As a gen Z American, here's my two cents on the take that our generation can't handle delayed gratification: we've watched the promise of "delayed gratification" fail Gen X and Millennials repeatedly in real time because we've had access to the internet since childhood. In elementary and middle school, I watched in real time on TV and online as Gen X had their entire life savings wiped out by the 2008-2009 depression, and as a teenager and college kid I've seen Millennials get absolutely shafted by jobs and degrees that went in promising them stable lives and then repeatedly ripped the rug out from under them, leaving millennials with no solid career progression or economic betterment to show after over a decade of consistent effort.
Even outside of the internet, I've watched my grandfather, who was a computer programmer at IBM in the 60s, have his pension retroactively canceled after being a pensioner for decades, and I've watched this man in his 80s who's had two heart attacks have to go back to work 4 days of the week as an Uber driver to make ends meet, after he spent three decades of his life in a high paid office job that promised him healthcare and pension and the entire American dream. I don't have it in me to put up with the same shit. Maybe it's bratty and short-sighted, but I've watched enough people older than me have enough of their decades of life ripped from them with the false promises of later rewards, so to my mind saying "this will pay off for you in the future" means you're not actually planning on paying out, you're hoping you can take advantage of my patience and goodwill.Pay me my rewards now, or I'll assume you'll never intend to actually reward me.