Working? It's More Common Than You Think.
Girlbossing all the way to the bank
Part of me hates to be the bitch that loves her job and will tell everyone about it, but I am a bitch who loves her job and now I’m telling you all about it.
Today we’re going to be talking about Gen Z’s participation and morality in the workforce with two-time Emily For President Champion Sandra Etuk:
Hi! I'm Sandra Etuk, otherwise known as "the girl who texts Emily her stream of consciousness until she lets her back on E4P." I've spent the last year and a half of my post grad life being the hottest girl at various Atlanta establishments, and I will soon be the coldest girl in Chicago! Guys and gals currently in Chicago, my DMs (both Instagram and LinkedIn) are open. As a warning, I do suffer from a debilitating disease where I'm unable to shut the f*** up.
They Hate to See a Girlboss Winning
As usual, we begin with the most serious and pressing question:
Emily: What's the girlboss-iest thing you've ever done?
Sandra: If you told me a year ago I would need a portable second monitor to get any work done when I’m away from my standard second monitor, I would not have believed you. So I would say ordering that monitor.
Mine was starting a Substack.
All the Cool Kids are Striving for Job Security
After consulting with E4P’s resident economist, I can say with confidence that I would have failed any math course past Intro to Logic that I tried to take in college. But also, there are signs in labor force trends that leading-edge Gen Zs (your 20 to 24-year-old friends) are participating more in the economy: after a downtrend in the cohort’s participation rate in the workforce for 20 years, the numbers stabilized when Gen Z entered and even picked up right before Covid, that bitch.
My first thought was this creates the potential for a 9-to-5 reboot starring Zendaya and whoever else she wants (fingers crossed). But it also just means a lot of us are actually working from 9 to 5. I asked Sandra:
Emily: What is the reality (or the realities) of being a member of Gen Z in the workforce?
Sandra: I’m not sure if this is just my experience as someone who was in an undergraduate business school program, but there is so much hype and drama about getting a job before you graduate that nobody really talks about what it’s like to actually work a job.
Going from college to the workforce is a huge transition, even outside of a global pandemic. In college, you have an established network, support system, and baseline knowledge of how to do “school.” When you start a new job, you essentially have to build up that comfort and confidence from the ground up and it can be challenging especially when you have moments where you realize that you have no idea what you’re doing.
There’s a sort of realization point that I think all new grads experience when they wake up for work and they’re like, “Do I really have to do this every day for the next 50 years?” And it’s depressing, at least it was for me, because the answer is yes for a majority of people.
It’s certainly an interesting time to start working when there are so many reports of others saying that’s no longer the vibe. As we enter the period so creatively titled the Great Resignation, there’s a lot of misconceptions about what it actually is and who is actually resigning (hint: it’s not Gen Z).
The general je ne sais quoi of the Great Resignation is that members of the workforce are all having a moment of enlightenment and leaving their soul-sucking jobs to find true fulfillment hiking the Pacific Coast or creating skirts for cats. It’s fun to imagine 4 million people of all ages having their own (500) Days of Summer moment —a monologue which I absolutely crushed in my 9th-grade acting class— and setting out to pursue their dreams. But in actuality, the Great Resignation is just a lot of 30 to 45-year-olds seeking out positions that are better suited for their ideal lifestyle, an image that is marginally less exhilarating.1
Combining these expectations and realities into one question, I asked Sandra:
Emily: Do you think the Great Resignation is actually a kind of loop in which people move from one job to the next in an attempt to feel fulfilled?
Sandra: I’m very pro quitting your job if it is not serving you. There are some conditions of course, such as having another job lined up or having savings to coast for a few months, but for the most part if your job is making you miserable and you don’t have to be doing it, don’t do it.
However, before quitting your job I would implore you to think critically about what exactly is making you so unhappy. If it’s just that you don’t like to be exploited for your labor under a system that ties your worth to your productivity, I hate to break it to you, but you can’t out-run capitalism.
But if you think that there is work out there that brings you more joy or helps more people, go for it. I’m very proud of people who are able to recognize that their work environment might not be the best for their mental or physical health and that you have options to change your situation.
Adam Smith is Quaking in His Buckle Loafers
Keeping in the general vein of seeking fulfillment in employment, there is a stance members of Gen Z are adopting and projecting onto others (including their own generational brethren): the idea that your job should align entirely with your morals, and if it doesn’t, you’re a capitalist robot sell-out with no mind of your own and unfunny tweets.
This superiority complex largely comes from Gen Z’s increasing aversion to capitalism: an AXIOS poll from June of last year found that “among adults in Gen Z (ages 18-24), perceptions of capitalism are truly underwater: 42% have a positive view and 54% have a negative view.”
A 2018 Gallup poll found that the majority of Americans ages 18-29—no matter their party affiliation—had a positive view of socialism. Americans in that age group were also far less likely than other age groups to view capitalism favorably. When VICE surveyed a group of its Gen Z readers in 2019, six in 10 predicted that the wealth gap would worsen in the next decade; 20 percent believed the United States would pivot to socialism by that point; and 57 percent identified socialism as an economic solution that would help combat violence against marginalized people. (x)
Don’t get me wrong: there is no shortage of critiques for a system built from a Scotsman reclining back in a lawn chair with a glass of lemonade and murmuring, “Laissez-faire,” which is how I personally envision Adam Smith coming up with modern capitalist theory. I know it’s currently en vogue to hate on capitalism which is fair because capitalism, like Covid, is a bitch. But one of the critiques should not be of others who take jobs to make money within our economy.
I asked Sandra:
Emily: You've previously told me that choosing to opt-out of capitalism means you have privilege. Can you explain what you mean by that?
