A place to discuss positive changes that can make work more equitable, and to vent about current practices. We are NOT against work; we just want the fruits of our labor to be recognized better.
Our Philosophies:
Our Goals
Adequate pay and basic human kindness?
No, it's the workers why are our of touch.
Another dumb-ass op-ed that starts with a stupid premise and gets worse from there. Look how desperately they try to make it seem like workers are different by generation. watch them desperately thrash and twist to avoid the truth, that conditions are their fault.
They sampled 18-25 y/os then skipped straight over the rest of the workforce to workers 65 and older.
No talk about compensation differences between these groups. No talk about 26-64 year olds.... I want to find the author and personally tell them how disappointed i am in their work, but it was probably ai or one of those gig word count jobs and they wouldn't even care
Yeah, I'm a millennial who has hated those same things since probably around the same time gen Z started joining the workforce. I bet the only real difference is that gen Z didn't join the workforce with the illusion that it wasn't so bad because millennials were already talking about it. And gen X cynicism (which is deserved, not trying to open a front in the "generation war" here) likely planted the seed for millennials to notice it.
I'm seeing the same. I'm an older millennial that joined the workforce in a conservative state, so I kept my mouth shut about shitty work conditions so I didn't end up fist fighting some of my coworkers. Gen Z is entering a workplace full of disgruntled millennials like myself and we're together making an environment where it's safer to tell employers we're tired of being taken for granted.
Doubt. I’m a younger Gen X and work has fucking sucked for us and for our parents before us. The middle class has been hollowed out since the 70s, at the latest. It’s now purely transactional, with the final vestiges of loyalty and all that other bullshit long gone. Pay me and leave me the fuck alone. Do those two things to the proper extent and I will provide dispassionate labor in commensurate amount. Otherwise, I will whore out my knowledge and labor elsewhere, with less than zero regard for the collateral damage I may cause.
Well death at work is down, so there’s that.
I guess I'll interject with personal experience so take everything that follows as, my most humble opinion of things. I have zero expectation for anyone to agree.
Gen X myself, I am currently in a position that I am completely happy with now. That did not come without a massive fight. This is quite literally my 6th job in my field (system's programming) and now the second longest I've stayed with a company. Quoting from the story:
Without the promise of high returns for their loyalty, Gen Z has learned to follow the money
And this should be people's default until shown otherwise. I cannot count the number of times I've heard "it's just business" in the course of my various jobs. At the end of the day, your employer is looking at bottom line most times. One should not invest themselves into any relationship when the other is simply looking at the piratical ramifications of the relationship and not the broader nature of that relationship.
It's about the money and being able to pay for living expenses, which is reasonable. The dollar went a lot further when baby boomers were entering the workforce. It doesn't go as far now.
Yeah, while suffering when sufferable was okay when a taco was under a buck, dollar doesn't go anywhere today. The amount of time to have shits and giggles with an employer on actual compensation is about seven seconds today. When I first got into the field being underneath the region's average for X number of years wasn't unheard of. And for me, it was all cool because shit was cheap. Today, being under the region's average for a position needs to be measured in X minutes, not this year shit. Employer's that want to play games, Gen Z should not budge for a second on the matter.
When a raise and promotion don't hit swiftly, Gen Z is quick to jump ship
I'll say this. When I got to my current position, I knew right off that this was a good company. How? I can't really put a finger on the how, but having been in two jobs previous that were hyper toxic, I had a feeling. Now, I still didn't play games coming in though. I indicated exactly what I expected and that the job couldn't be "all hands on deck" 24/7, 365. That's just shitty management. I gave them six months to show me the money and if it didn't come through I had every intention to hit the door at the 121 day mark.
There was still friction, no meaningful relationship doesn't have those moments, but the things I was indicating was actually being taken serious, and compensation for kicking ass on my end was forthcoming. If your employer doesn't like talking money with employees, you're going to have a lot of friction and I'm not telling anyone what to do, but employer's feeling uncomfortable with the topic of money should be a red flag for you. If that's the straw that breaks the camel's back or just a stone in the wall for you, that's your call. But in my opinion, employers that get squishy about the word money shouldn't be employers. Not with how this world currently is. Maybe we can go back to the "ha ha ha" playing coy game when a significant percentage of a person's paycheck doesn't have to go for simply feeding themselves.
But Gen Zers "haven't lost the passion for what they want to do,"
And I have never thought they have. The Gen Z that I oversee are some of the best workers I've ever dealt with. But the world isn't allowing them to be slacking on ensuring that proper compensation is constant. Inflation is eating away any kind of raise I can give them as fast as I can give it to them. As far as I have seen, Gen Z is some of the best workers to date to come out of the woodwork and it's actually kind of shitty they cannot have the environment to flourish that I had at their age.
