Joe Knippenberg reads a Washingtonian article about twentysomethings and their pie-in-the-sky aspirations and expectations. Excerpt:

But far from feeling lucky simply to have a job, many of today’s highly educated, tech-savvy Gen Yers are asking more from work than previous generations ever did.

More:

“Adulthood is a taller order these days,” Brent Donnellan, a professor at Michigan State University who studies the transition to adulthood, tells me. “When we look at surveys at what this generation values, they want a lot.”

As a result, people born between, say, 1980 and 1995 are reconsidering some of the once-sacred aspects of the American workplace. Things such as the 9-to-5 schedule, company loyalty, dues-paying, and hierarchy are being discarded at a fast clip. And we’re becoming evangelicals for the notion that work should be personally satisfying, even in a tough job market.

Knippenberg asks, with admirable understatement:

Might it not be the case that we expect too much from our jobs and too little from the rest of our lives?