Sandra: At the risk of sounding like a Boomer and/or Republican, I think it’s common these days to look down on young people who chose to go the typical corporate route.
That’s not me saying that “business school kids are a marginalized group,” but more so that in the year 2022 when so many young people have their eyes open to the systems of oppression that capitalism encourages and upholds, it honestly feels kind of lame to take a corporate job at a company that is probably lobbying for policies that go against your values.
And I agree: most if not all big corporations are absolutely doing unsavory things in the background. But my response is and will always be that I have to have a job because nobody is paying my rent for me.
From my experience, if you are able to look down on your peers who took not-ethical but well-paying jobs, it is because you are either being financially supported by someone else or know that sometime in your future you will be inheriting money.
I absolutely think all jobs should be paid a living wage and that in an ideal world, you should be able to work where your passions lie. But that’s just not possible in the reality of the United States of America in this day and age.
Emily: How has the girlboss-ification of capitalism shaped (or misshapen) the way Gen Z views the workforce?
Sandra: I think for a lot of us, the Great Recession was one of our first major memories. I may not have known what the stock market was, but it was pretty evident that the vibes in 2008 and 2009 were absolutely rancid.
Then in the following years, Gen Z witnessed thousands of people get sucked into the promise of “having it all” through scammy MLMs (no girlie, I don’t want to buy your fizzy sticks and become part of your downline!!). So now that we’re entering the workforce in one of the most unequal periods of time in human history, I don’t know how we’re supposed to view as anything other than “any (wo)man for themselves.”
We’ve pivoted to a culture of owning your career and having a broad range of side hustles, which in my opinion obfuscates the fact that it’s literally insane to need to have several jobs to sustain yourself and your family.
Fun fact about me: one of my side hustles is setting my cashback rewards to “Online Shopping” so that I get free money for every ASOS order. On second thought, this is the girlboss-iest thing I’ve ever done.
While it’s admirable and desirable to chase your dreams or pursue your passions or whatever cliche you want to spice in next, the E4P Hard Truth of the Day is that people need to have some form of income in order to live. It’s exactly as Jane Austen’s real-life mother told her in this real-life documentary trailer around 1:28 (ignore the Miramax logo and Anne Hathway’s unnecessary perm). It’s also exactly as my real-life father told me in my real life, which is that you do what you have to do (work) before you do what you want to do (shop on ASOS and write E4P).
Just because you participate in capitalism or work in a role that has come to symbolize capitalism2 doesn’t mean you’re Jeff Bezos flying a penis plane ten feet above the atmosphere while your employees are arguably suffering. Shockingly, there is a difference between these two things.
I asked Sandra:
Emily: In your opinion, what is the ideal relationship between morality and employment? How much of your beliefs are too much to sacrifice in favor of a job?
Sandra: This is a tough one, and I will not pretend that my following answer has not been influenced by the fact that a stranger in an artichoke pizza place hurt my feelings when he told me that my job and I add 0 value to society.
I wish it was as clear cut as morality/ethics/beliefs and friendships because you can choose who you want to spend time with. I didn’t choose to not be born into an uber-rich family, so as a result I do have to have a job to sustain myself. I think you just have to draw your own personal line in the sand of “what is a moral job to have” and 1) don’t cross it and 2) live with the shit you may get for making that choice.
When that stranger told me that I’m not adding value to society and that the company I work for is bad, I didn’t want to disagree with him because he was making that statement based on his own moral compass. I also didn’t want to come across as a huge asshole.
Dare I say it: today’s E4P Hot Take is that the stranger in this story, like Avril Lavigne and the friends in the hit classic Sk8r Boi, is the huge asshole.
What a Way to Make a Living!!!!!
There are so many more conversations we can have about Gen Z in the workforce, like how to stop burning out, the myth of a work-life balance, and why there’s so much pressure to get advanced degrees we’re hot, funny, and very good at whatever our jobs are.
But to close out this specific conversation, I’ll say this: there is never going to be a perfect job, no matter how much I love mine or you love yours. There will never be a perfect job because there will never be perfect anything, except for the perfect day which is one where you recline back in a lawn chair with a glass of lemonade and murmur, “Laissez-faire.”
Ultimately, I asked Sandra:
Emily: Are you happy at or with your job? Why or why not?
Sandra: Although my work laptop Skype pings may indicate otherwise, I actually really do like my job. I work remotely, and I realize how much of a privilege it is to be able to sit at home with my two screens and ergonomic chair when people in healthcare or service jobs don’t have that luxury.
I also love my company specifically because although they do the sort of cheesy virtue signaling that all companies do these days, they are really invested in having discussions and getting feedback on the work they are doing around all aspects of diversity, equity, and inclusion. And as someone who always feels the need to say something when I have an opinion or a strong feeling, it feels good to work with people who value that mindset (#ad #sponsored). So yes I’m happy at my job— but that’s because it aligns with what I consider to be important for me to have in a work environment.
I’m hoping that in the future, young people are able to reframe their relationships to work because there are so many different ways to define being “happy” with your job. Some people love their jobs because it gives them not just money but time to pursue their hobbies on the side. Other people love their jobs because they can see the difference they are making in their line of work.
It’s all personal, so my advice is to differentiate what you want out of life versus what you want out of a job.
Thank you to Sandra for once again texting me a *brilliant stream of consciousness and for always being game to answer my questions!!!!! Thank you as well to my dad for understanding economics so that I don’t have to and then also for explaining them in a way I can comprehend!!!
Resignations actually decreased amongst the Gen Z cohort because, as I said, all the cool kids are striving for job security.
Sandra is an analyst at a consulting firm.