Doubt. I’m a younger Gen X and work has fucking sucked for us and for our parents before us. The middle class has been hollowed out since the 70s, at the latest. It’s now purely transactional, with the final vestiges of loyalty and all that other bullshit long gone. Pay me and leave me the fuck alone. Do those two things to the proper extent and I will provide dispassionate labor in commensurate amount. Otherwise, I will whore out my knowledge and labor elsewhere, with less than zero regard for the collateral damage I may cause.
I guess I'll interject with personal experience so take everything that follows as, my most humble opinion of things. I have zero expectation for anyone to agree.
Gen X myself, I am currently in a position that I am completely happy with now. That did not come without a massive fight. This is quite literally my 6th job in my field (system's programming) and now the second longest I've stayed with a company. Quoting from the story:
Without the promise of high returns for their loyalty, Gen Z has learned to follow the money
And this should be people's default until shown otherwise. I cannot count the number of times I've heard "it's just business" in the course of my various jobs. At the end of the day, your employer is looking at bottom line most times. One should not invest themselves into any relationship when the other is simply looking at the piratical ramifications of the relationship and not the broader nature of that relationship.
It's about the money and being able to pay for living expenses, which is reasonable. The dollar went a lot further when baby boomers were entering the workforce. It doesn't go as far now.
Yeah, while suffering when sufferable was okay when a taco was under a buck, dollar doesn't go anywhere today. The amount of time to have shits and giggles with an employer on actual compensation is about seven seconds today. When I first got into the field being underneath the region's average for X number of years wasn't unheard of. And for me, it was all cool because shit was cheap. Today, being under the region's average for a position needs to be measured in X minutes, not this year shit. Employer's that want to play games, Gen Z should not budge for a second on the matter.
When a raise and promotion don't hit swiftly, Gen Z is quick to jump ship
I'll say this. When I got to my current position, I knew right off that this was a good company. How? I can't really put a finger on the how, but having been in two jobs previous that were hyper toxic, I had a feeling. Now, I still didn't play games coming in though. I indicated exactly what I expected and that the job couldn't be "all hands on deck" 24/7, 365. That's just shitty management. I gave them six months to show me the money and if it didn't come through I had every intention to hit the door at the 121 day mark.
There was still friction, no meaningful relationship doesn't have those moments, but the things I was indicating was actually being taken serious, and compensation for kicking ass on my end was forthcoming. If your employer doesn't like talking money with employees, you're going to have a lot of friction and I'm not telling anyone what to do, but employer's feeling uncomfortable with the topic of money should be a red flag for you. If that's the straw that breaks the camel's back or just a stone in the wall for you, that's your call. But in my opinion, employers that get squishy about the word money shouldn't be employers. Not with how this world currently is. Maybe we can go back to the "ha ha ha" playing coy game when a significant percentage of a person's paycheck doesn't have to go for simply feeding themselves.
But Gen Zers "haven't lost the passion for what they want to do,"
And I have never thought they have. The Gen Z that I oversee are some of the best workers I've ever dealt with. But the world isn't allowing them to be slacking on ensuring that proper compensation is constant. Inflation is eating away any kind of raise I can give them as fast as I can give it to them. As far as I have seen, Gen Z is some of the best workers to date to come out of the woodwork and it's actually kind of shitty they cannot have the environment to flourish that I had at their age.
Again, from my personal experience, I think there's a lot of management that's still in the lax mood of how employment might have worked back in the day. When a few years under the line of compensation was just the name of the game. But the game has seriously changed and a lot of the folks my age and the boomers as well are still stuck in "the way things used to be™" and it's so bad right now, no one has time for that anymore.
As I've heard so often, it's just business. But I think employers have been so used to the giving that advice, they are completely at loss when receiving it. The Gen Z I've worked with, and it may be different for others, but the ones I've worked with and the ones I currently manage, they're some of the hardest workers who take everything they do as personal value and will be some of the best employees IF YOU ENCOURAGE THEM AND COMPENSATE THEM.
I too dislike that the world has become really centered around pay. But to quote some Tolken:
So do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.
Treat your folks like people, and the rest mostly falls in place.
I guess I'll interject with personal experience so take everything that follows as, my most humble opinion of things. I have zero expectation for anyone to agree.
