Our generation is becoming so entitled.  

I will give an example to further exemplify my point.

I have a friend.  Let’s call him Rob for his sake.  He emailed everyone he knew about a week ago saying that he had 17 dollars in his bank account and that he would do any work we had available to make some extra money to pay his rent, food, etc.  

I thought, well, I need to build up some good Karma points…  Why not help him?…  But how?  

I decided to offer him 50 dollars to take pictures of about 100 pieces of vintage jewelry for my online vintage jewelry business.  I would usually do all of it myself but I figured why not help the guy out?

So I offered him the job and he accepted.  We agreed we would meet on Saturday to drop off the goods and do the photo shoot.

He sent me a text message last night asking me to call him so we could talk about plans for Saturday.  Intrigued, I called him back and he wanted to know if I wanted to go to a Medival/ Renaissance Faire with him in a relatively nearby city on the same day we were supposed to be taking pictures.  

I, confused, then said that that city was an hour and a half away and that I didn’t think we would have time for both.  

He said, “What do you mean? I thought this was only going to take like an hour or two.”

I responded calmly that we have to take pictures of all items on me and then he has to take pictures of the pieces from different angles, which he would do on his own.  He would have to take 4 pictures per piece of jewelry and edit them and then send them to me.  Now I know this is tedious work.  I realize that but I have 3 jobs and make time to do it and it isn’t hard work, just tedious…  

He said that he didn’t foresee it being that time consuming and due to that he would have to decline it.

I asked him if he had any other jobs lined up and he said no.  I then asked him if he had anything planned for the weekend and he replied again with no.  

I then asked the most enlightening question:

“So then why does it matter that it is going to take more than 2 hours to do the work?”

“Because that means I would make like 10 dollars an hour and that is too low pay for me.  I make 50 dollars an hour as a graphic designer and I can’t justify that pay cut.  I was willing to do it for 25 dollars an hour but 10 or 12…  I can’t do it.  Sorry.”

I was so astonished that there was a short silence and I got off the phone as quickly as possible.

You have 17 dollars in your bank account and you are turning down a job because you feel that it is too low pay for your high work experience????

This example illustrates perfectly this idea of entitlement.  If you are poor and don’t have money, you may have to do jobs that you wouldn’t normally do to pay the bills.  You might have to agree to less than what you would normally make to survive and you may have to work really hard.  This is life and if you are begging for work then you are not in a position to be choosy.  Rob felt he was entitled to 20 or 30 dollars an hour because that is what he would make when he had work in his field which he doesn’t have currently.  Entitled. Yes.  Logical.  No.