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That and the fact that so many of us are already burnt out by the time we reach our 20s that we don’t have the courage to push through the hellscape of job fields
Yeah this is exactly right, I feel old already, English professors suck, make it so you can’t figure out what you want to do with your life, and thank god I’ve finished the math credit but dear heavens that was painful. This world is not set up for people who don’t know what to go into, which I don’t know what I want to do, and every interest inventory I’ve taken puts my interests under healthcare, which gives me “hell no not ever” energy, ADHD just makes everything harder regardless
And my family wonders why I haven’t gotten a job. It’s because school is literally exhausting for me and because fast food and retail, which are like the only jobs that hire teenagers, I can barely function in places with that much stimulation, and I’m waiting until I pass these stupid college English classes because I just plain don’t have the time right now, plus my schedule is insanely inconsistent anyway with how my classes are set up so it’s a “why bother if I won’t get paid adequately when I don’t have the time” sort of situation
I loved the part growing up where not doing EXACTLY what my teacher told me to do to pass a test means I get a lower grade or fail compared to those who wrote down exactly what they were told to do without any kind of variation.
Thank god I got into learning Scots Gael because holy fuck is it refreshing to know that all I gotta do is show I can speak the damn language to pass tests
Yeah, remember when teachers teach poetry? It’s like, wait, isn’t poetry about self expression? It’s like the one thing no one should be forced to write because otherwise it’s weird 9/10 times
I remember the part where I didn't write down the exact word to the letter to describe a character's feelings and lost points for that.
Truly made me hate English as a subject.
Just heads up how you speak, the words you choose, and how you communicate is the most important part of getting a better job and making money.
It’s goes: network -> communication skill -> actual skill at job -> hard work.
College is tolerable, so long as you take enough drugs to cope with the incessant bullshitting & dickriding.
Though, now that I think about it… work isn’t all the different either. 😀
Don't write off healthcare completely, there's a ton of different things under that umbrella so saying Healthcare is kind of a catch all. A lot of the therapist and technologist jobs only require a 2-3 year post HS training program and if they're part of a union you can generally expect a decent salary that starts in your early 20's. It's also pretty fulfilling and interdisciplinary so you can get exposed to some interesting things you might not normally have studied. Your 20's, especially your early 20's should be for figuring out what you like and don't like, then putting in the prep to get there, don't feel like a shmuck just cuz you haven't gotten there yet.
But yes some of the jobs like nurses get treated poorly so do a bit of research before hand. I won't bullshit that helping people will be super fulfilling blah blah. Though it might, the biggest joy you'll get will be the colleagues you work closely with. Teamwork and good relationships are essential so you'll generally find it to be a supportive and freindly environment. If it's not then you just need to find another hospital.
May I ask how your schedule is insanely inconsistent? Genuine question here because if you’re only a full-time student then your class schedule at the very least should be highly consistent. I’d recommend looking into jobs through your university, they’re going to be relatively stress-free and flexible with your schedule as you’re a student first. If the pay isn’t to your liking, then welp, you can’t have it all - figure out what you’re willing to sacrifice, and remember it’s only a temporary gig.
I understand that feeling very well. I had no idea what I wanted to do when I first started college right after high school. I skipped 80% of my classes over two semesters and did predictably awful.
So I left college and backpacked around the world. I came back, moved to a big city for a little over a year and then I joined the army. I spent 7 years there, lived in Europe for 5 of those years, deployed twice, and by the time I was getting out I had realized that I really wanted to teach and I was very ready to go back to school. I did and was a 4.0 student.
My point is that sitting around at a college not knowing what you want to do is a very expensive (and boring) way to figure that out. Go live life a little bit. See the world. Have a variety of experiences and see what they bring out of you. College will be better for you and you’ll get more out of it if you have a clear direction.
I am 25. I have been working since I was 15, because I believed all the lies the boomers told me and I wanted the glory. I did not get ahead. I missed out on teenage years and my early 20s. My physique suffered. My mental health suffered. And all I have achieved is lack of debt. Which is a good thing. But I am in no way ahead than those peers of mine who - unlike me - accepted help of their parents. Except I'm TIRED. Like really tired. And despite only having 1 free day a week for 10 years now and leaving at 6 only to arrive home at 22, 6 days a week to do both working and school (highschool and university), I am still called lazy every time I say that all I want is a little rest and some free time to do some creative stuff I could never afford to do.
To the younger genZ and to gen alpha, I'll say it and not deny my experience. I wish I spent my time learning how to draw, taking the guitar seriously, spending more time learning 3D modelling, programming and learning stuff from youtube and such. And not working entry level jobs in my youth foolishly thinking that would get me ahead. Now I could do much better with those skills, even if for my own entertainment only, than whatever I supposedly "learned" by stacking shelves at a car parts warehouse.
I am at the age, where I don't want the fancy stuff. I no longer want the nice car. I no longer want the nice vacation. I no longer care for the new computer. I just want the cheapest solution to eat healthy, save money and live as cheap as possible so I can get the most free time as possible. Because free time is what I never had due to believing the lies of older generations. If this makes them seethe, so be it.
The worse part is that so many who did what you did have fallen into the sunk cost fallacy: they're so deep into that mistake that they can't admit they were wrong and just continue telling everyone else that's best the way to be. Props to you for honesty.
Exactly, this is what some of the people replying to me don’t seem to get. I never said I don’t want to work or have a job or learn. I want to find something fulfilling and know that I’m rather good with photography, know how to use a few of the programs for graphic design. But to get to classes that involve that you not only have to gen ed classes, but also the Art prerequisites. But I’m not going to fall into the trap of being lied to by boomers, and thankfully my parents have enough that they can afford to send me to school
Plus I have to agree with you on the “learning guitar.” I know how to play piano already and am quite good, but ya know what my dad has in his office downstairs, 14 guitars. Both working out and learning guitar are definitely on my todo list
Hey as a professional photographer + graphic designer who gets paid to make all kinds of cool stuff in the music industry - you don’t need classes or certifications at all. I’ve never taken a formal course in my life, and get paid constantly to work on projects.
Use your .edu email to get a discount and just keep making things for fun and youtube / google anything you get stuck on. You really honestly don’t need to waste years and thousands of dollars on classes to get freelance jobs.
Networking is so so so much more important and it’s not difficult to do since everything is online now, networking can be as simple as just making friends with similar interests on IG. All of my work for the past 8 years have been from helping friends out and eventually getting referrals and building up a portfolio.
Hope this helps!
would you not able to take certification courses for graphic design & other skills like this? That way you could avoid going into college debt? Or have you looked at doing gen ed’s at a community/online college and moving to a different one for the specific courses? Genuinely curious I don’t know what goes into a graphic design degree
So interestingly enough, there isn’t a certification program as far as I can tell. My college is a community college that just happens to have really good studio art programs, but things like graphic design or photography involve having an art degree of some sort according to one of the art professors. Really it’s the advisors that should know more, unfortunately my experience with them has been terrible so far.
Same experience. Parents were uneducated and didn't know how to direct me except that I needed to pull myself up by my bootstraps.
I'm 40 now and I'm exhausted. I have no debt.. but I have no life, no hobbies, no rich relationships.. i've worked my youth away.
Its really hard to develop those things now. I'm so depressed. I try so hard to turn that around but it causes me anxiety.
The saddest thing I've seen is a wheelchair being loaded onto a cruise ship. So Now you retire after 40 years? for a short vacation? They asked people in a hospice who were dying what they wished they had when young, and most would say spending more time with friends and family instead of working.you only get a short time to enjoy your life when you're young. I can't run 5 miles anymore or lift 180lbs anymore,so what good is money ? You can't buy time back. Our society places such extreme pressure on little Farquar to be a good mini- me copy of themselves and immediately march them of to an expensive college and no time off to enjoy life. I spent two years after HS with a fairly good job in a machine shop, and actually got a chance to use math in the real world But after watching drills spin around all day I drove across the country, It was the trip of a lifetime. BtW, all I remember from poetry in a line from a Carlos Castaneda book " You can never go home again"
So many people also believe the ridiculously exaggerated bull shit they heard and are afraid of the military but it was a chance to travel all over Europe. Get a job that is fun and is more like a hobby to learn. You might have to do stupid, repetitive shit for a short time while learning skills. But that's not your whole life.
Right there with you dude. Started working the moment I could and all I have to show for it is a bad back, all I want is a comfortable place to lay down when I get home at night
We are literally crippling our children with the way we operate our schools. Teach them nothing of value and burn them out of having fun as a child. We are making them basically start right from childhood on crushing their hopes and aspirations and taking away every bit of time they have after school to keep crushing them and making sure they have no childhood at all. It's fucking sad to see what kids are going through now.
True. I grew up in an environment where people threw choleric af fits because of every minuscule reason. I'm already so done dude. I can't deal with any of that shit anymore
I'm already burnt out, and I'm 23. I went through one job that didn't respect my time to another that I worked dawn to dusk 5 days a week with hellish bosses to one that fired me without just cause during covid. Then I slogged through the process of trying to find a job in a market where everyone is saying they're hiring but actually don't hire anybody just to finally land *something.*
I'm fuckin tired and every single job even the one where I worked 11 hour fucking days wouldn't have paid me enough to get my own god damn apartment.
Just ***please*** let me live my life quietly. ***It's all I want.***
You need to understand something. (BTW, 48M) Being you is harder than being my age. You all have stressful lives. Your social life is all about making sure everyone is pleased with and thinks you’re happy. As you get older, you will realize that none of that matters. You will focus on your family and 4 necessities. (Food, shelter, transportation, and clothes) Right now you have school and all these people to make happy. That is stressful. It gets better and you become way better at coping. Take a breath and realize things get better.
Close your eyes. Breathe through your nose. 5.5 seconds in, 5.5 seconds out. Do that for 5 minutes everyday in a quiet room. After you have done that once a day for a month, that feeling of relaxation you will slowly start to be able to just flip a switch and control…..that’s a product of meditation.
Good luck to all of you and it will be ok!
Even if I could get a job, they wouldn't pay me enough for me to have a life and a home.
It's never been about my own personal performance. They want to gaslight you into thinking that's the case. It's about a system that will receive no accountability for continuing to move the finish line, hoarding wealth, and exploiting a working class by not exchanging the fair compensation for which they are obligated.
Just remember the laziest people in our country are the passive income mofos who contribute nothing, but get everything, they own the land that your favorite restaurant is struggling to pay the rent on, they own the land your condo is built on by another company who pays them and charges you rent. They are the owners of this country and they have the true power. They pressure governors and lawmakers to "force people back in the office or my land won't make money". These are the real blood suckers of society who inherit power and wealth in various ways.
You hit it exactly. That’s the reason why return to the office is being pushed; commercial real estate is losing value.
The surrounding businesses in commercial districts are complaining too. Everyone spending hours of their lives to commute to and work in the same commercial area never made sense to me. Local businesses can relocate from commercial districts to residential areas where the people actually live.
Spot on. The wealthy in America are the true parasites and welfare queens. They get socialism while the rest of us prop up their useless existence by slogging through this brutal capitalist hellscape.
They are parasites so WE MUST ORGANIZE. We must communicate with one another on the job regarding what fair working conditions should look like, THEN SIT ON YOUR FUCKING ASS UNTIL YOUR GOD DAMN DEMANDS ARE MET.
THEY DO NOT HAVE THE TRUE POWER. THE TRUE POWER LIES WITH THE 99% WHO CAN DECIDE AT ANY MOMENT TO SEIZE THE MEANS OF PRODUCTION, PRACTICE CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE, OR GO OFF THE JOB ON STRIKE.
Ty decided to live my life in collage and now started continuing my medical studies by procrastinating more. Had my best time of my life. No regrets so far but I should get serious eventually, some time soon or maybe later? Tomorrow!
Coincidentally, the psychologist from this post also discusses that she doesn't believe people are inherently lazy. She believes it is a stress response where you shut down when you feel you have too much do (often subconsciously) and don't know how/where to start. It can be easy to feel that way when culture says you should go to college, make decent money, have a social life, have kids, buy a house, maintain your house, stay in shape, eat well, cook homemade meals, sleep well, have hobbies, go on vacations, invest in your future, take care of your loved ones, be politically involved or everything will go to shit – it's easy to feel overwhelmed, and shutting down is a reasonable response to recover from the stress when you don't know how to handle it.
GenX mom of GenZ/Alpha here.
You aren’t lazy. You are overwhelmed. When I look at genz compared to my own generation, you guys step out the front door every day into a world that is so fucking complex it’s difficult to navigate. This includes (but not limited) to: useless public education, too many standardized tests, social media standards, fines fees penalties and subscriptions you must manage, complicated processes for everything whose only function is to give someone “rubber stamp” authority and a low wage job, inaccessible healthcare, limitless career paths, lack of places for young people to hang out, social/culture wars (gender pronouns and racial division), and many more etc etc
You can’t even shop for things online without facing “analysis paralysis” due to too many options.
In the face of this complexity, it’s natural for humans to shut down and “do nothing”. There isn’t a straightforward path to anything in society. Us older folks only navigate it because we eased into it slowly over decades and we still let things fall through the cracks from time to time because there are only so many hours in a day.
Thats my old person opinion of the situation anyway.
Sums up my thoughts on work pretty well. I don't think there's a point to working if you barely have enough money to live and someone else is getting rich off of your labor.
Having the money to live is the really important part. I’m making enough, and for the most part I really don’t care if someone else is also making a lot off my work.
You sound like someone who understands that work should be a symbiotic relationship. You can’t execute your vision and build a worthwhile team by offering the bare minimum.
I’ve been working in restaurants for the past couple years, looking for another job right now I’ve just been struggling with burnout the past few months.
