What Is Your Most Millennial Complaint?

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person drops a white card labeled COMPLAINT into a glass box

There was a story in the NYT, covering a question that had been posed to X: What is your biggest millennial complaint? I thought it might be a fun discussion here — but insert your generation, whether you're boomer, Gen X, millennial, or Gen Z. (I doubt there are any Generation Alpha readers here, but you never know — we'd also love your complaints!)

If you're curious what kind of complaints the initial tweet (xeet?) covered, The New York Times (gift link) explains:

It started when Erika Mackley, a 34-year-old art director from Detroit, posed a tongue-in-cheek question to users on X: “i don’t want to hear your most boomer complaint. what’s your most millennial complaint?”

… [The post] prompted a mix of gripes and jokes, with posts about bringing heels back to the club, the golden age of comedy films (think “Horrible Bosses” and “Step Brothers”) and a longing for the return of television shows with 24-episode seasons.

“Everybody’s ringtone should still be a 30 second cut of their favorite song in terrible quality,” wrote Dom Pappagallo, 27, an actor from Boston.

As fellow millennials flooded Ms. Mackley’s replies it became clear that members of her generation were nostalgic for a relatively recent past that already felt far away, when large social issues like misinformation, fragmentation and artificial intelligence seemed less prevalent. And for an era in which social media was a place for harmless banter and fun.

I myself am a Xennial, that micro generation where Gen X doesn't seem quite right and neither does millennial… and sooo many of the complaints rang true to me. For example:

  • why is everything a subscription?
  • why are the most annoying online things protected by the most annoying security — is someone else trying to pay my mortgage?
  • why aren't there any good family action movies that aren't about superheroes? (My husband and I seem to constantly be complaining that we just want something like a good Tom Cruise movie…)
  • airlines (that's it, that's the complaint, airlines)
  • And this is probably closer to a boomer complaint, but why are car headlights so dang bright?

Grumble… get off of my lawn!

Readers, what are your biggest [millennial] complaints? On more of a discussion level — do you think these complaints (that so many of us share!) are going to be addressed at all, and by whom (new disruptor companies, older companies as perhaps younger generations take charge, or more)?

Stock photo via Deposit Photos / PantherMediaSeller.

171 Comments

  1. 1) when customer service people say, “no problem” instead of “you’re welcome” or even better, “so sorry for this inconvenience.” 2) that millenials refuse to talk in person or on the phone and instead send millions of roundabout emails. 3) that millenials think that they should be absolved from doing boring/ adminstrative grunt work and think they should just start with higher level stuff.

    1. some millennials are in their 40s now – some of your complaints sound like they’re more about the early 20-somethings that are the next generation down!

      1. my milennial complaint is that everyone still complains about the milennials when they really mean Gen Z

      2. Yes! We’re middle aged now. These complaints seem to be for the 20-somethings

      3. My biggest complaint about OP is that they misunderstood the question and conflated millennials with anyone younger than they are. Ok boomer

    2. As a millennial, no I don’t want to do low level grunt work. I’ve been a lawyer for 15 years, my doc review days are over. Heck my brief writing days should be over. Yet I still have senior partners ask me to do this stuff, and no they do not want me to delegate (and actively sabotage my attempts to delegate). Or they want me to cut my rate down to nothing. I’m glad to finally be at a place in my career that I can just tell them no I’m not doing it at all.

    3. are these complaints about millennials? or “millennial complaints,” as in, complaints indicative of your generation?

      1. I also thought it was the latter.

        Much more interesting than everyone complaining how the young uns are entitled and lazy. Groundbreaking….

    4. This on #3! A direct report who was new to the job and getting fast tracked on more responsibilities by me due to her excellent performance brought to our 1:1 a document listing “Work I do not enjoy doing. “ Im gen x and reared career wise by boomers so I about fell out! She was awesome and talented but i will always remember how i was like wutttt. As in Mad Men, “everything assigned to you now is an opportunity.”

  2. Touchscreen everything. I miss buttons. In cars particularly (our car is old and still has real buttons, and every time we rent it drives us bonkers) – so unsafe to HAVE to look at a screen to do anything!

    1. I was at a hospital surgical center that made people check in using a touchscreen. There was an elderly guy frantically trying to finish the check-in, another elderly guy yelling at the first one, and then me and a teenager hoping we’d make our check-in time. I want whatever consulting firm twerp who thought that up to have to sit next to one for six hours without being allowed to help anyone trying to use the machine.

      1. Seriously! I’ve witnessed the same at the EYE doctor’s office. Who was the 20-something MBA consultant genius that thought elderly patients with bad eyesight + tech + touchscreen was a good mixture??

      2. Yup, my “breast center” clinic moved to touch-screen tablets a year or so ago, and I loathe them with a white-hot passion. The questions are interminable, and they make it nearly impossible to move to the next screen. Why do I have to answer all this crap every single time if nothing has changed? My mother’s cancer history hasn’t changed, my grandparents are still dead, and I still need a mammogram. Grrr.

