Gen Y Should Die
May 24th 2009 08:57
Yesterday, QWeekend magazine, Brisbane's Courier Mail Saturday supplement, profiled under the heading 'ordinary people' (all lower case), a 24 year old Gen Y greeting card designer/entrepreneur who chucked in her grad job as a junior graphic designer on a 'ridiculously low wage' where she had to 'do overtime for no money'. As you get sucked into this sick phenomenon of portraying mega successful, tech savvy, materialist, entrepreneur/already a manager Gen Y branded humans in their twenties, a sense of failure, panic, and futility is injected through the page to sink your own dreams and self worth.
Now, I might be partly jealous of this woman, six years younger than me who actually started her own business and is sticking with it (unlike myself who has let naysayers and temporary setbacks depress me back to any old nine to five) but she is no ordinary 24 year old. Chucking the towel in of a job to pursue a business idea or creative project without many years of relevant work experience may be fantasised about but it is certainly not typical. I've done it so many times that my resume looks a bit like Rod Stewart's sexual history and can testify that relatives, friends and the person who makes your coffee will freak out and make disapproving remarks like "you've got no worth ethic" and "you're living in a fantasy world". Settled, rising up the Telstra/government/bank call-centre-operator-to-team- leader types, on good money although their job has no relevance to university degree, will cast disproval and spend half an hour explaining how they'd love to do the same but couldn’t possibly afford it and how locked into their (more responsible than job quitter’s) commitments they are. The doleys who are either stoners or think-they're-depressives-but -really-indulging-in-victimho od under the guise of being "spiritual" types will congratulate you for listening to your higher self and proclaim how superior you both are as artists instead of one of those soulless corporate whores although when you arrange to meet up with them in your new weekday free time to do some creative brainstorming, you receive a last minute text apologising as some horrid headache and nausea has left them unable to leave the house that day. And the day after that.
Now don't get me wrong, I think that there are tendencies for Gen Y to act in a certain manner. At the beginning of Gen Y and heavily influenced by Gen X, I feel my peers are far less materialistic than our 20 year old siblings. We got the benefit of Gen X grunge and hip hop and leftist politics and therefore consider ourselves 'deep' and low bling. (Although maybe inherited some of X's negative, dissenting attitude). Yet we embrace the job-fitting-into-my-lifestyle not the other way around trademark of Gen Y. But this is not necessarily all a narcissistic and adolescent mindset. The fact is there's no longer any loyalty from the big corporations. A person who is the boss's friend may get a promotion over someone who has been there for forty years. There's no such thing as a job for life these days. And this is as true for fifty year olds retrenched after thirty years of service as it is for grads subject to FIFO (first in first out) cutbacks.
The 'ordinary' and more common way for an average person to progress in the workforce is not by starting up their own company and becoming an overnight success but a combination of good old fashioned show up to work and do the job ethics and mastering the play the game politics. And playing the game is where life isn't fair in the jungle.
For instance, some large organisations subconsciously practice of 'zero content management' whereby pleb staff work their butts off and management receive the recognition. A certain Queensland government call centre of 18 staff boasts 8 contact managers. This top heavy model allows the players to be a manager without having to take great responsibility.
Ten years ago, the media was high on Gen X overachievers. Golden Australian entrepreneur Poppy King started her lipstick empire at aged 18 (yes, she did have an uncle who manufactured it for her but still lugged her samples around town in her first suit all by herself). If you believed the magazine features, everyone who mixed a few nail polish colours together was an overnight millionaire. Of course, the pressures of success weren't discussed except as a shocking revelation of the former darling's downfall such as Poppy King's nervous breakdown at age 23.
The QWeekend article is more realistic than the 'young success' profiles of the 1990s in the sense the subject admits she isn't turning a profit yet and freelancers to pay the bills. So, without disrespect for the obviously talented and passionate subject in QWeekend's profile, what responsible media outlet could portray someone who rises at 6.30 am and worked until midnight as "ordinary"? What sort of message is that to truly ordinary 24 year olds and anyone of any age who is not physically and mentally capable of an eighteen hour day and a life? I think a more realistic portrait of an 'ordinary' 24 year old would be one working in a job and also taking steps towards a career but ultimately prioritize their personal life and enjoying being young over being a 'success'.
