5 ms·

As a Gen Z it's not that our entire generation is lazy it's that we've seen our parents give their entire lives to a company or industry just counting down the

by Jerred 5y ago

As a Gen Z it's not that our entire generation is lazy it's that we've seen our parents give their entire lives to a company or industry just counting down the years to retirement. That personally is my worst case scenario for my career. Sure some people my age just want to be famous and not do any hard work, but I'd say the majority just don't want to be a "good employee" for 40 years just increasing the number every quarter for shareholders. There was another article on here the other day about how half of Gen Z wants to start their own business and I think that's more accurate. Or at least give that a shot before giving in to working for someone else all their life. It just seems archaic now to give half of your waking life to a company. Most of us would gladly give even more time just to start something that we get all of the profits from and therefore have more control over the whole of our lives. And I'm not talking about starting a billion dollar tech company, just something to pay the bills and save a little.

ushakov 5y ago
i think the problem is that these folks browse social media too much and reject the reality the reality is that not everyone of them will end up rich, beautiful and famous... in fact only a tiny tiny minority will
- hackerfromthefu 5y ago
  Hard agree, it's like a diet of pure sugar - it corrupts the body or in this case the minds expectations.
ghusto 5y ago
If all of this is true, then I am with you guys. Don't give up your _one and only_ life to make someone else richer. Given the stories I've heard, and things I've myself seen, I'm not convinced it is true — not for _most_ millennials. I do hope I'm wrong though.
throwaway-m3232 5y ago
mordymoop 5y ago
Your first paragraph is something that I, a middle-Millenial, could have written when I was 20. Fight Club, a film about young men broken by the dehumanizing nihilism of “working a job you hate to buy stuff you don’t need” (among other things) came out in 1999, and was something of a cultural bell-weather. (I think the main difference between now and 1999 is that simply working a job you hate no longer guarantees you the ability to buy the stuff you don’t need.) One lense that I don’t see put for often is: it’s not that GenZ is particularly poorly situated, it’s that the American Boomers, specifically, we’re the luckiest demographic cohort in world history, luckier than those who came before or after. Folks born in the 1850s might have technically been able to buy “a house” but it would not be a house that a modern person would find acceptable — plumbing, electricity, climate control, insulation, weatherproofing, fire safety, appliances and amenities, would all be abysmal by our standards. (The foundations of such houses were usually just a few big rocks.) In theory, a modern young person could build a house conforming to 1900 “average house” standards for cheap, but nobody wants such a house, and nobody builds them, and it is likely that such a house would be in violation of code. The richest person in 1900 couldn’t buy a house as good as the median US house. So we’re in a place that our ancestors would view as a hypertech Jetsons future, except we got out over our skis for weird demographic and economic reasons and it’s currently very expensive to buy the latest hypertech magic house, and impossible to buy (what that ancestor or would call) a “normal” house. This perspective — comparing more to any generation other than the Boomers provides a more realistic perspective.
- closeparen 5y ago
  Actually the housing types we had in abundance in the 1900s-1930s - walkable, row houses, townhouses, garden apartments, apartments over the store - are now extraordinarily premium, luxury products. The modern car-dependent high-energy-use high-amenity high-sqft stuff is cheaper!
  - hackerfromthefu 5y ago
    Wrong, it's that those houses are in locations that are now the epicentre of a huge cultural and infrastructure amenity that did not even exist in the 1900s. The physical houses are not the value there, it's the location and amenities. While the location is the same in a geographic sense as in 1900, a google maps view of that era would show them being in a small town compared to a city with incredible amenities these days.
throwawayboise 5y ago
> he majority just don't want to be a "good employee" for 40 years just increasing the number every quarter for shareholders. The way to feel better about this is to also be one of the shareholders.
missedthecue 5y ago
If you're Gen Z, your parents most likely began careers in the early 1990s, probably later than that. What careers did they have then that were such an easy piece of cake? The 1990s were not the 1950s.

by Jerred 5y ago

ushakov 5y ago

i think the problem is that these folks browse social media too much and reject the reality the reality is that not everyone of them will end up rich, beautiful and famous... in fact only a tiny tiny minority will

hackerfromthefu 5y ago
Hard agree, it's like a diet of pure sugar - it corrupts the body or in this case the minds expectations.

ghusto 5y ago

If all of this is true, then I am with you guys. Don't give up your _one and only_ life to make someone else richer. Given the stories I've heard, and things I've myself seen, I'm not convinced it is true — not for _most_ millennials. I do hope I'm wrong though.

throwaway-m3232 5y ago

mordymoop 5y ago

Your first paragraph is something that I, a middle-Millenial, could have written when I was 20. Fight Club, a film about young men broken by the dehumanizing nihilism of “working a job you hate to buy stuff you don’t need” (among other things) came out in 1999, and was something of a cultural bell-weather. (I think the main difference between now and 1999 is that simply working a job you hate no longer guarantees you the ability to buy the stuff you don’t need.) One lense that I don’t see put for often is: it’s not that GenZ is particularly poorly situated, it’s that the American Boomers, specifically, we’re the luckiest demographic cohort in world history, luckier than those who came before or after. Folks born in the 1850s might have technically been able to buy “a house” but it would not be a house that a modern person would find acceptable — plumbing, electricity, climate control, insulation, weatherproofing, fire safety, appliances and amenities, would all be abysmal by our standards. (The foundations of such houses were usually just a few big rocks.) In theory, a modern young person could build a house conforming to 1900 “average house” standards for cheap, but nobody wants such a house, and nobody builds them, and it is likely that such a house would be in violation of code. The richest person in 1900 couldn’t buy a house as good as the median US house. So we’re in a place that our ancestors would view as a hypertech Jetsons future, except we got out over our skis for weird demographic and economic reasons and it’s currently very expensive to buy the latest hypertech magic house, and impossible to buy (what that ancestor or would call) a “normal” house. This perspective — comparing more to any generation other than the Boomers provides a more realistic perspective.

closeparen 5y ago
Actually the housing types we had in abundance in the 1900s-1930s - walkable, row houses, townhouses, garden apartments, apartments over the store - are now extraordinarily premium, luxury products. The modern car-dependent high-energy-use high-amenity high-sqft stuff is cheaper!
- hackerfromthefu 5y ago
  Wrong, it's that those houses are in locations that are now the epicentre of a huge cultural and infrastructure amenity that did not even exist in the 1900s. The physical houses are not the value there, it's the location and amenities. While the location is the same in a geographic sense as in 1900, a google maps view of that era would show them being in a small town compared to a city with incredible amenities these days.

throwawayboise 5y ago

> he majority just don't want to be a "good employee" for 40 years just increasing the number every quarter for shareholders. The way to feel better about this is to also be one of the shareholders.

missedthecue 5y ago

If you're Gen Z, your parents most likely began careers in the early 1990s, probably later than that. What careers did they have then that were such an easy piece of cake? The 1990s were not the 1950s.