Starting a career has increasingly felt like a right of passage for Gen Z and Millennial workers struggling to adapt to the working week and stand out to their new bosses.
But it looks like those bosses aren’t doing much in return to help their young staffers adjust to corporate life, and it could be having major effects on their company’s output.
Research by the London School of Economics and Protiviti found that friction in the workplace was causing a worrying productivity chasm between bosses and their employees, and it was by far the worst for Gen Z and Millennial workers.
The survey of nearly 1,500 U.K. and U.S. office workers found that a quarter of employees self-reported low productivity in the workplace. More than a third of Gen Z employees reported low productivity, while 30% of Millennials described themselves as unproductive.
My pay is barely enough to get by on, so I’m only going to do the bare minimum to get by at work.
Millennials finally realized that working for soulless corporations is a necessary evil for many of them and shouldn’t rule their lives. Then they passed that news on to Gen Z. The Boomers who thought they had to put their entire lives into working 40 hours a week for shit wages in order to increase shareholder profits don’t get it, especially when they were able to do things like buy houses on their salaries.
And then came the mass layoffs, and everybody that came after that knew that long term loyalty was gone. Long term promises and careers didn’t mean anything.
Then the budget for raises dried up suddenly, and the only way to get more wage was to change company. Any short term loyalty was gone, and putting in the hours for something that wouldn’t come by the end of the year is now considered foolish. A career was a sequence of hops.
These are the kids that grew up seeing how this works and what it did to their parents. Now companies are shocked these kids don’t want to play the same game.
These are the kids that grew up seeing how this works and what it did to their parents.
I was half-raised by my retired grandparents because my parents worked so hard. I have done everything I could to spend as much time with my daughter as possible. Which means not bothering with extra job shit.
Nobody ever mentions Gen X in these articles/posts, I wonder why?
Gen X
Its a silent X
Yeah man my boomer dad gets a fucking pension! Blows my mind, except it doesn’t because he was in a great union. I actually remember being on vacation once when they were doing contract negotiations and my dad calling his buddy each night to see if there was news. Kind of put a damper on the vacation but he only has that pension because he was in a union who was willing to strike.
Gen x: “we got ours but we didn’t know the truth until it was too late.”
Speak for yourself but I’m Gen X and I’m gonna need to work till I die. No retirement unless you count hospice
Many Gen x were able to get while the getting was good. Cheap housing, cheap education, benefits, and a fat inheritance.
Obviously it didn’t apply to everyone.
Story of our generation.
Smallest generation bookended by two massive cohorts and yet we are expected to pay the brunt for everything because we are the “adults” as our parents get older and need care and our kids and grandkids need support.
All we want is to put our heads down, do our work and check out when it’s all done. All everyone else does is bitch about eachother.
FML.
I fucking feel this in my DNA dude. Well said.
I didn’t get mine but I was at least able to see the floor collapsing before it happened and adjust my life accordingly. I won’t have to work till the day that I die, but my home has wheels.
What my boomer dad doesn’t get is that so much of corporate enterprise, like even the thing they are ideally making or doing in the world, not just the working conditions or profit sharing, is not unquestionably good for us. He’s an engineer from a time when it looked like technology would save the world. My zoomer kid feels conflicted just starting a hobby thinking of the consumption and waste it requires. If they could believe the companies they work for shared their values I think it would go a long way, but i don’t see that happening very quickly.
If they believed that these companies shared their values, they would be believing in a lie. The sad truth is that corporate america doesn’t share their values, nor their ethics.
Our options are to either submit and slave away to capitalistic greed, or find alternative sources of income.
I like the first half but reaching an agreement with your employer for your labor doesn’t have to be slavery, there is a balance that can be struck
Idealistically, yes that would be great. Very few will ever achieve that though.
All I need them to understand is to pay me a fair wage and don’t fucking talk to me on my days off and just let me do my job.
don’t forget hiring more people when the workload increases instead of just dropping it on an already overburdened team and then get shocked when they just quit
Better yet, hire more before the workload increases so you aren’t training newbies during crunch time.
