobs. Now I'm getting my teaching credential and working as a tutor/TA, which is something I enjoy, but I really thought I'd be able to get a good job with a math degree. Everywhere I applied, they told me they were looking for people with Masters degrees, though...

Marksist · Post by **Marksist** » 2005-01-26 07:17pm

and there's just not a lot of money in being a merely 'good' artist.

Maybe everyone isn't interested in making lots of money.

Knife · Post by **Knife** » 2005-01-26 07:22pm

Marksist wrote:
and there's just not a lot of money in being a merely 'good' artist.
Maybe everyone isn't interested in making lots of money.

*shrug* some people are interested in paying the rent. It's a two way street.

Rogue 9 · Post by **Rogue 9** » 2005-01-26 08:04pm

Guardsman Bass wrote:
Again-- those that want the career bad enough are doing it, and shouldn't be crying. Those of us who chose to do what we liked rather than be Engineers, Technicians, or whatever either accept it or lead miserable lives.

Sometimes people do make decisions based on personal feelings-- not everyone is driven by hard-headed logic. If they're happy with that and openly understand that they're not going to be living the fat life, no problem.
Don't you see, though- THAT'S the problem: most of them want to "search the path of enlightenment" AND make good money. I doubt most of them DO understand that they won't exactly be top-rate job material upon graduation.

I don't know about everyone else in my boat (I am taking a fine arts degree, albeit one that has better prospects than most), but I do know exactly what I'm getting into. I don't need lots and lots of money; I don't know what I'd do with it. I simply don't go in for luxuries. I need a roof over my head, food to eat, clothing, and preferably an Internet connection of some kind. The clothes I've got, at least until they wear out; I'm done growing and I make a point of not following fads and fashions.

Unfortunately, a lot of people I know here don't get that; they're merrily running up credit card debt and driving around in new cars with doubtless insane insurance premiums (I make do with a bicycle and it suits my needs just fine). I just hope for their sakes that they don't all have to default on their loans before managing to find a job.

And Mike, you really want young people training in engineering? Come on, stiff competition in the job market from younger people working for lesser pay is bad for you.

Post by **Coyote** » 2005-01-26 08:31pm

Rogue 9 wrote:And Mike, you really want young people training in engineering? Come on, stiff competition in the job market from younger people working for lesser pay is bad for you.

Heheh.... "In the news today, 90% of grads are now equipped with Engineering degrees. In a related story, the plethora of Engineers has pushed the field to $6.00 an hour on the average, and CEOs are eagerly looking to hire Art majors to redecorate their offices for $160,000.00 a year... "

Heeheeehee

Mayabird · Post by **Mayabird** » 2005-01-26 10:04pm

Coyote wrote:
Rogue 9 wrote:And Mike, you really want young people training in engineering? Come on, stiff competition in the job market from younger people working for lesser pay is bad for you.

Heheh.... "In the news today, 90% of grads are now equipped with Engineering degrees. In a related story, the plethora of Engineers has pushed the field to $6.00 an hour on the average, and CEOs are eagerly looking to hire Art majors to redecorate their offices for $160,000.00 a year... "

Heeheeehee

Pfft. Not gonna happen. Engineering students can easily switch to an art major and breeze through, but the opposite can hardly be said about art students.

Post by **Coyote** » 2005-01-26 10:11pm

Mayabird wrote: Engineering students can easily switch to an art major and breeze through...

"Well, what do you think?"
"I dunno... it's just a bunch of... geometric shapes, arranged in methematical prescision."
"Exactly!"
"I wanted ducks."