So, I am Gen-X. I worked for a long time, mostly for Boomer bosses. I worked hard and I ‘paid my dues’. I worked many unpaid hours of overtime to ‘get ahead’ and it worked. I got ahead. I was promoted and paid well and I continued to work hard. I really enjoyed my job for a long time, but as the years passed, I began to burn out. The stress, the hours, the expectation from clients and bosses to be available 24/7, to respond to emails within minutes, to be available on vacation, to cancel or change vacation, chronic staff shortages, they all added up. I kept going though because my job was my life and my life was my job. Hustle Culture at its finest.
As the workforce populated with millennials and maybe the odd Gen-Z, I heard a lot of “these kids today don’t know the meaning of the word work” and “no one wants to work anymore”. Honestly, I did find their desire to do group work annoying, and clients certainly did not want to be billed for the five people crammed into a cubicle trying to figure something out. I was occasionally offended when someone with 5 minutes experience griped about me (20+ years experience) having an office/getting more vacation time/being able to ever so slightly modify my work hours, when they were not afforded the same ‘perks’.
That said, it is time for Gen-X to step up, shed our ‘whatever’ attitude and be the change. Boomers are aging out of the workplace and Gen-X is now in charge. Do we really want our staff to do things the way they have always been done? Do we really want them to suffer because we did? Millennials and Gen-Z are our children. Should we not want our children to do better and have better than us?
Millennials and Gen-Z generally prioritize their life and free time over work. This does not mean they do not do the job they were hired for. They do, and they do it well. It does mean they are not willing to put in crazy amounts of unpaid overtime because the company is chronically short staffed. They don’t want to work extra hours for “free” pizza. They don’t want to be micromanaged. They don’t want to be thought of as disloyal because they are not willing to live and die for work.
Oh I know. “If Millennial # 1 refuses to stay late to finish Client XYZ’s work, someone else on the team has to and that isn’t fair”. You’re right. That isn’t fair. I should know. I was “someone else” for 26 very, very long years. Instead of being a martyr, who quite literally worked my body until it broke, sure that it was the good and noble thing to do and that it was only until more people could be hired, I wish I had also refused to work beyond the hours I was being compensated for and that a reasonable human should work. If everyone does the job they are hired for, during the hours they are paid for, and does not provide free labour, what would happen? Companies would either hire an appropriate amount of staff, compensating them competitively to attract and retain them, or they would start paying people for overtime, which you could choose to work, or not. You can’t really be resentful if you choose to work overtime for pay and your colleague chooses not to. You are actually getting something out of the deal and you are making a choice. Arguably, I was also ‘choosing’ to work for free, to make up for the lack of staff or seasonal pressures that never seemed to end, and likely I still would have done so. That is my nature. But I shouldn’t have. I should have been encouraged to take a break and not work to the point of breaking. It is the mentality of hustle culture that is wrong.
We need to stop lauding and applauding employees who come to work sick. You are not a great employee if you knowingly bring a flu or a cold into the office. You are not a hero because you came to work the day after you broke your arm. You are not dedicated because you ignored doctors orders and returned to work early after surgery or injury. “I worked 300 hours last month” should not be considered a humble brag, but rather a cry for help.
I know people love their jobs. I did too. I worked hard for 26 years before an injury forced me to stop working. I was told I would never be able to work again and for two years, TWO years, I refused to accept it. My whole identity was work, despite at that time being a widow with a young child to raise.
It is long past time to relegate hustle culture to the history books, along with smoking at your desk and two martini lunches. It is outdated.
Work to live. Don’t live to work. Gen-X, it is time to start caring about something.