Yes, but also some fucking healthcare so I can get medication for ADD is necessary. I felt like a horrible human being for twenty five years for having a terrible work ethic. And then I went on meds and suddenly I’m productive and motivated. Made me realize I’m not a shitstain on the drawers of humanity, just someone who needs help regulating brain chemistry and is capable of great things when I get that help.
That gives me great empathy when people are crying about laziness. I suppose some folks are lazy, but I wonder how many of them wouldn’t be if they could get help.
I’m actually off meds right now for various reasons (job change and related insurance fuckery) and I can’t wait to be able to resume them because I’m a tenth of the person I can and want to be.
Ya when I’m not on my meds I can’t even function like an adult and it fucking sucks.
Yeah same, and the whole song and dance with a shrink to get amph is just so disrespectful after everything
Okay, as another person with adhd- THIS. but also maybe I shouldn’t have to regulate my brain chemistry. What if we could just fucking be allowed to exist unproductively, what if we didn’t have to take pharmaceutical grade meth to function normally? Why is that pressure there? Considered reasonable? Why is this acceptable? Gods it’s unfair, and it makes me want to watch the world burn tbqh
I also have adhd and while I get where you are coming from and your experience may be different from mine but if I’m not on my meds I can’t even keep up with my hobbies or have fun doing them. I love macro photography and I’m pretty good at it but if I’m not on my meds I just can’t do it.
Yeah. This was my realization about a year ago. Which prompted me to finally get tested. Apparently I am a pretty severe case too. I think she was very curious about a lot of aspects of my life and how they functioned. The answer was not good. Haven’t even attempted to date in 7 years a cause I can’t even function
Yeah no dig at that, obviously these things should be available and destigmatized and while it’s great these meds work for you- I was put on high-dose concerta against my consent as a teenager and suffered terrible side effects so I just wanted to explain my bias and offer these additional thoughts on this; it’s not for everyone and it especially shouldn’t be so quickly pushed as a solution when schoolchildren are disengaged or underperfoming. Moreover, consent is fucking important. I stayed up until 5am almost every night of 10th grade that shit was not normal or healthy.
On 100% your experience and feelings on it are valid and real. I personally think if kids are underpreforming in school then they should just make school better and more engaging.
Starting a career has increasingly felt like a right of passage for Gen Z and Millennial workers struggling to adapt to the working week and stand out to their new bosses.
What the hell does this even mean. How is starting a career considered a “rite of passage” when the average American works 50-60 hours a week between 2 or more jobs? A career in a single field is straight up considered as unattainable as buying a house is by Millennials (46% of whom own a house, compared to the average of 65% for other generations). Plus Millennials have been in the workforce for multiple decades now. We’re in our 30s and 40s. And nobody has “struggled” to adapt to the work week since the 40 hour week was created after unions fought for the right to 2 days off a week. Children are indoctrinated to this cycle in kindergarten! And it’s a lie anyways with the modern culture of bosses demanding people be available to call during nights and weekends. The average corporate work week was closer to 47 hours even 10 years ago. Do they mean working at a single company for more than 3 years? Because that’s often a loss in pay compared to changing companies.
We’re off to a bad start before even hitting the paywall…
They beat you at home and they beat you at school
The 50 to 60 hour week over multiple jobs does happen. However that is not the average nor the norm. Though I’m sure you were using it for effect more than an actual data-point.
According to the Bureau of Labor statistics, for 2023, the average American works 38.5 hours per week. If you drop part-time workers (<35 hrs / wk), a full-time worker does an average of 41.9 hours.
I forget where exactly the 50-60 hour average comes from, I wanna say the Census Bureau’s reports from 2021, but it was specifically pointing out that the average American works part-time at several jobs now. But, yes, it was mostly for effect rather than accuracy, as full-time employment has been becoming less common as people are replaced by contractors.
Unemployment might be relatively low, but the job market It’s kind of sucking for skilled labor.
Unskilled jobs don’t pay enough to get the “American dream” Even beginner skilled jobs aren’t footing the bills anymore.
Rent is through the roof, housing prices are immense. Food is inflated, wages are not. I’ve been working 60 hours as long as I can remember. It shouldn’t need to be that way. Especially not for young adults in the workforce now, thinking about starting a family.