Again, from my personal experience, I think there's a lot of management that's still in the lax mood of how employment might have worked back in the day. When a few years under the line of compensation was just the name of the game. But the game has seriously changed and a lot of the folks my age and the boomers as well are still stuck in "the way things used to be™" and it's so bad right now, no one has time for that anymore.
As I've heard so often, it's just business. But I think employers have been so used to the giving that advice, they are completely at loss when receiving it. The Gen Z I've worked with, and it may be different for others, but the ones I've worked with and the ones I currently manage, they're some of the hardest workers who take everything they do as personal value and will be some of the best employees IF YOU ENCOURAGE THEM AND COMPENSATE THEM.
I too dislike that the world has become really centered around pay. But to quote some Tolken:
So do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.
Treat your folks like people, and the rest mostly falls in place.
I guess I'll interject with personal experience so take everything that follows as, my most humble opinion of things. I have zero expectation for anyone to agree.
Gen X myself, I am currently in a position that I am completely happy with now. That did not come without a massive fight. This is quite literally my 6th job in my field (system's programming) and now the second longest I've stayed with a company. Quoting from the story:
Without the promise of high returns for their loyalty, Gen Z has learned to follow the money
And this should be people's default until shown otherwise. I cannot count the number of times I've heard "it's just business" in the course of my various jobs. At the end of the day, your employer is looking at bottom line most times. One should not invest themselves into any relationship when the other is simply looking at the piratical ramifications of the relationship and not the broader nature of that relationship.
It's about the money and being able to pay for living expenses, which is reasonable. The dollar went a lot further when baby boomers were entering the workforce. It doesn't go as far now.
Yeah, while suffering when sufferable was okay when a taco was under a buck, dollar doesn't go anywhere today. The amount of time to have shits and giggles with an employer on actual compensation is about seven seconds today. When I first got into the field being underneath the region's average for X number of years wasn't unheard of. And for me, it was all cool because shit was cheap. Today, being under the region's average for a position needs to be measured in X minutes, not this year shit. Employer's that want to play games, Gen Z should not budge for a second on the matter.
When a raise and promotion don't hit swiftly, Gen Z is quick to jump ship
I'll say this. When I got to my current position, I knew right off that this was a good company. How? I can't really put a finger on the how, but having been in two jobs previous that were hyper toxic, I had a feeling. Now, I still didn't play games coming in though. I indicated exactly what I expected and that the job couldn't be "all hands on deck" 24/7, 365. That's just shitty management. I gave them six months to show me the money and if it didn't come through I had every intention to hit the door at the 121 day mark.
There was still friction, no meaningful relationship doesn't have those moments, but the things I was indicating was actually being taken serious, and compensation for kicking ass on my end was forthcoming. If your employer doesn't like talking money with employees, you're going to have a lot of friction and I'm not telling anyone what to do, but employer's feeling uncomfortable with the topic of money should be a red flag for you. If that's the straw that breaks the camel's back or just a stone in the wall for you, that's your call. But in my opinion, employers that get squishy about the word money shouldn't be employers. Not with how this world currently is. Maybe we can go back to the "ha ha ha" playing coy game when a significant percentage of a person's paycheck doesn't have to go for simply feeding themselves.
But Gen Zers "haven't lost the passion for what they want to do,"
And I have never thought they have. The Gen Z that I oversee are some of the best workers I've ever dealt with. But the world isn't allowing them to be slacking on ensuring that proper compensation is constant. Inflation is eating away any kind of raise I can give them as fast as I can give it to them. As far as I have seen, Gen Z is some of the best workers to date to come out of the woodwork and it's actually kind of shitty they cannot have the environment to flourish that I had at their age.
Again, from my personal experience, I think there's a lot of management that's still in the lax mood of how employment might have worked back in the day. When a few years under the line of compensation was just the name of the game. But the game has seriously changed and a lot of the folks my age and the boomers as well are still stuck in "the way things used to be™" and it's so bad right now, no one has time for that anymore.
As I've heard so often, it's just business. But I think employers have been so used to the giving that advice, they are completely at loss when receiving it. The Gen Z I've worked with, and it may be different for others, but the ones I've worked with and the ones I currently manage, they're some of the hardest workers who take everything they do as personal value and will be some of the best employees IF YOU ENCOURAGE THEM AND COMPENSATE THEM.
I too dislike that the world has become really centered around pay. But to quote some Tolken:
So do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.
Treat your folks like people, and the rest mostly falls in place.
Instead of worrying about company culture or whether the job sounds exciting, the first thing Kaneshina looks for when job searching is the salary. "Right now there's this whole salary-transparency movement. So a lot of the roles I apply to I know about the pay right off the bat," she said. Once satisfied with the pay range, Kaneshina digs into the company — are they doing work she has experience with? Then she checks whether the opening provides room for growth — how long until she could get a promotion? For her to apply, all three factors have to line up.
Tech field Gen-X here. When did the above stop being a normal expectation? It sure as shit was when myself and all my contemporaries were starting out. Compensation package, culture and growth were always part of the pitch when employers made job offers.
