A study should be conducted on millennials and boomers to discover why they want younger generations to suffer the same way they did.
On Oct. 18, 2023, 21-year-old TikTok user Briella Asero posted a video to her account @brielleybelly123. The on-screen caption read “qotd in a 9-5 how do u [you] have time for ur [your] life.” In the video, Asero tearfully talks about her first 9-5 job post-grad and how it’s absolutely exhausting. She has a long commute to and from work because she can’t afford to live in the city. She gets on the train at 7:30 a.m. and doesn’t get home until at least 6:15 p.m., and by then she’s too exhausted to do anything else. Asero spends the video venting about how the 9-5 schedule is taking over her life which is preventing her from doing other things, like finding time for friends, exercising, and dating.
This simple rant video amassed 3.1 million views, 286 thousand likes, and 26.5 thousand comments. Different generations received the video in different ways. While the younger generations in her comments felt like her video was incredibly relatable, Asero received comments from older people stating, “welcome to adulthood,” and “welcome to life and what everyone else has to go through.”
Asero’s video also made its way onto other platforms like Twitter (I absolutely refuse to call it ‘X’), and the response there was similar to that on TikTok. Younger people were validating her experience while older people were making fun of her and her “sensitive generation.”
It seems like every few years someone who recently entered the workforce expresses their unhappiness with how their work has taken over their lives. Then, this person goes viral and suddenly articles are being released entitled “Why young people don’t want to work” and older generations are talking about how those darn kids wouldn’t know hard work if it hit them in the face.
Whenever this happens I get annoyed because why are we so allergic to challenging the system? Young adults are always met with “that’s just the way things are” but the only reason why this is the “way things are” is because we decided things should be this way. So, can’t we try to change our ways to make life better?
Many people operate with the mindset of “if I had to struggle, everyone else has to struggle too.” This mindset is destroying us all. Yes, the nine to five work week has been around for over a century. Yes, there are many people who work longer than the standard eight hour work day and they’ve been doing it for decades, but that doesn’t make Asero’s and other young people’s experiences less valid.
Just because you, as a millennial or boomer, had to suffer through the 40+ hour work week doesn’t mean Gen-Zers have to as well. Just because you had to struggle to find a decent “work-life balance” doesn’t mean Gen-Zers have to as well. Just because you had to face the struggles of the “real world” doesn’t mean Gen-Zers have to as well.
This may be shocking to hear since we live in a capitalistic society that thrives off of human labor while also deciding to not properly compensate said human labor, but we shouldn’t have to work egregious hours to live a simple life. People shouldn’t have to sacrifice their physical health, mental health, friendships, relationships, hobbies, and overall peace for a job that’s barely giving them enough money to pay rent.
It’s normal to feel upset when you realize your life will consist of commuting to work, spending eight hours at work, and then commuting home only to be exhausted and not have time to do anything else. It’s normal to not want this kind of life and many people don’t want that life, but whenever they express this they’re met with the millennial and boomer brigade who apparently love being used for labor.
I’m so sick of people accepting poor treatment because “that’s just the way things are.” I’m so sick of us attacking each other instead of attacking those in charge. Why are we blaming young adults for not wanting to work when we should be blaming the systems in place that make it virtually impossible to work a job that pays well and have a life to go along with it?
Why is it our fault that we don’t want to spend our lives in a system that simply sees us as cogs in a wheel? Why should we want that for ourselves and more importantly, why do older generations want that for us?