As far as the beef with managers The consensus here is not wrong. I’m a Gen x manager and it’s honestly a fight. I’ve been doing the job for 30 years and probably for the first 20 of them shit didn’t really change All that much. There was a good way and a bad way to do x. I’m inclined to ask you to do x and tell you to make sure you do it the good way. What I don’t know is that 9 years ago someone went why the f*** is there a bad way to do x and they changed it now there’s no bad way, but I sound like an idiot grandpa telling you to watch out for something that’s no longer an issue.
Sure I try to do trench work as much as possible but I’ve got budgets, reviews, and planning meetings. The best I can do on an average day is to remember that I’m not an authority on everything anymore and rely on my team. Hey do x, I remember the last time I did x you had to make sure that y and z weren’t an issue, that might not be the case anymore so please do x and use your best discretion if Y and Z are still a thing make sure that they are covered. Hopefully they give me feedback on y and z or I’ll just be crazy grandpa again in another decade. Worst case, their best discretion was a wrong choice and they waste their time we all feel bad about it and the work has to be redone.
OMG. A headline that doesn’t lay the blame on millennials and Gen Z?!
I guess it was only a matter time. Millennials are hitting their 40s now. Now we can start blaming whatever-comes-after-Z for everything!
The youngest Zoomers are still 12 or so. Gonna be a long time before we can start blaming Alphas for the death throes of the Boomers
I know right? I just don’t care about these articles anymore, not that I ever really did. We’re all experienced and effective in our own ways.
Isn’t it the employee’s job to adapt and fit into the employer, not vice versa?
Do you make barrels for a living? Do you forge iron with a big hammer? Do you rivet? I would wager not, and this is due to the people who employ people changing with a changing world. Add humans into the equation, and you can see how employers also need to assess that aspect of their operation; changing with the people who themselves change with the world around them.
Changing with the needs of industry is nothing like cowtowing to the needs of some employees that are free to go elsewhere if they prefer.
And the good empoyees who make lots of profit will happilly choose a employer who caters to their needs.
Companies are competing. Workers just gain advatages if more and more are fed up with shit employers.
A job is not a right. It’s a privlidge.
When a job is required to survive, it’s not a privilege.
It isn’t a right. If you need a job to survive, then perform better so you keep it. Simple. Don’t expect the employer to lower their standards just for your benefit. That is entitlement of the worst kind.
“No society is more than three meals away from a revolution”
A society that cant take care if it’s own people will collapse into bloody revolution
It isn’t the responsibility of any employer to keep you from being a revolutionary idiot. So go ahead if you want.
It most definitely is the responsibility of an employer to keep a revolution from happening inside their company.
Which they won’t be able to if they keep treating their employees as trash.
Oh for christ sake this baloney revolutionary crap…
Having productive workers isn’t a right. If your company needs productive workers to remain profitable, then pay your employees more so they’ll be motivated to work harder. Simple. Don’t expect workers to lower their standard of living just for your benefit. That is entitlement of the worst kind.
Usually the hard hat goes on at a construction site not on a skull on Lemmy. If you want more pay, go elsewhere, don’t expect an employer to cater to you entitlement.
Capitalism requires people have jobs for commerse to work. The whole system falls apart if people dont have jobs. For the sake of its own preservation, it seems like jobs should be a right.
Everyone has a right to work, but your right to work doesn’t supercede your other rights as an employer to set the terms you are willing to hire under. If your plumbing or electrical breaks or needs upgrading, you get to set the terms you are willing to hire to do the work. If that means no one takes your job or you get shitty and unprofessional results, that’s on you. Bob the janky handyman doesn’t get to say he has a right to work so you are required to hire him at whatever rates he demands. It’s a two-way compact.
If you can demand employment as a right, it eventually won’t be eirher the employer or the employee making the decision where you work or for how much, it’ll be the authority enforcing that right to work. The needle swinging too far in either direction between late stage capitalism and State planned economies is bad, and strong regulation and strong worker’s protections is needed to keep the gauge in the green zone.
I don’t know if you’re trolling or just don’t get the argument.