Gen X myself, I am currently in a position that I am completely happy with now. That did not come without a massive fight. This is quite literally my 6th job in my field (system's programming) and now the second longest I've stayed with a company. Quoting from the story:
Without the promise of high returns for their loyalty, Gen Z has learned to follow the money
And this should be people's default until shown otherwise. I cannot count the number of times I've heard "it's just business" in the course of my various jobs. At the end of the day, your employer is looking at bottom line most times. One should not invest themselves into any relationship when the other is simply looking at the piratical ramifications of the relationship and not the broader nature of that relationship.
It's about the money and being able to pay for living expenses, which is reasonable. The dollar went a lot further when baby boomers were entering the workforce. It doesn't go as far now.
Yeah, while suffering when sufferable was okay when a taco was under a buck, dollar doesn't go anywhere today. The amount of time to have shits and giggles with an employer on actual compensation is about seven seconds today. When I first got into the field being underneath the region's average for X number of years wasn't unheard of. And for me, it was all cool because shit was cheap. Today, being under the region's average for a position needs to be measured in X minutes, not this year shit. Employer's that want to play games, Gen Z should not budge for a second on the matter.
When a raise and promotion don't hit swiftly, Gen Z is quick to jump ship
I'll say this. When I got to my current position, I knew right off that this was a good company. How? I can't really put a finger on the how, but having been in two jobs previous that were hyper toxic, I had a feeling. Now, I still didn't play games coming in though. I indicated exactly what I expected and that the job couldn't be "all hands on deck" 24/7, 365. That's just shitty management. I gave them six months to show me the money and if it didn't come through I had every intention to hit the door at the 121 day mark.
There was still friction, no meaningful relationship doesn't have those moments, but the things I was indicating was actually being taken serious, and compensation for kicking ass on my end was forthcoming. If your employer doesn't like talking money with employees, you're going to have a lot of friction and I'm not telling anyone what to do, but employer's feeling uncomfortable with the topic of money should be a red flag for you. If that's the straw that breaks the camel's back or just a stone in the wall for you, that's your call. But in my opinion, employers that get squishy about the word money shouldn't be employers. Not with how this world currently is. Maybe we can go back to the "ha ha ha" playing coy game when a significant percentage of a person's paycheck doesn't have to go for simply feeding themselves.
But Gen Zers "haven't lost the passion for what they want to do,"
And I have never thought they have. The Gen Z that I oversee are some of the best workers I've ever dealt with. But the world isn't allowing them to be slacking on ensuring that proper compensation is constant. Inflation is eating away any kind of raise I can give them as fast as I can give it to them. As far as I have seen, Gen Z is some of the best workers to date to come out of the woodwork and it's actually kind of shitty they cannot have the environment to flourish that I had at their age.
Again, from my personal experience, I think there's a lot of management that's still in the lax mood of how employment might have worked back in the day. When a few years under the line of compensation was just the name of the game. But the game has seriously changed and a lot of the folks my age and the boomers as well are still stuck in "the way things used to be™" and it's so bad right now, no one has time for that anymore.
As I've heard so often, it's just business. But I think employers have been so used to the giving that advice, they are completely at loss when receiving it. The Gen Z I've worked with, and it may be different for others, but the ones I've worked with and the ones I currently manage, they're some of the hardest workers who take everything they do as personal value and will be some of the best employees IF YOU ENCOURAGE THEM AND COMPENSATE THEM.
I too dislike that the world has become really centered around pay. But to quote some Tolken:
So do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.
Treat your folks like people, and the rest mostly falls in place.
I feel like I get how you feel in your current job, because I’ve felt that way a few times before. But at all but one of those jobs, the environment slowly changed as the companies started to focus more on the bottom line than their employees. In my current job, I felt amazing, it honestly felt like the company cared about us and it showed, all the people I spoke to loved it there… Until we laid off 2k people last month… Now I just feel betrayed and angry.
Yeah that's with any position. Things change. More argument about loyalty being a transitory thing. My second job was like that. Was really good and then the company we third partied for was sued by a US State for fraud. When the contract wasn't renewed I thought we'd move on, but I was surprised by how many of our eggs had been placed in a single basket. The vast majority of the company I worked for relied on those contracts to supply jobs, so when that went away the company went from thirty software developers to one. 90% of the company I worked for's value evaporated within two months.
It was this that I also became aware of what the WARN Act was.
Instead of worrying about company culture or whether the job sounds exciting, the first thing Kaneshina looks for when job searching is the salary. “Right now there’s this whole salary-transparency movement. So a lot of the roles I apply to I know about the pay right off the bat,” she said. Once satisfied with the pay range, Kaneshina digs into the company — are they doing work she has experience with? Then she checks whether the opening provides room for growth — how long until she could get a promotion? For her to apply, all three factors have to line up.
