Daggum Young’uns

I’ve been attending a conference of sorts about journalism the last couple of days, and it’s been a bit of a whirlwind.

In particular, there was a rather heated argument that went on between a number of older professionals about how young kids are taking their jobs for less money.  They weren’t happy about it, to say the least.

I get the argument.  Fresh young kids are getting out of college, unmarried, eager to start a career, and (in many cases) they’re perfectly willing to spend a couple years living off basically nothing while still working 12+ hour days.  It’s actually a reality I think I’ve been prepared for for some time.

But the question becomes, are companies sacrificing quality in order to save money?

According to older professionals, yes, definitely.  But as a young’un myself, I feel a little insulted by the whole deal.  Yeah, we’re young.  Yeah, there’s a whole lot of real life shit we don’t know.  But how is it our fault that your company would rather hire us than continue with you?

Not to mention that, in the media world, young professionals know the young market and the growing technological generation we’re all living in.  In a lot of ways, we’re more ambitious, more in-tune with new trends, and more engaged with a generation that’s slowing beginning to take over for those before us.

So yeah, maybe we’re taking your jobs.  Let’s just hope we can do with them a wealth of things you haven’t been able to do before.