If a company needs employees, they have to make the positions that they offer attractive, otherwise their workers will find different jobs. If an employer cannot or will not adjust to a changing labor market, they fail.
Call it Dutch Disease if you want, but that doesn’t change the equation.
Employees aren’t a right either.
That’s a two way street: if a company is fine with getting bottom of the barrel quality of work for bottom of the barrel pay, or with just not filling the positions, it’s their right to shoot themselves in the foot. Outside of legal minimums, no one owes anyone anything.
To quote the great boxer Ivan Drago, “if ‘company’ dies, it dies”. It might be stupid to ignore labor markets, and chasing quarterly profits at the expense of the company’s future is ultimately sociopathic and self-defeating in the long run, but that doesn’t change the basis.
If you are forced to provide a job to anyone that wants one because having any job entirely on your own terms is a right, then you have found yourself in a State planned economy and it won’t be you making the decision on where you work; please report to the Bureau of Labor to be assigned your labor role.
It’s not a privilege. It’s a contract with two parties. If either one of those doesn’t like it, they can go elsewhere.
And most jobs in the US are not contracts unless they are union jobs.
I meant in the colloquial meaning of contract meaning “an agreement between parties to exchange money, goods and services”, not the legal meaning of an employment contract.
That said, it’s unbelievably shitty that most jobs in the US don’t have written documentation about the actual contract that parties engage in and are only word-of-mouth or non-binding bullshit. The US should join the rest of the world in having actual enforceable rights around employment and should quit overregulating unions.
I would say it’s neither.
A company is not a right, it is a privilege.
If they do not contribute positively towards society, then we should be obliged to burn them to the ground.
And if no employee is interested in adapting to that employer’s conditions?
"“nOboDy WAnTs tO WoRk AnyMoRe!”
man its almost like it started around the time slavery ended. I wonder what kind of person would say such a thing as though they were entitled to the free labor of others.
Only if the employer is a short-sighted cadre of idiots.
I mean we could all be adhering, still, to the corporate norms of the 1880s but that would be ridiculous.
Nope, this article focuses on just one side however it is and should be a two way mutually beneficial deal, like any successful relationship. Good managers understand their employees and work within business needs to make their people happy.
Relationship only goes as far as you being paid for your productivity. Yes there are different management styles and you are free to choose a job that has a management style that suits you better but bottom line is a job is under no obligation to cowtow to an employee, unless of course it is a union job.
I think you’re both right. Employees are free to choose jobs they like, and employers are free to hire people they like, for the most part. In theory.
Of course, the economy isn’t in great shape, and hasn’t been for almost the entire adult lives of millennials, so it’s not like people really have much of a choice in practice. You work at Soulless Company A, or you work at Soulless Company B…or you starve. Individual job-seekers don’t control the job market.
Similarly, companies don’t have that much of a choice, either. They can’t just exclusively hire senior citizens. They don’t control the hiring pool. It is expensive to hire and train new employees, and infeasible to replace a large percentage of your workforce on a short time scale.
Anyway, if you have a corporate culture that is hostile to the majority of employees under 40, you’ve got a big culture problem. You can’t just dig in your heels and expect two entire generations to come around to your geriatric worldview.
You were doing fine until the last paragraph.
If you see the corporate culture you are in as hostile, leave and find another one if you can. Otherwise, adapt to the situation you are in instead of acting self-entitled.
He’s just saying these companies need to adapt their culture to fit the culture of younger generations or the companies will die with the boomers in a few years.
Culture changes over time, those that refuse to change get left behind, this has always been the way of the world
Personally I’m ok with a lot of companies failing and being replaced with healthier alternatives. In my mind we need to get back to the economy of thousands of smaller businesses rather than 15 mega corps owning everything on the planet.
Yes, I would encourage everyone to take as little shit from their job as possible. Frequent job-hopping has been the norm for millennials, because it’s typically the easiest way to increase your salary.
I think it’s more useful to think in terms of trends than in terms of individuals. This isn’t about one person or one company. One person can leave one company, no problem. Millions of people cannot leave thousands of companies. There’s nowhere else for that many people to go.