      3. And quite unsanitary. Let’s just spread the bugs to every patient in the clinic.

      4. Took my Boomer mom to an appointment at her gerontologist and they expected everyone to have checked in via a text message. I laughed at how many of the incoming patients did not have a cell phone, never saw the text, or said they never click on links in texts.

    2. Agreed! I’m 40 (elder millennial?) and am so curmudgeony about not wanting touchscreens in cars.

    3. hilariously I think they’re all touchscreens so devices and things are more watertight but then they completely stop working in 3 years so who cares

      another complaint: that nothing is fixable now, it’s all just garbage if it stops working

  3. social media not being about my real life friends anymore – it was a great way to keep up with friends back in like 2010 before it got performative and all the algorithm garbage suggested feeds

    1. oh this too. I no longer post, just follow, and my friends have all gone to the extreme – either not posting or only very occasionally (like attending someone’s wedding), or acting like an influencer with constant Stories etc.

      1. Oh my gosh, thank you! I just tried this and now I can actually see posts from people I follow!

    1. see i’m Gen X and feel like part of my “DGAF” years is not wanting to interact with humans in real life so I try to do everything by text or email.

    2. This is my big concern with Gen Z. They are all so self isolated and for no good reason.

      Why is it now so cumbersome to ask someone a question. You have to slack or email them, set up a time to talk and then wait. When I started working if the phones rang, I picked it up. As the junior person on the team, I answered all the calls for the team. It helped me speak with very senior people at the company I would have zero interaction with.

      Also, can we talk about this ‘there are no friends at work’. Yes there are and the people who can form those relationships go a lot further, earn more and, more importantly, they have more fun.

  4. The youths are computer illiterate and have no problem solving skills. I literally had an intern come to me because they didn’t have the zip code to mail a package….GOOGLE IT.

    1. I remember a day of high school that was all about what resource you’d use to find X or Y. Like, when you’d use an almanac over a thesaurus. While I’m thankful for the internet we definitely need more computer literacy (please understand a shared file structure and use the folders!) and more ideas about where to look things up. That’s a perfect use of the USPS website!

      1. Oh man I want to throttle the kids who don’t name files correctly at the office. It’s a shared drive, animals!

  5. Cars that are back-seat drivers/nannies–monitoring when/how I can change lanes, constantly warning me about potential dangers, telling me to look in the back seat before getting out of the car, asking if I’m tired. I’m just waiting for one to remind me to go potty before it will let me start the ignition.

    1. Ugh I hate this so much! I disabled the stupid lane change thing in my car. I once had to swerve to avoid hitting a ladder that fell off a truck in front of me. My car tried to steer me back into the ladder because it didn’t like that I went over the line in the lane next to me. There was no one next to me btw. Terrifying.

      I hate that my parking beepy noise freaks out when I’m still more than a foot away from something. That’s so far! Have the designers of these things ever been to a city?? Freak out when I’m 3 inches away not 18.

    2. Disabled it all and couldn’t be happier. All of its “nannying” about my driving is just dangerous in Houston where you can be driving on four different road surfaces in construction zone with multiple lane markings. Now, the time the car made me strap in a pumpkin because it was the weight of a child, it was kinda hilarious.

    3. You can disable a lot of that. Google your make and model with a description of the feature and there’s always some blog post about how to turn it off. The official feature name is rarely intuitive if you’ve already tried and failed on your own.

      1. Isn’t this information in the owner’s manual? Do they even make hard copies of owner’s manuals any more?

    4. I love this. Never have to comment on DH’s driving because my objective bestie (the car) does it for me.

  6. I hate downloading an app for everything. I don’t want so many apps! It’s too much to keep track of!

    Emails that follow my shopping habits. “We saw you checking us out!” Go away! It’s even worse than ads following you around.

    So many ads. BUY BUY BUY! I disable notifications but somehow some app still manages to send me a notification trying to sell me something. The Alexa “reminds” us when we’re running low on something or tries to sell us stuff. I just want to know the weather! And obnoxious branding on everything. The world is so very LOUD.

    1. I have to download an app to participate in my local park district’s “get outside” challenge!

      1. Booo, I hate this. Also hate that an app is required for every-freaking-thing anymore.

    2. My most Gen X complaint: People under 40 who think that the world is uniquely terrible for them based on events in the last five years and who have absolutely no understanding of even relatively recent history. (My Boomer Dad’s response to someone completely clueless talking about how easy his generation had it was a wry “Yes – my government sponsored tour of southeast Asia was really a highlight of my youth.”) But honestly that is partly because makes me feel really old when someone says “well I am not comparing the world today to what it was like back in the 90s” as if they were talking about the 18th Century.

