For the generation boomer and a large part of the millennial, work has been understood as a good in itself. There were ideological differences regarding the material conditions between workers, but they coexisted within a superior and shared ideology that understood work as a source of identity and social recognition. Thus, work distinguished good and honest workers who were considered, by extension, good and honest citizens. Even good and honest fathers and mothers, by pure analogy. An identity that the worker also consciously felt and assimilated. However, the Zetas, children of the boomers, and they have revealed themselves as an anti-work generation. Moral: their mothers and fathers must have done something right.
Young people no longer build their identity, neither before themselves nor before others, through work. And how does that change things? Well basically in everything, starting with language. Thus, when a Zeta talks about his company, he does not use the first person plural. He does not say “the year has gone well” or “it looks like we will have a good quarter”, as if he had shares in a business where he lacks any decision-making power. They have learned to speak in the first person singular because they are very clear about two things: that the companies that hire them are not theirs and that their life does not belong to any company. They are no worse workers than their parents, but their level of fidelity is healthily lower. This causes, among other things, that they leave work earlier and look for less absorbing and more conciliatory jobs.
The bad news is that the discourse on this generational progress is being monopolized by a reactionary ideology that either criticizes young people for being lazy, or regrets their lack of professional horizons and attributes any change in mentality to job insecurity to emphasize that any Past time was better. Especially the one based on the logic of work-flat-couple-children-sacrifice-burial. But they are not right: neither those who limit themselves to appealing to the lack of horizon nor those who reproach a certain lack of character.
If you want to support the production of quality journalism, subscribe.
Subscribe
That precariousness is not the cause of this identity change becomes evident when it happens that the best-paid young professionals have also modified their priorities. New workers appreciate earning more money, but no longer at any price. Teleworking, flexibility, professional development and mental well-being are aspects as valued as salary. In fact, demands on the quality of work increase for the highest paid and not the other way around.
As for character, it is not true that the Zetas are soft or lazy. It’s just that they have received a different education, specifically the one that most of their parents have advocated. Today’s young people have grown up with good material conditions (which some denounce under the reproach of “having it all”) and excellent training. They have traveled more than their parents at their age, speak more languages, have greater sexual freedom, have enjoyed a more respected childhood and have had more opportunities. But, most importantly, most were taught that life is about living and not about proving supposed worth. That they didn’t have to prove anything to be worthy of love. All that remains is to shout, blessed! boomers! For the rest, as Juan Luis Arsuaga already said – hardly suspected of being a Zeta, lazy or precarious – “life cannot be working all week and going to the supermarket on Saturday.”
Sign up here to the weekly Ideas newsletter.
Subscribe to continue reading
Read without limits
_
#antiwork #Zetas #good #boomers