It seems more realistic for a small number of companies to adapt to a large number of individuals than vice-versa. If you have one unproductive employee, then they’re a bad employee. If you have hundreds or thousands of unproductive employees, then you are a bad employer.
With all the crap about job contracts, is everybody talking about union jobs or jobs not in the US? only one state in the US is not at-will employment and that is Montana. Yes, at-will states can have unions and employment contracts but contracts outside of unions are rare.
I am assuming at-will employment. But I don’t think unions change the dynamic in principle. They just shift the power balance away from employers. That’s great, but it doesn’t resolve the fundamental issue that there is NOT an abundance of choice.
That fact that you would use a word like kowtow to describe a company being willing to meet its employees halfway says a hell of a lot. This is why “nobody wants to work anymore.”
Then they can enjoy a high turnover rate as the best of best seek employment elsewhere. I’ll never understand this thinking. How do you expect to get anything other than shit employees if you treat them anyway you want? You aren’t the only employeer on earth
Pay peanuts, get monkeys
Disagree - there is a degree into which the needs of a managers direct report should be taken into account. Ignoring these needs in full comes with the risk of turnover and productivity loss. It’s a balancing act between business and employee needs. Again you’re taking it the the extreme by saying an employer should kowtow to the employee when the reality is that it should be a good balance in an ideal scenario and not entirely in either direction. A balance leads to the best outcomes for both parties.
In a word? No. Companies need to adapt to changing conditions which includes hiring. An individual person needs to adapt, but the companies need to adapt to cultural shifts. That’s similar to the classic, “if I owe the bank $50k I can’t repay, I have a problem. If I owe the bank $50M, the bank has a problem.”
No because the employers goals are diametrically opposed to the workers in a system that requires infinite growth on a limited resources. The workers create the value. Not the employer.
The employee’s job is to deliver value to the business. The business’s job is to enable the employee to deliver that value. Mentorship, fair wages, career growth oppurtunities, etc. Many businesses fail on their end of the bargain. Its no wonder the employees are repaying the effort in kind.
No, it is up to the employee to so as much as they oblige in their contract.
Because it is not like those employers are going to do more than what is in there either.
your hired! get in the wood chipper… scab.
Perfect example of self-entitlement’ nothing to say so insult.
Real question? If you like companies so much, why are you on Lemmy?
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bosses aren’t doing much in return to help their young staffers adjust to corporate life
I can’t recall when this was ever a thing. It has always been do or fail.
Depends on the boss. Some can be good and actually try to manage, but most tend to be lazy and not care much about working with their staff. Figuring out how to get the most out of your employees is part of every management training course I’ve ever seen, but a lot of managers/bosses tend to pick the things they like and not necessarily the things that work best for their employees.
I like that more and more of the kids these days are willing to settle for shitty stuff. Most of the people in my generation (+/- a generation) just deal with it and shut down anyone that thinks things can and should be better, and that sucks.
Right, and this has been true for hundreds(?) of years.
I think it ebbs and flows. My grandpa liked his job and didn’t put up with shit even if that meant losing his house. But he was still able to manage. We’re in the roaring twenties again, hopefully after the coming financial disaster we get another round of 40 or so years of a strong middle class before the neo boomer summer children fuck it up for everyone.
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and shut down anyone that thinks things can and should be better, and that sucks.
I know I sound like a broken record at this point, but you should consider if the person you’re listening to is legit, or astroturfing, before weighing their words.
Corporations have a benefit to their bottom lines to shape narratives a certain way.
You mean like a corporation got some coworkers hired and doing actual work at the place I’m working at just to tell me I need to deal with my shit job? That seems a bit on the paranoid side.
I have a good job now.
You mean like a corporation got some coworkers hired and doing actual work at the place I’m working at just to tell me I need to deal with my shit job?
Have no idea how what you just said can be response to this…
and shut down anyone that thinks things can and should be better, and that sucks.
Corporations have a benefit to their bottom lines to shape narratives a certain way.
I’m talking about astroturfing comments on forums that are pushing back against positive change.
Yeah, I gathered what you were talking about. But you’re responding to me talking about me talking to coworkers. I get that I didn’t specifically say that, but I also don’t say anything about comments on forums.
but I also don’t say anything about comments on forums.