      And as a lawyer, I miss the days when we had to either send an actual letter via US mail and wait a week for a response or pick up the phone (and sending a fax was viewed as a bit aggressive, to be reserved for truly urgent circumstances). It was so much easier to be an attorney before email!

      1. but in fairness SO MUCH has changed since the 90s, in every facet of life. it feels like change has been more accelerated or concentrated in the past 25-30 years.

        1. Think of what life was like 100 years ago. The rate of change over the last century has been staggering.

  7. Video screens at the gas pump, especially the ones where you can’t turn the damn audio off. The most convenient station to my house recently “upgraded” their screens and no combo of buttons will mute the thing. Instead, it intercoms with the cashier. Which, I guess is better than the annoying ads, but still.

    1. In my experience, if it is one of those screens with four buttons on the left of the screen and four buttons on the right of the screen, the second button from the top of the right will often mute the audio.

      1. Unfortunately, this pump immediately intercoms the cashier if you press any button that doesn’t have a labeled action item on the screen. I have started pressing it just to page the cashier to get the stupid audio to shut up. Half the time the cashier doesn’t respond anyhow.

  8. I’m a GenX (on the youngish end) but here are mine:

    Saying “no worries” after I say “thank you” when I’m buying something. Is our commercial transaction an inconvenience to you? Maybe it is, if you’re not the business owner and don’t work on commission? Anyway, sorry to interrupt your train of thought…

    Not acknowledging people when passing them in a mostly-empty hallway or on a sidewalk. “Hello” is not in fact an aggressive thing to say, and especially in a work context, being pleasant to someone not in your chain of command might pay off someday.

    Asking LOTS of questions about the preparation of food, what something tastes like, how big a serving is, what X drink is served in, etc., etc. when there is a huge line behind you and your questions have nothing to do with allergies or religious preferences.

    Assuming I want an iced coffee. I would like hot coffee, the way that the Good Lord intended coffee to be consumed.

    Saying “I would *never* let my X year old have a phone/use social media/eat junk food/be unsupervised” to the parents of an older kid.

    1. I don’t get the ‘no worries’/’no problem’s hate? I say it all the time, as a synonym for ‘it’s no trouble at all’ which is (to me) implies ‘I did it gladly’ which means ‘you’re welcome’.
      From this post and the first one, I’m getting the sense that this is perceived as passive aggressive or maybe dismissive somehow and I’m really baffled?? Why do you think ‘no problem’ conveys that there is a problem?

      1. Yeah, I’m a milennial and i”ve always said this. I don’t get why people are upset by it.

        1. I’m not upset about it, it’s just a phrase I find slightly irritating. To me, it implies that what I was doing (ordering a coffee, buying a shirt) may have “worried” the speaker, and they are being magnanimous in telling me that in fact I did not “worry” them. In the pantheon of things that irritate me in commercial settings, it is more irritating than self-checkout and less irritating than when a waiter explains “small plates” to me.

          1. You are of course entitled to be irritated by anything you choose, but you are misinterpreting the phrase. The speaker is telling you not to have any worries about “burdening” them with your request, that it was not a burden to them, perhaps even a pleasure to help, and you should be worry-free.

      2. I agree. I am a solid GenXer and “No worries” is maybe my favorite phrase. I picked it up in the early 90s on a trip to Australia and made it part of my general vocabulary since then. It’s a very useful and pleasant phrase to my mind.

      3. I use “no worries” sometimes but usually go with a cheerful “of course!” – like, of course I helped you! I’m happy to do it.

      4. It sounds ignorant, like you don’t know that “you’re welcome “ exists and is an appropriate response. When people say “no worries,” I take it as an insult, they can’t be bothered to respond correctly.

        1. I think you’re just looking for reasons to be insulted or wildly misunderstanding this. It’s a perfectly polite response indicating you needn’t have thanked the person. It’s akin to the French “de rein” (it’s nothing) or “my pleasure ma’am” albeit more modern.

        2. Phrases come in and out of use all the time. TBH, this stance makes it seem like you don’t know that “no worries” exists and is an appropriate response. Perhaps they should take your anger as an insult because you can’t be bothered to listen to them and try to understand what they’re saying.

          1. this. It’s especially weird that you imagine such deep meaning into bland polite phrases.
            If I greet you with Good morning, do you assume I don’t know that the word Welcome exists? Does saying Hello out me as hopelessly uncultured?

    2. I agree that when a store clerk hands you the item you purchased and you say “thank you”, it is weird for the clerk to say “no worries.” A more appropriate response would be “Thank you for coming in! Have a great day!”

      1. is this specific to business-customer interactions? Like when you are being ‘served’?
        Do you feel different when a colleague at work says it?

        1. Certainly – there’s something about business-customer transactions that makes it weird. No worries, I just spent $25 here on ice cream, don’t mind me?

