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.
Networking is what matters because regulators, certification, academics, and HR have all entirely failed to do their jobs, and everyone is lying.
Companies simply can't believe anything they see, and even if you have the correct mertiocratic qualifications, your psychological conditions may prevent you from working effectively in the environment or with the team.
As a result, the level of work required to suss out a good candidate whom you can employ for 3-5 years is neigh-on-impossible.
Therefore, what most places value is trust. If a person that they trust, says that you can be trusted; that's worth it's weight in gold because they don't have to work nearly as hard to analyze you, judge you, watch you, even after you're hired for the next 90 days.
It's no joke, I've seen the data. Referral hires have the best track record because the person referring them already knows whether or not they'll actually meet the real qualifications of working at a place every day with a set of people.
We built a materialistic, low-trust, fraudulent credential, economy and as a result trust has become the single most valuable asset that a person can have.
Let's be real, we've built a low trust society.
Let's be even more real: the American populace has been actively ignoring that our government hasn't built anything and instead let the country fall into disrepair.
You wouldn't look at a falling down, foreclosed house in Detroit and say "ah they built a shitty house."
I live in NY State -- and one of the biggest things I have learned is that blue states are AMAZINGLY worse off than Red states.
Basic infrastructure isn't failing, it has failed. I am talking about traffic lights that never turn green, or turn green towards a parking lot for 45 seconds at 3am. Potholes that never get filled. Police that never show up when you call 911 (had a guy in the middle of the street stopping cars and screaming at people).
Why would anyone have any trust for anything when basic services are broken beyond repair?