I enjoy coding, I'm not some whiz but I can throw together a CRUD app in a weekend and hook libraries together so it's enough. I feel as if any job I take will be intellectually stimulating but spiritually unfulfilling. I would much rather be moving things in the real world with my body, or working outside, or still doing coding as long as it's something that has an immediate visible impact on my community. But jobs like that don't pay the bills.
So instead I take the high-paying tech job. I have no real desire to advance except to increase my income so I can save more and partially retire early and take a much lower-paying job doing something that makes me proud. When that's my motivation it's difficult to care about anything other than doing the bare minimum to get the next paycheck. This sentiment is reflected by a lot of the engineers I know my age who escape it through partying, sitting around all day doing nothing and still getting paid, having multiple remote jobs where they barely do any work, or trying to escape the rat race via entrepreneurship. None of them are lazy, the incentives just aren't aligned for employee satisfaction.
Same. I like coding. I do not like the things I'm coding. My livelihood starts and stops at paying the bills. If I could pay my bills writing FOSS software, I would in a heartbeat. Capitalism is going to kill us all
I think the article touched in it, but from my group of friends, the main theme is this. We’re working just as hard as our parents, and particularly the older colleagues in our offices, but not receiving the same rewards in regards to life milestones like getting a ‘nice’ car, moving out, or even owning a house, which further delays other milestones like putting down roots and starting families, leading to an ongoing sense of futility.
The feeling is ‘why bother working 50 hour weeks in a stressful profession if I’m going to be in roughly the same position as working 20 hours at a book shop and getting to spend more time with my friends’, and this is something I relate to as well even on the more successful end of the young person with job spectrum. It does feel a bit pointless doing all this. My savings and money are just as useless as nit having them when a house I could live in is 20x a bookshop salary and 12x my salary, they’re both not cutting it so why bother?
Anyway, that’s where this feeling is coming from in my group, and is something I’m still trying to find a solution for in my setting.
I think this all comes to rent being too high. If you could move out after college in a decent/cool place with no roommates (unless you want them), people would feel like they have accomplished an important step.
>if I’m going to be in roughly the same position as working 20 hours at a book shop and getting to spend more time with my friends’
Is this actually true? It's hard to believe that you'll "be in roughly the same position" earning $34k/year as earning $80k/year. Is the thinking that "if I can't buy a house then there's no point in saving/earning any money"?
They did mention "20 hours at a book shop" and "a stressful profession". 20 hours at a book shop earning $17/hr works out to $17k/year (in my original comment I miscalculated and didn't factor in the reduced hours and got $34k). $80k is my estimate for how much "a stressful profession" (eg. finance, consulting) pays.
I'm 28, and employ a 22 year old. Burnout is absolutely a huge thing (and definitely worse for the younger generations), but I'm not sure the burnt-out kids they interview realise exactly why they feel this way (if they did, they would fix the issues and move on).
At least from where I'm sitting, it seems like young people never switch off.
You come home from work, and rather than spending some alone time doing something you actually enjoy, young people will spend 2 hours projecting their "personal brand" on Insta or Discord, then another hour on the web finding out the latest things they're supposed to be outraged at or offended by. Then, it's time to watch a Twitch streamer, eat an unhealthy meal and before you know it it's midnight and time for sleep.
On the weekends, it's time to see your friends and family - which means exhausting, fake interactions designed primarily to "be seen". Brunch, clubs, experiences and attractions, all with the axe looming over your head that your social network could kick you to the turf if you're not keeping up on the treadmill.
The poor zoomers haven't had an actual day off (Sabbath) since the end of high school.
Income and wealth after Gen X is trending down for same age groups according to your sources. It also follows the conclusion from this talk [1].
Another thing to keep in mind is with decreasing birth rates, future generations will have a higher tax burden to support the aging costs of the previous generations.
> Income and wealth after Gen X is trending down for same age groups according to your sources.