But, you did say this…
and shut down anyone that thinks things can and should be better, and that sucks
I read that sentence and thought that you were not happy about the fact that people want to shut down conversations about things that could be better.
My thought process was to try and cheer you up (“and that sucks”), by letting you know that you should realize it may not be just regular everyday people who don’t want things to improve, but actual astroturfers who don’t want things to improve, for their own personal benefit reasons.
And by saying that to you, you would realize that more people potentially think the way you do, want positive change conversations, and cheer you up a little bit.
So, my response to you…
I know I sound like a broken record at this point, but you should consider if the person you’re listening to is legit, or astroturfing, before weighing their words.
Corporations have a benefit to their bottom lines to shape narratives a certain way.
Yeah, get that. I get where you went wrong as described in my last post.
I am not happy with a lot of people in my generation wanting to shut the conversation down. Astroturfing doesn’t apply since the people that were doing it, were in person, face to face, coworkers. Not astroturfers.
What does make me feel better is that millennials and later seem to be more on board with me on this.
So far most of what I’ve seen is “want to stare at phone a day”, “can’t I work from home?”, “stopped working at the first excuse or (god forbid) difficulty”.
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yeah, thats pretty dark. maybe some anger issues ?
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I can’t even understand what you are trying to say. You must be a supervisor.
Call me crazy but the fact that no matter how hard a millennial or gen z person works: they still lack job security, most of their wages go in bills/rent, they often act as a carer in some capacity, and are generally not doing work related to their studies might also have something to do with it…
Research by economists should not be trusted in matters of employee well-being.
ITT:
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“I’m smarter than my boss that’s why I don’t care” “no you’re not, and yes you do.” “Yeah, actually, I am, and no, actually I don’t.” “‘Actually’ they don’t care, which is why you’re complaining about it. The only people that don’t care in this scenario are your boss and me.” “Nuh uh.” “Ya huh.”
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“This has happened before, it is always like this.” “No it’s not, we’re uniquely smart and capable and they’re particularly not and not.” “Ok, you’re brilliant but no one cares. That must be what’s happening.” “It is!” “It isn’t.”
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“The olds are so old and work culture is bad, we need better work culture.” “What does that look like?” “Doing things I care about when I want to and being paid a lucrative salary for it.” “That won’t work.” “Yes it will.” “Ok, but it won’t. Good luck.”
Sanded it down for you all. These threads were getting a little knotty and overgrown.
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I’m easily fooled into productivity with a median wage that adjusts with inflation and quantified growth goals.
Boomers would have expected their wages to go up above inflation. Not settle for keeping in line with it.
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Not just that. Even without getting better productivity grains should mean your wages go up on average above inflation.
Shit, mine don’t even keep up with inflation and they never have. I’m effectively being paid less and less year over year, and companies wonder why job hopping is so prevalent. It’s unreal!
What? Ridiculous. You want fair pay and non-arbitrary, non-shifting performance metrics? Cold day in h*ck when that happens!
right of passage
…
“They’re like, ‘Nah, I’m not feeling it today, I’m gonna come in at 10:30 a.m,’” Foster said of her younger colleagues in an interview with The Guardian.
Every single generation has thought this about the younger generation. Every single one.
In this case, I think the whole issue is exacerbated by the fact that giving sincere effort at work is so clearly a mug’s game. It used to be that being disciplined about showing up and doing your job was difficult, but at least there was a reason to do it and develop the skill over time. Now? Unless you have some sort of unusual job where the management gives a shit about you, why would you?
Every single generation has thought this about the younger generation. Every single one.
I think you’re right. My guess is that as companies get greedier and work offers fewer and fewer benefits, people are less and less willing to work as hard as their parents did. Employers that don’t understand this are either genuinely ignorant or just pretending to be ignorant.
Strategic ignorance. You can exert more pressure on someone if you genuinely believe the crazy self-serving things you’re telling them with a straight face.
