Why Millennials Don’t Want to Work For You
In short, we can’t afford to.
Millennials are kinda broke. Millions of us bet our futures on dreams sold by the U.S. News Best Colleges list. We are in debt not only from educational endeavors, but weddings, child-bearing, and major life events every human being should be able to experience without making significant sacrifices. Those who are free of degrees can’t escape the hands of capitalism either, which often only rewards those who are willing to play the game. College graduates regardless of generation are doing better than those with less education.
Even so, the weight of all those expensive textbooks is not enough for most of us to break through the glass ceiling. With the growing influence of social media, more millennials are seeking out creative and lucrative opportunities outside of the traditional 9–5.
Millennials are the first generation to be poorer than our parents.
That new house you expect us to buy — forget it. Many of us cannot even afford to live in an apartment without roommates. This is not because we are lazy, it’s simply economics.
This may sound like it’s not that big of a deal, but it’s infuriating.
How can we take your $40,000 salary seriously when it’s not enough to shelter ourselves, support our health, start a family, and build generational wealth? And perhaps I’m just singing the non-profit blues, but the receipts also show that Millennials prefer to do work with meaning.
You may think we’re lazy, but we’re not. The stress is much more real these days than when Boomers could start at a company and stay for 28 years before heading on their way with a healthy retirement package. Not to mention, this era is one in which we are constantly digitally exposed to the reality of the world, bringing up more trauma than we even knew we had. Dealing with the effects of climate change, a pandemic, enduring racial injustices…means that our fight never ends. We are also fighting for your right to age in dignity and concerning ourselves with global issues that other generations didn’t have to learn or care about when they were our age.
And no, we don’t want cookies…we want respect (preferably in the form of cash).
Take us seriously when we are asking for time off and more money — these are especially challenging times for single Millennials who don’t have a partner to split bills with. Being tired and stressed out at home impacts the quality of our work. So, if you see us zoned out at…
Sorry, we may have been up all night thinking about the money we don’t have to get the housing we need, get our cars repaired, cover health expenses, etc.
Is the point of a job to give 40 hours of your week to a faceless “hero” who doesn’t care that you have to choose between a student loan payment and a month of groceries? And I’m not talking about ordering Grubhub every night but actually doing proper grocery shopping. The cost of living is sky-high compared to salaries and morale is at an all-time low. How can we take care of our aging parents when we still need them to take care of us?
The only way to live the lives we deserve is to take advantage of the information and skill-building available to us on the internet and figure out how to work for ourselves. As distressing as social media can be, it’s now the gateway to financial freedom. Much of the information we paid for in college has lost its value, but the financial advice you didn’t give us, we can now access for free on YouTube. And thank goodness for it.
Bottom line: we don’t want to hand you our best years for peanuts, and with the tools we have today, it won’t be long before we don’t have to.
