Talia Jane does not mention student loan debt. She only mentions debt to finance her move to the Bay Area.
Talia Jane is a distraction.
Maybe one of the factors for the inclination to blame could be encapsulated in the lyrics to Weird Al’s song “When I was Your Age”:
http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/weirdalyankovic/wheniwasyourage.html
The solution is a laser focus on creating jobs – for all, but particularly the young adults. But instead, we focus on other things. For example, “free college tuition” wouldn’t be so “important” if college grads didn’t have to take minimum wage jobs.
I have been on CC for many years and I have 2 kids with 5 years of age difference. Even during the worst time for young graduates to get jobs, I didn’t know any kids, which included my kids’ high school, college friends and my niece and nephews, to graduate without a job. Not all of them got a job at a location of their choice or relevant field, but they all got jobs.
There were some kids who wanted to pursue music/art or media/marketing type of work, but they worked it out with their parents on they were going to make ends meet. The ones that didn’t have the luxury of parents support had to find regular jobs to be self supporting.
There are many kids who flounder and most of us don’t blame the whole group of millennials. Anyone who knows a variety of kids and/or has spent time on CC knows the range of stories. But it’s hard to turn Talia Jane into a flag bearer, when she made some mistakes.
Sure, I wish my kids had gone off to the sort of jobs some posters’ kids have, making the big bucks. I wish they didn’t have college loans, but they do. I think it’s important, when raising them and when setting them free, to make sure they know the difference between ‘perfect world’ and reality. Or between what they ultimately want and the work it takes to get there.
In a perfect world, sure, more kids would graduate with a lush job. They’d just go down to the career office, send off their (short) resumes and get a nice offer that meets their wants. But it isn’t like that, most have to crank it up, get wise, and take whatever steps it is, to get that first starter position. They have to accept that, in the words of our parents and grandparents, the world doesn’t owe them.
That’s not blaming all millennials. Not in the least. It’s also not blaming all corporate.
Making more jobs for recent grads? Don’t we realize those won’t be perfect, they’d be those $12.25 positions (or less in some regions.) They’d be the hours are are available, the sort of work that could be opened up- phone banks, misc admin, low level sales, retail, maybe child care or a host of things I don’t think some parents here have in mind.
I love the line “Your boss isn’t there to give you a cuddle and establish a committee to change his ways for you.”
Keep in mind the critical majority of posters on CC tend to skew towards upper/upper-middle class and students tend to be viable aspirants to respectable/elite colleges*. As such, the kids/community here doesn’t necessarily reflect the situation for the majority of college applicants/students/graduates and their families or most/everyone in their social circle.
Also, if a critical mass of the college students in your social circle are upper/upper-middle class and attended elite colleges, their situation doesn’t reflect what the vast majority of students and their families have experienced in the post-2008 economy.
For instance, if you surveyed some families in a few upper/upper-middle class NJ area suburbs I know of in which most/all them and their kids attended respectable/elite colleges like Williams, Colgate, Cornell or Princeton and were able to get hired at or before graduation, one could understandably come away with the impression the post-2008 recession never happened and the job market for college grads was never better.
In the process, they are often oblivious/forgetting the fact their higher SES background/community, strong networking contacts/connections with desirable/high paying employers**, pedigree of one’s college degree, especially in combination are strong advantages the vast majority of families/students don’t have.
- Talking well beyond the top 20-25 national universities and LACs.
** Saw some of this in action with undergrad classmates who weren’t fazed about having academic suspensions on their record or cumulative GPAs in the low 2.x range because they knew they had a job waiting for them in their family’s or a close family friend’s thriving business/non-profit or a larger firm where the parent/close family friend was a senior executive who had great influence in the hiring process.
Maybe she didn’t get fired for her online rant. Maybe she got fired when they found out she had alcohol delivered at work.
“Maybe she didn’t get fired for her online rant. Maybe she got fired when they found out she had alcohol delivered at work.”
Nope, that would not be a problem in Silicon Valley. 
This actually deserves a new thread.
It is not really that there are not jobs to be had, the problem with many young adults right now is that they want the perfect job, in the location they want to live, for the pay they want to have. Economics be danged.
Too much time as kids with parents solving all of their problems. We don’t need to solve this for them. We need to let them stumble a bit and learn to pick themselves up.
@Torveaux agreed, I have a child that graduated from college, top of his class in 2015 and he wants so many things with regards to employment. He is not so concerned with money, but wants a very casual dress code and flexible work options. I just shake my head.
There are also no lack of posters on CC who tend to believe that the caliber of the college does not matter, and occasionally laugh at those posters who buy into the notions that the respectable/elites colleges could help increase their odds of landing at their first job.
Going to a respectable/elite college or not, having been born into a somewhat higher SES class helps a lot. TJ will have a lot of her “problems” solved if her parents belong to that class.
Let’s not blame all.millenials because we know a few we don’t agree with.
At my last start up tech job, I had a wine cooler and a budget of having 2 cases of wine delivered to my office every month. The company had Fresh Direct food delivered to the office and allowed their employees to have alcohol after 5.
Dunno about yelp, but it is common for tech employees to ship anything and everything they buy online to the office. It’s encouraged. I understand it is not atypical in NYC either. One of the big reasons is that packages from amazon or the wine store can’t be left at the stoop or the inside door of a walkup…
I do not think she was fired for the alcohol…but at my JOB alcohol is a big no no! (not because we are moralists or religious or something) alcohol on site is just looking for a liability issue or lawsuit.(same for guns,drugs,porn etc…) do as you like in your free time off site!
Usual boloney and class warfare. Maybe you should survey some other NJ families whose “marginalized” kids went to un-respectable Rutgers and find out about their employment outcomes. You will discover that everyone who had a reasonable GPA and bothered to have an internship was able to find a job with a reasonable pay without any special family connections. There are a lot of mundane positions at NJ companies that pay 50K to start that do not require any specialized skills beyond BA degree in economics or business.
Regarding the wine/alcohol during work hours, I’ve had several occasions at one financial firm where my supervisor treated us to lunches which included the option of alcohol if desired without any judgment either way.
Heck, one of my undergrad Profs offered me some mao tai once during dinner at his house.
Demurred in undergrad and at most of those firm lunches because it happened I had major exams/projects requiring extreme attention to detail right after/following day.
I had online items I ordered for myself personally shipped to my office right out of college.
Made much more sense as I had some long workweeks. Also, due to the nature of my job and employer/supervisor support, doing so actually facilitated one of my duties…testing defective work machines or subjecting new ones from the factory/leasing site to a “shakedown cruise*” in the words of an older colleague who served in the Navy.
- A naval term for subjecting a newly accepted ship to an intensive initial cruise to see how well it functions and to find and work out any problems with it or the crew's proficiency in its operation.
“Regarding the wine/alcohol during work hours, I’ve had several occasions at one financial firm where my supervisor treated us to lunches which included the option of alcohol if desired without any judgment either way.”
it is not about judging …it is about liability …you drink on the job or at a jobs social function and you crash your car or make sexual harassing comments or try to touch another employee in an unwanted manner that falls on the companies shoulders …you can bet the company will get sued. the company I work for used to give a bottle of scotch for Christmas and had alcohol at Christmas parties. that was probably up until the early 1990’s. I was not around in the those days but I have been told. but times change it is to protect the company not about passing judgement.