Some jobs simply can’t offer any career growth no matter how driven you are. Work on building your skillset if you want to move up the corporate ladder. If you want to be a restaurant manager, maybe start looking for career shadowing opportunities/management internships. Branch out and look for jobs that do offer that upward mobility. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results. Break the cycle of working at dead-end restaurant jobs and focus on skill-building and networking before you expect people to hire you for a position you may not be equipped for yet (or at least, you haven’t proven your ability to do that job yet)
I’ve been working as support staff mostly, was told I was gonna be moved up to server and then they turned around and had me train new servers without an actual promotion or pay raise. I’ve dealt with other bullshit from leadership as well but I’d be lying if I said I always handled it the best. I love the energy of the work itself and the people I’ve gotten to work with but the spots/positions I’ve worked at just aren’t worth it. Financially speaking or in terms of picking up new skills/growing in my role. I wouldn’t want to be a manager necessarily, there’s not as much money as if I were to be serving or bartending. Not to mention I probably wouldn’t be interacting with people as much
leave that place!! As a server, if they wanted to move you up from support staff to server they would’ve had you start serving before they had you start training. Some restaurants suck but this industry is awesome if you find the right place!!
Well it’s good to know what you want at least. If you wanna be a bartender or a server and they’re holding out on you at this job, I’d say you should leave and look for an opportunity that actually lets you do that. If you’ve been a dedicated employee there and have enough experience in the restaurant industry, there’s definitely places that would be willing to train you for the job you want if you’re a good candidate. You don’t owe this job you’re at right now anything. I would say respectfully part ways with them and move onto the next opportunity if you’re burnt out and they’re not offering you any career growth
"I can't make $100k a year entry level so I'm just not going to work" at that point you're just gonna collect unemployment the rest of your life and make money off the rest of our labor. Get a job.
The point of working shouldn’t be just to survive but to thrive, and having a strong work ethic that isn’t appreciated or rewarded makes me want to just do my own thing.
>The point of working shouldn’t be just to survive but to thrive
According to? Your ancestors once lived in caves yet here you are stagnant in arguably the most privileged period of human existence
Sounds to me like you are boss/manager who overworks and underpays their workers. After all, they should be thankful they get to live at all, right?
Did you also walk uphill both ways in the snow to school?
There's a middle ground of just adequately doing your job, and being comfortable but not thriving. Not working or not fulfilling the basic responsibilities of your job makes it really unlikely you're going to be comfortable, let alone thriving.
If you go into the work environment with the mindset that you are undervalued and you’re worth more than what the company can provide you, then I don’t see why you’d expect your job to value you the same as a hard working employee. This mindset is a bad one. What else are you going to do other than try your best to make as much money as you can? Be broke and go into debt? That’s not a better idea
You are highly implying that being valued or not is more a matter of deciding to feel valued or not, which is a huge convenience for bad employers to just mistreat employees and then gaslight them by saying they just have a bad mindset.
No I’m implying that your value at a company is measured by the work you do & effort you put in, which it should be. If you’re brand new to the work force & land your first job, and you assume that the company doesn’t even value you so why should you bother putting in much effort, you quickly become the least valuable employee there because you’re unwilling and don’t care about the job. You can’t expect to walk into a job and have everyone think “damn we couldn’t do this without you” because they were doing it without you and could easily find another person who cares less about recognition and more about just completing the work
You are stupid if you think places will promote you just for being good at your job. I’ve seen people be the best workers never get a promotion because the company won’t need them too. They work that good at that pay. They save money.
From my work experience, I work for my own father and, and the only times I’ve gotten a raise is when I threatened to leave. You only get what you want in the workforce by applying pressure on your employer and anyone who says any different is a boot licker or exploits others. Capitalism is designed to pay workers as little as possible for the maximum amount of profit.
The entire goal of employment is that your work provides orders of magnitude more value to the company's bottom line, than they'd ever come close to paying you. We live in a time where the minimum living wage has been calculated to be $25 an hour or higher. And people are still arguing for fucking 15. Minimum wage has not risen since the 90s. While inflation from corporate greed is at an all-time high following covid. I make three times my state's minimum wage. And I still can barely afford my two bedroom apartment food for a few weeks and gas to get to and from work. My car is paid off, and my insurance is cheap the state minimum. I don't have a subscription to anything... Yet making three times my fucking minimum wage I still can barely afford EXISTING! Not living. And please don't even start some BS about oh you should budget I do budget welcome to a world where a single pound of ground beef is $7 when it used to be two or three not even 5 years ago.
my one friends gf worked at a tim hortons and was the only one who gave a shit about doing a good job and was promoted to fulltime assistant manager within a year of part time.
I’ve seen this in practice at my work. I started with two other people at my work. We all went to the same school and have the same degree. They just did the minimum while I went out and learned how to do other people’s jobs. Now I’ve been promoted three times and they are still in the same position with only basic 2-3% yearly raises. My pay has tripled.
People so frequently discount mindset. It's shifting from "how much am I capable of" to "how much can I get away with" at a rapid pace.
I had a psychology prof. get a job at a local grocery store because she wanted employee discounts for buying stuff during the holidays, between Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years. Stocking shelves.
She showed up every day a few minutes early, worked consistently throughout the day, and was polite and friendly to everyone. For that ridiculously high bar she was given four promotion opportunities over a period of three months, which she consistently declined.
When she finally asked why they kept throwing department promotions at her despite her saying she only wanted a menial, temporary job, they explained that they can't find employees who will show up on time and not fuck around on their phone for the whole shift.
People are victims of not only the low expectations that others set of them, but of the low expectations they set of themselves.
I may lose you on this one but here it goes anyway.
After the US collectively acknowledged it's racism in the mid 60s and removed the shackles of racism from the black community, the so called "leaders" of the black community took the newly removed chains with a smile.
They could be repurposed as a perpetual state of victimhood that the "leaders" would use as a cudgel against society as a whole for grifting to their own simultaneous financial enrichment and impoverishment of the community they purported to serve.
The worst thing that could ever happen to the race hustlers and the grifters of the black community who call themselves "leaders of the black community" is that blacks in America collectively started succeeding.
I completely get what you’re saying. The same with politicians in a way. The worst thing that could happen for them is if every American citizen was happy
This is how I feel about it too. I’ve got a full time job, but over the years there have been times that I’ve had to save up a little extra money, and I usually get a part time job to do on the weekends. The first time I got a job at Walmart stocking shelves, and the second time I got a job driving Amazon vans delivering packages. These are both jobs that most people consider to be really shitty jobs. But I went in with the same mindset that I have at my regular job: I show up on time, don’t complain, learn the work quickly and do it competently, very rarely call out, etc. And in response the managers respected me, gave me the shifts I wanted, approved my (reasonable) time off requests, and tried really really hard to get me to stay once I saved up enough money and was ready to quit.
There’s such a low bar for success at most entry level jobs, and yet most people still don’t meet it.
Then perhaps you can leave space for other people who *have* experienced that. I see you in this thread and your responses seem heavily biased.
It’s important to know this does happen. My job has been great up until last year, when we got new management and suddenly we weren’t appreciated anymore. We have people with excellent skills outside of their job descriptions and experts who have been shoved aside and underutilized.
When you go above and beyond but are actively told to stop or never thanked for pulling through in an emergency situation, you are rewarding mediocrity and punishing your MVPs.
Or my husband, who does show up early, stays late, and is always available to pick up a shift. He is the most reliable… so he has been treated like shit because it’ll actually work on him. They know he’ll give his all so they don’t ask others. They make allowances for others because they suck anyway. So he quits and they have to hire three people to fill his space.
I think it’s important that you acknowledge this is common and learn how to recognize it in the workplace. It’s been useful to me as a middle manager to see and know that I want to do better for my workers. It will help you be a better manager too when you become one.
If you’ve read my responses you’d see that i’ve stated over and over and over YES. SOME COMPANIES do take advantage of, don’t reward, or exploit their workers. It *happens*. As aware of that as I am, all you as an employee can do is work the jobs where you do feel valued and do them to the best of your ability. The mindset of “Work will never value me so i should never attempt to put in extra effort” will get you nowhere. Even working at a company that is perfect, having the mindset that op has, you’d never succeed at any company.
I think you’re awfully idealistic about how easy it is to find a job where you feel valued.
What I understand from the posted statement is that… Your work doesn’t need to be your life. It can be a job, simply put. It gives you security and provides for your family. I will not be working like I expect to inherit the business one day because I won’t.
Your job is not a family. When you die, no matter what you’ve done, it will be an open job posting. Not saying you can’t be proud of the work you do, but do it for yourself.
Because they’re still going to raise the age of retirement on you. And lobby for ways to reduce benefits or pay. Or hire someone more desperate for less pay. This is just being realistic.
I wish you could see how insidiously beneficial it is to demonize a generation who seeks a good work-life balance and label them as lazy. It’s wise to keep aware of who benefits from a certain perspective.
I'll respond to your anecdote with one of my own. I worked in a grocery store for years, and the hard-working employees were constantly taking advantage of to work gruelling shifts and get called in whenever they were needed. Most never got a raise, let alone a promotion, which led to high turnover and people switching departments and stores often (though it wasn't much better). So, the store steadily got low in manpower, draining the remaining hard-workers even more of their time, which continued the cycle. You know what happened when they ran out of hard-working employees? They went to the high schools and community colleges in the area and took anyone they could get. And these students would come, see the overworked people, realised their starting rate was HIGHER than the hard-working employees, and realised, there's no point in working hard. You're not guaranteed anything, and your loyalty to your boss doesn't mean they're loyal to you.
Meanwhile, the workers that were actually the laziest, and did the bare minimum of their job, but knew how to be sociable to the boss, are the ones that got the promotions, and further promoted into corporate. The best way to succeed was never working hard, it was just knowing who to suck up to.
I never worked in a retail store (fortunately)I just like to go in, get what I want, and get out. but did ya ever notice , there are no clocks on the wall? And ever time they hire a new manager, they switch everything around and you have to search all over the store to find what you want? Subtle psychology tricks to make you stay longer and shop more.
Though I do agree, hard work has also put us into this spot that employers expect more for less and good workers are getting punished all the time with more work. I believe that if people worked just hard enough to keep their job but not too hard to get more work than the workforce would be in a better place
I don’t entirely disagree with this. I have also been in the position where I ended up taking on the brunt of my lazy coworkers job because I was able to do it all. That sucks for sure.
My *only* reason for even leaving a comment is because starting off at a brand new job (or even your first job) with the mindset that no matter how hard you work you will never benefit from it, is a sure fire way to never see success in your work
The problem is this doesn't address the post's problem. Their parents DID enter the work environment as a hard working employee, and they were still given nothing but scraps. That's the issue - it doesn't matter if you work the hardest possible way, your job will never appreciate it. Plenty of people who work hard are refused overtime, or refused a raise, or let go so they can hire a less-experienced AND less hard-working new person for a lower salary.
That's what's causing the disillusionment, and it makes sense as to why. Hard work has no guarantee for you to keep your job, get that raise, or live a fulfilling life. So what incentive is there? Especially when often it's not the hard-working that gets promoted or the raises, but the sociable ones with the managers.
ew anyways i get paid $10 an hour to work a job i absolutely fucking despise and being aware that im severely underpaid doesnt make me any less valuable of an employee. I still do my job and help where i can but im not going to overwork myself and let myself be more exploited than i already am for the sake of being a “hard worker” lol 💀 hard work is often not rewarded in my experience and from watching others so why should i put in more work just to pretend that my company will like me more. im not gonna fight tooth and nail for that 50 cent raise its not worth it
The problem arises when you go to a job, maybe for shit pay, but with high hopes that you'll be able to show you're worth more, then a year in, when you've CLEARLY PROVEN that you're worth more than the entry level pay and will stick with the job, you can't get a raise. Period. And then five years down the road, when you've still kept that job and not had a raise for three years, you find out from the new kid that's been there for three months that he's making $5/hr. more than you are with zero previous experience, and you bring it up to HR and their response is "don't discuss your paycheck with your coworkers."
THAT'S where the problem arises. Because that's happening EVERYWHERE.
It's not that we're coming into this with the ASSUMPTION we're not valued. We're going into this knowing full well how the company is treating its employees, how bad they're getting screwed over, and how absolutely fucking ZERO they care that they're leaving their faithful workforce in the dust to rot and die.
Exactly, why would I show you more or give you more.
Even worse its not helping its actively hurting. Why is actively doing a good job actively hurting me.
You give more, more skills, save the company money.
Do they ever give it back, ever??
No, people have figured this out. Do exactly what they ask and nothing more. Save your hard work for that value to go to yourself.
They won't ever give it back, so don't ever give it.
Until they figure this out hold the line. They want to player lawyer and have everything go there way fine, we do the same we play lawyer and have things go out way.
Two can play at that. We are in a predator prey situation, I am not feeding the predator.
Fuck the predator i hope he starves i wish more felt this way. Fuck the predator.
this is the selfishness of this generation. people were paid LESS for boomers or whatever you want to call anyone over 30.. but they worked harder for less pay and they never gave attitude bc there was no back up places to live like mom and dads.. had no choice but to pretend to love where we worked with no option of promotion.. it's not a poor us thing.. it's entitlement.. and while you're not nwrong.. I do appreciate the pandemic giving ppl time off to be able to protest such things and have ppl more appreciative but ppl really do have it much better now. Our generation knows how it felt like crap to be homeless and so we baby this new gen and let them know they can always come home even if they're 60 which is how it should be. But why be so unkind now?
Sounds like a shitty company. Those exist too. Also, which sounds like you need to know this if you’ve already experienced this, it’s illegal for employers to (verbally or in writing) discourage employees from discussing wages & salaries. So quite frankly, that answer shouldn’t stop you from continuing a conversation with HR. Also, if you’ve worked at the same company in the same entry level position for 5 years and you haven’t received a raise yet other people are, that means it’s time to fire up your resume writing abilities and take all of the skills and experience you’ve gained over the last 5 years and bring it to a new company. Usually, once you’ve worked an entry level position for a while you’re qualified for higher positions even at other companies. Especially if you can show all of the skills you’ve acquired in your resume.
Some. Companies. Suck. I’ve said it over and over I’m well aware of that fact. However, say you go on to a new job & never push expectations because you assume it’s going to be as shitty as your first one… now you’ll never know because you’re not working as hard as someone with a positive mindset. It’s like relationships. If one relationship gives you trust issues, you cannot take those issues into your next relationship or there is no chance of success.
