One thing I have noticed is how prevalent the hustle culture has become among Millennials. LinkedIn is a hotbed of narcissism, and Twitter has a ton of self-proclaimed business superstars who have made money by having companies entirely dependent on using foreign labor and providing shitty service for customers. It's quite appalling how often you hear fellow Millennials go on and on boasting about their own "successes" or try to sell themselves without an ounce of honesty.
The hustle of creating "passive income" means that we are going to see a lot of sociopaths becoming landlords and doing the bare-minimum for those who rent from them, and the quality of services will continue to decline across all companies as there is no value in providing a good service, merely making money. The decline of quality we have seen from the boomer generation onward (yes, that includes you, Generation X, you aren't exempt from being self-destructive narcissists like your parents and your children) is going to ramp up significantly.
Some people will say, "blame the system, not the person," but for god's sake, eventually someone has to stand up and refuse to operate as basically a scam artist. For as many supposed "leftists" there are among Millennials, they sure have no qualms about taking the worst aspects of human greed and using that as their core business model.
Am I over-exaggerating here?
Unfortunately that's because narcissism is what gets rewarded in the labor market. Having powerful friends, err I'm sorry, networking is the be all end all of getting work these days, because fuck having skills. Narcissism just makes it easier to obtain what really matters.
Most networking is pretty useless. The only time networking helps is if a family member knows someone. Networking with random strangers is absolutely useless.
That's not how that works, and that's why it's useless. You actually have to build a genuine relationship with people who will then present you with opportunities because of your metaphysical connection, rather than your material one. This would not be an issue in a parochial community because you would know this person and his family because they live down the road.
Instead, you have to actively socialize and befriend these people into a proper social network that most modern Americans do not know how to do.
If you're networking with strangers then you're doing it wrong. I see a lot of discussion online that straight up doesn't get it. There's this notion going around that you shouldn't make friends at work, that your colleagues can't be people you develop strong social connections with. You know how you build a professional network that's going to result in people setting you up with future work? You simply have to not be a complete sperg and allow yourself to make some friends. Because of that I've been able to both set people up with jobs when they needed them as well as had opportunities handed to me on a silver platter.
Just embrace the fact that humans are social animals instead of subscribing to the unhealthy idea that you have to always keep everyone at arm's length at the workplace.
This is even more important now than it ever was, since the "lifelong employee" concept is dead. So all those friends you make at work are going to fly out into dozens of other jobs and fields, leaving you an in to follow them if need or desire be.
No offense, but the replies are correct on this one. Besides your own skills, networking is the most valuable commodity both in school and in work. The best opportunities spread by word of mouth, not public notices that anybody can read on the internet.
If you're in college, work through problems with other kids as much as possible. This is a top method to succeed. Even if they're slower than you sometimes, you still firm up your knowledge by teaching it to others and do people favors that will pay off later.
Minor example, there's this dude at work who can be pretty hard to deal with. Because I'm friendly with him, he just got me into a deal with tools that saved me hundreds of $.