American Dream Fades for Generation Y Professionals

[marmar]

(Bloomberg) After being dismissed from her job as a Midtown Manhattan securities attorney in October 2009, Christina Tretter-Herriger hitched a used horse trailer to her Dodge Ram pickup and drove 1,628 miles to Texas.

The 32-year-old lawyer sold skin-care products in Houston before finding work as the assistant general counsel of a futures-trading firm where an irate customer punctuated a recorded voice-mail message with gunfire.

“No one was left with the impression that he just happened to be phoning from a sporting clays range,” she says.

Eighteen months and two busted jobs later, the daughter of a retired physician and a former editor at Vogue circled back to upstate New York and hunkered down at a small legal office that pays about one-quarter of her former $165,000 salary. ..................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-12-21/american-dream-fades-for-generation-y-professionals.html

[Vincardog]

1. The dream is slipping away from a lot of us Boomers too. I don't think it is generational

I think unless you were born with a silver spoon up your nose you are not liking this dream as well.

[DollarBillHines]

2. I'm launching a new business in January

I will never give up. I will never give in.

I am 60 years old and have never had what most would call a "real job". I have never enjoyed a "paid" vacation or employer-provided insurance.

I have had - at times - more money than I could spend and I have slept on people's floors. I have played for tips.

But, somehow, I have locked down the Next Big Thing in the #1 most popular and expensive hobby in the US (Home Gardening). It took three years of nothing but hard work, but I got it done.

I will never give up.

That being said, I totally agree with you, Vincardog, most Boomers have no fall-back. They were raised with certain expectations and not trained to react to realities. Everyone thought a degree was all it took, that everything would always be just fine. The Security Blanket that would take care of anything just walked out the door with Linus.
DBH