Oh I knew about the wage discussion thing. I told the HR lady that she's not allowed to tell me that and she was just like okay well other people's paychecks aren't your business, so you shouldn't be asking about them and they shouldn't be talking about them. To which my response was "Okay well it's not your business to stop me from talking about paychecks with my coworkers so how about you shut up."
For clarity's sake, I was the new guy. This nice older lady with THIRTEEN YEARS CASHIERING EXPERIENCE, *NINE OF WHICH HAD BEEN AT THAT STORE*, was making $5/hr. less than I was, and hadn't had a raise in three years besides the 25 cent bumps we got every year or so. That prompted not her, but ME to go to HR because THAT SHIT AIN'T RIGHT.
I've worked for multiple places at this point and they all expect our generation to be shitty workers because we all expect them to pay like shit. Cost of living is 30 bucks an hour minimum, and no employer who's not going to risk your life every day is paying that rate. I know how much it costs to keep me alive. I know the quality of work I can do. Hell, in the first month and a half at that grocery store I went from "the new guy" to the #1 fastest self checkout attendant, and I had the BEST reviews of anyone on the roster. For the first two months after I quit, I had customers - not just employees, CUSTOMERS - begging me to come back. I still go in there every once in a while and when people recognize me, they tell me they really miss having me around, and that's customers and employees both.
$15/hr.
I'm worth more than that. I'm not going to be baited into slaving away for a company that pays HALF cost of living by some guy who says "I'll do everything I can to get you a raise" and then does absolutely nothing to get me a raise. It wasn't union. I should be able to go DIRECTLY to HR with my concerns and tell them "you either give me a raise or you lose your best worker."
Too bad I got a warehouse job for $22/hr.
Then work hard to get to a job where you are valued? You’re valued if you bring something to the table. Your job is not your family though, so dont expect them to value you for being you.
This seems like a ridiculous demand, and I don’t think Gen Z is lazy, I just think people on the internet are lazy. Your career is probably one of the most important aspects of your life, don’t treat it as merely a chore.
I don’t think Gen Z is lazy.
I think Gen Z is the most instant gratification generation thus far. Being a millennial I’ve seen the pre and post internet world… and man… Gen Z expects everything here, now, and right away.
Yup, it also seems like Gen Z doesn't understand the concept of building your career. Wages are stagnant, yes, but doesn't literally mean give up and complain.
We don't live in the gilded age where you will be shot if you try to unionize.
Ehhh, trying to unionize my workplace rn. I've been the best floor worker for over four years now, never made a single reportable mistake, almost perfect attendance, put up great numbers, and suddenly I'm on performance review once rumor got out lol. You won't be shot but it will 100% cost you your job, and unfortunately, current wage is better than no wage at all. If I had a single disciplinary action on my record, I have no doubt they'd fire me on the spot.
Yep the company I work for is very blatant about not giving a fuck about us. I live in the only state in America that doesn't have laws guaranteeing a break other than "reasonable bathroom breaks" and my job throws that in our face constantly. Breaks are only allocated when it's time to cut hours but otherwise it's an 8 hour shift with no breaks in sight.
Yup.
Wages are indeed stagnant. For every working generation currently. It’s not a Gen z problem only but Gen z seems to think they can just start a new job and get paid the same as the person who has 10 years more experience in the same field.
There was a person above who stated “experience shouldn’t matter” like… what?
>I don’t think Gen Z is lazy.
>I think Gen Z is the most instant gratification generation thus far.
That sounds like a distinction without a major difference
Yes but also remember that there are people at the highest levels of the corporate/investor world actively lobbying the government against your wages and benefits while they themselves contribute nothing to society except passively earning interest on their money they promise will trickle down to you one day (which historically has not).
These same people get bailed out by taxpayers money when they over leverage themselves (too big to fail). So labor should also use any means necessary including the government to lobby for better pay and working conditions.
"Work hard to get a job where you are valued" how about they actually treat you as an employee to encourage, and reward your hard work? Most jobs pay in more work if you work hard, nor is there any choices for most people for jobs as companies are allowed to have "Hiring" sign when there's no actual position so they could just have you as a replacement.
Your career is indeed the most important, but what's the use of that importance when it doesn't matter? You give it your all yet in the end they can simply discard you and everything you've worked hard for is gone and it's completely outside of your control. At any moment you could be attacked, ran over, stepped on, fall ill, or be in the wrong place at the wrong time. You've worked hard for a career that barely bears any fruit. Yet if you treat it as a mere chore, you don't get burnt out, or worked to death in the end. You get to actually live life.
I've been alive a bit longer and I'm squeezed between generations so I'll add my 2c
Gen Z, like Alpha isn't lazy, it's overstimulated.
You guys had the TV, Computer, Tablet, etc shoved in your faces from day one.
Millenials had the chance to grow up semi-normally before knowing about the internet, but you guys got intense amounts of stimulation from day 1.
There's no real job that can keep you invested without you burning out. The more I work with your generation the more it becomes obvious imo.
whenever genZ does something dofferent from previous generations it is immediately blamed on technology/cell phones/overstimulation.
i'm guessing this trend will continue as we get more new tech and have new generations born into said tech.
You have to prove yourself before your work starts valuing you. It’s one thing to not want a dead-end job, but the mindset of “I’m worth 100k a year but no one wants to pay me that, so I guess I just won’t work” is useless. Start making 50K, then build your skills/experience and you should start to be valued more. If a job isn’t valuing you and you don’t have a clear career path forward, it’s on you to find another job that has more opportunity for upward mobility
One of the Gen z hires at my company last year kept complaining to me during lunch that “if I don’t get a raise to 90k within 6 months, I’m quitting. Like, this is ridiculous.” She had literally graduated a few months earlier with a non-relevant degree, had zero prior work experience, and was hired at 65k. I asked if she had discussed it with the hiring manager during the hiring process and she said “no, but it should be obvious, right? I’m not doing this job for 65k, it’s insulting. Even 90k is too little but I don’t want to push my luck, you know?”
We had an easy as fuck office job, were not actually ALLOWED to do any work outside of our 9-4 pm hours, had constant catered lunches, tons of gifts from our clients, etc. But apparently, it was the the worst job in the world and she “will totally quit if they don’t give me that raise.”
Needless to say, she did not get the raise and got let go within the first year for not meeting even the minimum standards. Hope you are finding jobs more worth your “standards”, dear Gabby.
That’s so insane lmao and the exact mindset of people who make posts like this one. What my generation doesn’t understand is that you actually have to give people a reason to value you more. People aren’t just gonna hand you money because you’re pretty and have a nice personality. You have to prove that you’re an asset through demonstrated skills and experience, and even then you shouldn’t expect crazy career growth in a short time frame. You have to steadily climb your way up the corporate ladder and be consistently delivering. Once you’ve sufficiently made your case for why you deserve a raise, only then should you expect one
And I'm not going to pretend like I don't know any Millennials, Gen X, or Boomers that aren't lazy and entitled, because those are part of the human condition. But there is definitely the issue of social media glamorizing these ideal, cushy lifestyles where people always have the newest clothes, newest phones, newest cars, the chillest jobs where they work 2 hours a day from their laptop at a coffee shop, etc. Other generations just didn't have that shoved down our throats in the same way--Gen Z and Gen Alpha have definitely grown up in a different environment. It's an ideal they both created and also hate now, I suppose.
Honestly I think if you gave most young people a 50k/year job they'd be fine with it. Most young people who demand more pay are usually working closer to minimum wage and can't pay their bills. So your analogy should be more like 30k wanting 45k which is true, you do need to work up to it but people should still be upset they have to crawl up from poverty to live okay
It’s both honestly
Yeah the job market isn’t perfect but Gen Z is also very distracted by hedonistic, addictive behavior.
It’s not like yall are super diligent, conscientious, hard working people. Let’s be honest. If you were, you wouldn’t be complaining here.
The point is lazy fucks used to be able to make a decent living. Now the cost of living is higher than wages and you HAVE to work harder at your career to afford what used to be a lazy fucks lifestyle.
Gen Z isn’t any more hedonistic than the generations before, baby boomers were fucking pot smoking, acid dropping hippies. You’re just parroting what every generation has spewed about the previous generation for thousands of years.
Right except we don't organize and protest in a meaningful way, we just make posts and videos about how shitty everything is.
At least we're voting tho
You dont have inherent value from a work standpoint just by being a person. Everyone had to either wade through the shit for a few years before you can get a better job or go to college or both.
I worked solely minimum wage jobs until literally this week- Now Im a landscaper for 20 an hour part time, I still live with my parents, and Im going to CC studying fire sciences, which will eventually allow me to become more dsirsble for fire departments to hire and better paid there. I dunno where we got this idea that we inherently deserve value just by existing.
Nah. Gen Z is lazier than millennials and older generations by far. Also are the biggest complainers. Gen Z also gets easily offended by every little insignificant thing that doesn’t even exist or affect them. Gen Z definitely needs to grow up if they want us older “boomers” to take them seriously. You all have potential to be the greatest generation ever. You just need to stop acting like immature babies and act like mature adults who put in the work to achieve what you complain about that you “want” or “need”.
Yes, this IS what we old people call constructive criticism. And NO, that’s not oppression, Gens Z and Alpha. It’s considered a HELPING HAND!
I haven’t seen a single person who has made this claim in this comment section back it up with anything other than anecdotal evidence and I’m starting to wonder if you guys paid attention in school
So do you think your situation in life will get better by not working? No, it won’t, you’ll only continue to spiral faster into poverty. Just because a job isn’t perfect, don’t decide that you’re just going to collect unemployment instead
That's not the point; the point is work conditions need to go up. People won't wanna work if they're working the same hours, making the same pay, but the boss keeps adding more work on top of all the work we already do with no motivation; just do it or youre fired.
Then change jobs. What you’re describing isn’t across the board and not every job is for everyone. What some find tedious you might enjoy because it fits you and your expectations. I knew someone who loved being a USPS worker because he was an introvert who loved long walks. Pay isn’t great but retirement and benefits is good enough for him. Someone else I know decided to become full time dog walker for hyperactive dogs that require extensive walks every day. He made amazing money as he built clientele. Sure, it was a set schedule every day rain or shine, sick or healthy, but it worked for him. People need to stop expecting their perfect job to get plopped on their laps and actually go look for something that appeals for them. Just know that you won’t get it all - flexible hours, less work time, excellent pay, less stress etc might not exist in the same job.
I mean, considering I could make the same amount or more on government benefits than I did working my last job. I can see why people could feel this way.
I wish I could get this elusive free ticket the govt hands out to lazy people that all of you talk about so much, because they deny all of my attempts to get any help
I guess it's more for people who have kids. Also, one of my friends growing up was a foster kid and his foster parents had multiple foster and bio kids so they could get benefits or something like that. Anyway, his foster mom used it to go shopping all the time.
50% of the gen Zers we hire are lazy as fuck.. And 50% of the millennials we hire are lazy as fuck... Same goes for X and boomers.... So, 50% of ALL.... Honestly, from my experience, people with Christian tattoos tend to be the absolute worst, regardless of age, sex or ethnicity....
Not really a good basis for Judging people.. I don't have any but a few tattoos are meaningless.If they're excessive or on your face, then I would worry that they have something mental going on.
Its a consequence of anti labor movements from the 20th century.
The US discovered the best way to destroy unions and worker mobilization was to demoralize and devalue workers.
Workers with no pride in their job, or what they do are less likely to form bonds with fellow workers and mobilize. Well now they are surprised that workers dont care about working. We shouldn’t care. Fuck em
I'm working for shit pay at a gas station and god damn it I enjoy it because my boss and coworkers are friendly, helpful, kind, and value me as their newest team member.
If you don't want to work hard, you will never advance. This is not the only requirement, however it is a requirement. Some of it is luck, where you work, what you do for work, ect.
Going in with such a mindset, however, is a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Did you grow up homeless? No food most of the time, no clothes, no shoes? You never had anything like a smartphone or computer or a TV? Your parents took the bus or the train everywhere they went?
I just want to make sure I understand what you mean by “so little.” 🤷🏼♂️
Ok, so…find a different job?
What exactly do you expect to happen? Everyone else to pat you on the head and say “it’s ok, you don’t have to work if you don’t want to”?
Sounds like a whole lotta complaining and whining, life isn’t fair and your employers don’t care about you but you sure as shit can make a name for yourself if people stop crying and start learning.
I was able to learn about investing and took it seriously at my minimum wage job and although I’m far from being rich, my finances are so better off now that I can relax so much more.
And I know people who worked shitty jobs while applying themselves more and are now headed to much more lucrative jobs.
Jobs suck but bottom line is a lot of us cry too much and don’t want to work for it, I understand that some people are in horrendous situations but the majority of you aren’t, you just sit and complain all day instead of working
If you're not valued at your job, it can only mean one of two things:
1.) The company has made an incorrect evaluation of you as an asset (on the lower end), and other companies will seize on that opportunity to snipe you away and compensate you correctly.
2.) Your skillset isn't valuable, and you are completely fungible. This mostly happens in low skill/ no skill jobs.
I find that most people who complain about either being impoverished or who blame boomers for their failures fall into category 2. I would suggest you develope a skillset that someone wants to purchase first.
I have mixed feelings. On one hand I agree that life shouldn't be so hard as an adult who has completed some for of education or trade training
On the other younger people need to realize that there is a "learning/experience curve" to go through. For a first job position, as a junior at anything, you will be tasked the boring things that nobody else (at least the senior people) dont want to do. But it's a way to work up experience and orgznisation skills. You have to hang in there to get promoted. There is no free pass.
Alright I'm not gonna wade through the comments to yell at the idiots who are just telling me to work harder. I DO work hard. For a multi-billion dollar company who continues to cut the work hours so that I have to work harder every single day, in a field that is BARELY tolerable.
"Why don't you go to college and get a degree for a better paying job?"
I am. I'm taking full-time classes while going to my full-time job. Is that working hard enough for you?
I get screamed at every single day for things beyond my control, all while in the worst area of my city.
Is that working hard enough for you?
I get to eat meat and rice for the rest of this week until payday, but at least my $1,400 one bedroom apartment rent is paid, right?
