Boom-time twentysomethings were told they'd have a job on a plate. Yet for many, writes Emily Cox, the reality is one of disillusionment and guilt

Many twentysomethings feel caught in a trap. A generation that was promised boom-time utopia is slowly coming to realise that they might as well call off the search. With soaring prices and diminishing expectations, they work harder and harder for less and less. Job satisfaction is deemed a luxury.

While Johnny Future may have a master's degree in business, speak two languages fluently and excel in the computer field, it's no better than the other few hundred thousand or so out there who are also brilliant and expect nothing less than, well, everything.

Unlike generations before them, they had everything handed to them on a plate. But where does that leave them? For many, it means working into the early hours as an "executive" in an impersonal business centre, relieving the stress through double and triple vodkas into the early hours of a Saturday or Sunday morning.

For many, disillusionment with the prescribed career path sets in rapidly.

Now 27, Nuala Buckley knew her generation had it good and believed on leaving UCD in 2000, with an honours degree in German and English, that the world was her oyster. As a teenager, she hadn't made serious plans for the future.

A fluent German speaker, Buckley searched for a job where her language skills would be rewarded. "I went to a recruitment agency and took the first job that they offered that paid good money." Opportunity came in the form of a call-centre position with a multinational computer corporation.

"Straight away I realised I hated the job. It was boring and monotonous." She quickly sensed that her qualifications meant nothing in what she terms "the sweatshops of the western world".

People who had joined the company directly upon leaving school had a four-year head start. "The company invested in them. My degree didn't count here and I was uncomfortable in the cold corporate environment."

The experience was a wake-up call for Buckley; she realised that the formula she had followed to success happened without her ever thinking about the form that success would take.

For the first time she thought about what she wanted from life and within six months she left the computer company and decided to pursue a career that she would find rewarding - teaching. She started freelancing as a primary school teacher and realised this was what she wanted to do in life. She has just completed the 18-month course in primary teaching and will take up a teaching position this month .

"It's sheer enjoyment and so rewarding. It's great to be able to use your influence in a positive way in society," says Buckley. "It's the complete opposite to the pretentious, impersonal corporate world that so many people get drawn into." While she has no regrets, it seems to Buckley a lot of people stick at jobs they're dissatisfied with.

"A lot of my friends are stuck in jobs where they are really unhappy. Like me, they didn't give their future much thought and ended up doing a degree that didn't necessarily reflect what they really wanted to do."

Also 27, Sarah Fleming thinks that job satisfaction is crucial to personal happiness. "Your job and your ego are so inter-linked. Job satisfaction really affects your well-being and your confidence, and it is unpopular to whinge about your work - the job you do is about who you are."

A graduate in bio-chemistry, Fleming altered her plan of pursuing a career in biotechnology research. "When I was doing the practical work in the lab in final year, I found it required extreme patience and realised I would be too bored." But, as planned, when she left college, she headed off to London and Australia for a year before returning to Dublin to settle down to a career.

Fleming reckoned computing was a good skill to have and selected a master's degree in applied computers with a view to a good job. Indeed, this led to a well-paid position in a telecommunications company, where she lasted for 18 months. "I hated it there and I could see that a lot of people were dissatisfied. There was no motivation and no work ethic. I felt completely unchallenged."

"Some of my colleagues were what I would describe as 'comfortable'. They were content to be part of a mill and not to achieve goals. As I saw it, many accepted the role of underling." Unwilling to settle for that world, Fleming headed off to Italy where she worked as a tour guide and teacher for a year and a half before returning to Ireland to pursue a career in radio.

An optimist, she believes you have to keep at it until you find the satisfaction you are looking for, something she feels eludes a lot of young people.

"There are plenty of people out there who are miserable in their jobs - and these are people you would expect to have job satisfaction."

For some, however, the "new industries" provide a perfect niche for skills and interests. The secret, according to Malachi Quinn, is taking your time to think things through. Now 33, Quinn watched as his school friends followed the path to university after completing their Leaving Certificate in 1989.

Although his parents hoped that he too would take the opportunity to go straight to university like the rest of his peers, they were open to his view that you can't determine what you will do for the rest of your life at 18. "When I left school, the attitude was that you had to go to college or get a job. What people really need to do at that age is take a year or two out to decide what they want from life. Instead they all rushed like lemmings."

He decided to take a year out to think about what he wanted from life and then decided to follow his love of adventure sports, securing a job as an instructor in Tiglin National Adventure Centre in Co Wicklow.

After a year in Tiglin, Quinn enrolled for a degree in the sociology of leisure management at Leicester University, a qualification that led him into sales and marketing with a sports clothing company in Dublin. He soon realised, however, that retail wasn't for him."I thought I'd have more influence in a sales and marketing role," he says. Following a seven-year career in sports PR, he assumed his current position as a marketing communications consultant.

Quinn feels the pressure of today's society is responsible for a lot of the dilemmas facing Ireland's young people: "The general attitude is 'I need everything - yesterday'."

He insists that despite social and family pressures, people are ultimately responsible for their own happiness. "This generation does have it better, college is free, there are jobs here. Today's young adults put the pressure on themselves. They term happiness as owning the latest Merc, the Georgian house in D4. It's a keeping up with the Joneses attitude. It's self-inflicted. People aren't willing to look around and enjoy life. They are afraid to do something they really enjoy because they may have to take a salary cut, but at the end of the day you can't put a price on going into work and actually feeling happy about it."

Quinn plans to get married to fiancée Sara Jane later this year. The couple have a one-year-old daughter, Martha. Although they own their own home, they feel the financial pressures of paying for childcare and sustaining a mortgage. "Without a partner's salary, you couldn't do it,"he says.

While no one will deny that this generation does have it easier, the disillusionment remains. What sets Quinn, Fleming and Buckley apart is their decision to pull into the hard shoulder and take in the view. Unsurprisingly, those still stuck in a job which makes them miserable are reluctant to talk about it on the record, not only because they need to keep their jobs, but also due to a sense of failure in admitting publicly that things haven't worked out as planned.

While it may be tempting to brand these privileged young adults as ungrateful, they just expected it to be different. Their parents, their teachers and government had promised them an enviable future. They were told they could be anything. They were told they wouldn't scrimp or save. They were told that, given the opportunity, they would shine. No one appreciates their luck more than the "golden generation" itself, and the guilt that results makes it all the harder.