A future-of-work expert said Gen Zers didn’t have the “promise of stability” at work, so they’re putting their personal lives and well-being first.
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“for more money than I need” - that’s the real trick, employers aren’t exactly looking to give people more money than they need, it’s sort of the exact opposite typically
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I’d say your doing better than many if you have surplus money! But to your point, I do agree slaving away all day to make someone else rich sucks
This is GenZ we’re talking about, I’m from a fairly LCOL area, so most people I know, don’t have many responsibilities and rent and food aren’t too high. So I don’t think for my situation it’s that uncommon.
Lol I’m just about to ask my boss about raises this year. Let’s see what happens… 100% of my pay is going into cost of living right now
Edit: no idea as she hasn’t heard anything from HR. lmao I doubt we’ll be seeing much of anything even though we increased profits by 4 million a year this year.
And yet most of us are making way less than we need
dem bosses tho
To add, what you need NOW is not what you need over your lifetime. Health insurance is needed regardless of your pay (outside most folks’ 20’s) and retirement savings are exactly what you don’t need now, but eventually will.
In GenZ?
I want to earn enough to live, and not work more than is required for that.
Management couldn’t fathom this at my first job. They’d tell us that everyone couldn’t be CEO but there were still great careers, and they didn’t understand when we asked about jobs where we wouldn’t climb the ladder necessarily, just do meaningful work.
Not gen z, but God bless 'em. I came to the same conclusion after the first round of layoffs at my first job. They laid off the experts because they had higher salaries and kept the lower paid, less skilled workers. It was completely absurd. Then it happened again, and again. Why would I ever expect my work to treat me with any loyalty or concern when no employer has even shown me or mine any?
Companies were never loyal to worker not in 80s and not now. They are loyal to profit 😁
I mean I’m GenX, and I’ve been fired from three different jobs for reasons beyond my control.
The concept of working for one company for your whole career, getting promoted to a high paying position, retiring with a healthy pension simply no longer exists anymore. You can work hard and do everything right, even be in a division that’s making money and you still might lose your job simply because laying off employees looks good to the shareholders.
But it’s all the fault of the young people! You just need to work harder… on your LinkedIn profile because what you do for the company you’re at right now doesn’t matter, it’s what it looks like you do that matters more now.
The company I work for had record earnings recently and there were high spirits, long praising newsletter from the CEO. Praise for maintaining a very stable production and higher output with fewer people than competitors.
Until our closest competitors reported their earnings. Which were higher, not surprising as they are bigger than us. Then it was doom and gloom
All of a sudden we had to have substantial budget cuts, and couldn’t rehire to fill a position for someone who had left.
Crazy huh, earned a boatload of money, but someone else earned a bit more. So then we have to cut expenses and optimize.
They still had the audacity recently to try to push the company “spirit and mindset” to employees. Something something buzzwords…
They will still discard you as fast as yesteryears iPhone.
Yup it’s all the fault of Jack Welch. He worked at GE and company culture at the time was to be proud of the number of employees they had. Some companies were proud that they never laid anyone off even during the great depression. They proudly took a loss rather than lay off anyone.
So Jack works his way up the ranks of GE which is how things worked back then. He got all the way to the top of this great company that was proud of his employees. And as soon as he was CEO he started laying everyone off. And the stock price of GE soared.
Ever since then that’s what every CEO tries to emulated. The stock market sees the CEO emulating Jack Welch and buy buy buy.
But it’s all short term thinking. Products get worse and worse, nobody give a shit about their job, work doesn’t get done. But just blame the employees and do another layoff.
Jack Welch fucked us all, but very few people even know his name.
Behind The Bastards did a series on him. And fuck Jack Welch
“We care about you until you start underperforming during a global pandemic because of mental health. Then fuck you”
It’s easy to tell when a company actually is serious about caring about employees. Our executives took $0 bonuses last year so employees could have normal bonuses, and they bought everyone a free turkey for Thanksgiving. Our financials aren’t the best right now, but we still have a 401k match and all our benefits, and they’ve frozen hiring so they don’t have to do layoffs. Our CEO chats with us weekly and takes questions, and he tells us to not worry about the stock price. We do good work, and success will follow, he says.