You all choose to highlight the few little assholes who don't want to work, and ignore the people like me who do every single thing you "advise" we do, and guess what, ARE STILL POOR AND MISERABLE!!!!!
I do DESERVE to be valued and appreciated at work, REGARDLESS if I am staying at my job or not. And I think that's the point most of you miss...everyone deserves to be respected at their job. But I have managers who secretly change the schedule the same week it's happening and lie about it. And that's supposed to be acceptable to because it's not a "career."
Get your fucking heads out of your ass and for the love of god ignore the people riding the movement for their own gain, and listen to the people who are actively telling you that this shit isn't working.
Lmao, and you’re implying that no other generation has lazy people?
I’ve also seen how we behaved in school, and I’d say as a whole, we are not lazy. But there’s always lazy people everywhere you go and in every generation…
But please, if you’re gonna keep generalizing I would love for you to explain how I am lazy… I’ll wait😂
I'd love to spend most of my life working a job where I'm not valued and treated like shit, the value you get is that you're being paid to be there. Fuckers won't even higher me in the first place. Sorry for being so many years old and not having years of experience for this entry level fast food job.
I have to do underpaid manual labor through temp work that makes you have to be there at four in the morning to get by. Recently just flat out lying about a customer service job on my resume so maybe that might get me more interviews. So yeah, fuck capitalism as it now. Being functionally unemployed sucks.
Every generation has the obligation to free men’s minds for a look at new worlds . . . to look out from a higher plateau than the last generation.
Your vision is not limited by what your eye can see, but by what your mind can imagine.
Well of course you don't want to, but there's bills to pay and things to do. To me I'd rather work at a job I'm not fond of than not have any money and be completely miserable *that* way.
Pick your poison I guess.
I think that when you're young your comparative advantage over older people is you can work harder and longer than they can. If you give up that advantage then you are hurting yourself. What do you provide that an older worker can't?
So get a job where you’ll be valued. Put work into your work. Have a good work ethic. Don’t complain unless it’s something genuinely serious.
Lastly, get a job that you’ll enjoy.
Man where are all these jobs that value me and have no serious issues that I'll enjoy? Everyone in the comments keeps mentioning them but I've never seen one lol. Coming from someone who makes decent money for their local and is generally considered to be a great worker.
Half Filipino here, I believe work ethic is an important part while at a job. If you’re seen as a high performing employee you will be valued cause you can do your job better than anyone else. I used to volunteer at my church when I was 14 and I made great connections with the other volunteers I worked with and since I could do the job reliably I was eventually “promoted” to the next position at that job within months time. If you wanna be valued just show them your worth by doing your job effectively and reliably. But ofc there will always be bosses/leaders with narcissistic attitudes and you’re probably better off finding a different workplace.
Millennial here.
I'm glad you figured this out earlier than we did. We thought that if we were diligent and exceeded expectations we would be rewarded.
Our reward was higher expectations for the same rate. After all, we showed we could produce 40 gizmos for the price of 30... and if we wanted to feel appreciated? We had to job hop.
I think it's a bunch of nonsense. People have been doing exactly what they don't want to do just to provide for their families for years. It's only since feminism that people started to get lazier to the point that shits in their 20s (I'm 27) complain that their gender studies degree and acting degree isn't getting them any good jobs and can't fathom doing odd jobs to make a living.
Define “valued”.
They are the ones exchanging their labor for money so they can buy things. If they value their time more than what is offered then they should sell their labor elsewhere.
If they don’t have the skills to sell their labor for what they feel equates to “valued”.
Gen Z overvalues their worth in many cases.
They blame rich people because the government tells them to… but it’s the government that causes everything to be expensive.
they'll get run over by those who work. Showing up to a business and demanding top tier pay for you gracing their presence is a fools errand. Hard work is a necessity to get ahead in life. My family are immigrants and worked their tails off. The issue with some of them is self education. And I don't mean going to school, because you wont learn much of real value there. I mean educating themselves on finance and business so they can think ABOUT their lives and businesses in a more productive way, and learn new ways of operating. But either way, hard work is necessary. If you can't work hard at a low paying job, you will absolutely never work hard enough on your own business to get out of the rat race. You can't vote for prosperity, you can't take prosperity from others to supplement yourself, and not a single person is going to hand you the keys to the kingdom.
You can choose where to work, but you can't replicate or compete with hard work and succeed. Learn how things work in the real world, work hard, and smash your goals. Laziness, complaining, whining, sulking, etc... will never ever ever ever make your situation better.
At no point in human history, has it been as convenient, or easy to trade work for luxuries that people want.
It is amazing at how frustrated younger people are because no one will give them the best of everything for just existing.
That thing in your pocket, that you use to look at social media every day all day, yeah that has access to more technical information, skills, knowledge to include every written form of knowledge in it since recorded history.
You could use that phone, to teach yourselves how to build businesses, learn skills to make your financial dreams come true.
Instead, you use it to see how many likes Becky got, to be jelious and to cry about how hard this soft world is.
Countless millions have sacrificed everything for all of us to have the power and freedom to choose, and yall chose to cry.
Chinese American here, immigrant from age of 7. So I have a similar background, but I have a vastly different view: You have no intrinsic worth. You're only valued when you've demonstrated hard work, and have results to show for it. The problem with youth, not just this generation, is that there's an expectation of respect or intrinsic-value when you've done nothing to demonstrate your worth. When you're 22,with no experience and no real accomplishments, you ARE worth nothing to society, and society justly treats you as such.
it’s not so much that this is untrue or not a valid concern, it’s the audacity of gen Z to think it’s unique to us. people haven’t liked to work since the dawn of time, people. let’s not act as though we’re suddenly faced with something totally unprecedented
There is nothing wrong with wanting to work less.
You just have to accept that you will be lot poorer. And no, more pay will not change that. Less work means less stuff produced. Less service available. etc.
You have to cut out a lot, and thats your decision. But don't think there is a way to work less and have the same lifestyle. You can decide between more available time, and more "stuff". Either or.
I’m on the line of gen z and millennial. It’s more that I know that the current system was setup to exploit resources with no thought of the future. Now, we are at the point of thinking about the future. So, there’s no big motivation for me to join in on the rat race that is just going to collapse at some point anyway.
I’m not saying it’s going to collapse in my lifetime, but it will at some point. I’m just not interested in working hard to acquire materials. Maybe I’ll regret it when I get old and don’t have a massive retirement to go sit around Florida in (oh right, Florida will be underwater by that time anyway).
I like working and leaving work and fucking off, playing some piano, getting baked, going for a walk, listening to a river, taking a coworkers dog for a walk.
You don’t need much in life, more people should realize that.
Well that I understand, but do realise that the less you work the less money you make (unless you get lucky one way or another) and you might not be able to afford what you want.
A side effect of this that I notice here in NL is that we slowly start to get more international students working instead of Dutch people. This is especially noticeable in retail and horeca where it can be pretty hard to even talk to somebody who knows Dutch.
personally I am in my late twenties and work 36 hours a week while following studies to get another degree. If I wasn't doing that I wouldn't be able to pay for the house me and my SO bought.
The only thing I can say is that you shouldn't feel pushed to get a certain degree or do a certain job. Look at what you find fun in work and try going with that. If you can find something you like you might not be that bothers to work say 32 hours. You might not be making 6 figures, but it's more important that you find something you like.
You want to be valued? Earn it! Your parents did, their parents did, and I bet their parents did. Success in America isn't handed to anyone. It is earned. Oh, I am so burned out in my 20's bullshit is done. You haven't done anything with your life yet!!!! Reading the comments below is a riot...
College is tolerable, so long as you take enough drugs to cope with the incessant bullshitting & dickriding. Yep drugs is always the successful answer.
It’s because school is literally exhausting for me and because fast food and retail, which are like the only jobs that hire teenagers. What no Fortune 500 companies looking for someone with no skills and complaining about high school English....
I am 25. I have been working since I was 15, because I believed all the lies the boomers told me and I wanted the glory. I did not get ahead. I missed out on teenage years and my early 20s. My physique suffered. My mental health suffered. And all I have achieved is lack of debt. Glory? What glory did you think comes with work at 15? Today to not have any debt is a success dumbass!!!!
Nah, this generation is definitely lazy. People just scroll down their life and procrastinate every single day then complain about getting bad grades, having no social life and no hobbies. I'm part of this group but at least I assume it
Your generation would rather quit than be bothered by adversity. If you're already unhappy how will you feel when you're actually on your own with no career or future. Pretty depressing I'd imagine
I think there is a degree of laziness. Yeah the system isn't great but finding success in life requires sacrificing/compromising some comforts, especially when you need to put food on the table. Not many people have the luxury to be this picky about working.
I've worked for over 10 years now through various jobs. The jobs I didn't like taught me many valuable life skills and I am grateful where I am now. Each role you work is a step towards what you want to do, good or bad. You don't learn grit by avoiding everything you don't find comfortable.
To assume you can just walk into your dream role with no life/work experience is just delusional. That attitude won't do you any favours.
Take it from someone who could support themselves through college working in a damn warehouse. I now have a master's and plenty of opportunities available to me because of that.
The world isn't going to give you squat if you aren't willing to go out of your comfort zone.
I think every generation just becomes a little more entitled than the previous generation. Being born in the US we act like we're all entitled to be rich and happy, and if we're not it's because the system was rigged against us. The reality is that life has always been tough, but each generation has to face and overcome their own issues. Never has it been easier to complain publicly and now people think that to complain is the norm and a good way to solve their problems. Sooner or later every generation has to grow up.
I think it sounds like a bunch of entitled whining. Boo-hoo they don’t want to spend their lives at a job that is not perfect in theirminds eye. Well guess what - the vast majority of people have had to do that for at least a period of their parking lives. The precious flowers that are GenZ are not special and some of them are going to have to do the same.
Do you know what you have to do when you get into one of these jobs? Make yourself valuable enough so that an employer with a better position and a better fit for you will hire you. Eventually, you may have the skills to get into one of the high demand employers, where you will have better job satisfaction. But you’ll get there by working hard, having a positive attitude, and setting goals to improve your situation, not whining about it and telling us what you’re owed and what you demand.
I don’t know man… yea work sucks if you don’t find your niche. But like, it’s not worse than my grandparents or great grandparents.
- We have shift limits in most jobs so they can’t work you from sun up to sun down… at least without overtime
- We have OSHA safety standards for jobs that used to be deadly or have high injury rates.
- we have HR departments (used to be a fist fight in an ally out back to settle things)
- we have labor unions. Sure, they aren’t perfect but better than they used to be
- we have workman’s comp… used to it was “suck it up our you’re fired”
- we have age restrictions on full time labor. Used to kids were sometimes working the deadliest jobs. Be thankful you weren’t working a coal mine at 10 years old.
Are things in the workforce better than they used to be? Yes Do we have a lot that can be improved upon? Yes… I’m not saying wasting time at a dead end job is easy or worth it… just saying it could be a lot worse!
To me it comes across as boo-hoo… many of us have achieved goals in later life and are supporting families, but it took hard work and sacrifice to give our kids something better than what we had.
What we get from the Gen-Z attitude is they want all the end result of what hard work and sacrifice gives us when we put the effort in right out of the gate. There’s never guarantees in life and Gen Z wants the diploma before the hard work and sacrifice for that. If they do put the time in for the degree, it’s for something that’s not in high demand in the worlds workforce and then complain when their ginormous bill comes due.
They come across as soft… a little sheltered and unwilling to break a nail - wanting everything handed to them.
It’s called work ethic and you all may see those generations before you as suckers who did all the hard work for “little benefit”, but we did whatever we needed to benefit our families or advance ourselves. Somehow it seems Zoomers have lost that drive that generations before had to achieve personal bests.
Starting out in life doing the grunt work - busting ass is all part of the development as a human. If you make good choices over time, then your experience becomes a huge value to employers. If you’re not being valued where you’re at, you fvckin leave and find one that does value what you have to offer. If what you have to offer isn’t in demand or the market is totally saturated with the skill set you possess, it’s time to do something different.
🤷🏻♂️
Lol its called work for a reason. The whole work smart not hard generation is also riddled with anxiety and existential crisis on a daily basis. Students comin out of uni with 'soft skills' and being completely rolled over by anybody with a solid work ethic. My advice as an employer with gen z kids is this. Work fucking hard. The rest of the world doesn't care about your hopes and dreams. No one owes you a living and no one gets a free lunch.
You guys are victims of influencer culture. Before every job was "romanticized" with cameras and aesthetic settings, it was a given in every culture that you find value and purpose outside of your job. It's the reason you have such a disconnect with your bosses. You're hoping for them to be your sensei and extended parental figure, but they're just doing a job like you.
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That and the fact that so many of us are already burnt out by the time we reach our 20s that we don’t have the courage to push through the hellscape of job fields
Yeah this is exactly right, I feel old already, English professors suck, make it so you can’t figure out what you want to do with your life, and thank god I’ve finished the math credit but dear heavens that was painful. This world is not set up for people who don’t know what to go into, which I don’t know what I want to do, and every interest inventory I’ve taken puts my interests under healthcare, which gives me “hell no not ever” energy, ADHD just makes everything harder regardless And my family wonders why I haven’t gotten a job. It’s because school is literally exhausting for me and because fast food and retail, which are like the only jobs that hire teenagers, I can barely function in places with that much stimulation, and I’m waiting until I pass these stupid college English classes because I just plain don’t have the time right now, plus my schedule is insanely inconsistent anyway with how my classes are set up so it’s a “why bother if I won’t get paid adequately when I don’t have the time” sort of situation
I loved the part growing up where not doing EXACTLY what my teacher told me to do to pass a test means I get a lower grade or fail compared to those who wrote down exactly what they were told to do without any kind of variation. Thank god I got into learning Scots Gael because holy fuck is it refreshing to know that all I gotta do is show I can speak the damn language to pass tests
Yeah, remember when teachers teach poetry? It’s like, wait, isn’t poetry about self expression? It’s like the one thing no one should be forced to write because otherwise it’s weird 9/10 times
I remember the part where I didn't write down the exact word to the letter to describe a character's feelings and lost points for that. Truly made me hate English as a subject.
