“At this point, I’d be willing to take any job,” Scott Nicholson of Grafton, MA told the NYTimes. “If anything, this experience [of not finding a job after college] makes you that much more willing to work.”
Except, that is, at the $40k/year insurance company job Scott’s actually been offered…and turned down.
The premise of the NYTimes story is that it’s just so darn tough on young college grads these days. Pandering to the only people left who bother to their paper anymore-- 50+ suburban white liberals—the Times uses Scott’s story to suggest that the American dream has been lost for the next generation.
But then there’s this:
After several interviews, the Hanover Insurance Group in nearby Worcester offered to hire [Scott] as an associate claims adjuster, at $40,000 a year. But even before the formal offer, Mr. Nicholson had decided not to take the job.
Rather than waste early years in dead-end work, he reasoned, he would hold out for a corporate position that would draw on his college training and put him, as he sees it, on the bottom rungs of a career ladder.
“The conversation I’m going to have with my parents now that I’ve turned down this job is more of a concern to me than turning down the job,” he said.
$40 grand? Bah! It’s not worth it to me to drive out of Grafton for that kind of money. What—am I supposed to “waste my early years in dead-end work?” I don’t think so. Special people like me are entitled to special jobs with special salaries that make me feel, well, special!
As a point of reference, the average household income in MA is around $55k. But $40 grand isn’t good enough for our next generation of little snowflakes. Just ask their helicopter moms/personal secretaries!
Read the story for yourself, and you tell me: Is this an economic problem, or a character problem?
If I’m Scott’s dad in Grafton, I throw the little snot out on his $40k keister by COB today. Instead…
So he struggles to get a foothold in the civilian workforce. His brother in Boston lost his roommate, and early last month Nicholson moved into the empty bedroom, with his parents paying Nicholson's share of the $2,000-a-month rent until the lease expires Aug. 31.
Perfect.
"The truth is something [Warren] probably prefers not to confront. Harvard doesn’t come calling just because you’re a smart lawyer and a terrific teacher — not with Warren’s modest, Oklahoma upbringing and non-Ivy League education. She is not your typical Harvard professor. At a certain point, when the law school was under pressure to promote diversity, she represented a three-fer: a great lawyer with a national profile, a woman, and a minority, at least by virtue of family lore. "
-- Joan Vennochi
