Anonymous
Post 07/20/2025 09:11     Subject: Are many people over sensitive and selfish these days? Or is this just my impression from here and social media?
Anonymous wrote:I’m a boomer so what does that make me?

Irrelevant
Anonymous
Post 07/20/2025 09:09     Subject: Are many people over sensitive and selfish these days? Or is this just my impression from here and social media?
Yes. We're so focused on minutiae and, it seems, looking for reasons to be offended. Anecdotally, road rage seems to be way up.

Overall it seems that people are solely looking out for themselves: not even themselves and their communities. People seem aggressively protective of their space but do not appear to care about being thoughtful of others. It's a downward spiral.

I'm an elder millennial and things seem to have gotten much worse since everyone got a smartphone (about 2010).
Anonymous
Post 07/20/2025 09:08     Subject: Are many people over sensitive and selfish these days? Or is this just my impression from here and social media?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:I’m old enough to remember when Gen X were considered lazy slackers but now we all walked to school barefoot in the snow, uphill both ways.


lol

I think we were labeled lazy slackers because of the clothes we wore, our music, and lifestyle. Heck, we invented the coffee house lifestyle of killing time drinking coffee—day or night!

Movies like Singles and Reality Bites popularized the slacker label.

But it was an unfair label.

The reality was we were latch key keys who had to sink or swim on our own (or with friends). Overall we were frugal and savvy and more scrappy than subsequent generations because we had to be. We probably experienced more trauma because of our independence (neglect?) yet somehow persevered.


I get this makes you feel good about yourself to think you are describing all Gen X this way, but it's just a bunch of broad stereotypes. I'm gen X, wasn't a latchkey kid. I'm frugal but my sister, also Gen X, is not. I did experience neglect as a kid and I don't think it made me resilient -- I'm resilient in spite if it and would have been better off with loving, supportive parents. This may be your story, but it's not the universal story of Gen X.

And just as the stories people told about us when we were young were unfair, so to are the stories we are telling about young people today.
Anonymous
Post 07/20/2025 09:07     Subject: Are many people over sensitive and selfish these days? Or is this just my impression from here and social media?
Anonymous wrote:Reading posts on here, and occasionally on Reddit, and it seems like people get anxious and offended more easily and feel justified in making others accommodate their needs in ways that my generation (X) didn’t expect.

Ex’s.
The poster with the waitress teen dd who doesn’t know what to do when boys/men ask for her number. (Not so much that op, but others who claim it’s harassment that the boss needs to fix for her)

(I see lots of this sort of sentiment on Reddit, which I assume trends younger. Everything is harassment, bullying, etc which warrants adult/supervisor intervention)

A law partner colleague who tells me he’s not allowed to mark up a young associate’s work too much, as advised by HR. He says if he marks up their drafts too much, they run to HR.

Thoughts? I want to live in a more careful and kind society, but I think that goes both ways.


Many people think the world revolves around themselves. They don't think of others, or how their behavior affects others, even in acts of kindness (the example that comes to mind over and over is how parents won't carpool these days or they are called a doormat).

Our kids are launched but there are so many kids I've driven over the years, and so many parents who drove my kids - we helped each other out because that's what kind, civilized people do - my mottos are, "open heart, open mind, open doors," and "it takes a village."
Anonymous
Post 07/20/2025 09:07     Subject: Are many people over sensitive and selfish these days? Or is this just my impression from here and social media?
Anonymous wrote:I’m old enough to remember when Gen X were considered lazy slackers but now we all walked to school barefoot in the snow, uphill both ways.


On a serious note, the roof of my elementary school collapsed due to snow load. The local Methodist church filled in as a school for a few months while the county scraped together enough money to fix the school. We did have shoes though.
Anonymous
Post 07/20/2025 09:03     Subject: Are many people over sensitive and selfish these days? Or is this just my impression from here and social media?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:I’m old enough to remember when Gen X were considered lazy slackers but now we all walked to school barefoot in the snow, uphill both ways.


lol

I think we were labeled lazy slackers because of the clothes we wore, our music, and lifestyle. Heck, we invented the coffee house lifestyle of killing time drinking coffee—day or night!

Movies like Singles and Reality Bites popularized the slacker label.

But it was an unfair label.

The reality was we were latch key keys who had to sink or swim on our own (or with friends). Overall we were frugal and savvy and more scrappy than subsequent generations because we had to be. We probably experienced more trauma because of our independence (neglect?) yet somehow persevered.


30 years from now, Gen Zers are going to be complaining that kids are so soft today. Just like my depression-era grandparents complained about Gen X being soft. And so it goes.


I know, right? I wore shoes to school and only walked uphill to school one way. My grandparents wrapped their feet in newspaper (when they could get one) and walked uphill both ways in a blizzard to school every day.
Anonymous
Post 07/20/2025 08:43     Subject: Are many people over sensitive and selfish these days? Or is this just my impression from here and social media?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:I’m old enough to remember when Gen X were considered lazy slackers but now we all walked to school barefoot in the snow, uphill both ways.


lol

I think we were labeled lazy slackers because of the clothes we wore, our music, and lifestyle. Heck, we invented the coffee house lifestyle of killing time drinking coffee—day or night!

Movies like Singles and Reality Bites popularized the slacker label.

But it was an unfair label.

The reality was we were latch key keys who had to sink or swim on our own (or with friends). Overall we were frugal and savvy and more scrappy than subsequent generations because we had to be. We probably experienced more trauma because of our independence (neglect?) yet somehow persevered.