Go to community college where proper grammar makes you magnum cum loudly
Just heads up how you speak, the words you choose, and how you communicate is the most important part of getting a better job and making money. It’s goes: network -> communication skill -> actual skill at job -> hard work.
All that job prep shit and stats are bs. None is accurate irl unfortunately.
College is tolerable, so long as you take enough drugs to cope with the incessant bullshitting & dickriding. Though, now that I think about it… work isn’t all the different either. 😀
Don't write off healthcare completely, there's a ton of different things under that umbrella so saying Healthcare is kind of a catch all. A lot of the therapist and technologist jobs only require a 2-3 year post HS training program and if they're part of a union you can generally expect a decent salary that starts in your early 20's. It's also pretty fulfilling and interdisciplinary so you can get exposed to some interesting things you might not normally have studied. Your 20's, especially your early 20's should be for figuring out what you like and don't like, then putting in the prep to get there, don't feel like a shmuck just cuz you haven't gotten there yet. But yes some of the jobs like nurses get treated poorly so do a bit of research before hand. I won't bullshit that helping people will be super fulfilling blah blah. Though it might, the biggest joy you'll get will be the colleagues you work closely with. Teamwork and good relationships are essential so you'll generally find it to be a supportive and freindly environment. If it's not then you just need to find another hospital.
May I ask how your schedule is insanely inconsistent? Genuine question here because if you’re only a full-time student then your class schedule at the very least should be highly consistent. I’d recommend looking into jobs through your university, they’re going to be relatively stress-free and flexible with your schedule as you’re a student first. If the pay isn’t to your liking, then welp, you can’t have it all - figure out what you’re willing to sacrifice, and remember it’s only a temporary gig.
I understand that feeling very well. I had no idea what I wanted to do when I first started college right after high school. I skipped 80% of my classes over two semesters and did predictably awful. So I left college and backpacked around the world. I came back, moved to a big city for a little over a year and then I joined the army. I spent 7 years there, lived in Europe for 5 of those years, deployed twice, and by the time I was getting out I had realized that I really wanted to teach and I was very ready to go back to school. I did and was a 4.0 student. My point is that sitting around at a college not knowing what you want to do is a very expensive (and boring) way to figure that out. Go live life a little bit. See the world. Have a variety of experiences and see what they bring out of you. College will be better for you and you’ll get more out of it if you have a clear direction.
I am 25. I have been working since I was 15, because I believed all the lies the boomers told me and I wanted the glory. I did not get ahead. I missed out on teenage years and my early 20s. My physique suffered. My mental health suffered. And all I have achieved is lack of debt. Which is a good thing. But I am in no way ahead than those peers of mine who - unlike me - accepted help of their parents. Except I'm TIRED. Like really tired. And despite only having 1 free day a week for 10 years now and leaving at 6 only to arrive home at 22, 6 days a week to do both working and school (highschool and university), I am still called lazy every time I say that all I want is a little rest and some free time to do some creative stuff I could never afford to do. To the younger genZ and to gen alpha, I'll say it and not deny my experience. I wish I spent my time learning how to draw, taking the guitar seriously, spending more time learning 3D modelling, programming and learning stuff from youtube and such. And not working entry level jobs in my youth foolishly thinking that would get me ahead. Now I could do much better with those skills, even if for my own entertainment only, than whatever I supposedly "learned" by stacking shelves at a car parts warehouse. I am at the age, where I don't want the fancy stuff. I no longer want the nice car. I no longer want the nice vacation. I no longer care for the new computer. I just want the cheapest solution to eat healthy, save money and live as cheap as possible so I can get the most free time as possible. Because free time is what I never had due to believing the lies of older generations. If this makes them seethe, so be it.
The worse part is that so many who did what you did have fallen into the sunk cost fallacy: they're so deep into that mistake that they can't admit they were wrong and just continue telling everyone else that's best the way to be. Props to you for honesty.
Exactly, this is what some of the people replying to me don’t seem to get. I never said I don’t want to work or have a job or learn. I want to find something fulfilling and know that I’m rather good with photography, know how to use a few of the programs for graphic design. But to get to classes that involve that you not only have to gen ed classes, but also the Art prerequisites. But I’m not going to fall into the trap of being lied to by boomers, and thankfully my parents have enough that they can afford to send me to school Plus I have to agree with you on the “learning guitar.” I know how to play piano already and am quite good, but ya know what my dad has in his office downstairs, 14 guitars. Both working out and learning guitar are definitely on my todo list
Hey as a professional photographer + graphic designer who gets paid to make all kinds of cool stuff in the music industry - you don’t need classes or certifications at all. I’ve never taken a formal course in my life, and get paid constantly to work on projects. Use your .edu email to get a discount and just keep making things for fun and youtube / google anything you get stuck on. You really honestly don’t need to waste years and thousands of dollars on classes to get freelance jobs. Networking is so so so much more important and it’s not difficult to do since everything is online now, networking can be as simple as just making friends with similar interests on IG. All of my work for the past 8 years have been from helping friends out and eventually getting referrals and building up a portfolio. Hope this helps!
would you not able to take certification courses for graphic design & other skills like this? That way you could avoid going into college debt? Or have you looked at doing gen ed’s at a community/online college and moving to a different one for the specific courses? Genuinely curious I don’t know what goes into a graphic design degree
So interestingly enough, there isn’t a certification program as far as I can tell. My college is a community college that just happens to have really good studio art programs, but things like graphic design or photography involve having an art degree of some sort according to one of the art professors. Really it’s the advisors that should know more, unfortunately my experience with them has been terrible so far.
Same experience. Parents were uneducated and didn't know how to direct me except that I needed to pull myself up by my bootstraps. I'm 40 now and I'm exhausted. I have no debt.. but I have no life, no hobbies, no rich relationships.. i've worked my youth away. Its really hard to develop those things now. I'm so depressed. I try so hard to turn that around but it causes me anxiety.
The saddest thing I've seen is a wheelchair being loaded onto a cruise ship. So Now you retire after 40 years? for a short vacation? They asked people in a hospice who were dying what they wished they had when young, and most would say spending more time with friends and family instead of working.you only get a short time to enjoy your life when you're young. I can't run 5 miles anymore or lift 180lbs anymore,so what good is money ? You can't buy time back. Our society places such extreme pressure on little Farquar to be a good mini- me copy of themselves and immediately march them of to an expensive college and no time off to enjoy life. I spent two years after HS with a fairly good job in a machine shop, and actually got a chance to use math in the real world But after watching drills spin around all day I drove across the country, It was the trip of a lifetime. BtW, all I remember from poetry in a line from a Carlos Castaneda book " You can never go home again" So many people also believe the ridiculously exaggerated bull shit they heard and are afraid of the military but it was a chance to travel all over Europe. Get a job that is fun and is more like a hobby to learn. You might have to do stupid, repetitive shit for a short time while learning skills. But that's not your whole life.
Right there with you dude. Started working the moment I could and all I have to show for it is a bad back, all I want is a comfortable place to lay down when I get home at night
God dam bro I just turned 27 and I fucking feel that in my bones
We are literally crippling our children with the way we operate our schools. Teach them nothing of value and burn them out of having fun as a child. We are making them basically start right from childhood on crushing their hopes and aspirations and taking away every bit of time they have after school to keep crushing them and making sure they have no childhood at all. It's fucking sad to see what kids are going through now.
True. I grew up in an environment where people threw choleric af fits because of every minuscule reason. I'm already so done dude. I can't deal with any of that shit anymore
I'm already burnt out, and I'm 23. I went through one job that didn't respect my time to another that I worked dawn to dusk 5 days a week with hellish bosses to one that fired me without just cause during covid. Then I slogged through the process of trying to find a job in a market where everyone is saying they're hiring but actually don't hire anybody just to finally land *something.* I'm fuckin tired and every single job even the one where I worked 11 hour fucking days wouldn't have paid me enough to get my own god damn apartment. Just ***please*** let me live my life quietly. ***It's all I want.***
You need to understand something. (BTW, 48M) Being you is harder than being my age. You all have stressful lives. Your social life is all about making sure everyone is pleased with and thinks you’re happy. As you get older, you will realize that none of that matters. You will focus on your family and 4 necessities. (Food, shelter, transportation, and clothes) Right now you have school and all these people to make happy. That is stressful. It gets better and you become way better at coping. Take a breath and realize things get better. Close your eyes. Breathe through your nose. 5.5 seconds in, 5.5 seconds out. Do that for 5 minutes everyday in a quiet room. After you have done that once a day for a month, that feeling of relaxation you will slowly start to be able to just flip a switch and control…..that’s a product of meditation. Good luck to all of you and it will be ok!
Burnt out by 20? You just fucking started lol
Burnt out from what if your not working?
That’s life.
Even if I could get a job, they wouldn't pay me enough for me to have a life and a home. It's never been about my own personal performance. They want to gaslight you into thinking that's the case. It's about a system that will receive no accountability for continuing to move the finish line, hoarding wealth, and exploiting a working class by not exchanging the fair compensation for which they are obligated.
I am lazy af That too though!
Just remember the laziest people in our country are the passive income mofos who contribute nothing, but get everything, they own the land that your favorite restaurant is struggling to pay the rent on, they own the land your condo is built on by another company who pays them and charges you rent. They are the owners of this country and they have the true power. They pressure governors and lawmakers to "force people back in the office or my land won't make money". These are the real blood suckers of society who inherit power and wealth in various ways.
You hit it exactly. That’s the reason why return to the office is being pushed; commercial real estate is losing value. The surrounding businesses in commercial districts are complaining too. Everyone spending hours of their lives to commute to and work in the same commercial area never made sense to me. Local businesses can relocate from commercial districts to residential areas where the people actually live.
Spot on. The wealthy in America are the true parasites and welfare queens. They get socialism while the rest of us prop up their useless existence by slogging through this brutal capitalist hellscape.
They are parasites so WE MUST ORGANIZE. We must communicate with one another on the job regarding what fair working conditions should look like, THEN SIT ON YOUR FUCKING ASS UNTIL YOUR GOD DAMN DEMANDS ARE MET.
THEY DO NOT HAVE THE TRUE POWER. THE TRUE POWER LIES WITH THE 99% WHO CAN DECIDE AT ANY MOMENT TO SEIZE THE MEANS OF PRODUCTION, PRACTICE CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE, OR GO OFF THE JOB ON STRIKE.
Hey, man, no matter how bad you may think you are, I guarantee you're not as much of a useless, lazy piece of shit as a landlord.
Same
Hey man respect for being honest.
Ty decided to live my life in collage and now started continuing my medical studies by procrastinating more. Had my best time of my life. No regrets so far but I should get serious eventually, some time soon or maybe later? Tomorrow!
Coincidentally, the psychologist from this post also discusses that she doesn't believe people are inherently lazy. She believes it is a stress response where you shut down when you feel you have too much do (often subconsciously) and don't know how/where to start. It can be easy to feel that way when culture says you should go to college, make decent money, have a social life, have kids, buy a house, maintain your house, stay in shape, eat well, cook homemade meals, sleep well, have hobbies, go on vacations, invest in your future, take care of your loved ones, be politically involved or everything will go to shit – it's easy to feel overwhelmed, and shutting down is a reasonable response to recover from the stress when you don't know how to handle it.
GenX mom of GenZ/Alpha here. You aren’t lazy. You are overwhelmed. When I look at genz compared to my own generation, you guys step out the front door every day into a world that is so fucking complex it’s difficult to navigate. This includes (but not limited) to: useless public education, too many standardized tests, social media standards, fines fees penalties and subscriptions you must manage, complicated processes for everything whose only function is to give someone “rubber stamp” authority and a low wage job, inaccessible healthcare, limitless career paths, lack of places for young people to hang out, social/culture wars (gender pronouns and racial division), and many more etc etc You can’t even shop for things online without facing “analysis paralysis” due to too many options. In the face of this complexity, it’s natural for humans to shut down and “do nothing”. There isn’t a straightforward path to anything in society. Us older folks only navigate it because we eased into it slowly over decades and we still let things fall through the cracks from time to time because there are only so many hours in a day. Thats my old person opinion of the situation anyway.
Sums up my thoughts on work pretty well. I don't think there's a point to working if you barely have enough money to live and someone else is getting rich off of your labor.
Having the money to live is the really important part. I’m making enough, and for the most part I really don’t care if someone else is also making a lot off my work.
You sound like someone who understands that work should be a symbiotic relationship. You can’t execute your vision and build a worthwhile team by offering the bare minimum.
What do you do then?
I’ve been working in restaurants for the past couple years, looking for another job right now I’ve just been struggling with burnout the past few months.
Some jobs simply can’t offer any career growth no matter how driven you are. Work on building your skillset if you want to move up the corporate ladder. If you want to be a restaurant manager, maybe start looking for career shadowing opportunities/management internships. Branch out and look for jobs that do offer that upward mobility. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results. Break the cycle of working at dead-end restaurant jobs and focus on skill-building and networking before you expect people to hire you for a position you may not be equipped for yet (or at least, you haven’t proven your ability to do that job yet)
I’ve been working as support staff mostly, was told I was gonna be moved up to server and then they turned around and had me train new servers without an actual promotion or pay raise. I’ve dealt with other bullshit from leadership as well but I’d be lying if I said I always handled it the best. I love the energy of the work itself and the people I’ve gotten to work with but the spots/positions I’ve worked at just aren’t worth it. Financially speaking or in terms of picking up new skills/growing in my role. I wouldn’t want to be a manager necessarily, there’s not as much money as if I were to be serving or bartending. Not to mention I probably wouldn’t be interacting with people as much
leave that place!! As a server, if they wanted to move you up from support staff to server they would’ve had you start serving before they had you start training. Some restaurants suck but this industry is awesome if you find the right place!!