Tech field Gen-X here. When did the above stop being a normal expectation? It sure as shit was when myself and all my contemporaries were starting out. Compensation package, culture and growth were always part of the pitch when employers made job offers.
It takes a young person being kicked down in a vulnerable moment one time to realize work doesn’t care for them and they owe them no loyalty. And since a long time, junior workers are the first to get the axe for circumstances that are no fault of their own.
And when being at a salary that you can barely make it now, staying at that salary as costs shoot up is untenable. So no surprises young workers aren’t buying this loyalty bull.
This is also a shift from when older generations were young: In a 1995 survey by the consulting firm Wyatt Co., under-30 Gen Xers — the “works sucks, I know” generation — were actually the most satisfied with their jobs than any other age group.
That answers the main question I had after reading the headline: did all generations feel this way at this age, or is this unique to Gen z.
Am on the tail end of Gen X and when I started working even low pay allowed me to afford a place to live, food to eat, and doing fun things occasionally. While work sucked, it at least paid the bills and allowed the freedom to live. Plus there were still some companies that offered actual long term perks, tried and keep people with experience around, and promoted from within.
Gen Z still gets the low pay, but are treated as expendable, and can't afford anything and so it is understandable that they would hate working in comparison.
Want to have fun. Look up where you lived as a young adult and calculate how much it would cost today.
First wage out of college 28K. In two years it was up to 42K. Since it was a government job, I can look up the wage today. Start is at $37K, in two years its $55K
Studio apartment $650/month then, $1,800 now for the same place. Included heating and electricity and a awesome view from the 22nd floor.
Car with 30K miles on it, $185/month plus $50/month insurance. Now $550/month plus $200/month insurance.
Groceries $150/month (I ate well). Now $400/month.
Student loan, $50/month. Now $200 per month.
Phone (landline). $40/month. Now $60/month cell phone.
Take home when I started, around $1650/month. Expenses $1,125. 2 years later when I was making 42K, take home was around $2,450. I paid off the student loans, the most of the car, and had a ton of fun, traveled, dated, and eventually got married.
Today take home would’ve around. $2,150/month and the cost of living as I did would be around $3,010. Even after 2 years I could barely squeak by with around $3,200/month take home.
You can’t have a serious conversation when you lie or embellish numbers.
I’ll cherry pick two things.
Cell phones are less expensive monthly today than they were 15 years ago. You can get unlimited everything with some carriers for 30 a month. 15 years ago it was 59.99 for 1200 minutes, free nights and weekends, and 2000 texts. Internet was another 20 a month.
A car with 30k miles isn’t 550 a month right now. I have a 45k car and part just over 600 a month. I bohlught brand new, and spend way more than u needed cause I’m lucky.
You can buy a used car with 30k miles for under 20k if you want. Maybe not a BMW suv, but there’s not what we are talking about here.
Inflation is up. Wages are lagging. But let’s not lie about shit to make a point.
Facetious argument. Try asking what I included in my estimates.
Look up a basic midrange plan on a major carrier plus data, $45 with taxes & a cost average for $500 phone across 3 years ($13.88). Comes to around $60.
As for the car, without asking what type of vehicle I was pricing out and the loan terms you have no clue. Think midrange with 700 credit score (recent college grad without any credit history to speak of). I was at 11.5% interest, on my first vehicle and a 8.5K loan over 5 years = $186.75 payment. Average price of a midrange low mileage vehicle today of the same quality is around $27K (looking to buy one for my teenager). With an 8.5% interest rate 5 year loan that comes to… $553.95 per month…
Your 45K car for around 600 indicates your loan is around 41K and you decided to take a longer than 60 month terms. Likely an 84 month term ($613.80/month) at 6.75% interest for 790+ credit. Which was not even offered 20+ years ago because it’s a stupid thing to do. A 41K loan at 60 months would be $841.18 at 8.5% interest rate FYI.
Eww, yeah you’re definitely not looking for a “Conversation”. No one who says that is ever just truthfully looking for a conversation. You’re looking for conflict.
Reason is a hyper pro-capitalist libertarian magazine who, in an interview with then-governor Ronald Reagan, implied he was too liberal because he didn’t think fire departments should be privatized.
I wouldn’t trust them with this kind of survey, in other words.
Yeah, all I’m saying is to take it with a grain of salt.
