MARISSA BURR
Opinion Editor
I’m sure we’ve all heard it from a Boomer or Gen X spouting off at the mouth once again about something they know nothing about: “Nobody wants to work anymore.”
Of course, the nobody that they’re referring to is usually those of the younger generations, Millennials and Gen Z. They are using the constant short-staffed businesses and endless job postings as evidence for their claim, but if they tried to back it up by actually interviewing those younger than them, they would not have much of a leg to stand on. Why?
Because we as young people do want to work, we’re just no longer accepting crap working conditions or holding out hope for lazy employers to call us back.
Don’t believe me?
Let me tell you about the lives of three young roommates who have been struggling to make ends meet since 2021 despite wanting nothing more than to work and make money.
Their names are changed in these completely factual retellings in order to not face backlash from any employers — because yes, that is something that can happen.
We’ll start with Margot.
At 18, Margot ended up in a big city for college and was attending classes full-time, which meant 18 credit hours a semester.
Because dorming was too expensive, Margot was living in an off-campus apartment with her two close friends.
Due to her class schedule, she had scattered availability but still plenty of time to be able to fit in a part-time job if her employer could work with her.
Unfortunately, said employer decided to take advantage of Margot and give her the shift that no one else wanted: Opening at 5:00 in the morning.
This may not have been so bad if not for the fact that Margot didn’t have a license or a car and lived a half-hour’s walk away.
Her employer knew this and still thought it was a good idea for a young woman to walk alone in the dark every morning for 30 minutes through the East Side of Buffalo.
The public transportation systems didn’t even run at that time. In the seven months she worked there, she was harassed by multiple men that were prowling in the early hours when they knew people would be vulnerable.
Eventually, it became too dangerous for her to be walking by herself, so she had to resign. It wasn’t that Margot didn’t want to work, but she didn’t want to continue being petrified of being kidnapped or assaulted.
Next, let’s talk about Katie.
She actually had a pretty nice job in the local mall and enjoyed working there.
It was customer service, so not the most rewarding of positions, but she didn’t mind. For her, management was the problem.
Her store manager hated call-offs, even for sickness—despite this being late 2020 and early 2021—because God forbid she had to come out of the office and actually do her job.
This same manager had even told Katie that no one actually had food poisoning when they said they did.
Instead, the manager insisted that if these employees were really sick, they wouldn’t have been able to pick up the phone (which would have meant no-calling no-showing, something that the manager also looked down upon).
Well, Katie was a dedicated employee who, despite being in college full-time, worked 30 hours a week and was soon promoted to a sales lead position.
One night, when she was the manager on duty, she passed out in the back room from pain due to a cyst the size of an orange holding residence in her side.
She wasn’t found for at least 20 minutes according to coworkers, and emergency services had to come to bring her to the hospital on a stretcher.
Management was pissed when they heard about this because that meant someone else had to come in to close the store.
While admitted to the hospital overnight, the only messages Katie received from her managerial team were ones asking when she was coming back because she was supposed to work the next day.
A good friend of hers, who was the assistant manager, told her she “really screwed them over” by going into the hospital.
Katie quit while still hooked up to an IV and never looked back.
She had been the most dedicated worker there, but in the end, she was nothing more than an employee to them.
Katie put up with a lot of abuse from her superiors in the workplace, but completely disregarding her health has never been something she just ignored.
Finally, we’ll talk about Lucas.
He did everything right, and graduated in 2023 with two different bachelor’s degrees in his field.
Immediately, he started applying for jobs and going on interviews.
From most, he got absolutely nothing back, not even a response that said they’d received his application.
Some got back to him and scheduled an interview, but ultimately decided on someone with “more experience.”
How can someone earn experience if no one takes a chance on a graduate?
He had student-taught in two different schools and observed in half a dozen others.
He was more qualified than most of the other candidates he had gone up against, but no dice.
A few schools had him do a mock-lesson and gave him multiple interviews, even going so far as meeting with the superintendent.
Yet here he sits as only a per diem substitute.
Lucas wanted nothing more than to get a full-time job, put down roots and work hard but the employers jerked him around and gave him no respect.
If someone with two college degrees—a slip of paper which every boomer demands our generation gets if we want to be successful—can’t get a job even when there’s a nationwide shortage in that field, maybe it’s not the applicant’s fault. Maybe the hiring system is broken.
So do any of us actually want to work?
In these conditions, hell no.
Millennials and Gen Zs are starting our own businesses and working for ourselves because the older generations that complain about us every chance they get won’t actually give us proper working conditions.
We are demanding respect, basic human decency and fair working conditions.
No, we will not stay five hours after we’re scheduled without even being asked.
No, I don’t intend to go above and beyond at a minimum wage job that tries to deny my time off to go to a funeral.
I mean, people have made entire influencer careers just from reenacting terrible experiences they’ve had at their jobs.
So readers, next time you or someone else tries to say that the younger generation doesn’t want to work, feel free to cite the atrocities listed above.