Anecdotally, I had a serious health issue at the beginning of this year, and my boss told me to take off all the time I needed. I’m still on leave through the rest of the month, no questions asked. My previous company had people like that, but they weren’t supported by HR policies.
I’m still very wary however, because it doesn’t take long at all to get screwed over.
what thinly veiled parochial mentality, isn’t it?
And then you’ve the fucktards who say in the WEF and other places that “people have to suffer” in order to be more productive / want to work.
They have seen the legacy of all these broken promises. In the old days and in many parts of the West, they would promise you if you worked for 30 years, you have this defined benefit pension, you have retiree medical care, etc. None of that exists today.
But at the end of the day it was the same fucktards who broke the social contract when it comes to work and benefits.
I’m only as good as the value I’m delivering today, and so these are the terms under which I want to work, and you either meet them or not.'"
That’s the right approach to the job market and I’m not even Gen Z. The current state of things, like expecting people to work multiple jobs, underpaying, firing to then hire at half the rate, constant layoffs, unreasonable demands and managers it’s all bullshit that people can’t stand anymore.
numerous Gen Zers are “quiet quitting” and taking a step back at work because they’re painfully aware that their hard work could essentially amount to nothing.
When a employers and governments “loudly quit” on people’s life’s and expectations that’s what they get.
In one survey last year, 74% of managers said the generation was the most challenging to work with.
How many of those managers are 50+ years old, with all they ever wanted and a sense their hard work payed off?
Could amount to nothing
Read between the lines here, article writer 🥲, everything amounts to nothing. Nobody wants their life to pass by unlived
Old people are impossible to talk to, painfully neurotic and stupid and obsessed with collecting clothing and electronics. They have zero compassion. They know the social contract is broken and they keep telling us to make the same decisions as them knowing we will get nothing for it and die
Old people are impossible to talk to, painfully neurotic and stupid (…) They know the social contract is broken and they keep telling us to make the same decisions as them knowing we will get nothing for it and die
I guess this is the story of Brexit? The UK shouldn’t have allowed people over 50 years old to vote on that referendum, because they aren’t likely so see the effects of the decision and they’re still delusional about a great empire that can stand alone while they watch American TV shows on a TV made in China and a chair designed in Sweden…
Well I’m American so maybe I should clarify only 10% of the people here even currently get to grasp the American dream and statistically it’s white people who get to be homeowners and live in the suburbs and be paranoid and rude to everybody including each other.
We are not doing well everything is falling apart infrastructure wise even in wealthy areas. You better be on the Amazon or Microsoft campus etc if you want it kept up.
Brexit is part of a larger pattern too, we’re basically trying to make Europe Asia-exit lol. And in the same way it will benefit Asia long run.
Meanwhile we try to turn you guys into Senegal #2, a source of crude oil to refine, and a market to buy our refined oil! As long as you continue to develop more drilling without refinement it’s the only way. Geopolitical economy 🗺️
We are not doing well everything is falling apart infrastructure wise even in wealthy areas.
Just to clarify I’m not American nor British and the situation here is mostly what you describe on that phrase. The European dream died before it even started.
Ah makes sense. Another example. We like completely destroyed German manufacturing with these energy prices in the process of trying to sever the region from Russia lol
I wouldnt say its the energy prices that are destroying German industry (I am German too), but the lack of innovation and way too much bureaucracy (and no, that doesnt mean we should lower emission standards, etc., but we should simplify processes and remove rules that serve no one).
