But as my job as a front desk representative continues, I'm starting to realize that the rotten core not only runs deeper than I thought, but starts much younger as well. Now, this isn't meant to be a diatribe on the "good old days" of taking a strap to your kids when they misbehaved. Nor is it a "woe is the world" tale of how we are all going to hell.
You know what though? There's something WRONG with the way we as a generation are growing up. I not only work days at the hotels I'm in right now, but also nights. I get to see and hear the FILTH and disrespect spewed out by young adults who are part of one of the most highly educated generations yet. I've watched drunk girls in stilettos and what might as well be duct tape, hike up their skirts and try to piss outside and then bad mouth the security guards who tell them to stop. I've seen guy after guy coming running into a hotel with security guards and police not far behind him, because he picked a fit with a staff member or another guest. I've heard adults asking other adults to please put out their cigarettes outside in the communal hot tub because there were children around, and heard the smokers cry "FUCK YOU."
In my own experience, I've watched my mother beg for more time, for compassion for what happened to us, for AID from my fathers brother, and watched her be turned away. Kids bash on doors they don't even know to accuse people of breaking the things THEY leave laying around in other peoples driveways (if that had been me as a kid leaving something in a driveway that got broken, my dad would have had my proverbial hide).
Guests come up to the desk and yell and scream and vent all over us from everything from rooms not facing a particular direction, to being angry at us because we can't have a security guard on every floor to stop the noise of people going into their rooms for the night, or the noise of snowplows outside that kind of HAVE to do their job, otherwise we'd be yelled at for not plowing out our parking lots.
Don't get me wrong, I've had some hilarious experiences with guests who were angry enough to bite my head off. Usually because the only thing to do after a horrible experience with someone really, is to laugh (of course only once they're well out of ear shot and whatever problem they DID have, rational or not, has been addressed). But story after story from security guard, desk agent and various other staff.....just depress me.
It's no wonder that people HATE us young adults (19-25 lets say for arguments). We're belligerent, drunk, defiant, rude, disrespectful, crass, loud, obnoxious and sometimes downright nasty. We talk back, fuck the world and destroy whatever we think we can get away with destroying. Don't get me wrong, I know some WONDERFUL human beings in this age category. Beautiful people with caring hearts, respect, dignity and a drive to succeed in life not only for themselves but to help others. I try to be one of those good people. But when someone much older than me, looks at me or treats me with disdain? It's not hard to understand why. It's funny how the numbers of us that are terrible, make so many of us decent ones seem terrible too.
I think when I first realized this, I was 15, heading into an apartment building when I caught sight of an older woman heading towards the side door. Chatting with my friend at the time, I leaned against the door to hold it open. It was a warm day, and I wasn't in a rush. But the old woman, started to run for the door, her face contorted into a sort of pleading dismay, as though she was waiting for me to just step inside and shut the door in her face. In her hurry, she fell and cut her shin and hand. I helped her up to her apartment, and the woman taking care of her - after she heard the story - looked at me like it was MY fault this had happened. I realize it wasn't MY fault...but I knew my age had played a factor.
This is what we've become in the eyes of so many. Spoiled young adults who know nothing about being on our own with so little respect that they act as though we're incapable of kind or thoughtful gestures.
I can't tell anymore if this is something wrong just with our generation, or if it's a problem with the world itself. All I know, is that the good ones of us, will eventually get tired of being treated with a lack of respect, generated in others because of the bad ones of us. In turn, we'll stop giving the respect that the adults claim they aren't getting from ANY of us.
It's not the dog eat dog world out there anymore. It's the humans who are the new problem.
