We're living in corporate dystopia and Gen Z is reacting accordingly

connect

shot by John Lee

grip - Melissa Gasca

sound - Jason Mobley

edited by Ben Chinapen

edited by Timothy Hautekiet

gfx by Bethany Radloff

[trickpatch]

"Nobody wants to work" is a phrase you will see in news stories about labor going back to the late 1800s. It's a scapegoat phrase for not offering an actual living wage for employment.

[ohgumdrop]

I hate when older generations say “your generation doesn’t want to work”. I graduated MONTHS ago and have been endlessly applying to jobs. Most of them I get ghosted by and only a handful have gotten back with an actual rejection email. I’ve even talked to one hiring manager for something I got rejected from to ask how I can improve my resume/cover letter and she said it was perfect for my skill level. The older generation as managers don’t want to hire the younger ones and take the time to train them, while also saying that we’re lazy when most of us are actually trying. On top of that, entry level positions aren’t entry level anymore. Tell me why I need 3 years of experience and they prefer a masters degree for the lowest level job in the field I’m trying to get into? That job literally just requires you to do basic data entry and other responsibilities that can be taught in one week, tops. Make it make sense 🙄.

Edit: Honestly, I wrote this when I was feeling bitter and angry. I know that this is just the way things are set up now but to everyone else in a similar situation to me: I hope you’re able to get out of it soon or at the very least, be able to find the optimism in your situation!! I’m trying to do that too :)

[chrisz]

"You dont like to work!"
Babe, i didn't sit through a bachelors AND a master's just to be overqualified and underexperienced. I WANT to work. I WANT to be useful to the world around me. But i cant even get an interview

Edit: holy crap, y'all are really engaging in the comments. My education is in the environmental field. I believe green jobs are the new frontier and i have a passion for environmental conservation and justice for people wronged by the climate crisis. I am surrounded by many people who are highly educated and occupying necessary and in-demand jobs. Unfortunately, i am facing the unemployment loop of "needing a job for experience/needing experience for a job" and I'm just waiting for that one foot in the door for my life to change. I dont regret the field i chose, but if i had to go back and advise 18-year-old me what to do, i would just say to give yourself options

[piccalillipit]

*Gen Z is reacting accordingly* This is freakishly powerful and observant. I worked with victims of abuse for 8 years - they often used to blame themselves for being a mental wreck...

I used to tell them "Its normal to have an abnormal reaction to abnormal circumstances"

[gentle_rebel]

My immediate response to people seriously saying "no one wants to work anymore" is:

"No one wants to pay a livable wage anymore." - plain, simple, irrefutable

[NatalieZii]

“I don’t.”
As someone applying to jobs, I felt this in my bones.

[izabelaR]

Saw this meme: "Nobody wants to work anymore" is just "girls don't want to date nice guys" for businesses.

[Insightfill]

Sadly, a fair number of adults tell their children "I suffered so you should have to also."

[cniht]

The phrase "Nobody wants to work." should always be accompanied by "at that wage."

[Quixote]

No no, they don’t want “our children” to have a better life. They want that for THEIR children.
It’s nepotism all the way down, baby.

[amac]

"Why are we giving AI the art?!" YES!

[NathanielHellerstein]

This goes back awhile. Soviet era Russian joke: "they pretend to pay us, so we pretend to work."

[lonrot]

The funniest part is that both generations are quite depressing in their arguments 🤣

[ruijie]

"Nobody wants to work anymore!"
Not for a wage that makes us have to decide between either homeless or starving with how prices are rising. Nobody "wants" to work, not even the older generation. We NEED to work, not want to. Of course, being choosy is bad; but it has to cover the bare minimum needs for living, otherwise there is no point.
Thank you for bringing up the bleakness of both perspectives fairly.

[Lila-ieeo]

People say "children are hooked on those phones" as if their parents weren't the ones who bought their kids phones and tablets to replace parent-child time.

[Sarara]

Boomer: You can't use a fax machine!
Doomer: You can't convert to PDF

[hfg]

as a millenial, i'm getting a sense of déjà vu because this is exactly how we were treated. i'm dissapointed to say that a lot of us fell in line to the demands of late stage capitalism.

[bradkrekelberg]

I'm a late Gen Xer. This really made me think about the "no one wants to work" thing. Regular jobs have gotten really sh**ty thanks to exploiting their workers way beyond reason.

[Meileehere]

“Don’t you want a better life for your children?”
“No, I just want more money.”

[miriam]

Gen X here: its been a corporate dystopia for a lot longer than you guys know. We were talking about this when I was in my early twenties—we just didn’t do it online where it’s hyper visible.

Are corporations more corrupt than they used to be? No. Wealthy people have always wanted to profit from people with less without balancing the scales in return.

The only difference is that there’s less oversight and less regulation and corporations are allowed to form conglomerates that form monopolies that get away with price gouging and driving inflation. And it all got worse because of the policies that the Reagan administration started passing.

This is much bigger than jobs and housing, guys. It starts in laws and politics. Reagan deregulated a ton of industries—essential removing government oversight that allowed for record profits because of record bouts of taking advantage. When people blame the boomers, this is absolutely what they mean.

If you want to want a job that’s paying a livable wage at a (realistic) entry level and the chance for affordable housing, run for office and/or vote blue. Corporations will not regulate themselves, and the super wealthy will always value money over people—thinking like this is how they became super wealthy in the first place, after all.

Honest politicians who aren’t business-first are the only way to balance these scales. (Beware even the democrats who claim to be business-centered; that’s code for “I care about people as long as it doesn’t damage profits”). My parents had better lives because they had better laws, and better ways to enforce them, and for no other reason.