It’s making it pretty non competitive and that makes things harder down the line, it’ll become more apparent bc it’s all about keeping up yeah? Same thing happening in USA, due to financialization of fuckin everything and wnting to export labor to countries we have the upper hand on
Look at the whole TSMC expansion debacle
I guess this is the story of Brexit? The UK shouldn’t have allowed people over 50 years old to vote on that referendum, because they aren’t likely so see the effects of the decision and they’re still delusional about a great empire that can stand alone while they watch American TV shows on a TV made in China and a chair designed in Sweden…
Errrr, so let’s take away the right of people to vote when they hit the age of 50?
LOL, do you think we will be this relevant/irrelevant when we turn 50? Brexit was dumb as fuck but that doesn’t justify stripping away people’s rights.
Go look for stats on the referendum, if it wasn’t for the 50+ years old people the UK would still be in the EU. It’s not about “let’s take away the right of people to vote” it is about “how can we let people take vote for something that wont ever affect them either way?”. I bet there was someone voting to leave that died of old age the next day, should that person have as much voting power as someone who’s on their 30’s and had to live an extra 50 years with the fallout of the decidion?
Yes. Your right to vote doesn’t change based on how many days you have left to live. By this logic, maybe we should ban everyone with cancer from voting too?
doesn’t change
But maybe it should for certain subjects.
Good luck changing the world to the worse. I’m sure you’ll do a stellar job.
They can’t be serious lol they’re just waffling nonsense
And I’m supposed to guess that how? From the /s they didn’t add to the end of their post, or?
Oh I wasn’t saying you were dumb, they’re dumb
No no, what’s your take on this? https://lemmy.world/comment/6915894
Dumb article that bowlderizes actual labor issues into stale generational politics takes that have been pushed by consultants since the 90s as blandly palatable fodder for this kind of writing.
That’s fair.
“Old people” is pretty inaccurate but a lot of cool old people can be presumed to be dead as well
Old people are impossible to talk to, painfully neurotic and stupid
Could I ask, how old are you and why do you find it that way? :/ Never had this experience. Maybe my grandpa is a grumpy old fuck but otherwise “old people” are just “people”.
He thinks anyone over 25 is old.
I feel sad for people who cannot relate to other age groups :(
Old ppl in the suburbs lol, this only goes for a small subset. I’m reconsidering things after meeting potential inlaws tbqhbbq
So you mean, specifically older Americans (?) living in the suburbs?
Also again how old are you? A bit curious.
Yep. Early twenties. There are plenty of awesome old people in this country. Shitty paranoid homeowners who wpuld enjoy aprtheid south aftica congregate in suburbs
I feel like the coolest old people I have met were Americans who travel.
I hear Americans are the worst tourists lol, and the most likely to be there to buy a woman for that matter
Also, nobody wants to hire anymore.
If employers get to say it when they can’t fill poverty wage positions, the rest of us get to say it when employers fail to offer 7 figure salaries.
My grandfather was a soldier so my dad could be a farmer so I could be a poet.
My grandfather was a garbage man so my father could be a fireman so I could stock grocery shelves whilst writing the Great American Novel on my days off.
My work pays me to work from 9 to 5, which uses the best part of my day. I’m not giving anything more than that.
I’d even argue that’s too fucking much
And I would agree! 4h top is all I need to do my daily job.
IMO the weekend should be longer than the fucking work week. We have this shit backwards. Work is 5 days and then we have barely 1 day to relax, since you need one of the weekend days for errands.
I loved working 4 10s (and at that place it was more like 4 13s) because it gave 1 day to relax, 1 to run errands/go to weekday appointments, and 1 to clean the house/relax. Id much rather work longer 4 days a week and have an extra day off the workday is so long anyway especially with a commute that I can’t do anything after work anyway (and I was too tired to).
If you work from home, you can do things during the work week too. Say you have a meeting where you only talk for 5 minutes. You clean or do chores the rest of the time. Just wear and earbud and put yourself on mute.
You can have your whole weekend off. I’m never going back to in office work unless the pay is doubled. It takes up all your time.
I know but that’s all still very stressful.
