When 60 Minutes first aired this segment 15 months ago, it seemed a bit over the top.

Today, it appears just about every premise inspiring the nauseating trend it profiled has disappeared along with the wealth that allowed it to exist. It’s also a good lesson in not taking our riches for granted – even if that thought requires an old school, un-cool attitude.

Morley Safer profiled what he called “a new age of American workers,” or “millenials”  who were raised by “doting parents,” rewarded for just showing up, participating in activities where there were only winners, no losers. 

“…they think your business-as-usual ethic is for the birds … corporate America is so unnerved by all this that companies like Merrill Lynch, Ernst & Young, and scores of others are hiring consultants to teach them how to deal with this generation that only takes “yes” for an answer.” (Ed.: Maybe that’s where all of ML’s money went!)

Has the new economic reality put any of these self-indulgent behaviors in check?:

CONCEIT
*The show reported: ”The workplace has become a psychological battlefield and the millennials have the upper hand, because they are tech savvy, with every gadget imaginable almost becoming an extension of their bodies. They multitask, talk, walk, listen and type, and text. And their priorities are simple: they come first.”

*Safer spoke with ad agency executive Marian Salzman who said, “You can’t be harsh. You cannot tell them you’re disappointed in them. You can’t really ask them to live and breathe the company. Because they’re living and breathing themselves and that keeps them very busy,” adding “These young people will tell you what time their yoga class is and the day’s work will be organized around the fact that they have this commitment.”

ENTITLEMENT
*Safer said these employees wanted “to roll into work with their iPods and flip flops around noon, but still be CEO by Friday,” making companies realize “that the era of the buttoned down exec happy to have a job is as dead as the three-Martini lunch.”

WHAT WORK ETHIC?
*An entire industry was spawned: “consultants, experts they allege, in how to motivate, train and, yes, sometimes nanny the extraterrestrials who’ve taken over the workplace.”

*Consultant Mary Crane said though they have extraordinary technical skills, “You now have a generation coming into the workplace that has grown up with the expectation that they will automatically win, and they’ll always be rewarded, even for just showing up.”

ABUNDANT JOBS
*Safer said, “It’s a future of sweet talking bosses, no more “Pay your dues just like I did.” If this generation knows anything, it’s that there are more jobs than young people to fill them.”

*John Dorsey – who’s written how-to books advising those in their twenties how to cope with the workplace — said, “We’re not going to settle. Because we saw our parents settle …  we have options. That we can keep hopping jobs. No longer is it bad to have four jobs on your resume in a year. Whereas for our parents or even Gen X, that was terrible. But that’s the new reality for us. And we’re going to keep adapting and switching and trying new things until we figure out what it is.”

WORKPLACE BOUNTY
*Safer described businesses “offering free food, fun and flexibility to keep their employees happy.”

*He said, “there is an almost evangelical fervor about this work philosophy — no stick, all carrots. And believe it or not, all this prodding, praising, peddling, cajoling and psychobabble is worth $50 billion a year in business. Ain’t America great?”

*”Where else you find free back rubs for the deserving worker bee. What’s wrong with a happy workplace and taking your time to grow up?”

ADOLESCENT BEHAVIOR
*Wall Street Journal columnist Jeffrey Zaslow offered this dose of reality: “…while we’re having this delayed adolescence, are we getting behind as an economy and as a workforce, because we’re just all playing computer games at work while we wait to grow up?”

One could only have hoped when watching this segment that one day reality would come up from behind and bite these narcissists.  Who knew it would happen so soon? [And if we needed more proof you can’t fool all the people all the time, to their credit, viewers posted almost unanimous criticism of the millenial “phenomenon” in their comments.]