    3. I’m a millennial and I literally just said “no worries!” to a client. I know some people don’t like it, so I try not to say it but it’s so ingrained! It just comes out, all the time.

  9. Okay, I’m super Gen X, so this may not be a millennial complaint, but why does every car model have its own fancy lil shape headlights and taillights now? Obviously the headlights are brighter than the sun, but also inscrutably shaped like an elongated Z?

  10. IDK what if any generation spawned this, but every mundane thing being “and experience” or “devastating”.
    I don’t need a mortgage experience, just let me pay my bill. No, Ashleigh-Grayce, accidentally getting whole milk instead of skim in your latte isn’t devastating. Get over yourself.

    1. Also, not everything is unprecedented. It’s like the “stick the landing” of news announcers right now.

      1. Oh my goodness, YES! I cannot with e.g. “your cancer journey.”

        1. Yes, let’s police the language of people who are trying to figure out how to make it through a deadly illness.

          I understand the complaint if we’re talking about my journey to find the perfect placemats, but yikes on bikes.

          1. Just clarifying that I believe the person you’re responding to meant it’s annoying for a person with cancer to get communication from, for example, a healthcare provider using that phrase.

        2. I get emails for my “credit journey”. Nope, it’s just trying to market debt. Piss off.

    2. Eh, the Gen X version of this (the good side) was “awesome.” The Millenial version of it is “amazing.”

      Your hazelnut latte is neither awesome nor amazing. Sorry!

  11. Boomer checking in to say I would like a paper menu at the restaurant, TYVM. Yes, I can scan the QR code and look at it on my phone, but I hate it.

    1. thissssssss

      plus the whole thing about QR codes secretly trying to kill us or whatever

        1. I’m the one who said that — tongue in cheek but yeah apparently QR codes are a huge security risk to your phone/data and you shouldn’t scan them willy nilly. (Especially if you get something in the mail from Amazon that you didn’t order and the package has a QR code to see more details.)

    2. Millennial here and I couldn’t agree more. My next biggest complaint is the waiter shoving a device in your face and hovering while you choose the tip amount. I’ve learned to take my time calculating the tip myself because the suggested 20% amount usually includes taxes.

      1. Gen X here: The bakery that has its staff hover over you waiting for a tip on the credit card device when all they did was hand you a loaf of bread, those people can get off my lawn.

    3. I’m 43 and want paper menus too! I certainly haven’t gone to a sit-down restaurant to have to order off an app!

    4. I hate the QR codes because the camera on my phone has been broken for months. I’m not about to a) throw away a mostly perfectly good phone or b) drop several hundred dollars on a new phone just because of this.

      My Gen Z coworker (who is like 6 years younger than me) was shocked I could live with a broken camera. I’m like girlfriend do you have new phone money because I do not* and she was like that doesn’t matter, you need a new phone. She doesnt seem to understand budgets.

      *Of course I do have the money for a new phone, but it’s not a financial priority for me.

    5. I want a paper menu because, like a poster above, I loathe needing my phone for everything.

      Also, what if it’s on low charge? What if I’m trying to detox from it? What if I don’t want my dining companion getting pinged by texts while we are figuring out which app to order?

  12. My milennial complaints:

    – I do not like current popular music. Where is the rock? The alternative? The pop punk?
    – I want the ability to have basic things for cheaper – not everything needs to be the fancy, tricked out version that costs 10x as much. Give me basic cable. Give me a car with buttons instead of touch screen.
    – Trends a) change way too fast these days and b) it feels like (among young people) the assumption is that everyone has to participate in every trend. I don’t have a Stanley and its not because I”m not cool or in the know, it’s because I don’t want one! My existing water bottle works fine, I don’t need to replace it with every trend!!!
    – While I appreciate some of what Gen Z is doing, especially around the workplace, they need to learn that you have to put in the effort and time to earn things. Things aren’t always fair. That’s okay. Example: My 25 year old coworker is so upset about the housing market (okay, aren’t we all) – she wants to buy a brand new 3-4 bedroom house with nice finishes but obviously can’t afford it. I had to explain to her that I’m 11 years older an I live in a smaller, older, less nice house because that’s what I can afford. And when I was her age I lived in a pretty crappy apartment with roommates, but we had a BLAST. She still lives at home and thinks she’ll be able to buy something as nice as her parents house!

    1. There are lot of great bands putting out alt, metal, pop punk etc these days, they just don’t get radio play. Driveways is 10/10 everything my millenial heart wants.

      1. Oh, I love plenty of modern music – but it’s not getting play on the radio, in the grocery store, out at a bar, etc.

        And the youth (mostly) aren’t listening to it!!!

        1. Although the radio but is right that definitely doesn’t track with Spotify listens and the demographics I see at concerts and festivals.