My stepfather worked his entire life like a goddamn donkey. Even when he was supposed to be on pension his old boss still called him and he actually went and worked for him for free. Today, he’s practically crippled from all the physical strain he put his body though. His ex-boss, meanwhile, is rich as fuck and doesn’t give a fuck, while my stepfather has the absolute minimum pension and no healthcare.
My grandparents, on the other hand, had a very different story. My grandfather worked for the same employer for 50+ years, never missed a day, and had a decent wage AND a pension which he could access at 55 years of age. They were the last generation to receive their part of the social contract, but the generation of my parents and myself are completely missing out.
Small wonder that the young’uns have eyes in their heads and the werewithal to say “No way, not for me!”.
I’m curious about how different Gen Z is from Millennials here, because everyone in my age range that I know seems to share this sentiment with them?
Gen x here and we seen it coming as well but no options for us at the time. I don’t blame any of you. Corporate greed and the great 401k lie is bullshit. They want us to work till we’re dead. Screw them.
The great 401k lie?
Can’t speak for OP, but I don’t look at the 401k as a stable retirement vehicle. It’s a vehicle to pump “dumb money” (read: casino chips) into the stock market. If the stock market downturns just before you retire, if the firm managing your 401k makes bad investments, if another 2008-style real estate collapse happens, your retirement fund suddenly has less money in it than you hoped, so you’re gonna have to work longer.
if the firm managing your 401k makes a bad investment
The administrator of your accounts has zero control over most of the funds available in them, their rise or fall, and your funds are separate from any investments that financial institution may or may not have made.
If you have a 401k with fidelity, or ADP or Schwab or Trowe Price or whoever, some of those are banks, soke finance companies, some payroll, anyway, the point is for each, the money in your account is yours to allot and invest as you wish based on yhe invesrment options your company chose or negotiating with them to administer your company’s plan. The admin makes money by admin fees, not by taking your money and reinvesting it in something you don’t know about. Granted, yes if there is a stock market crash, most financial companies will similarly overall struggle, but they have lots of arms and operations (mortgage loans, commercial, consumer banking, investment banking, etc.) and they are 100% all disconnected from the money in your 401k.
That said, 401ks are awful and a sham that were pushed on an uninformed public and we’ve only just begun to see the effects as the first generation reaches end of work age…and can’t stop working. It’ll continue. Props to anyone fighting and organizing against it or trying to avoid as much as possible. System fully bought and broken by greed.
What’s the point of your first two paragraphs? The person you responded to is 100% right. The point is to pump money in to the fuckin stock market so the wealthiest people can profit off that “investment”
The point was is the plan administrator has no control over whether the value of his account goes up and down, which Op said they did. I agree with everything else Op said but think it’s important since most people don’t understand the mechanics to learn about them so added the correct info.
When the plan administrator is picking the stocks in their “Target Retirement 2055” account, I’d say they have a large amount of control.
Now the S&P 500? Probably no control. But is it truly the S&P 500 or some bull shirt index fund from the 401k provider that’s not 100% following the S&P 500?
As a millennial: I think it’s the dichotomy between “I play the game even though I hate it because it genuinely feels like the only viable option to have a remotely satisfying life” and “fuck the game”.
As an older Gen Z I concur. Even those of us who aren’t completely fucked are extremely anti-corporate with little loyalty to any job. There’s a guy named Jordan Howlett who I feel sums up the average Gen Z attitude towards all the bullshit in the world really well.
Don’t get me wrong I still work hard and try to do well at my job, but the second I hit my time for the day I’m gone. Work is strictly transactional. No one expects their employer to give them money for time they didn’t work, so I ain’t about to give my employer time for money they didn’t give me. They’ll also fire my ass the second they need a stock bump, so I’ll be damned if I’m gonna stick around if I find something better.
Actually the biggest difference I’ve seen isn’t in effort but ability. I work with everyone from Boomers to Gen Z and by far my Gen Z coworkers have the hardest time with being given a general task and completing it without detailed instructions. Even with detailed instructions, I often have to repeat the instructions due to mistakes and check my younger colleagues’ work more closely.
