The Canary in Corporate America’s Coal Mine
or, Why You Need to Listen to Us “Millennials”
I knew from the beginning that I would never climb the corporate ladder. The concept of grinding your life away in a cubicle seemed so anachronistic to what I felt a good life entailed that it never even crossed my mind that I would ever find myself in that situation.
… I am currently typing this inside of a cubicle planted in a corner of one of these giant corporations.
Now, the reason I am here is because of a common story we hear from my generation — saddled with debt, unable to find work, we’re forced to jump into the first job opportunity that presents itself. In my case, I had a decent paying job as a mechanical engineer at a small design firm, but after two years of doing work that I soon realized I didn’t love (something that I was probably aware of but unwilling to acknowledge for fear of having to admit that I wasted a lot of time and money in college), I decided to take a leap of faith and try my hand at entrepreneurship.
As you can probably guess, I didn’t have much luck in that arena. Long story short, after having been involved in a startup and trying out various business ideas, I ran out of money and ended up in the last place I expected to — the dreaded cubicle farm.
I’m sure that there are others who have similar stories and are currently in the same position I am. But here’s the point I want to make — while we sit here, slaving away like a pointless gear in a Rube Goldberg contraption, we are secretly devising ways to get out of this antiquated environment and into one that actually places value on something more than the bottom line.
We see it time and again — the most successful companies, the ones that are household names and who are continually lauded by their customers — are the ones who place their focus on people, not on profits. When you actually give a shit about your customers and — I would argue, even more so — about your employees, you will never have to worry about your bottom line. Your company will be so beloved that your employees will actively strive to do good work, quality talent will flock to you, and your customers will stay loyal even when your product or service isn’t perfect.
We have entered an era where the experience that a company provides is just as important as their offerings. And my generation, well, we value that. We see where the future of work is headed, and we’re unwilling to stick around in the hopes that these massive, lumbering corporations figure it out. A warning to the leaders of these companies: money is no longer enough to keep people. If you want to maximize the likelihood of your company surviving the next decade, you may just want to reconsider how you treat your employees. Take a look at what others are doing. Consider a new way of thinking.
As for me, I hope to become a catalyst for this change. As someone who is very familiar with the feelings of frustration and futility that accompany doing work that isn’t fulfilling, I want to dedicate my career to helping organizations figure out how to do just that. Help them create the type of culture that will enable their people to love their work. Make possible the type of memorable experiences that are worth spending a third of your life on.
In the meantime, I’ll keep chugging right along, expanding my knowledge and building on my skills and keeping an eye out for that inevitable opportunity that will allow me to escape this cave before the proverbial canary croaks.