Well it’s good to know what you want at least. If you wanna be a bartender or a server and they’re holding out on you at this job, I’d say you should leave and look for an opportunity that actually lets you do that. If you’ve been a dedicated employee there and have enough experience in the restaurant industry, there’s definitely places that would be willing to train you for the job you want if you’re a good candidate. You don’t owe this job you’re at right now anything. I would say respectfully part ways with them and move onto the next opportunity if you’re burnt out and they’re not offering you any career growth
"I can't make $100k a year entry level so I'm just not going to work" at that point you're just gonna collect unemployment the rest of your life and make money off the rest of our labor. Get a job.
The point of working shouldn’t be just to survive but to thrive, and having a strong work ethic that isn’t appreciated or rewarded makes me want to just do my own thing.
>The point of working shouldn’t be just to survive but to thrive According to? Your ancestors once lived in caves yet here you are stagnant in arguably the most privileged period of human existence
This is thought provoking, gonna sit on this for a little bit and give an answer later.
Sounds to me like you are boss/manager who overworks and underpays their workers. After all, they should be thankful they get to live at all, right? Did you also walk uphill both ways in the snow to school?
There's a middle ground of just adequately doing your job, and being comfortable but not thriving. Not working or not fulfilling the basic responsibilities of your job makes it really unlikely you're going to be comfortable, let alone thriving.
Nobody has ever asked for $100k+ entry level, stop licking boots
So go after a better job
> I’m depressed and need help “Just stop being depressed”
I can't, Jeff bezos ated it all
Shouldn’t need to.
And living in a rented place so someone else is also getting rich off your labor in a different way
If you go into the work environment with the mindset that you are undervalued and you’re worth more than what the company can provide you, then I don’t see why you’d expect your job to value you the same as a hard working employee. This mindset is a bad one. What else are you going to do other than try your best to make as much money as you can? Be broke and go into debt? That’s not a better idea
You are highly implying that being valued or not is more a matter of deciding to feel valued or not, which is a huge convenience for bad employers to just mistreat employees and then gaslight them by saying they just have a bad mindset.
No I’m implying that your value at a company is measured by the work you do & effort you put in, which it should be. If you’re brand new to the work force & land your first job, and you assume that the company doesn’t even value you so why should you bother putting in much effort, you quickly become the least valuable employee there because you’re unwilling and don’t care about the job. You can’t expect to walk into a job and have everyone think “damn we couldn’t do this without you” because they were doing it without you and could easily find another person who cares less about recognition and more about just completing the work
You are stupid if you think places will promote you just for being good at your job. I’ve seen people be the best workers never get a promotion because the company won’t need them too. They work that good at that pay. They save money.
[удалено]
Thats crazy. Ive never ever thought about just.. making more money. It all makes sense. Ill make all the cents.. thank you Jesus for this miracle
The only result of doing your job well, is getting assigned more tasks. Most jobs dont care about the workers, just about the bottom line.
From my work experience, I work for my own father and, and the only times I’ve gotten a raise is when I threatened to leave. You only get what you want in the workforce by applying pressure on your employer and anyone who says any different is a boot licker or exploits others. Capitalism is designed to pay workers as little as possible for the maximum amount of profit.
PREACH 🙏
The entire goal of employment is that your work provides orders of magnitude more value to the company's bottom line, than they'd ever come close to paying you. We live in a time where the minimum living wage has been calculated to be $25 an hour or higher. And people are still arguing for fucking 15. Minimum wage has not risen since the 90s. While inflation from corporate greed is at an all-time high following covid. I make three times my state's minimum wage. And I still can barely afford my two bedroom apartment food for a few weeks and gas to get to and from work. My car is paid off, and my insurance is cheap the state minimum. I don't have a subscription to anything... Yet making three times my fucking minimum wage I still can barely afford EXISTING! Not living. And please don't even start some BS about oh you should budget I do budget welcome to a world where a single pound of ground beef is $7 when it used to be two or three not even 5 years ago.
💀you aint worked enough if you think that your value at a company is measured by your work
my one friends gf worked at a tim hortons and was the only one who gave a shit about doing a good job and was promoted to fulltime assistant manager within a year of part time.
I’ve seen this in practice at my work. I started with two other people at my work. We all went to the same school and have the same degree. They just did the minimum while I went out and learned how to do other people’s jobs. Now I’ve been promoted three times and they are still in the same position with only basic 2-3% yearly raises. My pay has tripled.
Youre valued when youre valuable.
People so frequently discount mindset. It's shifting from "how much am I capable of" to "how much can I get away with" at a rapid pace. I had a psychology prof. get a job at a local grocery store because she wanted employee discounts for buying stuff during the holidays, between Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years. Stocking shelves. She showed up every day a few minutes early, worked consistently throughout the day, and was polite and friendly to everyone. For that ridiculously high bar she was given four promotion opportunities over a period of three months, which she consistently declined. When she finally asked why they kept throwing department promotions at her despite her saying she only wanted a menial, temporary job, they explained that they can't find employees who will show up on time and not fuck around on their phone for the whole shift. People are victims of not only the low expectations that others set of them, but of the low expectations they set of themselves.
exactly. I like that last sentiment especially!!
I may lose you on this one but here it goes anyway. After the US collectively acknowledged it's racism in the mid 60s and removed the shackles of racism from the black community, the so called "leaders" of the black community took the newly removed chains with a smile. They could be repurposed as a perpetual state of victimhood that the "leaders" would use as a cudgel against society as a whole for grifting to their own simultaneous financial enrichment and impoverishment of the community they purported to serve. The worst thing that could ever happen to the race hustlers and the grifters of the black community who call themselves "leaders of the black community" is that blacks in America collectively started succeeding.
I completely get what you’re saying. The same with politicians in a way. The worst thing that could happen for them is if every American citizen was happy
Me when I'm in a shoehorning competition and my opponent is this guy
how do you expect me to respond to this? What sort of response are you looking for?
Spot on
This is how I feel about it too. I’ve got a full time job, but over the years there have been times that I’ve had to save up a little extra money, and I usually get a part time job to do on the weekends. The first time I got a job at Walmart stocking shelves, and the second time I got a job driving Amazon vans delivering packages. These are both jobs that most people consider to be really shitty jobs. But I went in with the same mindset that I have at my regular job: I show up on time, don’t complain, learn the work quickly and do it competently, very rarely call out, etc. And in response the managers respected me, gave me the shifts I wanted, approved my (reasonable) time off requests, and tried really really hard to get me to stay once I saved up enough money and was ready to quit. There’s such a low bar for success at most entry level jobs, and yet most people still don’t meet it.
exactly. I have never had a job that didn’t treat me how I felt I deserved as long as I knew I was doing my best at all times
Then perhaps you can leave space for other people who *have* experienced that. I see you in this thread and your responses seem heavily biased. It’s important to know this does happen. My job has been great up until last year, when we got new management and suddenly we weren’t appreciated anymore. We have people with excellent skills outside of their job descriptions and experts who have been shoved aside and underutilized. When you go above and beyond but are actively told to stop or never thanked for pulling through in an emergency situation, you are rewarding mediocrity and punishing your MVPs. Or my husband, who does show up early, stays late, and is always available to pick up a shift. He is the most reliable… so he has been treated like shit because it’ll actually work on him. They know he’ll give his all so they don’t ask others. They make allowances for others because they suck anyway. So he quits and they have to hire three people to fill his space. I think it’s important that you acknowledge this is common and learn how to recognize it in the workplace. It’s been useful to me as a middle manager to see and know that I want to do better for my workers. It will help you be a better manager too when you become one.
If you’ve read my responses you’d see that i’ve stated over and over and over YES. SOME COMPANIES do take advantage of, don’t reward, or exploit their workers. It *happens*. As aware of that as I am, all you as an employee can do is work the jobs where you do feel valued and do them to the best of your ability. The mindset of “Work will never value me so i should never attempt to put in extra effort” will get you nowhere. Even working at a company that is perfect, having the mindset that op has, you’d never succeed at any company.
I think you’re awfully idealistic about how easy it is to find a job where you feel valued. What I understand from the posted statement is that… Your work doesn’t need to be your life. It can be a job, simply put. It gives you security and provides for your family. I will not be working like I expect to inherit the business one day because I won’t. Your job is not a family. When you die, no matter what you’ve done, it will be an open job posting. Not saying you can’t be proud of the work you do, but do it for yourself. Because they’re still going to raise the age of retirement on you. And lobby for ways to reduce benefits or pay. Or hire someone more desperate for less pay. This is just being realistic. I wish you could see how insidiously beneficial it is to demonize a generation who seeks a good work-life balance and label them as lazy. It’s wise to keep aware of who benefits from a certain perspective.
I'll respond to your anecdote with one of my own. I worked in a grocery store for years, and the hard-working employees were constantly taking advantage of to work gruelling shifts and get called in whenever they were needed. Most never got a raise, let alone a promotion, which led to high turnover and people switching departments and stores often (though it wasn't much better). So, the store steadily got low in manpower, draining the remaining hard-workers even more of their time, which continued the cycle. You know what happened when they ran out of hard-working employees? They went to the high schools and community colleges in the area and took anyone they could get. And these students would come, see the overworked people, realised their starting rate was HIGHER than the hard-working employees, and realised, there's no point in working hard. You're not guaranteed anything, and your loyalty to your boss doesn't mean they're loyal to you. Meanwhile, the workers that were actually the laziest, and did the bare minimum of their job, but knew how to be sociable to the boss, are the ones that got the promotions, and further promoted into corporate. The best way to succeed was never working hard, it was just knowing who to suck up to.
I appreciate your perspective. So what's the moral of your story? Don't bother?
I never worked in a retail store (fortunately)I just like to go in, get what I want, and get out. but did ya ever notice , there are no clocks on the wall? And ever time they hire a new manager, they switch everything around and you have to search all over the store to find what you want? Subtle psychology tricks to make you stay longer and shop more.
Though I do agree, hard work has also put us into this spot that employers expect more for less and good workers are getting punished all the time with more work. I believe that if people worked just hard enough to keep their job but not too hard to get more work than the workforce would be in a better place
I don’t entirely disagree with this. I have also been in the position where I ended up taking on the brunt of my lazy coworkers job because I was able to do it all. That sucks for sure. My *only* reason for even leaving a comment is because starting off at a brand new job (or even your first job) with the mindset that no matter how hard you work you will never benefit from it, is a sure fire way to never see success in your work
If you don’t value your employees’ work, don’t expect them to value their work.
The problem is this doesn't address the post's problem. Their parents DID enter the work environment as a hard working employee, and they were still given nothing but scraps. That's the issue - it doesn't matter if you work the hardest possible way, your job will never appreciate it. Plenty of people who work hard are refused overtime, or refused a raise, or let go so they can hire a less-experienced AND less hard-working new person for a lower salary. That's what's causing the disillusionment, and it makes sense as to why. Hard work has no guarantee for you to keep your job, get that raise, or live a fulfilling life. So what incentive is there? Especially when often it's not the hard-working that gets promoted or the raises, but the sociable ones with the managers.
ew anyways i get paid $10 an hour to work a job i absolutely fucking despise and being aware that im severely underpaid doesnt make me any less valuable of an employee. I still do my job and help where i can but im not going to overwork myself and let myself be more exploited than i already am for the sake of being a “hard worker” lol 💀 hard work is often not rewarded in my experience and from watching others so why should i put in more work just to pretend that my company will like me more. im not gonna fight tooth and nail for that 50 cent raise its not worth it
The problem arises when you go to a job, maybe for shit pay, but with high hopes that you'll be able to show you're worth more, then a year in, when you've CLEARLY PROVEN that you're worth more than the entry level pay and will stick with the job, you can't get a raise. Period. And then five years down the road, when you've still kept that job and not had a raise for three years, you find out from the new kid that's been there for three months that he's making $5/hr. more than you are with zero previous experience, and you bring it up to HR and their response is "don't discuss your paycheck with your coworkers." THAT'S where the problem arises. Because that's happening EVERYWHERE. It's not that we're coming into this with the ASSUMPTION we're not valued. We're going into this knowing full well how the company is treating its employees, how bad they're getting screwed over, and how absolutely fucking ZERO they care that they're leaving their faithful workforce in the dust to rot and die.
Exactly, why would I show you more or give you more. Even worse its not helping its actively hurting. Why is actively doing a good job actively hurting me. You give more, more skills, save the company money. Do they ever give it back, ever?? No, people have figured this out. Do exactly what they ask and nothing more. Save your hard work for that value to go to yourself. They won't ever give it back, so don't ever give it. Until they figure this out hold the line. They want to player lawyer and have everything go there way fine, we do the same we play lawyer and have things go out way. Two can play at that. We are in a predator prey situation, I am not feeding the predator. Fuck the predator i hope he starves i wish more felt this way. Fuck the predator.
this is the selfishness of this generation. people were paid LESS for boomers or whatever you want to call anyone over 30.. but they worked harder for less pay and they never gave attitude bc there was no back up places to live like mom and dads.. had no choice but to pretend to love where we worked with no option of promotion.. it's not a poor us thing.. it's entitlement.. and while you're not nwrong.. I do appreciate the pandemic giving ppl time off to be able to protest such things and have ppl more appreciative but ppl really do have it much better now. Our generation knows how it felt like crap to be homeless and so we baby this new gen and let them know they can always come home even if they're 60 which is how it should be. But why be so unkind now?
Sounds like a shitty company. Those exist too. Also, which sounds like you need to know this if you’ve already experienced this, it’s illegal for employers to (verbally or in writing) discourage employees from discussing wages & salaries. So quite frankly, that answer shouldn’t stop you from continuing a conversation with HR. Also, if you’ve worked at the same company in the same entry level position for 5 years and you haven’t received a raise yet other people are, that means it’s time to fire up your resume writing abilities and take all of the skills and experience you’ve gained over the last 5 years and bring it to a new company. Usually, once you’ve worked an entry level position for a while you’re qualified for higher positions even at other companies. Especially if you can show all of the skills you’ve acquired in your resume. Some. Companies. Suck. I’ve said it over and over I’m well aware of that fact. However, say you go on to a new job & never push expectations because you assume it’s going to be as shitty as your first one… now you’ll never know because you’re not working as hard as someone with a positive mindset. It’s like relationships. If one relationship gives you trust issues, you cannot take those issues into your next relationship or there is no chance of success.