Now, I might be partly jealous of this woman, six years younger than me who actually started her own business and is sticking with it (unlike myself who has let naysayers and temporary setbacks depress me back to any old nine to five) but she is no ordinary 24 year old. Chucking the towel in of a job to pursue a business idea or creative project without many years of relevant work experience may be fantasised about but it is certainly not typical. I've done it so many times that my resume looks a bit like Rod Stewart's sexual history and can testify that relatives, friends and the person who makes your coffee will freak out and make disapproving remarks like "you've got no worth ethic" and "you're living in a fantasy world". Settled, rising up the Telstra/government/bank call-centre-operator-to-team- leader types, on good money although their job has no relevance to university degree, will cast disproval and spend half an hour explaining how they'd love to do the same but couldn’t possibly afford it and how locked into their (more responsible than job quitter’s) commitments they are. The doleys who are either stoners or think-they're-depressives-but -really-indulging-in-victimho od under the guise of being "spiritual" types will congratulate you for listening to your higher self and proclaim how superior you both are as artists instead of one of those soulless corporate whores although when you arrange to meet up with them in your new weekday free time to do some creative brainstorming, you receive a last minute text apologising as some horrid headache and nausea has left them unable to leave the house that day. And the day after that.
Now don't get me wrong, I think that there are tendencies for Gen Y to act in a certain manner. At the beginning of Gen Y and heavily influenced by Gen X, I feel my peers are far less materialistic than our 20 year old siblings. We got the benefit of Gen X grunge and hip hop and leftist politics and therefore consider ourselves 'deep' and low bling. (Although maybe inherited some of X's negative, dissenting attitude). Yet we embrace the job-fitting-into-my-lifestyle not the other way around trademark of Gen Y. But this is not necessarily all a narcissistic and adolescent mindset. The fact is there's no longer any loyalty from the big corporations. A person who is the boss's friend may get a promotion over someone who has been there for forty years. There's no such thing as a job for life these days. And this is as true for fifty year olds retrenched after thirty years of service as it is for grads subject to FIFO (first in first out) cutbacks.
The 'ordinary' and more common way for an average person to progress in the workforce is not by starting up their own company and becoming an overnight success but a combination of good old fashioned show up to work and do the job ethics and mastering the play the game politics. And playing the game is where life isn't fair in the jungle.
For instance, some large organisations subconsciously practice of 'zero content management' whereby pleb staff work their butts off and management receive the recognition. A certain Queensland government call centre of 18 staff boasts 8 contact managers. This top heavy model allows the players to be a manager without having to take great responsibility.
Ten years ago, the media was high on Gen X overachievers. Golden Australian entrepreneur Poppy King started her lipstick empire at aged 18 (yes, she did have an uncle who manufactured it for her but still lugged her samples around town in her first suit all by herself). If you believed the magazine features, everyone who mixed a few nail polish colours together was an overnight millionaire. Of course, the pressures of success weren't discussed except as a shocking revelation of the former darling's downfall such as Poppy King's nervous breakdown at age 23.
The QWeekend article is more realistic than the 'young success' profiles of the 1990s in the sense the subject admits she isn't turning a profit yet and freelancers to pay the bills. So, without disrespect for the obviously talented and passionate subject in QWeekend's profile, what responsible media outlet could portray someone who rises at 6.30 am and worked until midnight as "ordinary"? What sort of message is that to truly ordinary 24 year olds and anyone of any age who is not physically and mentally capable of an eighteen hour day and a life? I think a more realistic portrait of an 'ordinary' 24 year old would be one working in a job and also taking steps towards a career but ultimately prioritize their personal life and enjoying being young over being a 'success'.
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