Millennials are mad as hell, and they’re not going to take it anymore! Or get that reference!

Well, at least one is. The always entertaining “millennial op-ed” showed up in a business magazine this morning. After reading an entire Crain’s Business feature full of anecdotal evidence from millennials about how “screwed” they are in the current job market, a different millennial wrote an op-ed citing anecdotal evidence about how she’s… unscrewed.

While the feature piece focused on young people who were bartenders, nannys, and “perma-students,” the counter-narrative comes from a millennial who is a 2L in law school. And everything is going to work out for her, don’t ya know…

I can’t tell the story of Northwestern Law student, Michelle Kennedy, any better than she does herself:

I am a 23-year-old woman who is attending law school at one of the top schools in the country. I, like many of your profiled young millennials, have a discouraging amount of student loans that I will have to begin paying off upon graduation. However, I, like many of my classmates, have secured an amazing opportunity for employment for next summer at one of Chicago’s top law firms, which hopefully will lead to full-time employment upon graduation. I knew going in to law school that I would be taking on this type of debt, and I did not allow that to discourage me. I did not give up to be a bartender or a nanny. I followed my dream. And I find it very disappointing that none of the millennials you chose to interview were able to offer an inspiring story of following one’s dreams, like many of my classmates and friends have chosen to do.

Congratulations on all your success. I’m very happy that going to law school didn’t blow up in your face. But, do me a favor, check back in after you’ve been working at your law firm for three years, still owe six figures, and have the social life of a monastic janitor. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. I just really want to hear your reflections on that first paragraph in 2020.

My problem with this op-ed is actually everything that she says in the second stanza:

1. “I knew going in to law school that I would be taking on this type of debt, and I did not allow that to discourage me.” Why is that something to be proud of? Why is it a badge of honor to know something is stupid, but do it anyway without pause? She could have said, “I understood the financial implications of taking on too much debt for an uneven value proposition, but I did my research, thought through my options, and decided to take the massive risk.” People can do that. That’s a risky, but still calculated and intelligent thought process.

Her thought process seemed to be, “F**k it.” And I don’t see how that’s a good thing. The debt should discourage you. IT IS DISCOURAGING. Putting your head down and charging ahead regardless of the evidence isn’t laudable, it’s stubborn.

2. Not only is she proud of her resistance to facts, she has the elitist gall to look down on her fellow millennials by accusing them of “giving up.” Here’s a bit of the bartender’s story that is actually pretty uplifting:

Alexi Front graduated with a history degree four years ago. He has tended bar ever since, and he’s pretty pumped with how things have turned out. It helps that Mr. Front, who grew up on the North Side, tends bar at Local Option. Incongruously located on a leafy side street in Lincoln Park, the heavy metal-blasting dive routinely is heralded as one of the best beer bars in the country. It also helps that Mr. Front serves as marketing manager of Local Option’s growing stable of house-branded beers, working to place the brews at more than 250 bars and stores in Illinois, plus locations in 25 other states and as far away as Western Europe. But perhaps the biggest factor in Mr. Front’s optimism is his track record in turning passions, whether beer or death metal, into profitable businesses.

It sounds like THE BARTENDER is the one following his dream. Instead of turning his social science degree into an LSAT course, a law degree, and maybe a Biglaw job in Chicago that he would have likely hated, Alexi Front was NOT DISCOURAGED from following his dream by the snooty reactions of 2Ls in law school. That’s a great story.

And the bartender is the one who doesn’t have three years of law school debt hanging over his head like the Sword of Damocles. The bartender already has more practical work experience than the law student. And what’s really going to bake her noodle later is that if all of this death metal beer BS doesn’t work out for him, he can still go to law school. He can still turn his history degree into a good LSAT score and maybe into a spot at a law school like Northwestern.

In that way, not only is the bartender following his dream, he’s doing it with considerably less risk than the law student. His options remain open, his finances remain manageable. Damn straight he’s “pretty pumped” with the way things have turned out. The bartender sounds happy. Is she going to be, when she’s 2800 billables in at her firm?

And while we’re here, maybe future Biglaw drones shouldn’t be so eager to take a dump all over nannys:

Kelsey Carlson has no student debt. Then again, she doesn’t have a college degree or a career path. One of three daughters raised by a single mother in Forest Park, Ms. Carlson always knew she’d be on her own for college. But between nannying for up to 10 families at a time, bartending at Miller’s Ale House in west suburban Lombard and putting in another few hours a week as an office assistant at a drug treatment center her mother co-owns, Ms. Carlson became so stretched that she no longer had time for classes at the College of DuPage. She dropped out last spring.

That doesn’t sound like giving up. That sounds like a person who just needs a little bit of help to make her dreams come true who doesn’t deserve scorn from people who have the opportunity to live for three years off the government largesse before being slotted into a corporate job.

Look, if you want to be a Biglaw lawyer in Chicago, going to a top law school at whatever the price is one of the best ways to do it. But it’s still a risk. And it’s a risk that other people don’t want to take, especially since the payoff if things pan out is the opportunity to bill 3000 hours a year helping wealthy clients handle their business.

The problem with all these “Real Millennial Stories” is that the stories are not done yet. You can’t know how things will turn out for 25-year-olds when they’re 25. It’s entirely possible that in 10 years the bartender will be a business lawyer who hires the nanny to raise his family while she puts herself through college, and they both end up at a bar being served by the Northwestern 2L, who couldn’t be happier to finally have a job that gives her enough freedom to spend time with her family and friends.

I’m a millennial, and I’m not screwed [Crain’s Chicago Business]