        2. Apparently Pierce the Veil randomly got popular with the youths in the past 6-9 months. I’m hoping that’ll open the door for more alternative music to get popular.

          1. Have you checked out Bad Omens or any of the newer metalcore bands? Bring Me The Horizon is still headlining huge festivals and they’re OG

          2. Love BMTH. I’m hoping (but not expecting) that they’ll play Warped Tour this year.

          3. Look into Welcome to Rockville in Daytona, absolutely insane lineup this year

      2. Haha my Boomer husband and I remark on an almost-daily basis that our music was objectively the best. Fight me. ;)

        1. I feel like some aspects of the creative arts are… plateauing. We don’t support them enough as a society, fewer people can survive in those careers, and everything is recycling what is old/previously successful.

          I see this in music, fashion, movies. It is very sad.

          It makes me sad that my intelligent, responsible young relaties don’t pay for any book, movie, tv show, music they wants to enjoy. Even when they can afford it. They know how to steal them on the internet, and doesn’t see why this is a problem.

    2. Very modest starter houses used to be a thing. And I have to admit to feeling like this was good enough for generations that came before so why isn’t it good enough for you that are young now. Not all but many boomers and elder millennials started with a first home buy that was somewhere between quite modest and frankly awful. I was three houses in and twelve years later before I could look around my home and think “ah, this is nice”. Same for my contemporaries, who ran the gamut from self made to generational money. The only difference was that old money probably got the down payment for their crappy first house from their family.

      1. Oh, THIS!! I am 66 and it’s only in the past year or so that I’ve lived in a house with no Bad Rooms. When I was young we all lived in super crappy houses and nobody gave it a second thought.

        1. And, I hasten to add, we all felt super lucky to own those super crappy houses.

        2. This! I don’t know if Instagram or HGTV are more to blame — everything feels like it has to be “styled” (and so much of what I see is all-white rooms or all-beige rooms)

      2. I’m in my 30s and looking around my apartment that I love – but it’s outdated finishes (the brown formica countertop is my favorite, but it’s totally serviceable) and every piece of furniture here was a hand me down or bought second hand off of a friend of a friend or a similar leve acquaintance.

        The only thing I got new is that I bought a full size bed + mattress and box spring when I graduated college. It’s from IKEA.

        A great aunt was downsizing into a retirement community when I was moving out on my own, so I got a lot of her furniture and I am so grateful!

      3. Such a good point! Many younger people have never lived in a fixer-upper or anything less than Instagrammable. College-affiliated apartments are probably nicer than my home in terms of countertops.

        1. Yes! I’m only 29 and my college dorms and apartment were awful – as they should be! While moving me in to my dorm freshman year my mom commented that it was no nicer or larger than her freshman dorm 30 some years ago… and I was in the “nice” dorms on my campus. I think it’s a great rite of passage.

          My cousin is 5 years younger and lived in what looked like luxury apartments the whole time in school – the only year he didn’t have his own en suite bathroom was freshman year?

        2. The few friends of mine who have bought houses have total fixer uppers – which is what they could afford and they’re happy to have it. We’re early 30s, I can’t imagine many in the next generation being okay with this.

      4. Very modest starter houses are still a thing. As empty nesters, we still live in the one we pinched pennies to afford as newlyweds. It wasn’t all that updated when we bought it, and still has most of those same finishes today. More wear and tear, but it is almost paid off and I can live with laminate counters, wrinkled & worn out carpet, and fugly 80s hardware everywhere since it means I have a healthy emergency fund and a decent retirement account balance.

        1. They’re hard to find – everything has been flipped and is $$$$. The few that weren’t flipped are bad (beyond outdated or small, but significant water damage bad).

          1. Well or they’re forever homes, not starter homes, to people who were lucky to get a house and all and are just staying there.

        2. precisely – the ones that still exist are the ones the original owners are still living in, and therefore, not on the market

        3. It’s a little ironic to say “just look for a starter home” as one of the people who turned their starter home into a forever home… that’s part of the problem!!

      5. The issue is that there are so few starter houses anymore. They’ve been torn down and replaced with something huge or someone made a bunch of shoddy renovations with cheap materials then jacked up the price. I’d happily buy a house with granite countertops from 2000 and beige carpet. But everything in my area is practically decaying or a formerly average home that’s now $800,000 and covered in awful white quartz.

        1. Or they’ve been purchased by conglomerates and either rented (for $$$) or left to rot because the land itself will be worth more in 10 years.

        2. I am amused that you find granite countertops to be downmarket. Crappy first homes don’t normally have granite.

        3. Um, granite counters are not a starter home thing. Granite patterned laminate? Sure.

      6. We just sold our very modest starter home we bought 15 years ago for 3X the purchase price. We’re in a HCOL area. We sold it to a lovely couple who are just starting out, who said they love the character of the house and claim they went to the top of their budget to make it work. So they are out there, and honestly, I feel for them that they had to pay so much money for what is, truly, a very small and old house. So maybe some of the sentiment comes from “hey, if I’m spending half a million dollars, I should be getting more!” Or “I wish I could get more for my money because it’s so much for so little.”