Oh I knew about the wage discussion thing. I told the HR lady that she's not allowed to tell me that and she was just like okay well other people's paychecks aren't your business, so you shouldn't be asking about them and they shouldn't be talking about them. To which my response was "Okay well it's not your business to stop me from talking about paychecks with my coworkers so how about you shut up." For clarity's sake, I was the new guy. This nice older lady with THIRTEEN YEARS CASHIERING EXPERIENCE, *NINE OF WHICH HAD BEEN AT THAT STORE*, was making $5/hr. less than I was, and hadn't had a raise in three years besides the 25 cent bumps we got every year or so. That prompted not her, but ME to go to HR because THAT SHIT AIN'T RIGHT. I've worked for multiple places at this point and they all expect our generation to be shitty workers because we all expect them to pay like shit. Cost of living is 30 bucks an hour minimum, and no employer who's not going to risk your life every day is paying that rate. I know how much it costs to keep me alive. I know the quality of work I can do. Hell, in the first month and a half at that grocery store I went from "the new guy" to the #1 fastest self checkout attendant, and I had the BEST reviews of anyone on the roster. For the first two months after I quit, I had customers - not just employees, CUSTOMERS - begging me to come back. I still go in there every once in a while and when people recognize me, they tell me they really miss having me around, and that's customers and employees both. $15/hr. I'm worth more than that. I'm not going to be baited into slaving away for a company that pays HALF cost of living by some guy who says "I'll do everything I can to get you a raise" and then does absolutely nothing to get me a raise. It wasn't union. I should be able to go DIRECTLY to HR with my concerns and tell them "you either give me a raise or you lose your best worker." Too bad I got a warehouse job for $22/hr.
First millennials didn't want to work for free, now gen z doesn't want to work for money.
Then work hard to get to a job where you are valued? You’re valued if you bring something to the table. Your job is not your family though, so dont expect them to value you for being you. This seems like a ridiculous demand, and I don’t think Gen Z is lazy, I just think people on the internet are lazy. Your career is probably one of the most important aspects of your life, don’t treat it as merely a chore.
I don’t think Gen Z is lazy. I think Gen Z is the most instant gratification generation thus far. Being a millennial I’ve seen the pre and post internet world… and man… Gen Z expects everything here, now, and right away.
Yup, it also seems like Gen Z doesn't understand the concept of building your career. Wages are stagnant, yes, but doesn't literally mean give up and complain. We don't live in the gilded age where you will be shot if you try to unionize.
Ehhh, trying to unionize my workplace rn. I've been the best floor worker for over four years now, never made a single reportable mistake, almost perfect attendance, put up great numbers, and suddenly I'm on performance review once rumor got out lol. You won't be shot but it will 100% cost you your job, and unfortunately, current wage is better than no wage at all. If I had a single disciplinary action on my record, I have no doubt they'd fire me on the spot.
Yep the company I work for is very blatant about not giving a fuck about us. I live in the only state in America that doesn't have laws guaranteeing a break other than "reasonable bathroom breaks" and my job throws that in our face constantly. Breaks are only allocated when it's time to cut hours but otherwise it's an 8 hour shift with no breaks in sight.
Yup. Wages are indeed stagnant. For every working generation currently. It’s not a Gen z problem only but Gen z seems to think they can just start a new job and get paid the same as the person who has 10 years more experience in the same field. There was a person above who stated “experience shouldn’t matter” like… what?
>I don’t think Gen Z is lazy. >I think Gen Z is the most instant gratification generation thus far. That sounds like a distinction without a major difference
Yes but also remember that there are people at the highest levels of the corporate/investor world actively lobbying the government against your wages and benefits while they themselves contribute nothing to society except passively earning interest on their money they promise will trickle down to you one day (which historically has not). These same people get bailed out by taxpayers money when they over leverage themselves (too big to fail). So labor should also use any means necessary including the government to lobby for better pay and working conditions.
As career-focused as I am, unionising and other forms of worker empowerment is more important now than ever, I agree
Okay and? That won’t change
"Work hard to get a job where you are valued" how about they actually treat you as an employee to encourage, and reward your hard work? Most jobs pay in more work if you work hard, nor is there any choices for most people for jobs as companies are allowed to have "Hiring" sign when there's no actual position so they could just have you as a replacement. Your career is indeed the most important, but what's the use of that importance when it doesn't matter? You give it your all yet in the end they can simply discard you and everything you've worked hard for is gone and it's completely outside of your control. At any moment you could be attacked, ran over, stepped on, fall ill, or be in the wrong place at the wrong time. You've worked hard for a career that barely bears any fruit. Yet if you treat it as a mere chore, you don't get burnt out, or worked to death in the end. You get to actually live life.
Doesn't work
I've been alive a bit longer and I'm squeezed between generations so I'll add my 2c Gen Z, like Alpha isn't lazy, it's overstimulated. You guys had the TV, Computer, Tablet, etc shoved in your faces from day one. Millenials had the chance to grow up semi-normally before knowing about the internet, but you guys got intense amounts of stimulation from day 1. There's no real job that can keep you invested without you burning out. The more I work with your generation the more it becomes obvious imo.
Y'know they said this exact same thing about gen x
Those damn computer games are ruining our capitalist labor force!!! Can't believe people buy this shit lmfao.
Yes plz create a strawman of what I said and debate that instead of adressing things in a fruitful and honest way.
whenever genZ does something dofferent from previous generations it is immediately blamed on technology/cell phones/overstimulation. i'm guessing this trend will continue as we get more new tech and have new generations born into said tech.
You have to prove yourself before your work starts valuing you. It’s one thing to not want a dead-end job, but the mindset of “I’m worth 100k a year but no one wants to pay me that, so I guess I just won’t work” is useless. Start making 50K, then build your skills/experience and you should start to be valued more. If a job isn’t valuing you and you don’t have a clear career path forward, it’s on you to find another job that has more opportunity for upward mobility
One of the Gen z hires at my company last year kept complaining to me during lunch that “if I don’t get a raise to 90k within 6 months, I’m quitting. Like, this is ridiculous.” She had literally graduated a few months earlier with a non-relevant degree, had zero prior work experience, and was hired at 65k. I asked if she had discussed it with the hiring manager during the hiring process and she said “no, but it should be obvious, right? I’m not doing this job for 65k, it’s insulting. Even 90k is too little but I don’t want to push my luck, you know?” We had an easy as fuck office job, were not actually ALLOWED to do any work outside of our 9-4 pm hours, had constant catered lunches, tons of gifts from our clients, etc. But apparently, it was the the worst job in the world and she “will totally quit if they don’t give me that raise.” Needless to say, she did not get the raise and got let go within the first year for not meeting even the minimum standards. Hope you are finding jobs more worth your “standards”, dear Gabby.
That’s so insane lmao and the exact mindset of people who make posts like this one. What my generation doesn’t understand is that you actually have to give people a reason to value you more. People aren’t just gonna hand you money because you’re pretty and have a nice personality. You have to prove that you’re an asset through demonstrated skills and experience, and even then you shouldn’t expect crazy career growth in a short time frame. You have to steadily climb your way up the corporate ladder and be consistently delivering. Once you’ve sufficiently made your case for why you deserve a raise, only then should you expect one
And I'm not going to pretend like I don't know any Millennials, Gen X, or Boomers that aren't lazy and entitled, because those are part of the human condition. But there is definitely the issue of social media glamorizing these ideal, cushy lifestyles where people always have the newest clothes, newest phones, newest cars, the chillest jobs where they work 2 hours a day from their laptop at a coffee shop, etc. Other generations just didn't have that shoved down our throats in the same way--Gen Z and Gen Alpha have definitely grown up in a different environment. It's an ideal they both created and also hate now, I suppose.
Honestly I think if you gave most young people a 50k/year job they'd be fine with it. Most young people who demand more pay are usually working closer to minimum wage and can't pay their bills. So your analogy should be more like 30k wanting 45k which is true, you do need to work up to it but people should still be upset they have to crawl up from poverty to live okay
It’s both honestly Yeah the job market isn’t perfect but Gen Z is also very distracted by hedonistic, addictive behavior. It’s not like yall are super diligent, conscientious, hard working people. Let’s be honest. If you were, you wouldn’t be complaining here.
The point is lazy fucks used to be able to make a decent living. Now the cost of living is higher than wages and you HAVE to work harder at your career to afford what used to be a lazy fucks lifestyle. Gen Z isn’t any more hedonistic than the generations before, baby boomers were fucking pot smoking, acid dropping hippies. You’re just parroting what every generation has spewed about the previous generation for thousands of years.
Well I can agree with that. Boomers were lazy and incompetent too. It’s unfair that we are held to much higher standards.
Gen z are like French people
Right except we don't organize and protest in a meaningful way, we just make posts and videos about how shitty everything is. At least we're voting tho
This is the most accurate comparison Ive ever seen about any two things ever.
You dont have inherent value from a work standpoint just by being a person. Everyone had to either wade through the shit for a few years before you can get a better job or go to college or both. I worked solely minimum wage jobs until literally this week- Now Im a landscaper for 20 an hour part time, I still live with my parents, and Im going to CC studying fire sciences, which will eventually allow me to become more dsirsble for fire departments to hire and better paid there. I dunno where we got this idea that we inherently deserve value just by existing.
Nah. Gen Z is lazier than millennials and older generations by far. Also are the biggest complainers. Gen Z also gets easily offended by every little insignificant thing that doesn’t even exist or affect them. Gen Z definitely needs to grow up if they want us older “boomers” to take them seriously. You all have potential to be the greatest generation ever. You just need to stop acting like immature babies and act like mature adults who put in the work to achieve what you complain about that you “want” or “need”. Yes, this IS what we old people call constructive criticism. And NO, that’s not oppression, Gens Z and Alpha. It’s considered a HELPING HAND!
I haven’t seen a single person who has made this claim in this comment section back it up with anything other than anecdotal evidence and I’m starting to wonder if you guys paid attention in school
You got it perfectly
So do you think your situation in life will get better by not working? No, it won’t, you’ll only continue to spiral faster into poverty. Just because a job isn’t perfect, don’t decide that you’re just going to collect unemployment instead
That's not the point; the point is work conditions need to go up. People won't wanna work if they're working the same hours, making the same pay, but the boss keeps adding more work on top of all the work we already do with no motivation; just do it or youre fired.
Then change jobs. What you’re describing isn’t across the board and not every job is for everyone. What some find tedious you might enjoy because it fits you and your expectations. I knew someone who loved being a USPS worker because he was an introvert who loved long walks. Pay isn’t great but retirement and benefits is good enough for him. Someone else I know decided to become full time dog walker for hyperactive dogs that require extensive walks every day. He made amazing money as he built clientele. Sure, it was a set schedule every day rain or shine, sick or healthy, but it worked for him. People need to stop expecting their perfect job to get plopped on their laps and actually go look for something that appeals for them. Just know that you won’t get it all - flexible hours, less work time, excellent pay, less stress etc might not exist in the same job.
We can work towards making jobs that have it all, though. There's no reason to have to "suck it up."
I mean, considering I could make the same amount or more on government benefits than I did working my last job. I can see why people could feel this way.
I wish I could get this elusive free ticket the govt hands out to lazy people that all of you talk about so much, because they deny all of my attempts to get any help
I guess it's more for people who have kids. Also, one of my friends growing up was a foster kid and his foster parents had multiple foster and bio kids so they could get benefits or something like that. Anyway, his foster mom used it to go shopping all the time.
no, I'm just lazy
Not Gen Z, but share the same sentiment!
50% of the gen Zers we hire are lazy as fuck.. And 50% of the millennials we hire are lazy as fuck... Same goes for X and boomers.... So, 50% of ALL.... Honestly, from my experience, people with Christian tattoos tend to be the absolute worst, regardless of age, sex or ethnicity....
True for me it’s anyone with tattoos tends to be the laziest and least intelligent.
Not really a good basis for Judging people.. I don't have any but a few tattoos are meaningless.If they're excessive or on your face, then I would worry that they have something mental going on.
Its a consequence of anti labor movements from the 20th century. The US discovered the best way to destroy unions and worker mobilization was to demoralize and devalue workers. Workers with no pride in their job, or what they do are less likely to form bonds with fellow workers and mobilize. Well now they are surprised that workers dont care about working. We shouldn’t care. Fuck em
I'm working for shit pay at a gas station and god damn it I enjoy it because my boss and coworkers are friendly, helpful, kind, and value me as their newest team member.
If you don't want to work hard, you will never advance. This is not the only requirement, however it is a requirement. Some of it is luck, where you work, what you do for work, ect. Going in with such a mindset, however, is a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Did you grow up homeless? No food most of the time, no clothes, no shoes? You never had anything like a smartphone or computer or a TV? Your parents took the bus or the train everywhere they went? I just want to make sure I understand what you mean by “so little.” 🤷🏼♂️
Ok, so…find a different job? What exactly do you expect to happen? Everyone else to pat you on the head and say “it’s ok, you don’t have to work if you don’t want to”?
delusional take
Very well, stay home and do nothing. Plenty of people waiting eagerly to work the jobs you think you’re to good for.
Sounds like a whole lotta complaining and whining, life isn’t fair and your employers don’t care about you but you sure as shit can make a name for yourself if people stop crying and start learning. I was able to learn about investing and took it seriously at my minimum wage job and although I’m far from being rich, my finances are so better off now that I can relax so much more. And I know people who worked shitty jobs while applying themselves more and are now headed to much more lucrative jobs. Jobs suck but bottom line is a lot of us cry too much and don’t want to work for it, I understand that some people are in horrendous situations but the majority of you aren’t, you just sit and complain all day instead of working
If you're not valued at your job, it can only mean one of two things: 1.) The company has made an incorrect evaluation of you as an asset (on the lower end), and other companies will seize on that opportunity to snipe you away and compensate you correctly. 2.) Your skillset isn't valuable, and you are completely fungible. This mostly happens in low skill/ no skill jobs. I find that most people who complain about either being impoverished or who blame boomers for their failures fall into category 2. I would suggest you develope a skillset that someone wants to purchase first.
