A future-of-work expert said Gen Zers didn’t have the “promise of stability” at work, so they’re putting their personal lives and well-being first.
A future-of-work expert said Gen Zers didn’t have the “promise of stability” at work, so they’re putting their personal lives and well-being first.
X’er here. Been doing this my entire life. Fuck the corporate overlords. Everyone should prioritize life over work. Unfortunately for most the world is against them in this regard.
Also genX, I went hard in corporate life for a long time, survived many rounds of layoffs and watched good friends go for reasons that are bad ones- until one fine day I was laid off with 18,000 others. Meanwhile they kept hiring H1B workers and doing stock buybacks and doing mass-layoffs every 2 years to keep the regional labor market full of competition and wages depressed. Knowing that they’re not interested in keeping their promises of stability and prosperity goes a long ways towards me never going above and beyond
For you what does prioritizing life over work look like exactly? Genuinely curious.
It means only working as hard as you’re paid to. If the multi-billion dollar megacorp you’re working for is only paying you $18/hr, you only put in an $18/hr effort; i.e. Work just barely hard enough to not get fired.
Yeah, this is generally an ok attitude.
The only exception I think is worth thinking about is “Don’t minimum-ass it in a way that makes it suck for your peers.” Like, don’t work nights and weekends to hit unrealistic goals, agreed. But like I won’t push up half-assed untested code that you’re going to have to maintain. I’m having trouble coming up with good examples off the top of my head.
That’s a great point and actually a perfect example of how I really feel when I say “work hard enough to not get fired”. Should also add, “so long as it’s not at the expense of your coworkers” to that saying.