When a publication like Reason writes about a survey that backs their narrative, it’s possible that it came from a conservative organization (and so might have crafted the study to produce the results they wanted rather than having an impartial scientific approach).
The other likely possibility is that they cherry picked a survey that happened to have the results they want. Even in scientific surveys there’s going to be variability, and it’s never a good idea to base an opinion off of a single survey for that reason alone.
There’s a chapter about the economics of being a biker/artist/hippie circa 1970. A biker could work six months as a union stevedore and earn enough to spend two years on the road, and a part time waitress could earn enough to support herself and her musician boyfriend.
They linked to blink 182's "All the Small Things" which reminded me of when I was working at Cracker Barrel in college. That song came on the radio in the kitchen, and everybody in the back of house said "Work sucks" in unison, and a bunch of the servers in the front replied "I know."
The manager made us change the radio station after that, but it was hilarious solidarity.
I know, right? It’s almost as if an entire generation decided that they would mortgage future generations and the environment in order to have nicer things than their parents and their kids.
Worse: it’s that they leveraged four entire generations (and counting) and the environment in order to have a higher degree of nicer things than their parents had over their parents. Up until our generations (gen X is included), every generation had it better than the previous. But thank ol’ Ronnie Reagan and the culture of deregulation that literally jump started the beginning of the end of late stage capitalism.
Even in the EU, where things are “better,” the culture of deregulation changed the course of history. European citizens do have it better, but when comparing against the US, it’s like, hard to be much worse. Now, of course this is all relative and from a hugely biased ethnocentric perspective, but being the “leaders” of the world, the decision made in the US have a huge ripple effect across the world. We exploited more people, and the resulting explosion of profits led to more power for money in politics, which led to worse exploitation across the world, which led to higher profits, ad Infinitum. We’re only a few decades on from the deregul-eighties and the effects have only grown exponentially as they amass more power via more wealth, and more wealth via more power.
We’ve been reaching the logical conclusion to capitalism, and we were going to anyway. But he jump started the beginning of the endgame. More profit, lower margins is always the end goal. This was inevitable. But he clicked the process into hyper speed.
The career growth is really amazing. I work at a unionized place that is required to fill positions internally before outside hires. When a senior employee retires from a top level position it will be filled by someone at the company. Typically someone in a mid level position. Then there’s a chain effect where now that mid level position is open that will go to entry level workers. The only outside hires tend to be for entry level jobs.
It’s great because when you talk to the senior staff, almost all of them started at the bottom and worked their way up. This gives them better knowledge of how the whole operation works since they’ve done the jobs below them, and also a little empathy!
I hate this kind of thing, it creates a hirarical culture instead of promoting people by merit. Basically younger people get screwed in favor of older people. It also means that nothing will ever change within the company.
The internet lets you live a life no men in history before has ever had. Before you accepted your lot in life that you lived and died in your own little village within your respective social cultural boundaries. The internet lets men interact with women they would otherwise never have a chance of even being in the same room with in real life.
On the flip side of the same coin it has given men illusions that such rigid social cultural customs might not exist in real life anymore either. The so called loneliness epidemic is a cognitive dissonance between the real and virtual worlds.
The article mentions how men are having a harder time finding relationships. It’s the Andrew Tate loving, Republican a-holes that are having trouble finding women, everyone else is fine.
Men, if your struggling with the ladies, start respecting women and don’t take away their rights and they will like you alot more.
There’s a lot more to successfully finding and maintaining romantic relationships with women (or anyone else) than showing bare minimum levels of respect, and assuming otherwise is both counterproductive and offensive.
Sex workers offering emotional support is an old trope, so I guess it was always part of the job. What bothers me more is AI joining the game and how widespread loneliness seems to be, especially among men.
Loneliness seems more connected to late stage capitalism to me. Individualism has been pushed too far. The quest for a glorified independancy and the monetizatization of everything is destroying social links. There are many other things that capitalist culture favor, and they’re all as damaging to socialisation and society.
I don’t fully agree, before we were often forced into specific rather small and closed social circles, now at least in most parts of Europe people are more free to choose and build those circles for them selves. While I will agree that capitalism in it’s current form does not make it easy.
Particularly in America, it’s become blatantly clear how late capitalist alienation is driving the “Loneliness Epidemic.” With “rugged individualism,” car culture, suburbanization, and the loss of third places, it’s really no wonder people are lonely. Any analysis of the “Loneliness Epidemic” that fails to incorporate capitalist alienation as the root cause feels pretty ridiculous to me at this point.
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