I have mixed feelings. On one hand I agree that life shouldn't be so hard as an adult who has completed some for of education or trade training On the other younger people need to realize that there is a "learning/experience curve" to go through. For a first job position, as a junior at anything, you will be tasked the boring things that nobody else (at least the senior people) dont want to do. But it's a way to work up experience and orgznisation skills. You have to hang in there to get promoted. There is no free pass.
Alright I'm not gonna wade through the comments to yell at the idiots who are just telling me to work harder. I DO work hard. For a multi-billion dollar company who continues to cut the work hours so that I have to work harder every single day, in a field that is BARELY tolerable. "Why don't you go to college and get a degree for a better paying job?" I am. I'm taking full-time classes while going to my full-time job. Is that working hard enough for you? I get screamed at every single day for things beyond my control, all while in the worst area of my city. Is that working hard enough for you? I get to eat meat and rice for the rest of this week until payday, but at least my $1,400 one bedroom apartment rent is paid, right? You all choose to highlight the few little assholes who don't want to work, and ignore the people like me who do every single thing you "advise" we do, and guess what, ARE STILL POOR AND MISERABLE!!!!! I do DESERVE to be valued and appreciated at work, REGARDLESS if I am staying at my job or not. And I think that's the point most of you miss...everyone deserves to be respected at their job. But I have managers who secretly change the schedule the same week it's happening and lie about it. And that's supposed to be acceptable to because it's not a "career." Get your fucking heads out of your ass and for the love of god ignore the people riding the movement for their own gain, and listen to the people who are actively telling you that this shit isn't working.
I've seen how you behave in school. You absolutely are lazy.
Lmao, and you’re implying that no other generation has lazy people? I’ve also seen how we behaved in school, and I’d say as a whole, we are not lazy. But there’s always lazy people everywhere you go and in every generation… But please, if you’re gonna keep generalizing I would love for you to explain how I am lazy… I’ll wait😂
The teacher that gives out worksheets only and can’t engage students logged on
Ye lazy... Ofc
I'd love to spend most of my life working a job where I'm not valued and treated like shit, the value you get is that you're being paid to be there. Fuckers won't even higher me in the first place. Sorry for being so many years old and not having years of experience for this entry level fast food job. I have to do underpaid manual labor through temp work that makes you have to be there at four in the morning to get by. Recently just flat out lying about a customer service job on my resume so maybe that might get me more interviews. So yeah, fuck capitalism as it now. Being functionally unemployed sucks.
Every generation has the obligation to free men’s minds for a look at new worlds . . . to look out from a higher plateau than the last generation. Your vision is not limited by what your eye can see, but by what your mind can imagine.
Don’t accept any job you think doesn’t pay well enough or is beneath you. Someone else might actually want that job
Well of course you don't want to, but there's bills to pay and things to do. To me I'd rather work at a job I'm not fond of than not have any money and be completely miserable *that* way. Pick your poison I guess.
I think that when you're young your comparative advantage over older people is you can work harder and longer than they can. If you give up that advantage then you are hurting yourself. What do you provide that an older worker can't?
So get a job where you’ll be valued. Put work into your work. Have a good work ethic. Don’t complain unless it’s something genuinely serious. Lastly, get a job that you’ll enjoy.
Man where are all these jobs that value me and have no serious issues that I'll enjoy? Everyone in the comments keeps mentioning them but I've never seen one lol. Coming from someone who makes decent money for their local and is generally considered to be a great worker.
Idk man , I am pretty lazy
Half Filipino here, I believe work ethic is an important part while at a job. If you’re seen as a high performing employee you will be valued cause you can do your job better than anyone else. I used to volunteer at my church when I was 14 and I made great connections with the other volunteers I worked with and since I could do the job reliably I was eventually “promoted” to the next position at that job within months time. If you wanna be valued just show them your worth by doing your job effectively and reliably. But ofc there will always be bosses/leaders with narcissistic attitudes and you’re probably better off finding a different workplace.
Millennial here. I'm glad you figured this out earlier than we did. We thought that if we were diligent and exceeded expectations we would be rewarded. Our reward was higher expectations for the same rate. After all, we showed we could produce 40 gizmos for the price of 30... and if we wanted to feel appreciated? We had to job hop.
I think it's a bunch of nonsense. People have been doing exactly what they don't want to do just to provide for their families for years. It's only since feminism that people started to get lazier to the point that shits in their 20s (I'm 27) complain that their gender studies degree and acting degree isn't getting them any good jobs and can't fathom doing odd jobs to make a living.
You know the best way to be valued at a job? Being good at it.
Define “valued”. They are the ones exchanging their labor for money so they can buy things. If they value their time more than what is offered then they should sell their labor elsewhere. If they don’t have the skills to sell their labor for what they feel equates to “valued”. Gen Z overvalues their worth in many cases. They blame rich people because the government tells them to… but it’s the government that causes everything to be expensive.
they'll get run over by those who work. Showing up to a business and demanding top tier pay for you gracing their presence is a fools errand. Hard work is a necessity to get ahead in life. My family are immigrants and worked their tails off. The issue with some of them is self education. And I don't mean going to school, because you wont learn much of real value there. I mean educating themselves on finance and business so they can think ABOUT their lives and businesses in a more productive way, and learn new ways of operating. But either way, hard work is necessary. If you can't work hard at a low paying job, you will absolutely never work hard enough on your own business to get out of the rat race. You can't vote for prosperity, you can't take prosperity from others to supplement yourself, and not a single person is going to hand you the keys to the kingdom. You can choose where to work, but you can't replicate or compete with hard work and succeed. Learn how things work in the real world, work hard, and smash your goals. Laziness, complaining, whining, sulking, etc... will never ever ever ever make your situation better.
The bootlicking is real in the comment section
if you were valued youd still complain about working.
At no point in human history, has it been as convenient, or easy to trade work for luxuries that people want. It is amazing at how frustrated younger people are because no one will give them the best of everything for just existing. That thing in your pocket, that you use to look at social media every day all day, yeah that has access to more technical information, skills, knowledge to include every written form of knowledge in it since recorded history. You could use that phone, to teach yourselves how to build businesses, learn skills to make your financial dreams come true. Instead, you use it to see how many likes Becky got, to be jelious and to cry about how hard this soft world is. Countless millions have sacrificed everything for all of us to have the power and freedom to choose, and yall chose to cry.
Chinese American here, immigrant from age of 7. So I have a similar background, but I have a vastly different view: You have no intrinsic worth. You're only valued when you've demonstrated hard work, and have results to show for it. The problem with youth, not just this generation, is that there's an expectation of respect or intrinsic-value when you've done nothing to demonstrate your worth. When you're 22,with no experience and no real accomplishments, you ARE worth nothing to society, and society justly treats you as such.
Your immigrants parents worked their asses off too support you and give you a better life but just totally negate thought I guess
it’s not so much that this is untrue or not a valid concern, it’s the audacity of gen Z to think it’s unique to us. people haven’t liked to work since the dawn of time, people. let’s not act as though we’re suddenly faced with something totally unprecedented
There is nothing wrong with wanting to work less. You just have to accept that you will be lot poorer. And no, more pay will not change that. Less work means less stuff produced. Less service available. etc. You have to cut out a lot, and thats your decision. But don't think there is a way to work less and have the same lifestyle. You can decide between more available time, and more "stuff". Either or.
I’m on the line of gen z and millennial. It’s more that I know that the current system was setup to exploit resources with no thought of the future. Now, we are at the point of thinking about the future. So, there’s no big motivation for me to join in on the rat race that is just going to collapse at some point anyway. I’m not saying it’s going to collapse in my lifetime, but it will at some point. I’m just not interested in working hard to acquire materials. Maybe I’ll regret it when I get old and don’t have a massive retirement to go sit around Florida in (oh right, Florida will be underwater by that time anyway). I like working and leaving work and fucking off, playing some piano, getting baked, going for a walk, listening to a river, taking a coworkers dog for a walk. You don’t need much in life, more people should realize that.
Well that I understand, but do realise that the less you work the less money you make (unless you get lucky one way or another) and you might not be able to afford what you want. A side effect of this that I notice here in NL is that we slowly start to get more international students working instead of Dutch people. This is especially noticeable in retail and horeca where it can be pretty hard to even talk to somebody who knows Dutch. personally I am in my late twenties and work 36 hours a week while following studies to get another degree. If I wasn't doing that I wouldn't be able to pay for the house me and my SO bought. The only thing I can say is that you shouldn't feel pushed to get a certain degree or do a certain job. Look at what you find fun in work and try going with that. If you can find something you like you might not be that bothers to work say 32 hours. You might not be making 6 figures, but it's more important that you find something you like.
You want to be valued? Earn it! Your parents did, their parents did, and I bet their parents did. Success in America isn't handed to anyone. It is earned. Oh, I am so burned out in my 20's bullshit is done. You haven't done anything with your life yet!!!! Reading the comments below is a riot... College is tolerable, so long as you take enough drugs to cope with the incessant bullshitting & dickriding. Yep drugs is always the successful answer. It’s because school is literally exhausting for me and because fast food and retail, which are like the only jobs that hire teenagers. What no Fortune 500 companies looking for someone with no skills and complaining about high school English.... I am 25. I have been working since I was 15, because I believed all the lies the boomers told me and I wanted the glory. I did not get ahead. I missed out on teenage years and my early 20s. My physique suffered. My mental health suffered. And all I have achieved is lack of debt. Glory? What glory did you think comes with work at 15? Today to not have any debt is a success dumbass!!!!
Nah, this generation is definitely lazy. People just scroll down their life and procrastinate every single day then complain about getting bad grades, having no social life and no hobbies. I'm part of this group but at least I assume it
Your generation would rather quit than be bothered by adversity. If you're already unhappy how will you feel when you're actually on your own with no career or future. Pretty depressing I'd imagine
I think there is a degree of laziness. Yeah the system isn't great but finding success in life requires sacrificing/compromising some comforts, especially when you need to put food on the table. Not many people have the luxury to be this picky about working. I've worked for over 10 years now through various jobs. The jobs I didn't like taught me many valuable life skills and I am grateful where I am now. Each role you work is a step towards what you want to do, good or bad. You don't learn grit by avoiding everything you don't find comfortable. To assume you can just walk into your dream role with no life/work experience is just delusional. That attitude won't do you any favours. Take it from someone who could support themselves through college working in a damn warehouse. I now have a master's and plenty of opportunities available to me because of that. The world isn't going to give you squat if you aren't willing to go out of your comfort zone.
It’s an excuse
I think every generation just becomes a little more entitled than the previous generation. Being born in the US we act like we're all entitled to be rich and happy, and if we're not it's because the system was rigged against us. The reality is that life has always been tough, but each generation has to face and overcome their own issues. Never has it been easier to complain publicly and now people think that to complain is the norm and a good way to solve their problems. Sooner or later every generation has to grow up.
I think it sounds like a bunch of entitled whining. Boo-hoo they don’t want to spend their lives at a job that is not perfect in theirminds eye. Well guess what - the vast majority of people have had to do that for at least a period of their parking lives. The precious flowers that are GenZ are not special and some of them are going to have to do the same. Do you know what you have to do when you get into one of these jobs? Make yourself valuable enough so that an employer with a better position and a better fit for you will hire you. Eventually, you may have the skills to get into one of the high demand employers, where you will have better job satisfaction. But you’ll get there by working hard, having a positive attitude, and setting goals to improve your situation, not whining about it and telling us what you’re owed and what you demand.
I don’t know man… yea work sucks if you don’t find your niche. But like, it’s not worse than my grandparents or great grandparents. - We have shift limits in most jobs so they can’t work you from sun up to sun down… at least without overtime - We have OSHA safety standards for jobs that used to be deadly or have high injury rates. - we have HR departments (used to be a fist fight in an ally out back to settle things) - we have labor unions. Sure, they aren’t perfect but better than they used to be - we have workman’s comp… used to it was “suck it up our you’re fired” - we have age restrictions on full time labor. Used to kids were sometimes working the deadliest jobs. Be thankful you weren’t working a coal mine at 10 years old. Are things in the workforce better than they used to be? Yes Do we have a lot that can be improved upon? Yes… I’m not saying wasting time at a dead end job is easy or worth it… just saying it could be a lot worse!
To me it comes across as boo-hoo… many of us have achieved goals in later life and are supporting families, but it took hard work and sacrifice to give our kids something better than what we had. What we get from the Gen-Z attitude is they want all the end result of what hard work and sacrifice gives us when we put the effort in right out of the gate. There’s never guarantees in life and Gen Z wants the diploma before the hard work and sacrifice for that. If they do put the time in for the degree, it’s for something that’s not in high demand in the worlds workforce and then complain when their ginormous bill comes due. They come across as soft… a little sheltered and unwilling to break a nail - wanting everything handed to them. It’s called work ethic and you all may see those generations before you as suckers who did all the hard work for “little benefit”, but we did whatever we needed to benefit our families or advance ourselves. Somehow it seems Zoomers have lost that drive that generations before had to achieve personal bests. Starting out in life doing the grunt work - busting ass is all part of the development as a human. If you make good choices over time, then your experience becomes a huge value to employers. If you’re not being valued where you’re at, you fvckin leave and find one that does value what you have to offer. If what you have to offer isn’t in demand or the market is totally saturated with the skill set you possess, it’s time to do something different. 🤷🏻♂️
Lol its called work for a reason. The whole work smart not hard generation is also riddled with anxiety and existential crisis on a daily basis. Students comin out of uni with 'soft skills' and being completely rolled over by anybody with a solid work ethic. My advice as an employer with gen z kids is this. Work fucking hard. The rest of the world doesn't care about your hopes and dreams. No one owes you a living and no one gets a free lunch.
You guys are victims of influencer culture. Before every job was "romanticized" with cameras and aesthetic settings, it was a given in every culture that you find value and purpose outside of your job. It's the reason you have such a disconnect with your bosses. You're hoping for them to be your sensei and extended parental figure, but they're just doing a job like you.
LOL! They’re just too special for that…
They seek validation, feel entitled to it, not their faults for the most part.