        1. My parents live in a nice, working class inner suburb of our city. Lots of ranches and colonials from the 1950s – depending on where in the town ranging from maybe ~1000 sq ft to 30000 sq ft. When I was growing up it felt like everyone around us was a teacher, nurse, firefighter, government worker, small business owner, etc. They bought their house in the 90s for 165k, and that was them throwing all of their money into this house. It was very dated when they got it, but they were thrilled. Slowly over the 30+ years they’ve lived there they’ve updated it and finished the basement – I think with the basement they’re now about 2900 sq ft and 4 bed / 3 bath (was previously 3 bed / 2 bath).

          Last year the house next door to my parents, which is both smaller and not as updated as their’s, sold for 575k. Another house in the neighborhood sold for over 800k!

          My brother is an accountant, I work in government but a higher pay band and we both are like I don’t know how we’d ever afford a house in this town. Which is fine – no one is entitled to live where they grew up – but it’s wild because this was your average working class town! Nothing ritzy about it and we’ve been priced out, even though we have more lucrative jobs than any adult we knew in this town growing up!

        2. there was a fascinating study recently on how much you have to earn to feel/be wealthy. for boomers it was like $95k, but for gen Z it was closer to $500k. someone I follow on bluesky was breaking down how that seems insane but actually tracks pretty closely to home prices and college prices.

          I think my parents bought their first house for $27k in the early 70s. My father earned $13k as a lawyer. LCOL area, but a 10% downpayment was totally doable.

          1. Bought my first house for $49,000 in 1992 when my salary was $23,500 which as normal for new lawyers in that area at that time. The house was cheaper than most houses, and showed it, but it was what I could afford.

          2. My first attorney salary was $24,000 in 2009 before taxes. So my millenial complaint was learning the hard way that those at the top get the biggest piece of chicken every time. Despite years of recruiters saying that if students wanted to work for a non-profit after graduation needed to show dedication to the cause through internships and volunteering, once the 2008 crash hit, that was out the window. There are many things a person can do, but compete against the free labor offered to legal non-profits in the form of deferred associates is not one of them.

        3. I’m 33, have saved aggressively and made some serious sacrifices to do so, and am just about at a place where I could think about starting to look and the “if it’s half a million dollars it should be more than ‘needs a new roof, 800 sq ft, in a neighborhood I’ve (yes, literally) been shot at in” is definitely a part of it. It’s hard to feel like it’s a good idea to pay so much, and hard to reset my expectations – not expecting a 3 bedroom house with granite counters, but tbh, I did think I’d be someone more stable by this point in my life

      7. Its because even those “modest” “starter homes” are nearly a million dollars in HCOL areas and it feels like if you’re going to pay 750k+ at a 7% interest rate it should at least be a nice enough house that doesnt require hundreds of thousands of dollars of renovations!

        1. It’s not even high cost of living areas. Trenton, NJ isn’t traditionally a HOCL place. It’s the nearest city to me. Everything in Trenton is 3-4 bedroom duplexes that are at least 50 years old, usually some bad siding and window air conditioners. Their assessed values are like $50k-$75k. And these flippers are redoing some interiors and trying to sell them for $250k or more. It’s insane. The only reason my husband an I (both in our 40s) can finally consider buying a house is that my father-in-law owns it and is selling it to us at way below market because it needs a lot of repair work.

    3. I had to teach my intern last summer about Good Charlotte, Simple Plan, Blink, and Sum 41…

    4. I feel like people have *very* high standards (assuming from social media) about what houses are supposed to look like nowadays. And while I won’t stop inviting people over, I have gotten the impression at a few recent dinners and meetings that people are unpleasantly surprised that my (neat, clean) house is small and old.

      1. I bought a former crack house and I’m slowly renovating it. No one comes inside because I’m too embarrassed, but at least I own a home.

      2. I have decades of experience and caught flak from a smart ass new lawyer last year who thought it was “funny” that he bought a house in my neighborhood. There was a strong implication that I should be embarrassed. I just smiled to myself and thought of my bank accounts and investments.

  13. I also hate the QR code menus or places where you have to order via an app or the website and they bring it to you.

    I’m 31, my phone is old and crappy because I won’t replace it til it dies. It’s battery life is short and the camera doesn’t work half of the time. I need a real menu – my camera usually won’t work and therefore I can’t scan a code. I also don’t want to drain my battery.

    I mentioned this once when out with colleagues and the Gen Z were like why would you have an old phone? Just replace it? Friends – phones are expensive and I want to maximize the time I get out of one, I will wait! If it actually breaks, I’ll go to the Apple store today, but until then I’m making do.

