WORK LIFE BALANCE
Boomers: Worked. Gen X: Irked. Millennials: Shirked.
I can’t wait to see what Generation Alpha does!
My dad worked for the same company almost my whole life until he retired. Yes, he was actually able to retire — even though he was always an hourly blue-collar employee — because he is a Boomer.
It wasn’t a bad deal. He worked his ass off, the company paid him for every hour he was there, and he was eventually able to retire. True, there was a highly contentious 1976 strike that I will never forget, but for the most part both sides got what they needed from each other.
I’m an older Gen X (I missed Boomerhood by just a few years) and I got the message: You need to work your ass off and show some loyalty, but you will be rewarded for it.
I got the wrong message.
I worked my ass off and didn’t protect my personal time at all, which I started thinking about when I read Toni Crowe’s excellent piece, Companies Are Having a Hella Time Getting Younger Generations to Work Unpaid Overtime.
She notes that millennials refuse to make themselves available to their employers during their time off, and I’ve noticed the same thing. The work ethic of the younger generation is markedly different…