While I see what you mean, the effect seems minor at best. I wouldn't feel comfortable coming to that conclusion without more future data and comparative numbers for Gen Z.
> Another thing to keep in mind is with decreasing birth rates, future generations will have a higher tax burden to support the aging costs of the previous generations.
This does sound reasonable, though I don't necessarily know of any actual research supporting this conclusion.
It's just the math of the situation, the cost of pensions will be spread amongst fewer taxpayers if the birth rate declines. Some countries are solving this right now with immigration to inflate the tax base.
Not only will you not own anything, but from an early age we’ll enslave your mind and control your attention span. We have industries of people working day in, day out to perfect this formula. We will blame any concern or problem you have on a regular rotation of mental health issues that we devise and concept, and that doctors will prescribe you a rotation of pills for in tandem. If you have a problem, we will have an answer, prepackaged and ready to go, agreed upon by the most trusted expert minds today. When you get out of line, we will shun you, and concern troll you until you either fall in line, or commit suicide. We will take away religion and community and substitute it with goals, myths, ambitions, and narratives of our own making. We will tell you what to believe and who your God is. We will put role models in front of you to follow, and you will do so even when you think you’re breaking the mould.
In the end, you will be happy, you can be sure of that.
Probably you are going to be mad at me, but I give it a try.
My advice (genXer) to the genZer generation is, stop being so scared about what other people think of you, lay down you phone more often (leave it at home) and go do some relaxing stuff like going to concerts or festivals, spend more time outside (unless you are 365 days a year in a cold environment) and seek more people that leave their phone at home too...
Take more risks in finding out what your purpose is here on this planet, if playing safe and live a boring life is really your thing after finding out then you have all my respect, but at least explore...
Be careful with addictions of any kind as they slave you, especially smartphones, gambling, cigarettes and hard drugs, stay away from debts as well...
Try to stay free and try to define your own path as much as can...
I would love to live an exciting life but unfortunately I have bills to pay. I'm torn between saving up to have a decent standard of living in my 30s and beyond, or going AWOL today and hoping that I can jump back into a career with higher earning potential to make up for all the years I wasn't able to buy into the market or purchase a home. I try to carpe diem as much as I can but it doesn't help that I am switching jobs every two years and moving almost every year and am never able to find a real sense of stability. Was it the same during the 90s? I watched Office Space and found the protagonist pretty relatable.
As someone who was irresponsible in my 20s but had so much fun and made so many great memories that I can never regret it, now I’m playing catch up and it totally sucks. I don’t have any advice except generally don’t take any advice from anybody older than 40, and that is probably pushing it. They have no idea.
Seriously come to Europe, you are basically forced into 30+ days of vacation and Heathcare is free, no need to save in case of an illness or fear losing your job and having no healthcare. This means more chance of saving for a house deposit. I am in the UK and as long as you move north of Birmingham the house prices are not stupid.
I actually wanted to, but that required getting a job there first. I was able to get a CS degree and now I am making more than enough here, but I am still behind and the process of starting a new career late in life has been grueling.
The midlands are absolutely lovely, highly recommend the area (specifically Swadlincote). Had a friend show me around years ago and it was a life changing experience.
Addiction to emotions and addiction to thoughts are two big ones that keep people enslaved. Most people are oblivious to how much energy the thought-jumping process wastes. Thoughts have momentum, at least in the brains, so reading a newsfeed - a series of tiny thought-bites - is like driving in stop-and-go traffic at 6 pm: you accelerate to process the next post in your newsfeed, and immediately decelarate because the post has little substance. After a few hours of such "driving" we feel exhausted, yet having advanced very little. What's worse, most newsfeeds try to enflame emotions that waste even more of our energy.
As an early 30s millenial, I received this exact advice when I was in my 20s. I hated it then, and I hate it now.
All of those things you mention require time. Not just ANY time, but expensive time. Time spent playing video games or using your phone or browsing the internet is cheap. It doesn't require driving, dealing with traffic. It doesn't require planning months in advance and using what little time off you get already. It doesn't require spending even more energy after you come home exhausted from work.