    What’s worse is that we’re poorly paid teachers – they can’t possibly have the money to just replace everything when it stops working at 100% performance. At their age, they’re making less than $50k.

  14. Why is everything a subscription now?
    And who buys the completely insane subscription service that promises to help you get rid of too many recurring subscriptions? Like who falls for those podcast apps? It’s like a drug dealer helping with your addiction.

    1. lol you mean Rocket Money? I wonder if Rocket Money identifies Rocket Money as a thing to consider canceling.

  15. Being a milennial, I feel a bit of a pull between the Boomers/Gen X and Gen Z. My aunt (Boomer) was going on and on about the young people at work not doing XYZ, wanting flexibility, etc. I was like I very much hear what you’re saying, I’m surprised by a lot of what my Gen Z colleagues do too. On the flip side, here’s stuff they’re doing that you weren’t (answering emails at night, flexing hours to meet with students, much more parental involvement).

    I also think the social contract has changed – when my aunt was young and in the work force she had no space to push back at all, BUT she worked 40 hours a week and could afford her crappy little starter house and what not. She didn’t need a Master’s to advance in her job, and her parents could easily pay for her Bachelor’s.

    The “kids” now need a Master’s (we are all teachers), many have loans from undergrad and grad school, and due to the housing market they cannot afford a crappy little starter house or even to rent a safe apartment on a single teacher’s salary.

    Technically our hours are let’s say 7:45-3:30. Well, the culture of the school is that everyone is there by 7:15 anyway, it looks bad if you’re not there by then. So, you’re already at work at least 30 minutes early. And, between 7:15 and 7:45 it’s not just get your coffee and chat or whatever, there are kids coming to your room for extra help. Same thing with after 3:30. So yeah, if the faculty meeting goes til 5, I might ask to flex my hours another day. That faculty meeting might also mean I have to cancel my tutoring, coaching, or babysitting second job I have to pay for those degrees I need to teach.

    1. FWIW, I’ve been in the paid workforce since the 1990s and I don’t think there is a single generation who enters the workforce and handles it perfectly. I was probably above-average, but I’m sure I was a PITA about certain things for no good reason and wore skirts that were too short for the office. I find septum piercings unattractive, I’m sure my older coworkers were irritated by my hose-less legs.

      1. I’m in my 30s and I’m finally comfortable flipping down my septum ring at work. I’m in charge now and so I don’t have to hide who I am as much. (Still deeply closeted at work though).

  16. My Gen X complaint is the overpopulated and overcomplicated cosmetics market and the extreme level of engagement among young people. At 14, I was shoplifting Wet ‘n Wild lipstick and Great Lash mascara, not making educational videos about “my favorite formula” among the 36 lip glosses I had tried.

    1. haha yes – and I, a milennial who makes 6 figures, still use the occasional Wet n’ Wild product (they have a few things that are good!). And, what’s not Wet n Wild is generic store brand (cleanser, moisturizer, etc) or e.l.f. (rest of skin care and make up!)

    2. Mine is that young people are being too boring with cosmetics and fashion. I’m a 40 something mom and I get bored with lulu leggings and skincare and natural makeup, even though I basically live at equinox and work from home. Why do the young girls want to look like a boring yoga mom?

      As a teenager you should have clothes and makeup that positively scandalized your elders or at least stuff they think is impractical and ugly. That’s half the fun!

      1. Also true! That “favorite formula” is usually a “my-lips-but -better” rather than an amazing hot pink from WnW.
        And I could do another post on athleisure that would take down every generation.

      2. I’m 30 and bad makeup was so fun!

        Silver eye shadow! Blue eye shadow! Colored mascara! A single dyed streak in our hair!

        1. i’m 48 and still remember the horrifying light blue nail polish and manic panic in my college years

  17. Mine is that kids don’t have awkward phases anymore. The fashion should be terrible, the braces should be visible, the hair style should be questionable, the makeup should look like a beginner did it. I don’t know where these tweens and teens are coming from that they all look immaculate.

    I also think that’s why their standards are too high for their reality – they never had to muddle through an awkward phase and make do, so they expect things will always be nice and put together.

    1. Ha, there are A LOT of haircuts that I think people will be embarrassed by when they are older.

  18. The lifestyle that some of my younger colleagues feel they’re entitled to.

    We work at a non profit and I have a) come up through the ranks b) been on enough hiring panels so I know the salaries for these positions and I know these colleagues cannot afford their lifestyle.

    Look we all like nice things but there’s no way you can afford (at least) daily coffee, fancy workout classes, professionally done nails + dyed hair, clothing from Anthropology. I like all of these things too, I make 2x what you make, I already paid off my student loans and I cannot do this idk how you are!

    We were on a work trip and I got so many complaints about our hotel – it was a perfectly fine and clean and safe Hampton Inn.

