I spent eight years abroad teaching English and English as a Second Language. During the latter half of that time, my family in the US kept up a constant stream of encouragement to return. This wasn’t always a positive or helpful situation as they had never left the US and were susceptible to the propaganda in the US media concerning the dangers of the outside world. However, because they seemed to want me to return, I kept them in the loop as I sent out more than 200 applications and tried to navigate the many difficulties in returning.
As it turns out, keeping them in the loop was not the best thing for me, nor them if I am to be completely objective. My father and my older sibling are part of previous generations, and the world changed quickly, so they have lost touch with how the employment process works these days.
The most annoying example that occurred was when I informed them that no one contacted me from any of the 200+ resumes I sent out. My family’s response was, “Well, did you walk in and talk to them?” I tried to explain that applying for positions at colleges and corporations such as Universal, Disney, and other places in need of writers don’t work that way anymore. They insisted I try, and when I explained that I was applying for jobs all over the country and couldn’t afford to walk into any place, they again countered. “Well, you should apply in Michigan. Michigan is a good place.”
I tried, again and again, to gently explain that unless I was applying at the local store to be a clerk or something along those lines, the applications had to be filled out online. I joked that if I walked into the local community college and knocked on the door of the head of the English department, they’d probably have a lockdown and I’d be arrested. After being badgered about this point, I finally met them halfway and called a few people at the local colleges. One person never answered and never returned my call. The other person responded and was kind, but asked me, “Did you fill out the application form online?”
The initial application process for teaching positions at any level now is handled online. If you do not meet every single requirement precisely, your application is rejected. If you do meet the requirements, but you do not include the special keywords that are somewhat unique to each school, your application is rejected. If you do not know someone at the school, your application will probably be rejected. In fact, that job was posted because legally the school has to post open positions, but they already know whose friend or relative to whom they will give that position. Nepotism is alive and flourishing.
This is the employment situation that we have created for the generations coming into the workforce. We push college and debt onto the younger generations along with hallucinogens in the form of promises that this is the only way, and then we force them to fill out punchcards and wait for the machines to accept or reject them. The process is faceless and absurd and dehumanizing. It also reminds me of a scene from Joe Versus the Volcano (starring Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan) where Joe’s manager is on the phone, and we can only hear his side of the conversation. “Yes, I know he can do the job, but can he get the job?” Perfect foreshadowing of what the application process would become.
Because I am continually searching for a source of income, I am online for most of the day and night. During my downtime, when I am trying to catch up with friends and acquaintances, I inevitably come across memes shared by my friends about how Millenials or the younger generations are ruining everything, and are weak and worthless. They are portrayed as needing participation trophies, as being too thin-skinned and intolerant to have differing views around them, and as being too lazy to do a decent days work.
I am in the classroom with the younger generations, and I frequent bookstores and libraries and cafes, and I shop at places that employ younger people, and these stereotypes are foolishly far from accurate. I see people who smile and want to help. In the classroom and libraries, I hear them talk of the terror of having to deal with climate change (it’s real, the science is unanimous, get over it) while also navigating college and the demeaning job market. They are logical, and therefore they are angry at the older generations as we sit around and talk about how it will be bad for the economy if we stop polluting the planet.
Memes and biased news stories are not the only propaganda being utilized against the younger generations. There are also supposedly real but unverified anecdotal encounters between members of the older generations and the Millenials and Centennials (or whatever they will be called). One I recently saw consisted of a store clerk telling an older person they should start bringing reusable grocery bags to the store because they needed to be green and start helping fix the problem that the older people created. The older person responds by listing all the ways her generation were more green than the younger generations. For example, reusing milk bottles, not having multiple electrical sockets in every room, not having TVs in every room, and using paper bags as book covers.
Frankly, I miss those paper book covers, and that detail caused me a pleasant trip through some of my less painful memories of high school. However, the five-minute video did not mention unregulated factories belching pollutants into the air, the use of aerosols, the dumping of toxic chemicals into our waters, and the nuclear weapons testing done by previous generations. They left out many significant issues while focusing sarcastically on some of the little details. Will the climate crisis be averted by merely using canvas grocery bags? Can we go back to idyllic times (when were the idyllic times again?) if we return to using glass milk jugs and paper bags?
The other day, Greta Thunberg gave her speech at the UN, and I watched and was shaken by her passion. I have made a point of reading about her actions ever since a friend in Sweden first posted a local news story about her. She tells uncomfortable truths that are supported by irrefutable scientific investigations. And she is angry. Rightfully so. We older people talk of money and the bigger picture, but our words are empty platitudes and thinly disguised self-interest. Those bodies in positions of power, those in government and those controlling corporations, perhaps they are genuinely ignorant, and they choose to not believe in the coming climate crisis. This reminds me of a quote from the movie Constantine, starring Keanu Reeves and Rachel Weisz. Angela, Rachel’s character says, “I don’t believe in the devil.” Constantine responds, “He believes in you.” It is pointless to disbelieve the coming climate crisis; it is happening regardless of your belief.
Or perhaps these powerful people know what is happening, and they believe they have acquired enough wealth to protect their own children from the horrors the younger generations will face. This is also a mistake. There will be nowhere to hide from rising sea levels, rising and then drastically falling temperatures, the droughts, or the droves of people seeking depleting resources and justice.
I hear Greta Thunberg speak, and I hear the truth along with the threats. I accept both. She and the other members of the younger generations are being gifted a timebomb that was activated before they were born, and was ignored for decades. Instead of being swayed by the empty propaganda urging us to belittle and dismiss the younger generations, let us join them and stop wasting time. Our pride and obstinance are tethers we can no longer afford. And the truths of the future are seen more clearly by the young as they are the ones living those truths.