I sincerely doubt the idea that people are working less. I worked at a college with a lot of boomers. Great people, but I was radically more efficient than any one of them. The woman who had my job before (college print shop), would complain about the work load. I only really stoked until lunch and caught up on every single thing I needed to do. Watched YouTube and coded the rest of the day. Helps that I had a boss that didn’t care as long as I was caught up.
Alas, the whole campus shut down last August.
Hard work gets rewarded with addition work. Im half assing for my own sanity. If I was paid enough to be comfortable things could be different.
I’m in the highest paying workplace for my field in the country and it’s still not worth putting in any extra effort.
Capital just fundamentally doesn’t understand that monetary incentive has an inverse relationship with performance and that you can’t hire 9 Women to have a baby in 1 month.
I was late to work last Friday, intentionally, because my cat fell asleep in my lap while I was eating breakfast. That moment meant more to me than making sure I was there in time, no matter what it may have impacted. Working to live, not living to work, is the rallying cry upper management needs to come to terms with.
I spent a over a year trying to get a promotion while an ex boss who’s team I left was secretly sandbagging me.
I got an offer elsewhere and suddenly leadership asked “what number would keep you”. That was exciting until they followed up that raises and promos were frozen so I’d have to wait indefinitely.
I left.
I did exactly the same thing early in my career.
- Yo I’m underpaid, can I have more money?
- No
- Yo I found another job, I’m leaving, here’s my notice
- Oh shit, what if we gave you more money?
- Definitely not, good luck tho
That happened to me many moons ago.
“Hey so I’ve been here a few years and I’ve learned a lot more and I’m much more productive in my role. I’ve also learned the business enough that I’ve applied the skills I brought with me to the point that that’s now less than 10% of my workload, having become so efficient with it that you haven’t had to fill the other opening you had for my role because I’m handling it all. What do you think my prospects would be for a raise or promotion?”
“Sorry, no budget for a raise this year beyond your 1.3% annual raise (in a year with 4% inflation). And sorry but we can’t promote you either. You don’t have the skills for the position above yours, and besides, if we promote you out of your role we’ll be too under staffed in it.”
“So hire someone, let me train them for my role while you train me for the role I could promote to?”
“Nah that’s too expensive and we wouldn’t likely get the performance from them that we get out of you. Great job by the way. But no, no promotion, no raise.”
“Do you think that might change next year? Or like…where do you see my role here in the future?”
“We’re really happy with the roles you’re in and feel you’re well suited to it. And we feel that your pay is in line with the work you’re doing, so just keep up the good work.”
…so they basically told me that they’d keep overworking me and that I could expect to never get a significant raise or promotion ever again.
Two months later I got a job offer doing less work, work that was much more in line with my skills and preferred work…and a 38% raise. When I gave my notice, immediately they wanted to make a counter offer. I said I’d hear them out but based on our last conversation I doubted they were going to be willing to retain me…but sure I’ll listen.
Their offer:
No raise.
I could work a shift of mandatory 9 hour days to make more money (OT was always unlimited and freely available so this was literally just taking away my choice to work OT and forcing me into it).
No promotion.
But they would also start training me to assist another guy in the office with his work. Basically I could work longer hours and have more responsibilities for the same pay.
…and they were surprised when I refused.
They even had the gall to tell me how they felt betrayed that I only gave them 2 weeks notice, rather than agreeing to stay on until they could find my replacement and I could train them. When I pointed out that they literally told me they weren’t hiring my replacement as long as I stayed their only response was that they would have if they knew I was going to leave.
Ha yeah I’m old now how do I get a job? A career I mean.
It’s this actually something that can meaningfully be said of Gen Z / millennials, or it’s just “young people”.
I ask because millennials are not just starting their careers, millennials are in their 30s and 40s. I’ve been in my career more than a decade and I’m a millennial.
I’m also less productive now than before because I have too much to meaningfully accomplish it all, so I say no to a bunch of work but still end up working on random things an executive asks for instead of deep focused work that could really push the company forward. But if you don’t do what an exec wants you get fucked.
Oh my god haha. So relatable. And then they complain about progress on your core tasks for which they hired you. Eh, whenever that happens I point out to them that it’s not in my job description and that I did them a favor. Shuts them up most of the times about the part where I was hired for.