    I also got lots of complaints about the food options in our area. I agree that they were not great, but when your job takes you to rural areas with limited options I don’t know what you expect!

    1. I think the problem is that kids who have any degree of financial literacy aren’t getting jobs in non profits anymore. So you’re stuck with the spoiled rich kids.

      1. Rich folks teach their kids way more about money. The degrees that allow workers to enter the nonprofit sphere don’t teach financial literacy and often the parents don’t either. Sorry you’re jealous that someone prioritizes having a nice day. I hope you have the day that you deserve

  19. 1) Touchscreens on car controls. I want physical buttons. 2) Subscription models for everything (No, Microsoft, I don’t want more OneDrive space. I just want to save that on my computer. It is not a vital document. I don’t need it in the cloud). 3) Apps for everything. I don’t want an app for my grocery store coupons. 4) The fact they took headphone jacks off of phones and everyone loses their ear buds or they are too expensive or whatever their excuse for WATCHING THINGS WITH SOUND WITHOUT HEADPHONES IN PUBLIC SPACES. (I blame Apple for this one)

    And really, too bright headlights I think is a universal complaint.

    1. +1 to all of these.

      I hate that I have to take out my phone while shopping at my grocery store to look up every item I buy to get the sale price.

  20. I’m not sure my complaints are “millennial” so much as “person-who-is-almost 40” because I remember hearing variations from my parents: “Why are people wearing that? We did that already and it was bad then!” “You’re going to break your ankle in those shoes!” “Why are things so expensive?” “Nobody has a work ethic anymore!”
    tl;dr I think I’m just old and cranky.

  21. Boomer/Gen X cusp here. My latest complaint is that I just haaaate the way that people (mostly women — started with influencers, now it seems to have spread to everybody under 30) says “I’m obsessed with my new [sweater/lipstick/hairdryer/whatever]” rather than “I think my new [sweater/lipstick/hairdryer/whatever] is really great.” Obsessed? Really? You can think of nothing besides your new [sweater/lipstick/hairdryer/whatever]? Does it haunt you day and night?

  22. I have a lot of millennial gripes (as an elder millennial, not about millennials per se)!

    How every last thing needs to be monetized. My airplane seat keeps getting smaller but now I have to pay extra just to sit in one slightly less crappy seat over another and, separately, pay extra to bring a carry on or check a bag.

    Tipping on everything, including in unstaffed stores at the airport.

    That I can’t make a regular doctor’s appointment for an annual check up unless it’s 6 months in advance (unless, of course, I am willing to pay for a “concierge” doctor that will treat me the way my regular doctor treated my family in the mid 90s, i.e., like a human). Also private equity buying doctor’s practices should be banned. Nothing has ever gotten better for a patient or consumer with a consultant trying to maximize profits.

    Generally, but also related – how much everyone plans everything now so far in advance but also flakes on most plans. It’s impossible to do things on a normal time table. Dinner plans must be at least a month out and more often 2-3 but magically everyone tends to be available last minute because no one actually keeps their plans made 3 months in advance. Similarly, hotels should not be booked up for the summer in January. This is just weird. I am receiving invites for kids bday parties in March and April right now. This is also weird. If you’re anxious and want to reserve a spot, great, go for it, but I don’t know your child and I have no idea what my child/family is doing on march 31 today so no I will not RSVP by February 15th. Thanks but no thanks.

    How everything is a diagnosis or an allergy instead of a personality trait/preference. Some people have genuine diagnoses or health needs, many do not and pretending otherwise only makes people take all of them less seriously.

    Self care, as a concept and marketing term.

    The amount of private data everyone is willing to volunteer and the diminishing expectation of privacy we all have as a result. Never going to be okay with that but I know that few people seem to care.

    Also – not sure this is a gripe so much as a lament – but I miss having a common culture with people. I feel like we used to all share a world more or less and now everyone is just in their own bubble/algorithm. It doesn’t feel sustainable for an healthy society and I have such nostalgia for a time where everyone watched the same show on Thursdays and Sundays.

  23. I feel like every generation might feel this one, but I happen to be an early millennial. Why are managers these days so bad at their jobs? When I was in my 20s, I had great bosses. They knew how to manage and support people. But in every position I’ve had since I entered my 30s a decade ago has been managers who are ineffective at best or actively create a toxic work environment at worst. When did everyone forget how to manage people so that everyone felt like they were part of a team and could get support when they needed it?

  24. Here are my GenX complaints:

    – People getting bitchy if you don’t respond to a text within 15 minutes
    – 15-email strings that should have been a 5-minute phone call – yes, you may have to talk to someone!
    – Meetings that should have been an email – If you’re that starved for F2F time, that’s not my problem.
    – Expecting promotions every 2 years without a significant change in responsibilities

  25. I think a lot of you just hate children and fear aging. That’s my complaint

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