from Hacker News

The 37-Year-Olds Are Afraid of the 23-Year-Olds Who Work for Them

by personlurking on 10/29/21, 2:33 PM with 34 comments

  • by pmdulaney on 10/29/21, 3:34 PM

    What makes this Gen Z behavior acceptable? Chiding the next-older generation for their culture is akin to making fun of the accent of your coworker who was born in India. It's just rude.

  • by charles_f on 10/29/21, 4:29 PM

    I'm regularly working with people in "gen z" the past couple of years, that's never been my experience. I've also seen a bunch of people from any type of "generation" behave the same way that is described in the article.

  • by personlurking on 10/29/21, 2:34 PM

  • by whywhywhywhy on 10/29/21, 3:33 PM

    We're really not.

  • by twiddling on 10/29/21, 3:39 PM

    Chuckles in Gen X...

  • by socialist_coder on 10/29/21, 3:48 PM

    I think the core issue is the younger generation sees that the American Dream is bullshit and they aren't putting up with it anymore.

    We're told from a young age that if you get educated and work hard you will be successful. You will be able to buy a house.

    So, Gen Z gets a degree and is released into the hellscape that is the current state of American society. 40+ hour work weeks that are incredibly stressful, with bosses and companies who do not care about you at all. Rent, health care, child care, student loans - impossible to afford all these things on their low salaries, and when the business they work for is probably making as much profit in the history of the company, they see it as extremely unfair.

    Vacation days? Time off? Barely any, deal with it. Getting called in on your day off? Part of the job.

    And the worst part is all around them they hear boomers and older people tell them that this is normal. "Oh you're just weak and complaining. I had it worse in my day. You have an iPhone, Netflix, and Starbucks, you're living in luxury!"

    Gen Z looks around and says - wait, is this really it? Is this what I've been preparing for my entire childhood? To just be miserable all week and have 2 measly days off that is barely enough time to do all the non-work stuff that needs doing like cleaning, bills, shopping? I see my coworkers 100x more than my family and friends. I get 2 weeks of vacation EVERY YEAR. I can barely afford to share an apartment let alone buy a house.

    And I'm supposed to do this for 40 more years??? This is Life?

    Fuck that

    Oh, and to top it all off, they're inheriting the mess that is climate change.

  • by md2020 on 10/29/21, 3:42 PM

    Been said before and should be obvious, but as a Gen Z’er, we’re not all like this.

  • by errantspark on 10/29/21, 3:45 PM

    Honestly a lot of this sounds a lot like having normal healthy boundaries at work.

  • by downrightmike on 10/29/21, 3:38 PM

    It was boomers vs millenials, because well boomers. But they are trying to switch the conversation to millenials vs zoomers. But the boomers ARE in charge of these lies. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDJvj4i4Oi0

  • by neves on 10/29/21, 3:41 PM

    The article is behind a paywall. What it argues instead of the two traditional mottos: "younger people don't have a family and work all nighters and weekends" and "if you don't work your ass off your boss will exchange you for somebody cheaper"?

  • by atomicnumber3 on 10/29/21, 3:51 PM

    As someone right in between Millennials and Zoomers ('92), I find myself really empathizing more with gen Z. I really appreciate that our weird puritan-work-ethic-meets-corporate-capitalism economy has finally produced a generation that is just fucking done with how out of control it's gotten.

    People are finally realizing that "the hustle" is a fucking scam if you don't have enough equity in your "hustle" that you're on its Board or in the C-suite. Which is almost nobody at this point. We're finally rejecting this glorification of labor at the expense of ourselves, our society, our environment, etc.