You've probably seen this piece: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/10/nyregion/elizabeth-wurtzel-gen-x.html It's not only or primarily the slacking; it's hitting the wall over and over and not finding an in. No one can afford slacking in Toronto with 2020s rents. We are working multiple jobs and still not getting anywhere, and slowly getting too old for both the stupid and the less stupid jobs. A lot of us will still be applying for p-t jobs into our fifties to keep the "creative", meaningful, badly paid practice alive. A lot of us have no idea what a weekend is.
I hadn't seen this so thank you. Elizabeth Wurtzel is high on my list of people to talk about here. And I agree with you; one of the remarkable things about the 90s -- and I tried to flick at that in my previous post -- was how little it bothered us that the job market sucked.
Hmmm...not sure I'm with you on this one. While the Slacker tag was definitely off, I don't know that GenX thought The System was the issue. I don't think many questioned The System's right to exist or whatever. More that GenX realized they were an afterthought within it and, like always, would have to figure out how to function within it on their own. Latch key generation goes to work, if you will.
Maybe. It's not about the system's right to exist, it is about the price of working in it. Corporate Rock Magazines Still Suck and all that. Let's pick this up after the next post. :)
For millennials, I’d resurrect the old Soviet job about employers: “They pretend to pay us, and we pretend to work.” Of course, millennials are paid but the sense of opportunities and doing-somethingness has vanished or eroded significantly.
For Gen X, it was more “let’s stop pretending”.
I think you’re basically right; you used to hear “oh, he’s sold out” all the time. I don’t think that’s in currency anymore as best I can tell. It’s more there’s no opportunity to do so that creates the lazy girl phenomenon.
You've probably seen this piece: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/10/nyregion/elizabeth-wurtzel-gen-x.html It's not only or primarily the slacking; it's hitting the wall over and over and not finding an in. No one can afford slacking in Toronto with 2020s rents. We are working multiple jobs and still not getting anywhere, and slowly getting too old for both the stupid and the less stupid jobs. A lot of us will still be applying for p-t jobs into our fifties to keep the "creative", meaningful, badly paid practice alive. A lot of us have no idea what a weekend is.
I hadn't seen this so thank you. Elizabeth Wurtzel is high on my list of people to talk about here. And I agree with you; one of the remarkable things about the 90s -- and I tried to flick at that in my previous post -- was how little it bothered us that the job market sucked.
Hmmm...not sure I'm with you on this one. While the Slacker tag was definitely off, I don't know that GenX thought The System was the issue. I don't think many questioned The System's right to exist or whatever. More that GenX realized they were an afterthought within it and, like always, would have to figure out how to function within it on their own. Latch key generation goes to work, if you will.
Maybe. It's not about the system's right to exist, it is about the price of working in it. Corporate Rock Magazines Still Suck and all that. Let's pick this up after the next post. :)
For millennials, I’d resurrect the old Soviet job about employers: “They pretend to pay us, and we pretend to work.” Of course, millennials are paid but the sense of opportunities and doing-somethingness has vanished or eroded significantly.
For Gen X, it was more “let’s stop pretending”.
I think you’re basically right; you used to hear “oh, he’s sold out” all the time. I don’t think that’s in currency anymore as best I can tell. It’s more there’s no opportunity to do so that creates the lazy girl phenomenon.