The reality is that time is expensive. And unfortunately most of your time spent goes to a job that doesn't compensate well for it. Even as a relatively successful software engineer I'm likely never going to own a home. So I can fully understand why Gen Z feels burned out when the prospects of a future barely exist.
> Even as a relatively successful software engineer I'm likely never going to own a home
According to levels.fyi, an entry level software engineer makes 150k-200k. And from my experience and those of my friends, this seems to be true. And I also know some friends in their 20s that have already bought homes using their SWE salaries. So it does seem well within the realm of possibility. Why do you think you'll never own a home?
This is really not the case in France, for example.
When all not-fancy houses around (in a not-so-fancy Paris suburb - well you want to stay close to a job market... - and you need to be close to public transportation 'cause hey you don't want to use a car, save the planet right?) start at 450/500kEUR (with work to do on it!) and you're making 40kEUR a year as a sw engineer, and still have to pay rent in the meantime because you're not getting a 30 year loan for >50% of your salary without some kind of down-payment you're gonna have to work 10y to gather... Meh I get it.
The housing market is just stupid. And I'm sure some happy people find nice jobs and houses not not around Paris, but I also see how economic downturns made peers redundant and... Well not many possibilities when away from the main job market.
Yeah you're still better than your uber or lower paid peers, but what are you doing working 50+hours a week for that?
1. Working in the bay area for one of the big tech companies
2. Working for an overvalued startup (which given the turmoil of the current stock market is not a very stable shot).
For reference as an entry level software engineer I started my career at 75k a year in a sector that's known for being very lucrative. This was in a fairly low to average CoL area and while you could scale to 120k+, that comes at around double the rent and general costs.
So 'why do you think you'll never own a home' is an incredibly loaded question, don't you think?
It wasn't meant to be a loaded question, I was asking for their reasoning behind a statement they made. Personally I know people in New York, Seattle, and Los Angeles that make similar salaries. Also, if you aren't working and planning to live in the bay area, housing prices are usually much more affordable
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[ 4.5 ms ] story [ 87.2 ms ] threadI enjoy coding, I'm not some whiz but I can throw together a CRUD app in a weekend and hook libraries together so it's enough. I feel as if any job I take will be intellectually stimulating but spiritually unfulfilling. I would much rather be moving things in the real world with my body, or working outside, or still doing coding as long as it's something that has an immediate visible impact on my community. But jobs like that don't pay the bills.
So instead I take the high-paying tech job. I have no real desire to advance except to increase my income so I can save more and partially retire early and take a much lower-paying job doing something that makes me proud. When that's my motivation it's difficult to care about anything other than doing the bare minimum to get the next paycheck. This sentiment is reflected by a lot of the engineers I know my age who escape it through partying, sitting around all day doing nothing and still getting paid, having multiple remote jobs where they barely do any work, or trying to escape the rat race via entrepreneurship. None of them are lazy, the incentives just aren't aligned for employee satisfaction.
There's no amount you can be paid to give a shit.
The feeling is ‘why bother working 50 hour weeks in a stressful profession if I’m going to be in roughly the same position as working 20 hours at a book shop and getting to spend more time with my friends’, and this is something I relate to as well even on the more successful end of the young person with job spectrum. It does feel a bit pointless doing all this. My savings and money are just as useless as nit having them when a house I could live in is 20x a bookshop salary and 12x my salary, they’re both not cutting it so why bother?
Anyway, that’s where this feeling is coming from in my group, and is something I’m still trying to find a solution for in my setting.
Is this actually true? It's hard to believe that you'll "be in roughly the same position" earning $34k/year as earning $80k/year. Is the thinking that "if I can't buy a house then there's no point in saving/earning any money"?
At least from where I'm sitting, it seems like young people never switch off.