It takes a young person being kicked down in a vulnerable moment one time to realize work doesn't care for them and they owe them no loyalty. And since a long time, junior workers are the first to get the axe for circumstances that are no fault of their own.
And when being at a salary that you can barely make it now, staying at that salary as costs shoot up is untenable. So no surprises young workers aren't buying this loyalty bull.
Turns out treating employees like dirt, plus an impending climate collapse makes people unhappy. Who knew
This is also a shift from when older generations were young: In a 1995 survey by the consulting firm Wyatt Co., under-30 Gen Xers — the "works sucks, I know" generation — were actually the most satisfied with their jobs than any other age group.
That answers the main question I had after reading the headline: did all generations feel this way at this age, or is this unique to Gen z.
Edit: just read the about the 1995 survey referenced in the article. It's pretty interesting. https://reason.com/1995/05/01/heh-heh-work-is-cool/
Reason is a hyper pro-capitalist libertarian magazine who, in an interview with then-governor Ronald Reagan, implied he was too liberal because he didn’t think fire departments should be privatized.
I wouldn’t trust them with this kind of survey, in other words.
I just linked to the Reason article since that is what the OP article links to. A different organization actually performed the 1995 survey.
Although, I haven't been able to find the original survey with a very brief Google search. So maybe take the Reason summary with a grain of salt.
Yeah, all I’m saying is to take it with a grain of salt.
When a publication like Reason writes about a survey that backs their narrative, it’s possible that it came from a conservative organization (and so might have crafted the study to produce the results they wanted rather than having an impartial scientific approach).
The other likely possibility is that they cherry picked a survey that happened to have the results they want. Even in scientific surveys there’s going to be variability, and it’s never a good idea to base an opinion off of a single survey for that reason alone.
Am on the tail end of Gen X and when I started working even low pay allowed me to afford a place to live, food to eat, and doing fun things occasionally. While work sucked, it at least paid the bills and allowed the freedom to live. Plus there were still some companies that offered actual long term perks, tried and keep people with experience around, and promoted from within.
Gen Z still gets the low pay, but are treated as expendable, and can't afford anything and so it is understandable that they would hate working in comparison.
Want to have fun. Look up where you lived as a young adult and calculate how much it would cost today.
First wage out of college 28K. In two years it was up to 42K. Since it was a government job, I can look up the wage today. Start is at $37K, in two years its $55K
Studio apartment $650/month then, $1,800 now for the same place. Included heating and electricity and a awesome view from the 22nd floor.
Car with 30K miles on it, $185/month plus $50/month insurance. Now $550/month plus $200/month insurance.
Groceries $150/month (I ate well). Now $400/month.
Student loan, $50/month. Now $200 per month.
Phone (landline). $40/month. Now $60/month cell phone.
Take home when I started, around $1650/month. Expenses $1,125. 2 years later when I was making 42K, take home was around $2,450. I paid off the student loans, the most of the car, and had a ton of fun, traveled, dated, and eventually got married.
Today take home would've around. $2,150/month and the cost of living as I did would be around $3,010. Even after 2 years I could barely squeak by with around $3,200/month take home.
Read "Hell's Angels" by Hunter Thompson.
There's a chapter about the economics of being a biker/artist/hippie circa 1970. A biker could work six months as a union stevedore and earn enough to spend two years on the road, and a part time waitress could earn enough to support herself and her musician boyfriend.
They linked to blink 182's "All the Small Things" which reminded me of when I was working at Cracker Barrel in college. That song came on the radio in the kitchen, and everybody in the back of house said "Work sucks" in unison, and a bunch of the servers in the front replied "I know."
The manager made us change the radio station after that, but it was hilarious solidarity.
What a class traitor of a manager...
He was one of those "sad little kings of sad little hills" who lorded his power over everybody and creeped out any young woman who worked there.
Unrelated of course, but Gen Z is also paid less and have fewer opportunities for advancement than other generations.
Corporations are baffled, and will consider having more pizza on layoff days.
will consider having more pizza on layoff days.
And they will only order two pineapple pizzas and you will like it!
From the article:
The career growth is really amazing. I work at a unionized place that is required to fill positions internally before outside hires. When a senior employee retires from a top level position it will be filled by someone at the company. Typically someone in a mid level position. Then there's a chain effect where now that mid level position is open that will go to entry level workers. The only outside hires tend to be for entry level jobs.
It's great because when you talk to the senior staff, almost all of them started at the bottom and worked their way up. This gives them better knowledge of how the whole operation works since they've done the jobs below them, and also a little empathy!
I dong get it. We bought them a pizza just like 12 million dollar consultant suggested. They are supposed to make the green line go up now.
Compromise: I can do mandatory work outings and a ping pong table.
Wow, its almost like companies have taken away all the incentives to work!
What is a totally reasonable demand. Ask a CEO if he would do his work if he would get paid peanuts.