I think this is, in part, because Gen Z grew up with things that just worked or that they needed to go to a third party to fix if there were issues. Boomers fixed their own cars and did a lot of DIY home repair, Gen X and Millenials both learned to navigate computers and the internet before there were any real instructional guides or helpful UIs. Shit, we used to program games on our calculators for fun. I think many in Gen Z just never had that because many of those DIY elements require proprietary tools now. A smartphone just works and is designed to be so intuitive a baby can figure it out. It’s not their fault, but it does mean that some critical thinking skills are absent because they’re used to outsourcing the solutions to those problems.
But, again, I have never perceived that they’re not hard workers. On the contrary, I’d argue my Gen Z coworkers, when they’re on their game, are way more efficient than everyone else and definitely work smarter, not harder, which I try to learn from them.
Half of genx too but nobody ever mentions us.
I feel like millennials have a “It is what it is, guess ill work til I die” attitude whereas Gen Z have more of a Bartleby the Scrivener “I’d rather not” energy.
#fuckyourdividends
I’m GenX, and I spent about ~25 years in the corporate racket before I realized that they don’t give a fuck. I’m all about living now as well, and I encourage others to do the same.
The pandemic was a big mask off moment for corpos.
I was criticized for years about this approach to work so I’m glad others see it now. If work yielded results sure I’d focus a little more but as it’s gotten worse I can’t even have hobbies because I can’t afford to get into anything financially, mentally, and because of time of working multiple jobs to make it by…
How does one become a “future-of-work expert?” If I decided to become one, what training would I need?
Optimistic: an economist who specializes in speculation about the labor market Pessimistic: just some person who said some shit
Work, but in the future. Duuhh
I’ll do it later
OF COURSE we prioritize life over work. Normal people always have. That doesn’t mean we don’t work. What is life without work? Amusing ourselves to death?
It’s the imbalance that’s always been the problem. People want to work, but many have to work to survive. So every day is a struggle for survival. It’s no wonder we’re seeing a rise in anxiety disorders, depression, suicide, and general health decline across the board. Some day every late stage capitalist society will normalize the kind of work culture we see in China, South Korea, and Japan, where people are worked to death and have no time for themselves. No time and no safety net for starting families. And paid just enough to get by, not to thrive.
I’m with the younger generations here. I’d rather amuse myself to death than work myself to death.
I disagree, individualistic societies work less. It is people who are taught they have a responsibility to society that work more.
"You better start swimming or you’ll sink like a stone
For the times, they are a-changin’"
-Dylan
Everybody, everybody has to work to survive, from aboriginal people, to the most developed country, to the most socialized country in the world. It has always been thus, and that does not explain rising anxiety, depression, suicide, or health decline.
Abuses of workers and exploitive attempts to move toward a serfdom where no worker owns anything have existed as long as humans have been selfish. It’s not the result of a political system.
The French in the 1700s didn’t lay down and amuse themselves when exploited. Neither did the American colonies. Neither did Russia. Neither did China. It might be time to stop dropping out, give up on comfort, and start the hard work of getting shit fixed.
Hey everybody, you’re anxious and depressed because you know you have to do something about it and you don’t want to. Maybe you even know you’re going to let it happen.
I think you took a wrong turn at Facebook and ended up here on accident bro
Haha, good one
But seriously, what’s supposed to change? It’s there going to be a friendly helpful Bill Gates or Jeff Bezos or even Elon Musk? Honest public-minded politicians?
Look at Germany right now. HUGE protests.
You aren’t powerless. You just aren’t doing anything.
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Could gen Z become the new gen X? As an Xer, I feel some solidarity with gen Z.
My mom can see the corruption with modern work culture and she’s Gen X and knows the same reasons I do as to why people don’t want to work. I think Gen Z, Millenials and Gen X are starting to stand up to the Boomers shitty work culture. We just want to be treated with kindness and have a good work environment how hard is that?