30 years from now, Gen Zers are going to be complaining that kids are so soft today. Just like my depression-era grandparents complained about Gen X being soft. And so it goes.
Anonymous
Post 07/20/2025 08:31     Subject: Are many people over sensitive and selfish these days? Or is this just my impression from here and social media?
Anonymous wrote:I’m old enough to remember when Gen X were considered lazy slackers but now we all walked to school barefoot in the snow, uphill both ways.


lol

I think we were labeled lazy slackers because of the clothes we wore, our music, and lifestyle. Heck, we invented the coffee house lifestyle of killing time drinking coffee—day or night!

Movies like Singles and Reality Bites popularized the slacker label.

But it was an unfair label.

The reality was we were latch key keys who had to sink or swim on our own (or with friends). Overall we were frugal and savvy and more scrappy than subsequent generations because we had to be. We probably experienced more trauma because of our independence (neglect?) yet somehow persevered.
Anonymous
Post 07/20/2025 08:04     Subject: Are many people over sensitive and selfish these days? Or is this just my impression from here and social media?
I’m old enough to remember when Gen X were considered lazy slackers but now we all walked to school barefoot in the snow, uphill both ways.
Anonymous
Post 07/20/2025 08:00     Subject: Are many people over sensitive and selfish these days? Or is this just my impression from here and social media?
Anonymous wrote:I think it's a mix of a lot of things. I'm an older millennial and participation trophies and all that were part of my childhood. We didn't do homecoming kings/queens or vote on any yearbook superlatives so that kids feelings wouldn't get hurt.

There is good and bad with what I see happening on SM. The whole "cancel culture" is pretty ridiculous. People take things out of context, dig up things from the past, or don't allow you to make one bad choice/mistake.

People also have fake outrage/hurt etc in order to go viral. Saw one recently where she made up an entire story of an interaction she had between two other shoppers and her TikTok got a ton of views. Then the story fell apart and oops, turns out it was made up.

But, there is good too. People don't put up with stuff as much. The "be quiet and don't create a scene" is going away. When I was waitressing, I was told to "take it as a compliment" that I was being hit on or "just be polite about it, don't upset the customer". Which , looking back is pretty ridiculous that I had to put up with customers hitting on me and at times groping me and was told to be nice and not upset them. Now, it's much more acceptable to call people out on that and not put up with it. That doesn't make anyone sensitive or dramatic.

As for your law associate, I have a hard time believing him. He either got reported by someone for legitimate reasons and now holds a grudge or he's one of those male jerks in the workplace.



I think you are correctly identifying an underlying issue here.
Anonymous
Post 07/20/2025 07:56     Subject: Are many people over sensitive and selfish these days? Or is this just my impression from here and social media?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Like always, it's personal and not generational or generalizable. I worked with a young man (maybe late 20s early 30s so a young millennial FWIW) and he was terrible at his job, defensive and then basically a crybaby about the criticism.

Meanwhile others in that same cohort are tough, hard workers and have envious maturity.


The newest / younger hires at our office are all quite emotionally fragile. They all seem to have therapists. Most are still tightly tied to mommy & daddy in unhealthy ways.

Mature is the last thing I would call them.


- and meant to add: they are constantly on their phones.
Anonymous
Post 07/20/2025 07:56     Subject: Are many people over sensitive and selfish these days? Or is this just my impression from here and social media?
Anonymous wrote:Like always, it's personal and not generational or generalizable. I worked with a young man (maybe late 20s early 30s so a young millennial FWIW) and he was terrible at his job, defensive and then basically a crybaby about the criticism.

Meanwhile others in that same cohort are tough, hard workers and have envious maturity.


The newest / younger hires at our office are all quite emotionally fragile. They all seem to have therapists. Most are still tightly tied to mommy & daddy in unhealthy ways.

Mature is the last thing I would call them.
Anonymous
Post 07/19/2025 21:04     Subject: Are many people over sensitive and selfish these days? Or is this just my impression from here and social media?
Anonymous wrote:Like always, it's personal and not generational or generalizable. I worked with a young man (maybe late 20s early 30s so a young millennial FWIW) and he was terrible at his job, defensive and then basically a crybaby about the criticism.

Meanwhile others in that same cohort are tough, hard workers and have envious maturity.

Have yet to see a tough worker under 45. We had a 19-year old sit down today 2 hours into her shift, because she was tired. We have 50-year olds doing longer shifts without sitting down. People are physically and mentally weaker nowadays. They closed the borders and we don't get the self-selected crowd anymore. Lots of ADHD/ASD pushed into our industry as if it's easy for them.
We hired 4 new people. 3 had family members die the first week. We cannot hire any more people, because we don't want their parents to die. This happened before, but not at this scale.
What's going on? Lots of people pushed into workforce and they are not ready or fit mentally, but also physically.
Anonymous
Post 07/19/2025 17:56     Subject: Are many people over sensitive and selfish these days? Or is this just my impression from here and social media?
oops enviable
Anonymous
Post 07/19/2025 17:56     Subject: Are many people over sensitive and selfish these days? Or is this just my impression from here and social media?
Like always, it's personal and not generational or generalizable. I worked with a young man (maybe late 20s early 30s so a young millennial FWIW) and he was terrible at his job, defensive and then basically a crybaby about the criticism.

Meanwhile others in that same cohort are tough, hard workers and have envious maturity.