What makes it worse is the U's administration can be completely spineless about backing up their own student policies.

What is up with that? I had a friend who, when she was teaching as a graduate student at our alma mater, got ZERO back up from her department head or the University when she caught several undergrads plagerizing papers in one of her classes.

It's like it was too much of a battle to flunk them so the kids escaped the consequences.

Yep. I'm a child of Mr. Rogers (though moreso Sesame Street/Electric Company).

Me, too. Of course, I was born in 1967, so we're basically the same age.

At 29, he is still leaning on the parents

Sometimes, that isn't a function of age, it's a function of the person.

Signed,

My 45 year old sister is living with my mom who is paying all of her bills for her and she won't even pitch in with housework.

"What can I do about it? I'll send you an email that says, 'Do the work. Study for the midterm.' Then you can forward the email via an email time machine to yourself at the beginning of the semester."

Heh.

I think the real problem with defining Gen X and whatever is that people want to make new names every few years, and a generation should be at least 20!

Also, hooray for offsite coworker already sending one chunk of the stuff we were waiting for.

Oh, that makes me crazy. I take such pride in having paid for all of my big purchases in life and in having a nice savings account. I love being able to pick up the check with my parents when I visit and I can tell they take pride in it, too. I can't imagine being so dependent without having had some life-changing event to have caused it. That is just not in my blood.

My brother didn't have to suffer the health food kick. He got chips! I resented that.

However, I think that was just a case of Too Much Work.

You could tell him, "What can I do about it? I'll send you an email that says, 'Do the work. Study for the midterm.' Then you can forward the email via an email time machine to yourself at the beginning of the semester."

I think my response was along the lines of "I'm worried about it too, given that you flunked the mid-term, etc., and are just contacting me about this now."

What makes it worse is the U's administration can be completely spineless about backing up their own student policies.

This. With the above student, the first question would be "Did you talk to them about the problem?" "Did you let them know they were missing work?" Etc.

I was born in 61 and I don't feel the slightest sense of community with Gen Xers.

Had to take some managers workshop hooey last week, and were told that the GenY like to be called Millenials. And require, uh, special handling. More guidance, more mentoring, more babysitting, basically. Fun.

This. With the above student, the first question would be "Did you talk to them about the problem?" "Did you let them know they were missing work?" Etc.

Which is why 2 pages of the syllabus end up being a nearly lawyeresque description of policy. It's ridic.

Maybe I'm just way too compliant, but I was always "them's the rules, break 'em, take the consequences." Which I sometimes did, deliberately.

So these people who require special handling - do you pay them or do their parents pay for babysitting services?