Move over Millennials, Gen Z is coming for you

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 02/11/2021 (1791 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Forget, OK, Boomer. Looks like we’re fast approaching the OK, Millennial era.

Last week, the New York Times published a viral piece headlined “The 37-Year-Olds Are Afraid of the 23-Year-Olds Who Work for Them,” about the generational divides that are emerging in corporate workplaces, particularly between millennials and members of Generation Z , who are coming for millennials’ skinny jeans and laugh-cry emojis (which this millennial will use until she is dust, thanks so much).

This generational anxiety crops up from time to time, but this is just how the passage of time works. One day you are the office Young Person and then eventually you are no longer the office Young Person, and you know what? It’s fine. It’s relaxing, even. Worrying about being cool is a young-person’s game, mostly because older people no longer care (or, more accurately, are too tired to keep up). Eventually, Generation Alpha will eyeroll Gen Z’s love of TikTok and mom jeans. Plus ça change.

I am an Elder Millennial, born between 1981 and 1985 — the cohort formerly known as Xennial, or Generation Y or, as of this year, “Geriatric Millennial.” (I used to loathe this term but my near-nightly ibuprofen intake suggests that maybe there’s some accuracy, here.) Which is to say, I have lived through many — too many — newscycles about how none of us will ever own real estate because of all that avocado toast we put away, or how we’re the snowflake participation-ribbon generation when, in reality, we’re the hustle-burnout generation or, as I like to call it, the gifted-child-to-anxious-perfectionist-pipeline generation.

The eldest Elder Millennials turn 40 this year. News media has finally become hip to the fact that “millennial” is not a synonym for “young person,” so now it’s Generation Z’s turn to be the target demographic for “kids these days” articles. Though, I will add that the pace millennials went from being called entitled babies to ‘geriatric’ has been nothing short of breathtaking.

The Daily Mail put a finer point on it: “Gen Z workers are terrifying millennial bosses with woke demands: Junior at vibrator startup called boss on weekend to demand BLM support while others assign tasks to their bosses, and demand PTO for ‘anxiety.’”

I don’t know, that sounds… good? Are millennial bosses really “terrified” by this? I’m not a manager, but I, for one, welcome our new Gen Z overlords.

Setting aside emojis for a minute, the NYT article was really about the boldness with which Gen Z workers — Generation Z being those born between 1997 and 2021 — ask for what they want, and for how they are rejecting the unfortunate precedents millennials have set when it comes to work culture.

Millennials largely entered the workforce during the 2008 financial crisis, and powered the rise of the gig economy and hustle culture. We were told, growing up, that we could be anything and do anything — and yet, “burned-out, disillusioned husk” wasn’t on any career fair table. Many millennials traded in work-life balance for a poor fascimile of it — catered lunches and free snacks in the break room — so they could keep working because who are you, as a person, if not a worker?

So, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that Gen Z took a look at all that and said, “wow, hard pass” and are now pushing for their workplaces to think more inclusively, to question the way things have been done in the past, to advocate for balance and boundaries.

Millennials are starting to move into positions of power at work. They are not doomed to replicate the very structures and hierarchies that all but ensured their own burnout, not if they don’t want to be. They could, with Gen Z’s help, reimagine work — so long as they don’t fall into the traps of “in my day” arguments and “get off my lawn” logic. Be the elders you wish to see in the world.

jen.zoratti@winnipegfreepress.com

Twitter: @JenZoratti