You come home from work, and rather than spending some alone time doing something you actually enjoy, young people will spend 2 hours projecting their "personal brand" on Insta or Discord, then another hour on the web finding out the latest things they're supposed to be outraged at or offended by. Then, it's time to watch a Twitch streamer, eat an unhealthy meal and before you know it it's midnight and time for sleep.
On the weekends, it's time to see your friends and family - which means exhausting, fake interactions designed primarily to "be seen". Brunch, clubs, experiences and attractions, all with the axe looming over your head that your social network could kick you to the turf if you're not keeping up on the treadmill.
The poor zoomers haven't had an actual day off (Sabbath) since the end of high school.
- Household income trends per age group have remained relatively consistent. The youngest group has seen the biggest dip in the past couple decades but did recover pre-COVID. https://www.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/FT_18...
- Real incomes are down slightly for those without a college degree but up significantly for those with a bachelor's or better https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2019/02/14/millenn...
- Housing prices are up significantly https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/USSTHPI but price per square foot is actually fairly flat https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/todays-new-homes-are-1000-squ...
Another thing to keep in mind is with decreasing birth rates, future generations will have a higher tax burden to support the aging costs of the previous generations.
[1] https://youtu.be/ZuXzvjBYW8A?t=487
While I see what you mean, the effect seems minor at best. I wouldn't feel comfortable coming to that conclusion without more future data and comparative numbers for Gen Z.
> Another thing to keep in mind is with decreasing birth rates, future generations will have a higher tax burden to support the aging costs of the previous generations.
This does sound reasonable, though I don't necessarily know of any actual research supporting this conclusion.
In the end, you will be happy, you can be sure of that.
Take more risks in finding out what your purpose is here on this planet, if playing safe and live a boring life is really your thing after finding out then you have all my respect, but at least explore...
Be careful with addictions of any kind as they slave you, especially smartphones, gambling, cigarettes and hard drugs, stay away from debts as well...
Try to stay free and try to define your own path as much as can...
Success, you can do it as most of us did it...
All of those things you mention require time. Not just ANY time, but expensive time. Time spent playing video games or using your phone or browsing the internet is cheap. It doesn't require driving, dealing with traffic. It doesn't require planning months in advance and using what little time off you get already. It doesn't require spending even more energy after you come home exhausted from work.
The reality is that time is expensive. And unfortunately most of your time spent goes to a job that doesn't compensate well for it. Even as a relatively successful software engineer I'm likely never going to own a home. So I can fully understand why Gen Z feels burned out when the prospects of a future barely exist.
According to levels.fyi, an entry level software engineer makes 150k-200k. And from my experience and those of my friends, this seems to be true. And I also know some friends in their 20s that have already bought homes using their SWE salaries. So it does seem well within the realm of possibility. Why do you think you'll never own a home?
When all not-fancy houses around (in a not-so-fancy Paris suburb - well you want to stay close to a job market... - and you need to be close to public transportation 'cause hey you don't want to use a car, save the planet right?) start at 450/500kEUR (with work to do on it!) and you're making 40kEUR a year as a sw engineer, and still have to pay rent in the meantime because you're not getting a 30 year loan for >50% of your salary without some kind of down-payment you're gonna have to work 10y to gather... Meh I get it.
The housing market is just stupid. And I'm sure some happy people find nice jobs and houses not not around Paris, but I also see how economic downturns made peers redundant and... Well not many possibilities when away from the main job market.
Yeah you're still better than your uber or lower paid peers, but what are you doing working 50+hours a week for that?
1. Working in the bay area for one of the big tech companies
2. Working for an overvalued startup (which given the turmoil of the current stock market is not a very stable shot).
For reference as an entry level software engineer I started my career at 75k a year in a sector that's known for being very lucrative. This was in a fairly low to average CoL area and while you could scale to 120k+, that comes at around double the rent and general costs.
So 'why do you think you'll never own a home' is an incredibly loaded question, don't you think?