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The soft life: why millennials are quitting the rat race
(www.theguardian.com)
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this post was submitted on 02 Apr 2024
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Once again this X-er is cheering for how aware Millennials and Zoomers seem to be compared to how oblivious I was through my first several decades. Trying to figure out a (non-catastrophic) way out of the rat race myself.
Speaking as a child of the late 1970s, this was my experience. We had nobody to look at or talk with this about, it was just Boomers being Boomers and pretending that 1995 was no different than 1975. They really just expected us to hustle and get ahead, when THEY WERE THE ONLY GENERATION IN HISTORY THAT THIS WORKED FOR. It took the 2000 and 2008 crashes before people could actually speak about it.
Make no mistake: the world is now a better place BECAUSE people are talking about this.
They didn't even hustle. Boomers grew up in basically the only industrialized country that hadn't been bombed to fuck. Good jobs fell into their laps.
Well said.
Thank you for giving voice to years of frustration from feeling like I was screaming into the void.
Not sure where you grew up but the suburban midwest was/is a nightmare for thinking, rational, empathetic humans.
Suburban south Puget Sound. It's filled with angry alcoholics who never had a life or a real chance and just vote Republican.
I now am in a nice apartment in one of them there anarchic cities of whatever they were called during Lockdown, working for a university and living a life that my family hates.
I miss Seattle. For 9 years I finally got to feel sane.
Moved back to the midwest for good reasons but believe me we're getting back out as soon as we can.
You really described it well:
And no amount of reason or logic will get them to believe they're being duped.
Worse: they have been trained to act in their own disinterest, dressing it up in terms like "personal responsibility". They are basically the monkeys dancing by the organ grinder.
My job is cozy and not too stressful. Its a shame I will have to quit in a few years once inflation catches up again. I'd stick around if wages stay livable but that's a strech.
Still living paycheck to paycheck but it seems best I can do. Worse, im afraid if getting pushed up to the bosses seat. Im not trying to move up unless its life changing money. I don't know the pay, but I dealt with being on call before and that was hell. Last thing I need is to burn out , I don't know if I can live through that again.
yeah I hate the bs of trying to push management stuff on ya when its not part of the job you signed up on. Certainly aint doing it without a hefty pay increase. Why do all the bootstraps folks not want to pay for anything. I mean I know why. They did not get rich by writing checks.
That's when you say yes, pad your resume, and the find an actual managerial job with the extra pay. Think of it is free training, but only take it if you either want it or plan to leave.
training. lol.
I may do it if the pay is impressive but seems the intention is to move me up. I dont even know if I can actually pull off the job without looking like a clown.
thats like all jobs really. at least in tech. go from feeling like an unstoppable god to being the biggest fool that ever failed to fool a fool.
Potentially to sysadmin for the building, from being just the tech guy that kinda stagnated. Not much I been learning on the job other than the setup. I don't know if I could even manage to land it though.
Over an entire life worth of experience difference between me and the boss.
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Holy crap, man.
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It's hard to think about and plan for because it is vaguely in the future, be it tomorrow or a few years from now. Nothing is in stone yet, I just know it will happen eventually and I got to figure out some plans. Who knows, the pay could just not be worth it, or they just say no. The low stress I got now is amazing and that's going to be hard to let go of.
It feels like its the first "adult" job where I go to an office and do boring office stuff instead of literally running 3 peoples worth of calls. I do 0-6 tickets instead of 30-100. I basically am doing a 10th of the work at twice the pay of the last job. That's jarring enough on its own.
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Thanks.
I found my "level" and just stayed there. Am comfortable and don't have to hustle. I could do or earn more, but I don't think it would be worth it to my life.
I'm afraid I'm going to get pushed forward just to make ends meet, get stressed, and become miserable again.
I suffered through decades of poverty. Managed to get through a bachelors and then a masters, and now work in a comfortable position that I enjoy. Sadly, you have to get to that masters level to really get ahead and that, for the most part, is only available to the children of upper middle class parents. Either you need to force your way through it or just get by for life.
Military service is another "fantastic" way to get higher education
wasn't the Xer stereotype a slacker that did not really run the race?
This is because the parents of Boomers invested in their children but Boomers did not invest in their children. We were shat out and expected to get a job and "just do it" without support.
Xers tend to have the silent generation as parents unless they are younger ones. 20 years seperates generations which is getting to the time when folks have kids and boomers were the first to start putting it off till more like 30 than 20.
Boomers produced a great number of Millenials even though the majority surely came from Gen X.
basically X started in the 60's so if they were impregnated before 80 it was likely illegal. Im sure though that plenty of older Xers had kids in their 20's though.
Yeah, but that stereotype was only because we didn't have families or places of our own to take care of yet. We got older and almost all of us (not me, tho) joined the race alongside everyone else.
Yep, but it's been pretty hard to exist while also remaining true to that ethos. Never been a ladder climber, but I have a corporate job working for a good boss at a good company that still sucks my soul away.
Recently I've realized I'm old enough that the end of the road doesn't feel so far away as it once did. Would be good to be able to just enjoy my family, but there's the little problem of being able to afford to live during retirement. :)
im there and even feel I do a good days work with my job but I work at my pace and at my current compensation 40 hours and no more.
This is why I work in public sector, with a solid retirement plan, and put in an additional 15% into retirement. I'm not making the big bucks now but am saving them for later.
As those people have gotten older, that has seemed more and more aspirational than the reality.
Gen X and you’ve never heard of Slackers?
Bruh.
Not sure where you are getting that from. It was a movie, not a blueprint for my life. :)
IME even the folks I knew who fully fit that stereotype were still not as aware as what I am seeing from Millenials and Z today. (some were I'm sure)